Faculty of Art

Criticism and Curatorial Practice

Eric Glennie Windhager

Involuntary Jerk

Video documentation of site-specific interpretive dance performance and street art.

“Many First Nations teachings and cosmology outline the importance of humankind’s relationship with nature and the interdependence of all things within it. Neocolonial/Neoliberal Capitalism and extractivist development functions counter to this intuitive knowledge with ecologically devastating results. To be able to imagine a decolonial world that exists in harmony with nature it is crucial for the European mindset to be subverted at the very root of this disharmony. Involuntary Jerk knows that all creation is a collaborative act and is contingent on everything that has come before and after. Involuntary Jerk is a way of understanding this unavoidable truth. The sites chosen for this performance reflect some of the ways in which colonial-capitalism operates by displacing, disenfranchising and alienating the least wealthy and most marginalized communities across Turtle Island. Over 500 years after this land was first colonized, Tkaronto continues through private and corporate development, to be a place of vast inequality and bias against BIPOC, LGBTQ, differently-abled, low-income, and creative communities. This performance takes place at sites of colonization, gentrification, and refusal on the part of the government to fund alternatives or change policy. Using the body as a tool of resistance, Involuntary Jerk engages in a form of dancing most commonly associated with the hardcore punk community. The movements and ceremony developed in the punk scene reflect a sense of frustration and anger, but also feelings of exaltation found in the politically and spiritually-charged music. The sense of unity and togetherness that results can be evidenced by the well known gesture – if somebody falls down in the ‘pit’ you help them up.”