Darcy McMurray & Emma Metcalfe Hurst
Interview for Coming Out of Chaos: A Vancouver Dance Story

September 17, 2020

Darcy McMurray, Dance artist, Pilates instructor, collaborator on Karen Jamieson’s Body to Body piece

Emma Metcalfe Hurst, Karen Jamieson Dance Archivist/Creative Director of Coming Out of Chaos

This oral history interview has been edited for length, clarity, and accuracy

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Tell me about your background entering into contemporary dance and your training.

Darcy McMurray: I started dancing at the age of four. My training was mainly in classical ballet until about the age of thirteen. At that time, I joined Downstreams Youth Dance Company and started focusing more on contemporary dance. I still had a strong ballet focus until I was about eighteen years old and then I had to quit due to some broken bones in my feet. That brought me to look into alternate careers. I chose to do my Pilates training at that time, and with that training, there was a strong need to learn anatomy. I started my studies in anatomy around nineteen years old, and it's become a passion of mine. So my dance training and anatomy training are strongly influenced by each other. I just had my second child, so I'm not dancing much right now, but I know that the education I have will keep me moving for my whole life.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Could you talk more about your relationship between dance and anatomy?

Darcy McMurray: Sure. I chose to do my Pilates training due to injuries, so it wasn't really a choice I had planned on making at that time. I was just entering into the professional dance scene and I had quite a few physical issues going on that led me to be in a lot of pain. It felt crucial for me to gain an understanding of what was happening anatomically so I could get out of the emotional state that chronic pain induces. It's been invaluable as a dancer to be able to come away from the emotions of being in pain and to try and intellectualize them instead, so that I can gain more understanding and then bring it back into my body without being so triggered, or confused. As I embody the knowledge I gain wisdom and then I try to pass the information back into the world.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Very interesting. How do you find a balance between the emotionality and the physicality in your dance?

Darcy McMurray: I have a passion for the human form. I work with people, and study their embodiment, and their anatomy. As I continue my studies in dance and anatomy, I'm very much intrigued about how our emotional states, or essentially our psychology, lands in our bodies and manifests in postures, habits and movements.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That's a really beautiful and reciprocal approach. My understanding is that you also had a pilates studio, Full Circle Studio, right?

Darcy McMurray: Yes, I owned and operated a studio from 2008-2021.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I assume Pilates is a big part of your practice then. Could you talk a bit about that?

Darcy McMurray: When I did my Pilates training in 2000, soon after, I ended up becoming an instructor trainer for a company called Stott Pilates, therefore part of my work is to train Pilates instructors. I traveled internationally for about five or six years, training instructors and developing curriculum for that company. Then I wanted to ground a little bit and come closer to my family, so I moved back to the West Coast and I ended up opening a studio in 2008. I had a core group of about ten instructors working there, and my role besides owner/operator was training, certifying, and getting pilates instructors out in the world.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What is the kind of teaching philosophy that you practice at Full Circle?

Darcy McMurray: My studio was called Full Circle Studio - Movement Arts, as I wanted to focus on more than simply Pilates. I tried to tie in, within my mandate, part of my artistic philosophies. I was also curious about how one could practice mindfulness, as one practices movement, so that one fosters the ability to take in externally as we focus internally, hopefully creating a more holistic integration of self. My studio also functioned as an art gallery. I'd say that my studio ended up being rehab focused too, so it was less exercise-based and more a safe healing place. It was important for me to create a space where we not only had the capacity to heal ourselves, but where we were also encouraged to expand our perceptions of why and how we move in this world.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I guess that's also you bringing in and applying your knowledge of anatomy as well.

Darcy McMurray: Of course. All my instructors had a strong understanding of anatomy. It was crucial for the type of clientele that we had coming through the door, because often they're dealing with issues that the basic exercises alone would not answer.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, bodies are incredibly complex. They tie together our emotional states, as well as all the habits that we've learned. There can be a huge unlearning process that has to occur after injury. It's a mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging process.

Darcy McMurray: Indeed.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I was also wondering about your personal influences.

Darcy McMurray: In terms of my personal influences, as a mover, I'm strongly influenced by the world around us. It's important for me to have access to nature, and natural, quiet surroundings. It's where I find I'm the most nourished. So that, for me, helps complete the spectrum of health and joy.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That kind of natural space is so important and sometimes hard to find here in Vancouver. Could you talk a little bit about the creative atmosphere of the Vancouver contemporary dance scene today?

Darcy McMurray: I think that Vancouver's has had an amazing progression into collaborative work, and this has informed the contemporary scene strongly in the last few decades. It's been incredible to see the dance scene take a broader scope through focusing on collaboration.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Would you say there's a strong interdisciplinary element as well?

Darcy McMurray: Yes, I guess that's what I'm alluding to. I feel some of the stronger works that are emerging these days are interdisciplinary and have focused on collaboration through interdisciplinary mediums.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, as someone who is a bit of an outsider to the dance community, or is peripherally involved, I can already see from the perspective that collaboration is really strong. Could you talk a little bit more in detail about why you think that may be, or why collaboration is currently so present?

