HOMING
solo body-object-sound
A new work by Susanna Hood
Visual art comes to life in a ritual through grief
A moving sculpture, a slow and methodical journey through the making and unmaking of three-dimensional, almost-still and breathing images with tactile, bodily and aural objects. Initially inspired by Susanna’s desire to inhabit and to be inhabited by the body of her now late mother, the piece plays with magic-making, perception, memory, loss, kinship and transformation.
Susanna Hood’s most recent work – vulnerable, daring, risky and powerful. Created in collaboration with French musician and composer Frédéric B.Briet, “Homing” works to transform a wound between a mother’s and daughter’s two bodies stemming from the legacy of self-hatred towards the female body, and an inaccessible physical silence that this created between them. Accompanied by a modular and improvised electro-acoustic environment the sound world evokes a dialogue between the present moment and the space of memory.
“Thank you for showing me that home is not only a noun, a person, a place, a feeling, but also a verb; a present, intentional action.” Audience member, Liam Gover
«Susanna Hood est si puissante et le pouvoir du son, si irresistible qu’en nous ouvrant cet accès à elle-même, elle nous ouvre une porte sur notre propre monde. L’effet est toujours bouleversant. » – Fabienne Cabado, Voir
Creation & Performance – Susanna Hood
Sound Creation – Frédéric B.Briet
Dramaturgy – Thea Patterson
Coaching performatif – Sylvie Tourangeau
Choreographic Consultation – Sarah Bild
Flyer Illustration & Graphics – Looumms
Duration: 65min
Content warning: nudity
World Première: La Poêle Studio – #307, 5333 av. Casgrain
February 7 – 16, 2025
Password protected video of full work on request at susannahoodhum[at]gmail[dot]com
UPCOMING DATES for HOMING
2026
March 24, 27 & 28: A co-presentation with Ottawa Dance Directive at ODDBOX Theatre.
Performances of HOMING on Friday, March 27 & Saturday, March 28, 2026
ODD BOX, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa ON
Shows: March 27, 28 at 7:30pm
$25 on Eventbrite or cash at the door
BODY – OBJECT – IMAGE – SPACE
a workshop with Susanna Hood – Tuesday March 24, 2026
ODD BOX, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa ON
Workshop: March 24 from 7pm – 9pm
$30 on Eventbrite or cash at the door
This workshop invites participants to play inside some of the foundations of Susanna’s creative practice, most specifically in relation to the creation of her work HOMING. It will begin with a warm-up of our whole physical being (body, voice and imagination), drawing inspiration from somatic approaches such as Open Source Forms and Emotionally Integrated Voice, in order to prepare us for collective creative process through improvisation in movement, voice, and in relation to personal objects. Through sensing, seeing and group tuning, we will build towards the creation and animation of a shared image-space, tending to both our own internal imagery and the outer image within which it lives. Together we will co-compose from the inside out to the outside in.
This workshop is open to all those with a physical and/or creative practice – professionals, pre-professionals and passionate amateurs alike! The workshop will be offered in English with French translation as necessary. For more information on Susanna’s teaching practice, visit her site here.
“Susanna is a highly skilled, dedicated, rigorous, and responsive teacher. She brings to her work a formidable intelligence in both body & brain, and rigor in both physical practice & thought process. And she brings her whole self — including her wealth of experience as a performer, improviser, and creator — to all aspects of her teaching practice.” Stephanie Skura, founder of Open Source Forms
“As a performer and creator Susanna plumbs the depths of breath, movement and voice integration, following its pull towards physical-emotional story-telling. She is also a leader and a collaborator who brings transparency and vulnerability to her approach with students by being in and modelling her own ongoing process while guiding them….I have come to know Susanna as a skilled, conscientious, compassionate, nurturing, curious and confident teacher; her body is a library of synthesized experience.” – Fides Krucker, founder of Emoitionally Integrated Voice
~ Photos by Sarah Bild
~ Photos Stéphanie Fromentin
Program notes
SONGS IN THE WORK :
“I’ll Fly Away” by/de Albert E. Brumley
“My Girl (Gone, gone, gone)” by/de Brian MacLeod and/et Bill Henderson of/de Chilliwack
“What’ll I do” by/de Irving Berlin
“I Want You (She’s so Heavy)” by/de Lennon-McCartney of/de The Beatles
THANK YOUS:
A creative work exists only with the collaboration of many. In this, I have been blessed by the helping hands, eyes, ears and hearts of the following people and organizations.
