Joanna Cook
Practices of (in)(at)tendere: emergent (mis)translations
As a dance artist and researcher, multimodality allows me to engage embodied, material, and intersemiotic translation as a creative response to a problem/question/emergent inter/intra action. Each mode/thread has its own capacity for translation, its own inflections and ways of articulating an idea. Within my practice, I create containers for things to happen, release control and allow possibilities and potentialities to emerge. Reaching into siloed disciplines, I draw threads together cultivating new vocabularies as the ideas morph offering partial and emergent (mis)translations.
Modes translate within their (un)disciplined constraints and affordances.
My practice begins with active listening: listening to (human/nonhuman) bodies, listening to desire(s), listening to space. It is a practice of care, a practice of attention and intention. These tension’s give the practice something to press up against, something to pull away from. In order to respond to what arises, at times I need to teach myself new skills (InDesign, website creation etc) and actively re:view/re:position the role of the amateur (as a strength). This allows for a different type of engagement with modes, one of love rather than proficiency. By creating space for re:orientation, I expand the flesh of language through the cultivation of polyphonic vernacular vocabularies that aid in translating the ‘source text’ of each project.
Bio:
Joanna Cook is a dance artist, researcher and multimodal choreographer based in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a PhD Candidate at the Waipapa Taumata Rau (University of Auckland) exploring the possibilities of Multimodality as (feminist) Choreographic Practice. Joanna holds a PGDip in Dance Studies with distinction and an MA in Dance Studies with first class honours. Her recent works include, Vector (2021- ongoing with Becca Weber), 3R Dance Project (2020-ongoing with Janaina Moraes), Fragments of Silent Skin (2021), Expanding Flesh (2022 - ongoing), and Spooling Womxn (2022 - ongoing). Joanna is interested in creating work that is experiential, immersive and engages with modalities such as: movement, artist books, soundscapes, printmaking, installation, photography, voice, poetics, video documentation and live performance. Her work explores transdisciplinary materialities, pedagogies of care and feminist practices of ‘undoing-ness’ through imagination, repair, and care. She is currently a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Dance Studies Program at the Waipapa Taumata Rau (University of Auckland).