Jāņi Performances

Latvia is a country with strong traditions and a rich heritage around the festival of the Summer Solstice. Performance events will be scheduled to coincide with the national Latvian festival of Jāņi on June 23-24, 2014. The Summer Solstice is the shortest night of the year and as such is highly celebrated in Northern European cultures as a feast in honor of the sun and its role in sustaining life and contributing to a successful harvest. Bonfires and fire events are an integral part of Jāņi celebrations, and the Open-Air Art Museum at Pedvale regularly hosts Midsummer’s pyrotechnic performances. The location of the conference at Pedvale will encourage performance explorations of iron in terms of a material removed from industry and reconsidered as a process relevant to myth and landscape.

Contemporary cast iron art emphasizes performance as an exploration of the theatrical and conceptual dimensions of the medium. Performance has come to be a significant form for contemporary sculptural exploration featuring the body and movement as material and process for aesthetic consideration and conceptual exploration. Removed from the narrative of traditional theater, the act of iron casting itself as a choreographed performance of process, becomes an immersive and immediate form for aesthetic and conceptual exploration. Performance projects explore the physical and participatory nature of sculptural iron casting and the possibility of material, process and their formations and inter-relationships as aesthetic content.

Performance events during the 7^th ICCCIA will focus on iron and fire performances, performance-based furnaces and contemporary interpretations of ancient traditions. Iron pour interactions, fire performance, and considerations of landscape, ritual, narrative, folklore and content will be incorporated into performance exploration. Twelve performance events will be interlinked throughout the night. The first night of the conference a bonfire will be ceremonially lit using stone (flint). Flame from this fire will be used to light all fire events during the conference and, during the performance events on Jaņi, will be passed from each performance event to the next, lighting them throughout the night.

Curators
Ojārs Feldbergs – Director, Open-Air Museum at Pedvale, LV
Stephen Coles – Director, Coles Castings, UK
Tamsie Ringler – Associate Professor of Sculpture, St. Catherine University, MN, US

Artists
Karlis Alainis (LV)
George Beasley (US/Scotland) and Matt Toole (US)
Carl Billingsley (US) and Sarah Clover (US)
Jim Brenner (US)
Stephen Coles (UK)
Ojārs Feldbergs (LV)
Joint Stock Company – Uldis Balga and Agris Dzilna (LV)
Coral Lambert (US/UK)  and Danielle Jenson (CAN) and Jenny Hager-Vickery (USA), Cynthia Handel (USA), Susanne Roewer (GER)
Denise Snaer-Gauder (US)
Zigmunds Vilnis (LV)

Midsummer @Pedvale Open Air Art Museum (Sabile, Latvia 2013)
Bharata studio performance. June 24, 2013