A Multidisciplinary Artist
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I am a multidisciplinary artist, presently creating dance performances, writing, and making videos. My career has been an exploration of the architecture of cultural transmission. My practice is site and project specific. It is fuelled by consensual decision making, and the honesty, social engagement and rigour involved in collaboration. I believe that art and life are interdependent. I am an anarcho-eco-feminist. I am transgender, and I use female pronouns.
Some of the photos of my work at right link to my pre-2010 CV, under my previous name. www.bantjes.com/michael I studied Fine Arts at the U of S from 1979-83, but did not graduate. I began my career in 1980 as a sculptor with a collaborative art Happening which included a 50 foot tall wild oat sculpture I made from Monsanto wild oat herbicide cans. My documentation of the event was selected for the Mendel Open Juried Exhibition of that year. In 1982-83 my site-specific installation, including 9 life sized concrete figures, was commissioned by the Saskatchewan Government for permanent display in the TC Douglas building in Regina. |
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From 1983 to 2011 I designed sets, costumes, lighting and video for Persephone Theatre, 25 Street Theatre, Theatre Ecstasis and Tant per Tant in Canada and for the National Theatre of Catalonia, Teatre OM, and Els Joglars in Spain.
In 1986 I began designing exhibits for the Western Development Museum, which I did under various contracts until 1990.
From 1990 to 2002 I specialized as Theatre Consultant for the renovation and construction of theatre buildings, including the second stage of the National Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona from 1994-97 and the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon from 1999-2002.
From 1997 to 2000 I developed and taught a post-secondary course on the history and design of performance space for students of direction at the Institute of Theatre of Barcelona.
In 1996 I began to work with digital media, collaborating with La Fura dels Baus (Barcelona) on Emerging Patterns, shown simultaneously in Regina and Saskatoon through an early broadband digital connection. Since that time I have created audio and video content for performances as well as a 20 minute documentary, Transqueery, which was screened at Paved Arts in Saskatoon and the Queer City Cinema International Film Festival in Regina in 2013.
In 2001 I created my first solo performance, Demultiplexing Poetry, a call for artists to examine the ownership and control of cultural transmission, at the CARFAC AGM in Saskatoon, using video projection, props and costumes.
In 2002 I was hired by the Western Development Museum as full time exhibits designer. I was terminated without cause in 2011. This led to my involvement as an activist in the struggle to win protection for gender identity under the Saskatchewan Code of Human Rights.
From 2005 until the present I have studied dance and movement, completing over 600 hours of professional training in Contact Improv, Modern, Ballet and Mime in Canada and Spain.
In 2009 choreographer Kyle Syverson and I founded KSAMB Dance Company. Our work is engaged, life affirming and feminist. Since that time we have performed over 30 original shows of dance based site specific movement theatre. Our most recent work, Trust Us? Here, Now, was performed for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon 2019.
In 1986 I began designing exhibits for the Western Development Museum, which I did under various contracts until 1990.
From 1990 to 2002 I specialized as Theatre Consultant for the renovation and construction of theatre buildings, including the second stage of the National Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona from 1994-97 and the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon from 1999-2002.
From 1997 to 2000 I developed and taught a post-secondary course on the history and design of performance space for students of direction at the Institute of Theatre of Barcelona.
In 1996 I began to work with digital media, collaborating with La Fura dels Baus (Barcelona) on Emerging Patterns, shown simultaneously in Regina and Saskatoon through an early broadband digital connection. Since that time I have created audio and video content for performances as well as a 20 minute documentary, Transqueery, which was screened at Paved Arts in Saskatoon and the Queer City Cinema International Film Festival in Regina in 2013.
In 2001 I created my first solo performance, Demultiplexing Poetry, a call for artists to examine the ownership and control of cultural transmission, at the CARFAC AGM in Saskatoon, using video projection, props and costumes.
In 2002 I was hired by the Western Development Museum as full time exhibits designer. I was terminated without cause in 2011. This led to my involvement as an activist in the struggle to win protection for gender identity under the Saskatchewan Code of Human Rights.
From 2005 until the present I have studied dance and movement, completing over 600 hours of professional training in Contact Improv, Modern, Ballet and Mime in Canada and Spain.
In 2009 choreographer Kyle Syverson and I founded KSAMB Dance Company. Our work is engaged, life affirming and feminist. Since that time we have performed over 30 original shows of dance based site specific movement theatre. Our most recent work, Trust Us? Here, Now, was performed for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon 2019.