Director, Producer
2021 - 2022
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Harnessing the potency of expressive, dancing bodies and beautiful imagery, Resonant Soul is a mindfulness and spiritual practice tool for individuals and groups of all sizes, presented by Corps Bara Dance Theatre with Spartan Controls. Each of ten films guides viewers through an 8-10 minute experience designed around a theme that will draw viewers into deeper awareness of their bodies to facilitate a moment of calm, contemplation and renewal. Through guided art-watching, we offer a unique experience to facilitate wellness and deep presence.
"The experience of Corps Bara's film "Breath" was deeply moving. After allowing myself to enter the guided process, I was brought to tears. The physical release of my breath, alongside the visual artistic creation, opened a floodgate at the door of my heart that I didn't know I was holding in. This film was a gift to me. It illuminated the dark corners of my heart, and called me home." — Chantal Gandar
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Film 1: Breath; Comfort in the Constant
Film 2: Grace; Unfastening Dark Layers
Film 3: Vulnerability; Hold Space
Film 4: Empathy; Porous
Film 5: Interconnection; Through Reflection
Film 6: Abundance; Have Life
Film 7: Community; A Meeting Place
Film 8: Renewal; The Earth that Holds You
Film 9: En(Joy)
Film 10: Presence; Echoes that Form Us
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Many individuals and organizations have utilized Resonant Soul as part of a conference or online programming, within their company's wellness program or as a team building tool for their small business, including our presenting sponsor Spartan Controls, Soul Play, Healthy Dancer Canada, WildDogs Screendance Festival, Rozsa Foundation, Christ Church Elbow Park, and Hatlie Group.
Get in touch for more information!
How can Resonant Soul be utilized?
In a group setting: Organizations, focus groups, businesses and corporations can provide their groups access to Resonant Soul as a mental health resource for individual practice, or can use the films to open meetings and facilitate discussions, reflection, and for building community and vulnerability in their organizations.
Faith or spiritual practice groups of all stripes can use them as a guiding curriculum within small groups, church services, online content, or again, as resources for their members.
Individuals have access to using the films as a ten-week practice and can return to them over and over again.
Psychologists, social workers and counselors might recommend the videos to clients, use them in AA groups, group therapy or other support groups.
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The idea for Resonant Soul was birthed out of a Covid experiment facilitated over the summer of 2020 called the Peace Project. In it, we researched ways to facilitate our own inner peace and invite others into that experience, despite the outer turmoil of the pandemic and social unrest. We devised a 20 minute structured improvisation that we performed around the city of Calgary as an offering to our community. We received feedback that this was truly valuable and effective in part because of the modality of dance, an embodied expression.
Resonant Soul became a digital expansion of the Peace Project; we researched more themes that felt necessary to explore in this cultural moment and created works that invite viewers to experience them too.
The structure of the films are based on an ancient spiritual practice called visio-divina, or sacred seeing. Similar to the more commonly known lectio divina (sacred reading), visio divina invites a heart response as discerned through imagery, typically visual art. I wondered if dance could be used as the vehicle of contemplation, and Resonant Soul was born.
The four parts to visio-divina are:
To consider your first impressions when contemplating the piece of art.
To notice your breath, body, thoughts and feelings as you look, or watch.
To listen for the sacred voice, or what is arising in you.
To respond; through journaling, prayer, doodling, making art, sitting in silence, moving in your own body or any other impulse you experience.
Resonant Soul is not about trying to achieve a state of mind, rather about allowing the state to awaken inside of you by witnessing it in others. This is possible because of a physiological effect called kinesthetic empathy. A project called “Watching Dance” researched this phenomenon.
This means dance is uniquely equipped to help viewers access felt experiences in their bodies, and changing the physicality of the body is uniquely positioned to influence a change in the mind. The possibility for positive impact on mental health with this combination of art and science is exciting and intriguing.
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Creating Resonant Soul was a feat of logistics. During a pandemic, when restrictions were constantly in flux, our company of eight dancers learned ten different dance pieces with choreographers from all over North America by Zoom, rehearsing in spaces from dance studios to churches to parks in heat waves and snow storms to, one time, a farm in the countryside with geese as our accompaniment.
We chose our choreographers based on a connection they had with the company or because of the way they integrate spirit into the creation of their work. Each choreographer chose a theme that was meaningful to them based on their perception of need for it in the current social climate. In this way, creating the choreography became a meditation for the choreographers; opening themselves to something they needed to be more healthy, and facilitating the exploration of that within the company of dancers. From start to finish, each artist participating in the creation of each film was challenged to deeply consider each theme in a highly personal, embodied, and thoughtful way. We also sought feedback from local counselors and psychologists, movement artists, meditation practitioners and spiritual leaders as well as leaders of a variety of for-profit companies to ensure that the films were appropriate and meaningful for a wide variety of audience groups.
Once the dancers had learned the choreography, we filmed over the course of about 5 weeks, shooting in eight different locations. Each location was chosen in order to further the dynamics of each theme. For instance, Breath was shot in an empty parking lot, with the idea that the moving bodies were the breath animating the sterile, empty space. Community was filmed in an urban park, a space where people gather or pass through in the center of the community. Presence was filmed a little bit at each of the locations, a reminder in the moment and in the film that no matter the space, deep presence is available to us.
After filming, the videographer, Tim Nguyen and I spent about two months working together to edit the films. Once each was completed it was sent to our composer, Steve Dierkens, who layered an original composition and soundscape over top of each (to this point) silent film. The final step was to create the meditation text, record the voiceovers and pair these with visual imagery from the B-roll film footage. I compiled and structured the meditation text with contributions from the dancers’ contemplations of the themes, the choreographers’ notes on how they were approaching their work and the guidance of the lectio divina format.
The films were launched at a live event in November 2021 after approximately 18 months of planning and execution.
GALLERY
CREDITS AND SUPPORTERS
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Producer and Director — Deanna Witwer
Videography and Filming — Tim Nguyen
Musical Composition, Performance, and Sound Mix — Steve Dierkens
Choreographers (in Film Order) — Beth Durnie, Kyrsten Blair, Camille Sutton, Erin O’Loughlin, Giselle Liu, Libby John, Connie Moker Wernikowski, Chantal Gandar, Kyra Newton, Amy Meyers
Dancers — Beth Durnie, Kathryn Lee, Emily Losier, Taylor MacLeod, Heidi Schmidtke, Caitlin Unrau, Sasha Wilde, Reese Wilson
Mural Art in Films 9 + 10 — Elena Bushan
Writing — Deanna Witwer
Voiceovers — Marlo Hepburn
Marketing Director — Rowena Cui of PlanIt Sound, planitsound.com
Costumes — Deanna Witwer
Photography — Caitlin Unrau, Sentient Forms, www.roseandrangephotography.ca/sentientforms
Social Media — Kathryn Lee
Opening / Closing Slates — Aaron Reimer -
Calgary Arts Development and the City of Calgary
Presenting Sponsor: Spartan Controls
Rozsa Foundation -
Chantal Gandar, chair. Richard McKeel, Ainsley Sudds
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Green Exodus, Crossings Dance, Kingsfold Retreat Center
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Czechowsky, Graham and Hanevelt Chartered Professional Accountants, Plintz Real Estate, Hatlie Group, Ambrose Arts, Christ Church Elbow Park, Wilde and Company Chartered Professional Accountants, Anonymous x 4