creative play around the world
"I feel like the art playground sparks creative (r)evolutions, cheers people to ‘art it up!’ and challenges mass mind hacking by nurturing and supporting our inner technologies."
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING | COMMUNITY GATHERING | CREATIVE DOCUMENTING | ARTIST RESIDENCY
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HANDS ON HEARTS
(2021) GLOBAL ART PROJECT Taking a poetics piece from 2005, DMo began a video collaboration with South Korean performer Sujin Lee, which resulted in the collaged video art piece Hands on Hearts (2021). This video ushered in the Hands on Hearts global art project, to act as a timely reminder of our aliveness, and an interconnectedness running through life that we rarely notice. With democracy hanging in the balance, we needed to recognize our connection and the power that lies in this truth. People around the world were invited to send in their own HandsonHearts pose to have it collaged with DMo's, to then share as united heartbeats around the world. |
The project wanted to make visible a universal heartbeat that is always beating, whether we notice it or not. The pictures would form part of a large tiled image of all the HandsonHearts entries entitled The Heartbeat of the World, with the possibility of also being part of a time-lapsed video. In conjunction with the project, DMo collaborated with Reiki Master Teacher and ReiMoves Founder Monica Brunello to schedule HandsonHearts world healing sessions, to encourage everyone to use the harmonizing power of loving thoughts, feelings, intentions to collectively embrace humanity and the world...and use our loving powers to heal and unite!
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CONNECTING WITH SYMBOLOGY: SYROS
(2018) OPEN LAB Connecting with Symbology presents DMo's exploration of interconnection through specific symbology - elements of communication that allow people to go beyond what is known or seen - during a 3-week residency period. Participants are first introduced to an approach of life as an art playground, experiencing the creativity in motion that life is, and being open to connection, which is also a path to one’s voice. Exercises including 'searching the mirror', '3D moving' and drawing, then ease in a path to finding and expressing one’s voice, becoming aware of one's light, and in turn having an harmonious influence on self and environment. This connects with the larger picture of becoming a part of the circuitry, a balanced flow of sharing and receiving. The power of symbols is then introduced, with the way symbols can be used as anchors to activate ways we can experience life more creatively and fully. And by using symbols that we see in everyday life, providing a way to easily bring these anchors into our life as practical reminders for things like presence, awareness, speaking our voice, shining our bright, seeing differently, living life creatively, and so on. |
PRESENTED BY
Danielle Oke LOCATION Akropoditi Dance Center, Iroon Polytechneiou 84, 84100 Ermoupoli, Syros, Greece |
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SYMBOLOGY MOVING THROUGH: SYROS
(2018) ARTIST RESIDENCY A 3-week artist residency at Akropoditi Dance Center in Syros, the capital island of the Cyclades, Greece. The residency explores revealing the hidden through symbology, elements of communication that allow people to go beyond what is known or seen. With the objective to encourage viewers/participants to expand their awareness of subtle energetic exchanges happening in their self, their environment and universal connections, DMo utilizes symbology as quick references or anchors to awareness of these diverse aspects of our being. Intertwining the DMo living art playground view, symbology cards will be attached around the town in local spaces, as well as throughout the studio, where there will also be a Creative Symbology Wall Chart with 22 symbols connected to exercise experiments, created by DMo. DMo will also present an open lab to the community, along with a TAP XP finale presentation. The residency encourages, provokes and exposes thoughts and feelings that allude to one's authenticity - which is a uniting essence - with active ways to experience life more creatively and fully. |
HOST
Akropoditi Dance Center LOCATION Iroon Polytechneiou 84, 84100 Ermoupoli, Syros, Greece |
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THEATRICAL DEVELOPMENT: BASSANO
(2018) ARTIST RESIDENCY GUEST Invited as a guest artist during dancer/choreographer and ReiMoves founder Monica Brunello's artist residency at CSC in Bassano Del Grappa, Italy. Given the task of creating a prelude to the performance-in-progress being developed during the residency. What was created was Prelude, a short physical theatre piece that acts as a prelude to the dance performance From Earth We Grow. |
HOST
Centro per la Scena Contemporanea (CSC) LOCATION Bassano del Grappa, Vicenza, Italy |
