Intermedia Nights
Intermedia Nights
1969
About
Intermedia was an experimental organization of Canadian artists founded in 1967. In 1968, a four-day festival of intermedia works called Intermedia Nights was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Later, in 1970, the Vancouver Art Gallery hosted 12 Intermedia Days.
These festivals involved many artists from different disciplines exploring and experimenting with a variety of multi-media techniques and opening their work to the public.
For a conversation with Karen and others about this fascinating time for art in Vancouver, click here.
Intermedia dome show
May 19-31, 1970
“Dance Night. Helen Goodwin Dancers. Karen Rimmer up front. Under the main dome (aluminum tube) in eerie blue light struggling around the periphery of the dome.
AGON — Greek 'struggle for the prize.' Received in the next dance as the entire troupe unwinds white tape through and around the audience and as they pick it up and join the dance. All dancing, a sea of heads bobbing. People as verb. Activity. Non-object.”
- “Intermedia Makes Waves” Brad Robinson for Arts Canada Magazine, June 1970
At the Dome Show’s dance evening on May 22nd, 1970, a group of dancers performed a piece choreographed by Karen Jamieson (Rimmer) called Dance Loops.
Reviews
“Karen Rimmer’s dancers sculpted strange softnesses out of very sharp, short and simple movements. Much of the impact came from their involvement with the space in which they began, and their ability to expand it because of the intimacy of their relationship with it.
If nothing else came out of my evening, I shall always remember the realization of this intimacy, and its potentials and limitations. Particularly, I shall remember it next time I see a dance company in a conventional theatre, struggling desperately to get beyond the space it has, and trying to do things designed originally for a completely open space. Conventional theatre stages must be one of the most inhibiting things with which a contemporary choreographer has to deal.”
- James Barber
“Dancers make skilled use of space in gallery performance”
The Province, May 23, 1970
Banner photo credit: March 31, 1970. Dance Loops. The Michael de Courcy Archive.