“The shift that occurs between what you see – people breathing, myself breathing – and the image it brings to your imagination – the sea – is what interests me as an artist,” she shares. “They are two non-correlative signifiers, sea and breath, which becomes interchangeable.”

“[Okariz’s] economical approach, using the barest of means, creates something unexpectedly profound, revealing how minimal elements can carry deep meaning and sensory weight,” adds Susan Gibb, executive director of Western Front.

Okariz will also host a series of workshops with current students and recent alumni of Emily Carr University of Art + Design. These workshops celebrate the school’s 100-year anniversary.

Until the full dream emerges

“The school’s namesake, Emily Carr, was profoundly influenced by her own dreams, which felt like rich material to explore in relation to the anniversary year and for students to consider in their own practices,” says Gibb.

The executive director discovered Okariz’s work while living in Europe. Gibb remarks how the artist’s practice “stood out,” embodying the Basque region’s “strong cultural identity and vibrant art scene.”

The upcoming live performance comprises two works. The first one, Dream Diary, draws from the artist’s recollections of her dreams. Okariz describes it as a performance that “stems from discomfort” – of using someone else’s words.

The artist has been keeping a dream journal after performing Chapter 2 VW, a work that featured “a subtraction of words.”

“Dreams have the circumstance of being contingent; I have no control over them,” she shares.

According to Gibb, this piece transforms the artist’s dreams into “fragmented, cyclical readings,” multiplying, inverting and connecting its different phases until the “full dream emerges.”

“What interests me about Dream Diary is not the personal, the subjective, but rather the plural, the collective, the collective imagination of dreaming, the very human activity of dreaming,” Okariz adds.

The second work, Ocean Breath, is a collaboration between the artist and her daughter. The piece uses the yogic technique of ujjayi breathing or “oceanic breathing” – which Okariz sees as resembling sounds of the sea.

“She carries the weight of the performance; she is the backbone,” the artist shares of her daughter’s role, adding that their actions on stage is also a conversation or chorus.

Okariz has been a yoga practitioner for many years; she is also a yoga instructor. The focus of the performance is on human breath and one’s perception of it. This breath technique merges the physical sensation of breathing with its meditative experience, leading to hearing and visualizing the sea.

“It is important to understand that there are two bodies producing that sound live, right now,” Okariz emphasizes. “You are simply hearing them breathe.”

The sounds of breath

“Breath is amplified and layered through microphones, shifting between syncopation and variation, and evoking the rhythm of the sea,” says Gibb.

The executive director adds that Okariz’s work resonates with Western Front’s vision of presenting “groundbreaking performance art” – a legacy that is now 50 years and counting. Another goal of the organization is to foster international, cultural exchanges.

“As a highly regarded performance artist, Okariz’s explorations of language, sound and the body continue the experimental lineage we have championed, connecting local audiences with innovative practices from around the world,” Gibb adds.

For Okariz, both performances engage with the concept of identity. She sees her work as navigating “an identity reduced to a subject” – her own dreams – and dreams of other living beings.

“One speaker plays the sound of one person’s breathing, and the other speaker plays the breathing of the other person,” the artist adds of the second performance. “This allows you to identify where each voice is coming from, and you can recognize that each breath is different, that each voice is different.”

Gibb sees their Grand Luxe Hall’s “warm acoustics and intimate setting” as allowing audiences to fully engage with the “subtlety and nuance” of this work.

“You see yourself reflected in that sound, your breathing is almost like in a mirror,” the artist says. “It makes you aware of the collective experience, of all the bodies breathing, here, in this moment.”

For more information, see https://westernfront.ca/events/dream-diary-and-ocean-breath