Gabrielle Martin chats with Bettina Szabo of Petrikor Danse about Habitat, which will be presented at the 20th PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Check out the show at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on January 28 and 29.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Bettina discuss: 

• What is the relevance of the Hermes metaphor and sculpture? What drew you initially to the sculpture and made you reach out to the artist?

• Can you speak to your trajectory with form over your career as an artist?

• How does sound spatialization fit into this production?

• How do you manage all of the lighting cues yourself while onstage?

• How do you integrate your workshops into your practice, and vice versa?

• What is cultural mediation and how does it affect your work?

• What is the purpose of bringing art back down to earth and demystifying the process?

• What is relationship between form and subject matter?

• What is internalized misogyny?

• Are there recurring dramaturgic elements or social themes in your work, or is the throughline about process, making each work totally unique?

About Bettina Szabo

Born in Uruguay, Bettina Szabo is a dancer and choreographer. Before she arrived in Montreal in 2007, she studied with Hebe Rosa (Uruguay), and Rami Be'er (Israel). She graduated from the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (EDCM) in 2013, and obtained her BFA in Choreography at Concordia University (Montreal) in 2017. She has participated in many workshops with renowned artists such as Marie Chouinard, Dave St Pierre, Hildegard De Vyust, Guy Cools, Benoit Lachambre, and Clara Furey.

In 2006, Bettina formed the collective Jeli-Mien, with whom she was awarded the emerging choreographer award given by the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Uruguay. She also performed for the Ballet de Camara de Montevideo (2004-2007), the KCDC (2010), the collective Interlope (2013-2014) and for Jason Cutler in 2019.

She founded Petrikor Danse in 2016, which has allowed her to fully realize her multidisciplinary works mixing contemporary dance, music and visual arts. Bettina first created Noir=+ (2014) for dancer and vibraphone, and later presented Séquelles (2017), and Habitat (2020). Her work has been presented in Geneva, Paris, Lyon, Düsseldorf, Vienna, Seoul, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Bilbao. She was invited on multiple occasions to work with musicians such as the Bakalari ensemble, the Architekt ensemble and composer Laurence Jobidon.

She is a member of Diversité Artistique Montreal (DAM) and a former elected board member of the Quebec Dance association RQD). She actively fights for a more culturally diverse art scene in Montreal.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.

Bettina joined the conversation from  what is now known as Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Kanien'kehà:ka, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien'kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg..

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

 00:02

Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's director of programming. Today's episode highlights multidisciplinary practice and the process of coming out of one's shell.

 

 00:18

I'm speaking with Bettina Zabo, the lead artist behind Habitat, which is being presented at the Push Festival, January 28th and 29th, 2025. Born in Uruguay, Bettina Zabo is a dancer and choreographer living in Montreal since 2007.

 

 00:34

As a dancer, she is interested in collaborative processes based on somatic explorations, and as a choreographer, her creations are interdisciplinary and marked by profound collaboration with music and visual arts.

 

 00:47

Here is my conversation with Bettina. I just want to start by acknowledging the context from which I'm speaking to you. I am on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, so the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil -Waututh.

 

 01:06

I'm a settler on these lands, and part of my commitment as a settler here is to engage in ongoing learning about what that means. And that looks like different things each day. Today, that looks like reflecting on Indigenous alternatives to climate risk assessment, and that is something that is supported by the Yellowhead Institute, which is just an incredible resource, educational resource.

 

 01:32

So currently, I've just been reflecting on the exclusion of local and traditional knowledge and sustainable management practices with regard to climate assessment. And also, how this contributes to a view of climate change that's linear and a lack of engagement in shaping what future generations will inherit.

 

 01:55

And I know that you are currently somewhere. different from where you're usually based. Can you share a bit about where your relationship to your place? Absolutely. So right now in Paris, I have two homes I live here, but also in Tuchague.

 

 02:16

So Tuchague is a city land also known as Montreal or Mounyan and Nabi -Chawee, and it's an island that is traditionally a land for exchange for many First Nations and is guarded by the Kanyinkeha people, also known as Mohawk.

 

 02:36

My relationship to the situation is quite weird because I didn't learn about the situation and the oppression that the First Nations live in Canada until after five years living in Canada. And yes, I am being accomplished through this settling, which is very uncomfortable because it's wasn't something we knew before immigrating.

 

 03:03

So yeah, it's really, it's quite a hard situation to be perpetuating depression in such a passive aggressive way. But yes, so I try to be a Malay as much as I can. So I'm very glad to let you know that the name of Montreal is actually I'm going to jump right into talking about habitat.

 

 03:27

So in the visual symphony of deep sea bioluminescence, an entrancing interaction with a seemingly sentient structure draws us into a hypnotic meditation on the search for home. And this structure is called Hermes or Hermes, Hermes, and this is the sculpture that you dance with in habitat.

 

 03:50

Can you talk about, can you talk about it and the relevance of its metaphor for you? Of course. So Hermes has been my partner for the past six years. This sculpture was created by the wonderful Shasanda Rasp, who is a visual artist from Quebec.

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