Triangle Collective
The Triangle Collective consists of Edgardo Moreno (Hamilton, Ontario), Coman Poon (Toronto, Ontario) and Olga Barrios (Santa Marta, Colombia). As im/migrants from Chile, Hong Kong and Colombia, each one of us has come to Canada at different moments in our lives and for varied reasons.
Ignited as an interdisciplinary and intercultural artistic collective since 2018, through a commission from the Vanguardia Dance Festival (Toronto), the co-creative and transcultural/personal conversations we are having today not only unravels and interweaves the different paths and realities that we have traveled but holds a particularly urgent and topical charge.
In the Triangle Project series, we explore how bodies are in constant dialogue across digital space and geography. Across distance, through the use of technology, we collapse and cross borders of intimacy in our artistic encounters. These exchanges, which we call ‘Art Conversations’, draw from and affect our sense of belonging and our constructions of living. Our corpo-reality shifts with sustained connection, and we allow that to circulate as triangulating ‘signals’.
As an inter-arts collective, we propose to conjoin the movements, aesthetics and sonorities of a seasoned choreographer, a visual/performance artist and a musician/composer in order to embark on a new creation entitled Triangle Project: Art & Life in the Time of COVID.
During Caminos 2021, Triangle Collective will be travelling together in Colombia. Through our project site, we will offer witnesses, readers and listeners a glimpse into the contemporary geopolitical, social and artistic landscape of Bogota, Baranquilla and the Santa Marta region through our embodied research, social interactions, artistic observations and actions. We will also be offering an artists talk/conversation as part of Caminos 2021.
Edgardo Moreno is a Hamilton based composer that has been commissioned for projects in Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Sweden, Argentina, England and USA. He has written scores for films produced by CBC, Bravo, City TV, NFB, OMNI, Ontario Arts Council, History Channel, TVO. He has worked extensively with contemporary dance choreographers creating sound design and musical scores. He is presently working in creating video and live sound pieces that are part of his Fireflyproject. His Film Double Exposure has screened in various film festival across Canada and will be part of exhibitions in Ontario in the coming months. musicamoreno.com // fireflyproject.ca
Born in Colombia, Mestiza woman Olga Barrios is choreographer, dancer, arts educator and the co-founder and co-artistic director of Vanguardia Dance Projects. Olga graduated with an MFA in Dance at York University of Toronto and has collaborated with dance, theater, musical and interdisciplinary projects in Canada, USA and Colombia. As dance teacher she has worked in Montreal, Hamilton, Kitchener, San Francisco, New Jersey and diverse cities in Colombia. Olga’s projects foster exchange between Canada and Colombia. olgabarrios.com
Intersecting with his varied inter-arts collaborations, Coman Poon is a bilingual inclusion and intercultural advocate, community and organizational developer, decolonial and indigenous ally of Hong Kong & Toronto upbringing. With Erica Mott, he co-founded re[public] in/decency (Chicago/Toronto), an arts-activist initiative and creative think tank that explored the transnational intersections between live art, social justice activism and arts-informed pedagogy. Since 2013, Coman has been collaborating with his spouse, architect and installationist Brian Smith, under the moniker of [ field ], a life/art collaboration which explores the interstitiality within ritual and performance. Becoming Ten Thousand Things is his collaboration with dancer Naishi Wang centred in contemplative Taoist performativity. With Diana Lopez Soto, Coman co-founded Land Embodiment Lab (LEL), which holds space for the intersection of agroecology, land stewardship and arts practices through research into/of labour. As artist and consultant, Coman chose to be no longer active on social media and has intentionally deleted his website.
“Facing Lake Nipissing” , still capture by Triangle Collective;
“Hanging out in Hamilton’s West Harbour”, image by Triangle Collective.