zhigwe/aim week 6
David Garneau, Hoop Dancers (2013)
Week 6 - David Garneau, Hoop Dancers (2013)
This image is a still photograph from David Garneau’s Hoop Dancers (2013) a 10-minute video installation. In this larger work, the dreamlike footage shows a group of four dancers in full regalia playing a casual game of basketball between performances at the Standing Buffalo School northeast of Regina.
The video was shot in an impressionistically slow motion, with the camera lingering on seemingly contradictory images – the ball hitting the blacktop amid a frenzy of beaded moccasins, dribbling combined with Fancy Dance footwork, brightly coloured fringe worn over Nike athletic shorts -- all shot against the imposing backdrop of the Qu'Appelle Valley landscape and sky.
The larger theme of the work is an exploration of cultural continuity and exchange. As he alludes to the hoop dance, which is today, is a dance performed by dancers from numerous groups. The dance both highlights and celebrates the dexterity and skill basketball players and traditional dancers share. It also points to some surprising history.
Native athletes had been shooting hoops for decades when the modern hoop dance was formalized in the 1930s, a period when many established forms of indigenous ceremonial and artistic expression had been outlawed, prompting the creation of new ones. Basketball, meanwhile, was introduced at American residential schools as early as the 1910s as part of stated attempts at forced assimilation. Whether or not it had the desired effect, the sport spread quickly to schools and reserves across the U.S. and Canada, and today there are dozens of tournaments dedicated to "rezball," acknowledged as a distinct, distinctly-aboriginal, style of play.
Born out of necessity, the adaptability and innovation of First Nations cultures too frequently go unrecognized, and the legacies of cultural exchange between aboriginals and non-aboriginals remain tangled and often painful, but Garneau strikes a celebratory tone.
David Garneau is an artist, curator and academic (Associate Professor in Visual Arts at the University of Regina ) based in Regina. Garneau’s practice includes painting, drawing, curating and critical writing. Garneau's work explores themes of masculinity, history and identity, including his own Métis identity. As Garneau says, “My task is two-fold: to explore the historical aspects of Métis identity and culture; to examine the Riel cult and to see Métis identity against the larger issues of Aboriginal, Settler and masculinity dynamics; and to explore the contemporary lived experience of Métis identity.”
For further information on David Garneau, his art and art practice:
- https://in-sightjournal.com/2016/11/22/an-interview-with-associate-professor-david-garneau/
- http://www.sknac.ca/index.php?page=ArtistDetail&id=6
