Presenting:
Dawn Monette
Here’s a little bit about her:
Dawn Monette juggles obsessively. After 10 years of practice she realized that such skill was not worth much unless you had an audience and began to learn about performance, mostly through the art of busking. One weekend, she attended the University of Victoria juggling festival and was greatly inspired by her new peers. She then transferred into a Bachelor of Social Work program at UVic and with a team, created the UVic Juggling Festival of 2008 & 2009. She returned to Vancouver, where she and her circus colleagues began the MadSkillz Prop Manipulation festival, a volunteer coordinated festival built for the community of circus performance artists on the West Coast of Canada. Most recently, Dawn toured around South America with a documentary called The Busking Project, whom filmed all varieties of street performers throughout the world. Also, she helped organize Vancouver First International Busker’s Festival of 2012. Dawn’s favorite project is SPARK! Circus, a volunteer organization that spreads joy and play through the refugee camps of Northern Thailand.
And here’s how she answered my 6 questions about creativity:
What does it mean to you to be creative?
Being creative is to be human. Every person is creating in some way or another. Creation is a birth. Mothers are the greatest creators of all; working at the art of motherhood is a lifetime achievement. I am not a mother, but I am a juggler, a stilt walker, a fire spinner, a hairstylist and an event coordinator by trade. I have many more hobbies like photography and filmmaking. This all connects me to my humanness, in a variety of ways, with each art piece and each practice session birthing a new moment, idea, or sensation.
What triggers your creativity?
Community, love (cliché, I know), saying yes, having a productive space to create and music.
What hinders your creativity?
Authority figures, bureaucratic processes, teachers of all ilk.
What’s the wildest journey your venturesome spirit has taken you on?
The Busking Project was the wildest by far. Through a series of 7 countries, we slept on couches throughout South America, meeting clowns and musicians of all kinds. We were in the middle of the Santiago riots; I almost drowned in Rio getting caught in a riptide on the most beautiful beach; The Southern Hemisphere’s galaxies was explained to me and my team as they took stop motion photography of the earth’s rotation; I rode a horse through the ruins of Peru in my gold statue costume; I saw a Shaman in Bolivia; and lastly, by surprise landed in a clown convention in Rio De Jainero. This night at the convention ended by these beautiful water ducts, when a samba band began practicing and I started hooping to their live drum beats as the rain poured down and the lightning added fireworks to the background. It was an Epic journey.
What does being bold and provocative mean to you?
Being honest or being yourself, speaking up, saying no, taking charge and asking for what you want, taking the stage, performing on a street corner and asking someone out on a date are all bold and provocative acts as a woman. I’ve never been one to toe the line.
What’s next for you?
In the next year I intend on Completing my Social Work Degree, running community festivals, creating more videos, breaking world records and refining my newest idea: juggling the alphabet
And here’s something that inspires Dawn’s creativity:
The Busking Project is amazingly inspiring because of the breadth of scope of their video archive of performance artists around the world.
Thank you for sharing your gold self with the world Dawn!
Check out more about Dawn on her website: www.dawndreams.ca
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