Bodies in Movement: Brendan Fernandes & Home Ex

Bodies in Movement

IOTA Institute is embarking on a new creative research stream into the interventionist quality of bodies in movement through familiar expressions of dance and performance art. "Interventionist" refers to the performance methods artists use inside and outside the institution of dance, to disrupt and expose existing expectations around embodied movement. 

Brendan Fernandes is entering into a mentorship with I’thandi Munro and the Home Ex art collective. Munro is conducting research in the creation of art videos for dance and wearable sculpture worn during dance performances and this mentorship supports the collective's direction in choreographing movement with the use of props.

The art collective Home Ex (artists: Sarah Murphy, Gillian Seaward-Boone, Geneviéve Boulet, Alexis Cormier, I’thandi Munro, and art collaborator Louisa Adamson) studies vaginal trauma and the qualitative experience of people with vaginas through healing practices, and expresses these through the genre of dance. Home Ex will be developing a sound and light study involving a new science/tech partner ‘Aycoutay Technologies’ (Dartmouth, NS) who have agreed to have the group use a Health Screening Device that is based on well-established EEG (Electroencephalogram) technology. This is a safe health device used in professional athletic centers and is a modern, computerized EDA based health monitoring/screening device that performs a comprehensive analysis of the bio-electrical activity of each organ and gland, as well as the critical interrelationship between them. The art collective will use this technology as an extension of their study into Somatic movement, as another layer of looking at the experiential nature of the movements they have developed for trauma healing. The outputs from the technology can be translated into light and sound, which the group would like to integrate in the light and sound design of the presentation of their work.

Read more here about Home Ex's inaugural performance sharing with IOTA in 2022. 

On a mentorship residency in Halifax in June 2023, Brendan & Home Ex engaged in rehearsal and exchange indoors and outdoors. IOTA hosted a closed gathering for Bodies in Movement affiliated dance and movement-based artists during Brendan's visit to Halifax on June 19, 2023.