{"id":28229,"date":"2020-12-10T20:49:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T01:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28229"},"modified":"2020-12-10T20:49:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T01:49:30","slug":"flight2-takes-wing-virtually-at-the-aurora-cultural-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/flight2-takes-wing-virtually-at-the-aurora-cultural-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"flight2 takes wing \u2013 virtually \u2013 at the Aurora Cultural Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Muhammad Ali once famously once likened his moves in the ring to a butterfly \u2013 before going in with the sting. For him, the winged insects were a symbol of grace and movement, almost like a dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Cultural Centre is using the butterfly as another basis of comparison, this time with professional dance, with the continuation of their virtual \u201cflight2\u201d exhibition, which has now been extended through February 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

flight2<\/sup> brings together the work of award-winning artists Gordon Becker, who is presenting evocative sculptures of dancers, and Grazyna Tonkiel, whose drawings of butterflies show exactly why she refers to them as \u201cmystic creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth butterflies and dancers may seem delicate but their endurance skills are incredible and they find the strength to go beyond what might be expected,\u201d said curator Clare Bolton in a statement. \u201cThe exquisite artwork in flight\u00b2 is the perfect example of artists testing their own limits of expression and striving for what seems impossible. It is my hope that this exhibition will inspire you during these challenging times and make you aware of the beauty and joy all around us in both Nature and in our own abilities to go beyond the expected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going beyond the expected is something Becker very much strives for in his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He first remembers a passion for carving and sculpture at the age of 11 living just outside Waterloo where he was fed a steady diet of films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. One particular film charted the creative process of an Inuit sculptor who took \u201can ordinary lump of stone and just started bashing away with axes, hatchets and files.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end, he held up this image just loaded down with magic and power,\u201d he says. \u201cI went home and told my parents, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a carver,\u2019 and that Christmas I got a little set of carving tools as a gift. That is when I started and it has never really stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he has studied in stone, bronze and steel, wood is Becker\u2019s preferred medium<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a living material and it is also unpredictable,\u201d he says. \u201cIt also has a certain fragility that others don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grace of dancers on stage might give the suggestion of fragility, but significant strength is there below the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery movement [the dancers] make is absolutely at the limit of what they can possibly do as a human being and the butterflies live their entire existence at the edge,\u201d he says. They are moving at the very limit of what they can do. In fact, they go way beyond what we think they should be able to do looking at how fragile they are. It is a similar kind of dynamic where the dancer is going to what we call \u2018threshold.\u2019 There is nothing left when they finish their dance, or when they come down from a leap and they land. They think, \u2018that\u2019s it. There\u2019s no more energy left,\u2019 and off they go again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is drawn, he says, to images of dancers caught in extraordinary and impressive positions that last just for a fraction of a second. \u201cThen the work starts,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the case of this particular series, it is my own innovation in trying to use materials nobody has ever done before and I don\u2019t think anybody is going to try again either, because it is so bloody difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope they walk away with a sense of having witnessed something that is beyond what you would normally expect a human being to be able to do. Dancers do that. How do they make those moves? How can they possibly do that? Butterflies do the same thing. How can they possibly do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next week, Ms. Tonkiel helps address that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on flight2<\/sup>, the virtual and interactive exhibition, and a full gallery of works presently installed at Town Hall and up for sale, visit auroraculturalcentre.ca\/flight2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Muhammad Ali once famously once likened his moves in the ring to a butterfly \u2013 before going in with the sting. For him, the winged insects were a symbol of grace and movement, almost like a dance. The Aurora Cultural Centre is using the butterfly as another basis of comparison, this time with professional dance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/2020-12-10-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7lj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 12:29:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}