so yes, the touva conference was presented by someone whose name i don’t know , but if you know and tell me i will put it here…LISE GAGNON.., Director du RAIQ (Regroupement pour les arts interdisciplinaires du Québec – http://raiq.ca/fr). this person gave a glowing description of the touva collective: sylvie tourangeau, anne bérubé and victoria stanton. this is the collective who gave the workshop that anne betrand blogged about.

and…as i had to skip out before the conference was completed (i think i must have missed out on getting one of the many small presents that were heaped under the table) anne is going to fill you in as to how the conference ended. she will probably tell you how wonderful the present she received was…

anyways, i did get to see the first half hour or so.

Les cadeaux, emballés avec soin, prolongeaient? incarnaient? l’attitude performative décrit par le collectif : dans chaque petit paquet, deux minuscules lettres épelant UR ou AH, racines, préfixes, onomatopés utilisées pour représenter les rares mais essentiels moments de révélation lucide vécue par le/la performeurE. Très dada. Un public perceptif saisira, par contagion, la magie de ces moments intengibles, invisibles mais palpables. l’anti absence, l’ultra présence.

all three of the artists were present and active in presenting their work. at one point sylvie tourangeau told us the « performance » (the talk was delivered as a performance) was open for us. we could join in, through voice, through gesture, this was to be a participatory performance.

i think this gesture of inclusion is indicative of how touva works. through being open and inclusive of other voices (victoria read a portion of a text by allan kaprow for example) they process their own thoughts and ways of working.

then, they share their insights with us, including us in the process.

UR-AH, UR AH, UR AH

raiq: http://raiq.ca/en

touva: http://www.artexte.ca/?p=268