Andréa de Keijzer

Snow Days Exhibition

Andréa de Keijzer’s Feb 2nd Documentation

Bio

Andréa de Keijzer is an emerging contemporary dance artist, photographer and filmmaker currently based in Toronto. In her life and art practice she is committed to honesty, clarity, vulnerability and transformation. Andréa is curious about art making that is not so much about her but about what arises and what is required.

She explores this through dance technique class, choreography, improvisation, meditation, photography, filmmaking, organizing objects and her relationships with human animals, other animals and this world. At this time she is collaborating with dancer and poet Erin Robinsong on the first of a 6 series titled True Audience Participation: Attempts 1-6 and is working this Spring with Montreal dance artist Ariane Boulet on Le Cerf ou Moi Qui Cede Dans L’Espace, a 20 minute dance film.

Andréa de Keijzer graduated from York University in 2009 with a degree in Dance and Kinesiology and has studied photography and filmmaking independently in Toronto and Mexico.

| www.therainydayparade.net |

Motivation

For five days this winter break I went on a silent meditation retreat that expanded my understanding and experience of clarity, space, awareness and stillness. The day it ended, I traveled to Montreal for an improvisation workshop where I explored transformations, unspoken connections and vulnerability with other dancing human animals. Further more I investigated the possibility of de-personalizing one’s movement offerings and ideas in order to allow for more freedom, choice and possibility. Seeing that life is not really about you, maybe only a little bit, opens up a huge amount of mental space.

This project caught my attention because of the openness and the intention of allowing the day to bring forward ideas rather than prefabricating them. It fits beautifully with my current artistic and life research of allowing enough space for options, outside of those suggested by my forebrain, to arise. Once they have emerged then following them, watching the transformations and capturing some essences to bring back into the gallery. A kind of cultivation of what already exists.

I am also curious to see how my multi-artistic interests (dance, photography, filmmaking and also poetry) will assist me on this assignment. Perhaps they will merge or perhaps they will remain pure in their form. I don’t know. All I know is that my intention would be ‘not deciding’ and only paying attention in order to meet options as they arise.

This project would be a delicious container in which to practice the approaches to art making that I described above. I hope that you will consider me as one of the collaborators.