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Lief Hall is the first Artist in Residence of VIVO’s Animate Objects series. Animate Objects is a living studio for the study of animating materials, objects and architecture in performance and media. Over the month of March, Hall composed, choreographed, animated and constructed the elements of Paper House.
In Paper House Hall works allegorically and abstractly with the body as a house of ideological construction. Resisting permanence and stability, she invests in ephemeral, flexible and exposed structures in her architecture, choreography and music composition. Inspired by the Post-Modern processes of Judson Church choreographers Deborah Hay, Lucinda Childs and Trisha Brown, she collaborates and improvises with artists who work fluidly as dancers, musicians and vocalists. In her choreography Hall works conceptually with fluctuation between internalization and externalization, individuality and collectivity, construction and deconstruction. Larissa Loyva, Kelly Davis and Shiva Shahmir will be performing with her.
Likewise flexible materials like paper, vellum, and lycra create a permeable architecture for the body to imagine itself in. Hall cuts curvilinear patterns in paper that cause the material to contort and flourish when long curtains of it are suspended. Video projections on Paper House create shadows that alter perceptions of space, weight and depth. The projections transform solid objects into fluid forms, creating architecture out of moving light. The texture and patterning of her 3D animation also obscures the dancers forms, dissolving them into the materiality of their own construction.
VIVO graciously acknowledges the Western Front for supporting Paper House.
VIVO is located in the homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples in a warehouse space at 2625 Kaslo Street south of East Broadway at the end of E 10th. Transit line 9 stops at Kaslo Street on Broadway. From the bus stop, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight decline. The closest skytrain station is Renfrew Station, which is three blocks south-east of VIVO and has an elevator. From there, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight incline. There is parking available at VIVO, including wheelchair access parking. There is a bike rack at the entrance. The front entrance leads indoors to a set of 7 stairs to the lobby.
A wheelchair ramp is located at the west side of the main entrance. The ramp has two runs: the first run is 20 feet long, and the second run is 26 feet. The ramp is 60 inches wide. The slope is 1:12. The ramp itself is concrete and has handrails on both sides. There is an outward swinging door (34 inch width) at the top of the ramp leading to a vestibule. A second outward swinging door (33 inch width) opens into the exhibition space. Buzzers and intercoms are located at both doors to notify staff during regular office hours or events to unlock the doors. Once unlocked, visitors can use automatic operators to open the doors.
There are two all-gender washrooms. One has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The other is a single room with a urinal and is wheelchair accessible: the door is 33 inches wide and inward swinging, without automation. The toilet has 11 inch clearance on the left side and a handrail.
To reach the bathrooms from the studio, exit through the double doors and proceed straight through the lobby and down the hall . Turn left, and the two bathrooms will be on your right side. The closest one has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The far bathroom is accessible.
Lief Hall’s multidisciplinary practice employs light, sound, sculpture and movement to create affective environments. Her installations, performances and compositions induce tension between the virtual and real by projecting 3D computer animation and video onto bodies and fluid sculptural objects made of paper and textiles. She works with the textural and non-narrative qualities of voice to mimic nature, machines and non-human beings; composing a sonic landscape unhindered by formal music structure or symbolic language. This experimentation is expressed in Hall’s current musical projects, the improvisational sound art trio Glaciers and dark electro duo MYTHS.
