Gut Symmetries
Gut Symmetries
Nicole Mion
Gut Symmetries weaves a fascination with electricity, physics, the natural world – and the simultaneously mundane and mysterious universe beneath our skin. Where alchemy and the theory of hyperspace both run through the belly of the performer.
Performed by Jeannie Vanderkerkhove and Nicole Mion.
Artist and curator, Nicole Mion creates for the stage and screen. She is a sought after director and contemporary choreographer specializing in contemporary performance, new media, dance, and installation. She is Artistic Director for Springboard, Road Pictures and containR. For Springboard, Nicole curates Interrarium – an interdisciplinary creative residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Fluid Movement Arts Festival in Calgary, and containR a mobile theatre and video installation.
Upcoming work includes Gut Symmetries a new dance/media performance for the stage featuring Jeannie Vanderkerkhove and Nicole Mion, a theatre/dance solo Something About Vermin integrating projection machines by Joe Kelly and visual illusions by Brian Batista, direction of an animated short film Fight for Flight for Bravo!FACT/CTV featuring International female ski jumper Katie Willis and her fight to jump at the Olympics, and ContainR a video installation and winter sports, performance and dance film festival housed in reconfigured shipping containers for the Vancouver Winter Olympics co-curated with Evann Siebens.
Recent projects include choreographed performances at New Dance Horizons (Regina) and Mile Zero Dance (Edmonton), video and live components for Paper & Plastic, presented by Brief Encounters 8 (Vancouver), An Illustrated Guide to Touching & Telling integrating audience participation, story telling and contemporary dance performance for the Fluid Festival, That Thing Between Us, a single channel broadcast and 3-channel video installation, produced in partnership with the Banff Centre New Media Institute and Bravo!FACT, which features Noam Gagnon (Holy Body Tattoo) and Andrea Nann (Dreamwalker Dance Company). Nicole is also part of the creative team as choreographer and talent director for Shaw Communications, having created 35 commercials for the Shaw People Powered campaign with BBDO creative.
Known for her highly physical and theatrical style, Nicole won the Paula Citron award for most outstanding choreography at fFIDA (Toronto). Staged choreography and direction includes the staged and film versions of Indian Blue, staged work THEN I SAW THE SKY for OYR’s High Performance Rodeo and Vancouver’s Dancing on the Edge Festival, presentation of both her live and film work at the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) for Alberta Scene, choreography representing Canada at the DaCI conferences in Brazil and The Hague, and direction and choreography for the opening ceremonies (live & broadcast versions) of the IAAF World Games (Edmonton) which had a live audience of 60,000 and a broadcast audience of millions. For Road Pictures, with co-creator Sandi Somers, Nicole creates film and video as a director, writer, choreographer, and producer. Projects include the AMPIA film and television award winning dance film Porcelain Tattoo, the AMPIA award winning ‘best music video’ Extreme to Me featuring Kris Demeanor, and You Like Leaving for singer-songwriter Anne Louise Genest, the comedy $9.99 Haircut, the dance films The Riders and ScreamingFISH.
Nicole’s work is aired on Bravo! Television, the Comedy Network, Knowledge Network, Comedy Central, the Women’s Television Network, the Independent Film Channel, and presented in festivals around the world. Her work was selected to represent Canada at the best of Bravo dance films at the 2005 Dance on Screen Festival at the Lincoln Centre (New York), included in the best of Canadian dance film in Reel Dance Canada (Düsseldorf), represented Canada at the INPUT Conference (USA), Dance USA @ the Canadian Embassy (Washington DC), and featured at the Glenbow Museum (Calgary) and the MOMA Museum (New York).
About Jeannie Vanderkerkhove
Jeannie is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, collaborator working in contemporary and multidisciplinary creations. She has danced and lived in Vancouver and Montreal, and is currently based in Edmonton.
