Join Gabriel Dharmoo, Olivia Shortt and Charity Chan, Head of Public Programmes and Learning at MOCA, for a lively Salon Series discussion on the thinking and inspiration behind this performative work, the intricacies of interdisciplinary practice and the nature of collaboration in the time of COVID.
Presented in parallel to Mika Rottenberg’s solo exhibition Spaghetti Blockchain, the irreverent and irresistible nature of Dharmoo and Shortt’s work accentuates unspoken social realities of the day: the sometimes frenetic and ecstatic expressions of joy as the world emerges from COVID and the opportunity to imagine new ways of being after a global “reset.”
The virtual performance of The Bijuriya and Boujee Wacky Tacky Cabaret will be available from Friday, June 25 until Wednesday, July 21.
Artists
Gabriel Dharmoo is a Montreal-based composer, vocalist, improviser, drag performer and researcher. His works have been performed in Canada, the U.S.A, Europe, Australia, Singapore and South Africa. He has received many awards for his compositions, such as the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for his chamber work “Wanmansho” (2017) and the Conseil Québécois de la Musique Opus Award for his opera “À chaque ventre son monstre” (2019). As a vocalist and interdisciplinary artist, his career has led him around the globe, notably with his solo show “Anthropologies imaginaires” which was awarded at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival (2015) and the SummerWorks Performance Festival (2016). Gabriel also explores queer arts and drag artistry as Bijuriya.
(Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation) Olivia Shortt is a Tkarón:to-based transdisciplinary performing artist and musician. Career highlights include their Lincoln Center (NYC) debut with the International Contemporary Ensemble, their film debut in Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film Guest of Honour and recording an album two kilometres underground in SnoLAB, a quantum physics research centre outside of Sudbury Ontario. Shortt was a finalist for the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award as well as awarded and named one of the 2020 Buddies in Bad Times’ Emerging Queer Artists. They were featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine. Fall of 2021 sees them attending Dartmouth College in the Masters of Digital Musics Program. Nina Boujee (AKA Olivia Shortt) is your weird drag-adjacent Two-Spirit Trickster friend who is always ready to stir up chaotic energy in the room. Nina is a spirit who doesn’t understand gender binaries.
