Kinesthesia: Body as Form celebrates the power of dance at Surrey Art Gallery, October 25 to December 14
New exhibition and performance series opens with WTM / What’s the Move? art party featuring Lucy M. May, ĀNANDAM dance theatre, and more
SPONSORED POST BY Surrey Art Gallery
Justine A. Chambers, documentation of Ten Thousand Times and One Hundred More, 2018, live performance. Photo by Ryan Collerd
Surrey Art Gallery is presenting Kinesthesia: Body as Form, an exhibition about art, dance, and movement, from October 25 to December 14. Kinesthesia is accompanied by a season of live events at Surrey Art Gallery, beginning with the WTM / What’s the Move? art party on October 25 at 6 pm. Admission is free.
Kinesthesia: Body as Form highlights a major current in contemporary art: the intersection between visual art and dance. Named for the process where a body comes into awareness of itself in space, this exhibition brings together an eclectic gathering of artists and groups whose respective practices acknowledge and celebrate the human body’s many ways of being in movement.
Brendan Fernandes, still from Standing Leg, 2014, live performance and video performance. Photo courtesy of the artist
The exhibition includes a vibrant variety of media, including sculpture, painting, textile, photography, film, and virtual reality. The works on display reflect ongoing conversations in the fields of dance and live artmaking, speaking to topics such as embodiment, choreography, healing, ritual, performance, and transcendence. Drawn from across the country, the artists featured in the exhibition include All Bodies Dance, ĀNANDAM dance theatre, Justine A. Chambers, Fran Chudnoff, Brendan Fernandes, Ronald Li, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Lucy M. May, Dana Michel, Maisie O’Brien, Evann Siebens, and Sarah Nash Wong.
In all of their work, these artists, dancers, and performers demonstrate powerful models for the ways that a human body can present itself in space by expressing grief and healing, critiquing ideas of public space, playing with routine behaviour, and proposing alternative forms of identity.
Fran Chudnoff, nature of Nature i was staring, still from The Conditions by Lucy M. May | Looumms, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist
Along with objects and installations, Kinesthesia features a series of live performance works. These include an excerpt from Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based choreographer May’s The Conditions; a dance battle with Funk’N’Sole Street Dance Society; an interpretation of Toronto-based ĀNANDAM dance theatre’s Ephemeral Artifacts sculptural installation; a staging of Today is the evening to strike lightning / Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai by Vancouver’s Chambers and Simran Sachar; and a rendition of Montreal-based live artist Michel’s durational work MIKE.
The WTM / What’s the Move? art party on October 25 will begin with a dhol performance from South Asian Arts Society in conjunction with its exhibition 20 Years of South Asian Arts: A Photographic Journey (on display until November 2). May will then share a live dance performance as part of Kinesthesia. Afterwards, there will be a talk with artists Sachar and Nancy Lee, in conjunction with their UrbanScreen exhibition These hands are still at work (on display until January 4, 2026).
All Bodies Dance, still from It’s enough (for a rooftop), 2020, 360-degree single-channel video. Photo by Gemma Crowe
Throughout the evening at WTM, there will be artmaking invitations with Kinesthesia’s Wong and saga shop artist Jess Rice. Justen LeRoy’s three-channel film exhibition Lay Me Down in Praise will also be on view (it is being displayed at UrbanScreen until October 28, and onsite at the Gallery until March 1, 2026). At 8:30 pm, the event will continue offsite at UrbanScreen.
Kinesthesia: Body as Form is funded in part by the BC Arts Council’s Arts Impact program, and is presented in partnership with Indian Summer Festival, Funk’N’Sole Street Dance Society, and Surrey Civic Theatres.
Learn more about the exhibition here.
Post sponsored by Surrey Art Gallery.
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