supportTHEsupport created by Margaret Dragu

Performed by Margaret Dragu, Johanna Householder, Angelo Pedari and Francisco-Fernando Granados.

2025

(made in collaboration with FADO Performance Art Centre)

supportTHEsupport is an art experiment that began September 2019 for LIVE! Biennale in Vancouver.

supportTHEsupport appears to be dance/fitness classes (live-in-person and live-on-ZOOM ) with members in Vancouver, Montreal, Berlin, Hanover and Copenhagen. But it is actually a living studio of amazing and creative artists who help each other make art happen.

15 recipe/filing cards

cellphone for timer

3 pink dressmaker’s elastic bands

3 yoga mats

3 glasses of water

video projector for ZOOM transmission onto the wall

Johanna, Angelo and Francisco-Fernando performed inside a sealed room with lots of windows -- the audience could see everything but hear nothing. Like a goldfish bowl. On one wall in the sealed room, was a ZOOM projection of me-from-my-sick-bed as I had a very serious case of influenza. Paul stood outside the sealed room with the audience – he performed live vocal transcription of the entire performance.

The performance was a choreography-by-chance game alternating timed aktions from the card deck with timed (and ever increasing in length) “constructive rests” on the yoga mat. The 15 prompts in the card deck were based on my 50 year+ clinical exercise & dance practices.

[note: dance citations incl. Yone Kvietys-Young, Mary Wigman, Alwin Nikolais, Hanya Holm, Britta Wirthmuller, William Forsythe, Justine A. Chambers].

Banner photo by Henry Chan