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SONG IN MOVEMENT: BOLOGNA
(2018) OPEN LAB DMo joins longtime collaborator, movement artist Monica Brunello to deliver a creative lab to teenagers and adults at the dance school Bottega Danza in Bologna, Italy. The lab brings forth the challenge to compose a song through dance movement - to make a song visual, where movement is the melody. Using emotion as the start point, the young group of dancers are led through the ReiMoves energy exercise Transformations, which helps participants turn emotions into outer movement expressions. They are then split into three groups following standard song structure A (Verse), B (Chorus), C (Bridge). From here, groups go on to choreograph their song elements with movement and self-made sounds, inspired by their emotion-based start point and aligning their work with the qualities and purpose each song element contains. At the end, all groups come together to unite elements and perform a completed song formed through dance movement. |
PRESENTED BY
Monica Brunello Danielle Oke LOCATION Bottega Danza, 8 Tempi Danza, Via Persicetana 6h, Calderara di Reno, Bologna, Italy |
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SPELLBOUND: VILLA DE LEYVA
(2018) STUDIO STAY Extended the chance to experience Colombian culture, landscape and energy, DMo lived and mused between the richly historical locations of Bogotá and Villa de Leyva, situated in the Boyacá Department, and worked on new designs for The Art Playground. From the local studio in Villa de Leyva, DMo had the opportunity to discover the art and artists of the area, explore the semi-desert terrain and its ancient and mystical history, and then feel the thriving vibrancy of the capital city. |
HOST
Atelier Lilú joyas LOCATION Carrera 9 # 14 - 57, Bogotá - Villa de Leyva Boyacá, Colombia |
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SPEAK YOUR VOICE
(2018) MURAL PROJECT + GLOBAL SOCIAL CHALLENGE The Speak Your Voice mural project came to life during DMo's incredible experiences in Southern India. Threaded through the intense beauty of the land are harsh divides. These divides are felt from a young age, so DMo created a mural project with the collaboration of the Lourdes Servite School in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, to work with the children of the local community and help them speak their voice through painted imagery. |
Speak Your Voice wanted to say let no one of us allow religion, tradition, caste systems, social status, gender, colour, financial background, sexual orientation or physical ability stop us from following our dreams and respecting ourselves and others. This expanded into a call out to all those, young and experienced, who wanted to stand up for this in their own life, to take up a 21 Day SpeakYourVoice Challenge, to create a daily communication that's true to one's heart. Those who took up the challenge were encouraged to share their experiences to help inspire others.
​Painting for the first time, the children of the Lourdes Servite School in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India, speaking their voice through imagery.
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SENSORIZED: TAMIL NADU
(2018) COMMUNITY/SCHOOL VISITS Exploring the Tamil Nadu region, visiting a number of communities and schools in diverse towns of the region, talking with teachers, meeting and addressing students, visiting home villages. Also undertaking a collaborative mural project with the children of the Lourdes Servite School in Chidambaram, which initiated the #SpeakYourVoice Challenge. |
HOST
Frati Servi di Maria LOCATION Various schools and communities in Tamil Nadu, India |
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LINES IN A SQUARE
(2017+) TRAVELLING MUSE PROJECT Lines in a Square is a travelling muse project using lines to express observations, interactions and vibes of city squares around the world. Squares are meeting points, hangout spaces, travel-through zones, historical landmarks and top tourist destinations, and throughout their existence seem to take on a life of their own. This makes them excellent spaces from which to muse in the tradition of en plein air, yet DMo is swapping an easel and paints and brushes for her lap and paint pens. |
SQUARE SITTINGS 32 squares 14 countries 5 continents NEXT SITTING TBA |
During a sitting, the square's transient nature is absorbed and expressed with lines, lines forming images and words. Part ethnographic study, part joie de vivre, this project draws in to draw out the movement of life. DMo is interested in each space's unique energetic tapestry, as well as the common thread that weaves us all together. Some squares are well known, others lesser, yet they all share the joys of wandering and experiencing a town's culture. If you happen to be at the next scheduled stop at the right time, seek DMo out and say hi! Your connection will be part of the experience...
