photo credits at the bottom of this page
Husk
Premiered at L'Agora de la Danse in Montreal, Feb 8-10, 2012 and recieved positive feedback from both audience members the critics alike.
Husk is the fruit of an encounter between Montréal Danse, choreographer/creative director George Stamos and musician/composer Jackie Gallant.
Stamos was chosen by Montréal Danse to celebrate their 25th anniversary because his ingenious ability to surprise resonates perfectly with the approach and course of Montréal Danse over the years.
Husk is an exploration of how we wear our bodies, how the
body can be framed, decorated, postured, behaved, gender identified and how we wish others to see us. With humor, decadence and sophistication Husk offers the
spectator a place to imagine, fantasize and rethink the body's capacity to transmit.
Inside Husk Jackie
Gallant ignites the space with electric guitar, fiery drum beats and gentle
rumbles. Meeting Gallant's intensity head on,
three extrodinary dancers from Montreal Danse (Rachel Harris, Elinor Fueter,
Frédéric Marier) bring their physical power to the stage evoking an
instinctual intelligence in the meat of their bodies.
"You are a costume. You are wearing you. Thankfully your genes were only suggestions. You are an imperfect impersonation of an object and you are wonderfully artificial." George Stamos
Agora de La Danse page with video
"Liklik Pik ... works on a level of poetic association, using voice narration, repetitive movement, music, ambient sound and video projection to present the multidimensional bond with a disarming level of success." Critics at Large - Deirdre Kelly
A duet for two men, Liklik Pik emphasizes the animal power of the human body, following
imaginative impulses and convergent, queer tangents along the way. Neither narrative or abstract Liklik Pik
follows a logic of its own, playfully evoking the pig as a totem animal.
Examining distinctions and similarities between humans and other animals is a long-lived human interest. At times serious and at times playful, with Liklik Pik, George Stamos explores his interest in this topic while utilizing a variety of media. Liklik Pik is a cross media performance piece where the medium is but a fraction of the message. These guys are pigs.
Performed by Dany Desjardins and George Stamos Liklik Pik includes sound design by Jackie Gallant and video design by Dayna McLeod with rehearsal direction by Sarah Williams. Special thanks to Alexis O'Hara, Clara Furey and Lucianne Pinto for the early research of this work. The creation of Liklik Pik was supported by The Canad Council for the Arts, Danse Nyata Nyata and Agorde de la Danse.
Dancemakers page with video
solo project "presently untitled"
A version of this work titled illegal tender was shown at Queer City Cinema's Performatorium Festival in Regina on Jan 21, 2012.
The solo
is in part a tribute to the now deceased infamous Quentin Crisp. The 2011/2012 process of researching this solo has included Stamos’ reexamination of an archival video from
1996 of a meeting between Crisp and Stamos. The video was shot in The
Versailles Room of Pandora's Box, a private fetish club in Manhattan as
research for a group show Stamos was making in 1996-1997 called Red
Light Roosters. In the end, the video did not feature prominently in Red Light Roosters
and has not been fully exposed to a public until now.
Now in 2012 as Stamos (currently 42) looks at issues of aging, gay legacy, desire and the impact of his six year long career as a sex-worker that ended nearly twenty years ago, he connects the memory and video documentation of this meeting to the present within the shape of a solo performance/video project. Research for this solo was supported by le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Knowing Not Knowing,
a workshop with George Stamos
Participants will be guided in ways to improvise by depositing their weight, projecting lines of energy through their body and into space, use initiation points for sequential movement, shift quickly from one energetic mode to another and be rhythmical.
Participants will be encouraged to think about movement as its own language, and given tools to articulate their “body-talk” to deliver clear statements full of personality and choice. In our discussions participants will be asked to consider what larger issues (sexual and class politics for example) a given performance situation evokes, and encouraged to develop a critical eye on what we present as dance and how we move or decide not to move.
The workshop atmosphere will
be collaborative and may include sound and costume experiments. There will be a lot of
moving, exchanging ideas and play.
Biography
Contemporary choreographer/dancer/artistic director George Stamos, lives in Montreal Canada. He received his BA in choreography and improvisation from The School For New Dance Development in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has 20 years of professional experience in the contemporary dance world as a dancer and a choreographer.
His choreographic work has been presented by L’Agora De La Dance, The Baryshnikov Center For The Arts, PS 122, The Joyce Soho, Studio 303, Theatre D’Aujourd’hui, Live Art Productions, The Canada Dance Festival, The Fluid Festival, Tangente, The LSPU Hall, Dancemakers Center For Creation, Dancing on the Edge Festival, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Harbourfront Centre, Amsterdam's International Ness Festival and various other arts organizations. Stamos' projects have received support from The Canada Council For The Arts and The Conseil Des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec.
Stamos' experience outside of the
contemporary dance world includes activist work with sex-worker’s rights and
AIDS organizations from 1987-1993, 1999, gogo dancing in NYC, London,
Amsterdam and Montreal from 1989-2000 and volunteering at the occupational therapy
department of Giant Steps School for Children with Autism in 2010. George currently dances with Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata a contemporary African dance company in Montreal.
Artists Statement
The body and mind combined is a huge multidirectional network connecting a diversity of
information, as opposed to closed and separate filing cabinets with all subject neatly isolated. The body in itself has an immense capacity to transmit information and the potential to bring
both physical and political power to the individual.
I am continually
researching how a human presence is perceived and how through movement,
image, sound, intention and behavior the viewers perception is altered.
Gender, sexuality and identity are subjects that run through much of my research. My queerness and somewhat eccentric past inevitably inform what I bring to the stage. Collaboration is a key element to my artistic activities.
George Stamos contact-
Photo credits-
top of page-
George Stamos by Jerome Abramovitch
center of page-
George Stamos, photo by Susan Moss
bottom of page- Sarah Williams, photo by Jerome Abramovitch
