DANCER ON THE ROAD TO FORT MCMURRAY

On/Off — a happening of the nude on stage …

                                                                              

PHOTO: Molly McDermott

… presented as a touring version of Mile Zero Dance’s Connections//Collisions Cabaret, curated by Josh Languedoc, at the Suncor Energy Centre for the Performing Arts in Fort McMurray (September 27, 2025) …

PHOTO: Molly McDermott

The performer steps into a pool of light and meets their own shadow, blowing a little tune on a recorder to whet the palate. The straw hat tilts, the blue shirt hums — somewhere between Van Gogh’s “Painter on the Road to Tarascon” (below) and an unnamed figure in motion.

A timer arrives. A chair arrives. Then a canvas. Then a volunteer from the stands — to be witnessed, witnessing, to be witnessed drawing a nude when called to. Then the question: who is seeing whom? The stage becomes a switch — on/off, body/light, nude/idea.

The dancer builds up the background for it all — draws, dances, draws, dances, draws, dances. The drawing dances back; the dance draws back.

Color collides with silence. The wall breathes in silhouette. A dancer disrobes. A witness sketches. A performer vanishes. The light turns off, but the gesture lingers — suspended between the pulse of art and the pause of being seen.

PHOTO: Molly McDermott

What remains: a straw hat, a blue shirt, and the ghost of a line that once thought it was alive.

PHOTO: Molly McDermott

NOTE: Performance images from technical rehearsal.