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DANCING AROUND THE WORLD
(2016) GLOBAL FILM PROJECT Dancing Around The World was a global film project presented by DMo in association with ReiMoves. The project called upon people everywhere to capture and share a moving moment in their life story by creating a short dance video of 5mins/less. It was created to stand up in the face of separatism by bringing people together through the unifying language of dance movement and remembering that which unites us not divides us! Entry was free and selected submissions had their short film appear as part of a collective feature length video called Dancing Around The World. Public participation represented 19 countries across 5 continents. Guest dance companies included Brumachon-Lamarche/Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes, DanceWell, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Candoco Dance Company and D.ID | Dance Identity. |
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CREATIVE PROCESS R&D: PINKAFELD
(2016) ARTIST RESIDENCY A two-week Creative Process Research and Development Residency at D.ID Dance Identity’s Choreographic Center in Pinkafeld, Burgenland, Austria. Working with a group of students from the Music and Art University of Vienna (MUK), this residency gave DMo the chance to explore the creative process from a dancer’s point of view, utilizing material developed from past research and experience. Together they explored topics of inspiration, physical creation, spatial awareness (including space in terms of the various senses), purpose in practice, blockages and the blurring line of art and life. The residency culminated in a choreographed piece that was then shared by the students as an impromptu performance in a busy intersection of Pinkafeld. |
HOST
D.ID Dance Identity LOCATION Pinkafeld, Burgenland, Austria |
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CREATIVE RESEARCH: BASSANO
(2016) ARTIST RESIDENCY A one-week Creative Research Residency at Centro per la Scena Contemporanea in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. DMo conversed with dancers, filmmakers and theatre performers, attended workshops, and utilized studio time to explore the creative process and its delivery and experience as sensed by others. Those involved ranged from seasoned professionals to newcomers, from able bodied participants to those with special needs. DMo was also able to partake in Dance Well classes, dance classes created for people with Parkinson’s disease. Key topics of interests were: differences in display of inhibitions; identity, what it’s attached to and formed from; uniqueness in interpretation and movement of exercises; and the general capacity we have for developing, interpreting, participating in and delivering creative activity, including performance, with the intention of inclusiveness, the breaking down of barriers (particularly of the mind, both between people and within our self) and the stripping away of layers. |
HOST
Centro per la Scena Contemporanea (CSC) LOCATION Bassano del Grappa, Vicenza, Italy |
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KISS OFF!
(2014) GLOBAL INITIATIVE KISS OFF! was a global initiative run by DMo and sponsored by Raindance, taking place during week of June 28 to July 4, 2014. During this week people around the world were encouraged to share a photo or vine video of a same sex kiss in the name of love, equality and human rights. It was a creative way to challenge societal homophobia and bring awareness to the persecutions people face because of their sexual orientation and identity. It was also a visual celebration of love and life, using art to educate and unite. |
SUPPORTERS AROUND THE WORLD
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CREATIVE THOUGHT SPACE
(2013+) CREATIVE RESEARCH PROJECT Creative Thought Space is a creative research project that began on the heels of an essayistic work in development about living a life creative. The burning curiosity: If our connections create, and our creation connects, how can we utilize the power of creativity to nurture personal change and social change on local and global community levels? And so, DMo opened up the examination of the importance of creativity, as well as insights into the often elusive world of artistic creation, by asking other living, working creatives their responses to five base questions on creativity. Contributors are from differing backgrounds, countries, platforms and disciplines, linked by the common thread of creative expression. |
The Q's: 1. What do you think being creative means? 2. How do you include creativity in your life? 3. What are your thoughts on how your life has influenced your creative imagination, and how your creative imagination has influenced your life? 4. What, if any, exercises do you do to get into a creative mode? 5. How important do you think creativity is in life?
VISIT THE ARTISTS HERE
VISIT THE ARTISTS HERE