La Poêle; Quartz-Scène nationale de Brest for the use of their studios / pour le prêt de leurs studios; le soutien de/ the support of la Chapelle Dérézo – Lieu d’Expérimentation artistique à Brest; Plages Magnétiques; Scott Thomson; Fides Krucker; Martin Tétreault; Spike Taylor; Philip Szporer; Adèle Raux-Copin; Marie Lévêque; Carl Ferguson; Yvan Velard; Isabelle Chauvin; Erwan Massiot; Christophe Rocher; Raphaël Foisy-Couture; Liam Gover; Léa Boudreault; Julianna Bryson; Nate Yaffe & Bernard Martin for early explorations in the context of Montréal Danse Choreographic Workshop / pour des explorations préliminaires dans le cadre de l’atelier chorégraphique de Montréal Danse; Thomas Plischke for the initial spark / pour l’étincelle initiale; mon équipe admin/promo/design Stephanie and Lucy; my artistic collaborators and midwives / mes collaborateurices et “sages-femmes” artistiques Thea, Sarah, Sylvie, and Fred; my Dad, Michael Hood; and my Mum, Ruth Evelyn Hood (1933-2019).
BIOGRAPHIES
Susanna Hood
Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal-based performer, maker and teacher in both dance and music, Susanna Hood has devoted her career to synthesizing voice and movement, creating intimate, sensual and dynamic performances both in dance-theatre and improvised music contexts. Founder of her interdisciplinary performance company hum dansoundart (2000-2013) her work has been marked by significant collaborations with musical artists Nilan Perera, John Oswald, and Scott Thomson.
Recent creations have been driven by her own musical compositions arranging voices, instruments and movement. Other collaborations of note include Tortues Vapeur, a duo with Montreal turntablist, Martin Tétreault, mixing turntables, electronics, synthesizers, vocals and objects (DAME’s Mikroclimat label, 2019); and unPacked, the first project by her trio with Toronto/Tkaronto musicians Tania Gill (piano) and Kayla Milmine (soprano saxophone), released as a recording in 2024 on Quebec’s DAME/Ambiances Magnétiques label. With Scott Thomson, she also released Applications on the Rat-drifting label (2024). In 2008, Susanna received the Canada Council Victor Martin Lynch-Staunton Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Dance.
Frederic Bargeon-Briet
I’m a musician, double bass player and improviser. As a double bassist, I have played a variety of music, including jazz, classical and contemporary music, as well as some so-called ‘traditional’ music; this has enabled me to approach my instrument in different ways and to feel rich from having developed a wide-ranging instrumental technique. I teach double bass. I also teach musical improvisation, while as a ‘performer’ improviser, nourished by internal art practices, I develop a ‘non-voluntary’ approach to the act of improvising, an approach based on the ability to observe, to listen to the soundscape and to be simply its medium.
Attracted by the sounds of the world and committed to an attitude of deep listening that this implies, the world of sound, the experience of radio, phonography and the art of electro-acoustic sound creation are all areas that link me to music in a more intimate way.
Thea Patterson
Thea Patterson, is a choreographer, performer, dramaturge, and researcher currently based in Tiohti:áke/Montreal. Her practice revolves around a sophisticated performance practice working with an acute set of questions around the nature of objecthood, perception, vitality, and time. Her work has been presented in Canada, Europe and the US. She has also provided dramaturgical counsel for many independent choreographers including Peter Trosztmer, Andrew Turner, Nate Yaffe, Winnie Ho, Sasha Kleinplatz, Sarah Bild, Karen Fennel, Lois Brown and Katie Ward. She completed her Masters at DAS Choreography (2016 Amsterdam) and is currently a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at the University of Alberta.
Sylvie Tourangeau
Sylvie Tourangeau is considered a pioneer of performance art in Canada. Performative actions, relational art and rituals of circumstance are all practices in which she is deeply invested. She has expertise in individual and group coaching for practitioners who contribute to the expansion of the performing arts, and is also a lecturer at the Université de Sherbrooke.
Sarah Bild
Montreal movement artist Sarah Bild follows an intuitive stream of physical imagery to create deeply textured works of dance, presented for the last 30 years across Canada. In 2015, her 50+ project addressed the representation of the aging female body on stage. In 2016, Sarah Bild began performing her research in outdoor locations with Wall Series. In She Wanted (2019), an intimate solo performed around a table for just two spectators at a time, Bild shares a personal story evoking motherhood, art practice and fleeting time. The piece was presented nearly 90 times between 2019 and 2022.
More recently, she inhabited derelict urban and rural spaces to investigate sense of place in collaboration with photo/videographer Caroline Hayeur. Their choreographic film Le Poids du lieu, was presented at the 42nd FIFA arts film festival in Montreal in March 2024 and continues to tour in film festivals around the world. Sarah Bild is the first improviser certified to teach the Action Theater technique in Quebec. She teaches regularly at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal and the Université de Montréal, and is a guest choreographer and teacher at several dance training schools across Canada.