On January 20th, the John Young Museum of Art hosted “Te Wa: Experimental Looking Lab with Jack Gray.” Jack Gray, an acclaimed dancer, choreographer, and scholar was traveling through Honolulu on his way to NYC for an artist-in-residency at the A/P/A Institute at NYU and conducted a public workshop for UH students, faculty, and Oahu communities. He shared insights about “looking” from an indigenous perspective through a three-part sensory lab. Here are images from the the workshop or visit our facebook for more.
TE WA
WA in Maori, known as Va in Pacific cultures, is an irresistible seduction of the intimacies of space and time, acknowledging the core of an energy field that situates us and our surrounds, implying both an internal and external gaze, both seen and felt.
Join Jack Gray, Maori choreographer and international dance artist, on a tour of the senses and a testing of the relationship of balance as viewers and doers, from a practice-based and culturally led perspective. This experimental lab looks at the peripheries of connection through sound and movement, as we reveal new experiences within and without.
About Jack Gray
Ngati Porou, Ngapuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahungunu
Born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa), Jack is a choreographer, contemporary dance artist and cultural facilitator. A founding member of Atamira Dance Company, a Maori contemporary dance theatre since 2000, Jack completed a five year international research project, premiering a full-length work, Mitimiti, at Tempo Dance Festival 2015. Since 2012, Jack has worked in the United States evolving an intercultural network of practitioners, activating cultural awareness and strategies for indigenous empowerment and artistic provocation.
Jack was an artist in residence at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in 2013 and created a muli disciplinary cultural performance called Te Reinga for the Grand Opening of Pacific Hall. Jack has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside, and Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley and New York University.
Jack evolves creative expressions of art, acknowledging the value of indigenous perception embedded within language, text or physical embodiments, to advance collective knowledge-making in new and transformative ways.
More on Jack’s work:
This event is sponsored by the Student Activity and Program Fee Board