Jul 9, 2024
A sketch of an aka 'Medicine Wheel'. We imagine that it'll eventually be a physical object with moving parts… Maybe some colours?
Jul 3, 2024
Read this article via The Walrus: How Workplace Diversity Fails Indigenous Employees. It speaks to what's going on in the arts community… the corporatization of it. It also brings up some of the same points as the conversations we were having last week, about the types of invitations Indigenous artists are getting these days.
May 30, 2024
Interesting concept: radical financial transparency, as seen in this post via The Invisible Practice.
May 22, 2024
We got our first project grant as a collective! Many thanks to Ziyian Kwan and Odd Meridian Arts for sponsoring our application to the City of Vancouver. These funds support aka's co-producing practice as our members create and present three new works comprising our 2024–2025 season: BOLT by Jeanette, not knot naught by Deanna; and a full-length version of Victor's solo celestial beast.
Mar 2, 2024
Working on some grants, fingers-crossed.
Feb 23, 2024
A meeting with the Canadian Dance Assembly's Karla Étienne, around tax issues independent artists face, especially around grant income/expenses.
Feb 17, 2024
Check out aka residency recipes for some of what we cooked and ate while living, dancing, writing and talking together during a 7-day [snowed-in] residence at LEÑA [Galinao Island, BC].
Jan 3, 2024
Happy 2024 Everyone 💕 We've got some happenings this month...
Jan 14—20, we're in residence at LEÑA on what’s now known as Galiano Island :) We're grateful to Dayna for this generous invitation to live and work together for 7 days. We're dedicating this time to our ongoing research into artist-to-artist support models.
Jan 21, we present a movement workshop as a part of Slumber/, an ambient sleepover concert presented by Active/Passive at the South Galiano Community Hall. Learn some Métis jigging, somatic House grooves + Hustle partner dance before we snuggle in for the night.
Dec 20, 2023
Last aka meeting of 2023 with guest Parker Mah [Tiohtià:ke] @eyedea.ca | @rhythmandhu.es
Dec 6, 2023
Zoom zoom! Reconnecting to debrief our funding application frenzy & chatting about what 'community' means & who our 'community' is. As usual, committing to our meetings across vast time zones: MST-MTL-BuenosAires
Oct 17, 2023
We’ve been busy! Amidst dancing, parenting + touring, our monthly “sounding board” meetings have turned into weekly gatherings. We are working on our 1st collective project grant. We’ll talk about unpaid labour in our next post :>
Oct 12, 2023
Deanna here… living + learning + repping artists + our collective at ARCA’s conference for artist-run centres in Treaty 1/Winnipeg, including humbly finding out that we need a new name 😝
Aug 30, 2023
Giant appreciation for Evann Siebens for joining us at our latest "sounding board" meeting… LSD + Artist-Run Centres, collective care, crit groups: "if you give… it will come back to you." So grateful for Evann's support as we get rolling with our effective collective 💪💕
Aug 15, 2023
We're grateful for collective status with the BC Arts Council. Lately, we’ve been applying for grants to support interplay_, an annual live online performance festival that engages artists nationally and audiences globally. Register for #interplay_2023 Sep 14+15, FREE/by donation. Featuring erψn temp3st [pictured], Jasmine Liaw + Caroline MacCaull, Kevin Jesuino, Margaret Dragu + Brady Marks, and Miguel Maravilla
Aug 10, 2023
We’re resistant to forming non-profit companies to support our dance work. Instead, we’re operating within and against “the system” to develop new collaborative support models for the future.
Aug 3, 2023
We are aka, a collective formed to counter inert, inefficient, and ineffective artist support models. Our core members are Métis contemporary dance artist Jeanette Kotowich, dance artist and designer Deanna Peters, and street dance artist Victor Tran. Our collective emerged in 2020 in response to the lack of support provided to independent artists during the pandemic. We value being generative, nimble, and responsive.