Darcy McMurray: Part of me wondered if the dance scene was falling flat a bit for a while. It seemed like dancers were watching dancers, and that there wasn't anyone else coming to the shows. The shift into more collaborative works seemed a natural progression of where the future of dance was going, as well as a need to send the tendrils further than they had been reaching. The dance scene was kind of a closed, tight-knit community. So the shift seemed to broaden the scope of who might come to shows, and who might be interested in watching dance in general. I think these issues came to a head and it forced the scene to broaden, and in turn, enriched the contemporary dance scene.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That seems like a healthy thing in the end. Considering where you're drawing your personal influences from, it seems like there’s a more holistic understanding of dance that's starting to open up as well. I'm curious about why that may be and how you see that continuing on? Are there folks you know of who are pushing those ideas of what collaboration even is, or unpacking what a collaboration means?

Darcy McMurray: I think we're at an interesting time, presently, to push or shift our ideas of what we might have chosen to do in the next couple of years. I'm not sure what the scene holds right now [during the Covid-19 pandemic], but I think and hope, that however the dust settles, some of the skills and the forced pivoting is going to leave whoever's left in the community, stronger and more resilient, and possibly more diverse “artists” than just simply “dancers.”

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Within the Vancouver context, what do you think are some of the main conditions that are driving dance work right now?

Darcy McMurray: I think that this generation is trying to wrap their heads around social and economic infrastructures and influences. We've come to a place where we're at a crux and it's crucial that choices shift, politics shift, and interpersonal relationships shift and develop, so that humanity can move forward in a healthy way. In terms of Vancouver, space is a luxury. I see people choosing smaller groups, smaller working relationships, because there's not the luxury of big open spaces, and there’s not the multitude of spaces that there has been in the past. I worry about that issue for the up-and-coming dancers and the dance scene. Vancouver's getting tighter and tighter in terms of what's economically feasible, and dance inherently needs space and safe working spaces. I question the overall health of the arts community in Vancouver, as things constrict, what resources will be available for artists.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, I also wonder how we begin to absorb those experiences you’re talking about into our own bodies as well. Being in an urban context that is constantly expanding upwards and getting tighter and tighter, and denser and denser. What ways do we store that as an embodied experience?

Darcy McMurray: Right, we develop our habitus as we move through this world.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So, one of the main things you talked about that is inhibiting dance work is space. Are there other influential factors, maybe around funding, or how funding bodies have changed, to sustain practices, or not?

Darcy McMurray: As we know, the arts is always in a tenuous situation in this country. I do worry about what the ripple effect will be, of all this government support that's gone out through the pandemic. I imagine we're going to see a lot of cuts. I do worry about the art scene and art funding. I think one of the biggest struggles for artists is to be able to have time to percolate ideas and time to explore more extensive concepts. Funding ends up being so segmented and sectional: you get a chunk [of money] and then you end up trimming the ideas down to work with what you’ve got. I wonder about the artist’s opportunity to explore more spacious, expansive thoughts when our funding is quite constricted.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Where would you say your contemporary dance community is physically located?

Darcy McMurray: I'd say that the contemporary dance community is strongly based out of Vancouver. That is where the hub of the B.C. scene is.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: And then more specifically, where do people tend to go? You've talked about how your studio operates as an art gallery, and also functions as a training school, but do you also rent it out to people, as independent artists?

Darcy McMurray: I imagined renting my studio out for dance. I did have some dancers use it, and I've used it for small-scale rehearsals, but the floor is not suitable enough for long-term dance use. I just couldn't afford to do a sprung floor. In terms of long-term dance use, it's really crucial to be on good flooring. The Dance Centre is an amazing facility in Vancouver, and is one of the most widely used spaces and places that's absolutely incredible. It's always fun to go there and run into the community, so you've got to give yourself extra time if you're heading into that building to connect, chat, and catch up. The Left of Main is also an incredible space that's opened up through collaboration. I often see people using theatre spaces to work and work in collaboration. Then I see the dancing moving outside more, which is great, but it's also a sign that there could be a lack of indoor spaces and funding.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Are those outdoor spaces typically in public areas? Or are they private?

Darcy McMurray: I see dancers using more public spaces to move in, like parks and open, grassy spaces, anywhere really.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Your work with Karen Jamieson is extensive. I was doing prep research and it looks like you two have had a really long working relationship. Almost twenty years or so now?

Darcy McMurray: I guess so. Yeah. Time flies....

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So how did you get involved with Karen Jamieson Dance?

Darcy McMurray: When I moved back to Vancouver, I was trying to get dance work and Karen offered an audition. I went and that's the first time I had met her.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Did you know about her work prior?

Darcy McMurray: I had heard of her and I knew of her, but actually didn't know that much about her work.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So, you’ve gotten to know her through just working with her then. Going through these old pieces. When you went into that initial audition, what were you auditioning for?

Darcy McMurray: We were auditioning for a remount of Sisyphus. I didn't know what I was getting into. The work is very physical, that is a source of joy for me. It was an amazing audition. I loved it. Tons of jumping, tons of leaping, we learnt this whole cool jumping scene and jumping sequence. I realized that I was going to enjoy this work a lot if I got accepted.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Could you speak a little bit about the way that you went about learning the Sisyphus piece?

Darcy McMurray: It was interesting because I actually got taken on as an apprentice at that point. Because I didn't have a specific role in the piece, I got to move around and did several different roles: when we needed to pull someone out, or when someone was sick. I learned many aspects of the piece. During the process, I also had the opportunity to work as an outside eye, like a rehearsal director with Karen [Jamieson], so I would help tighten up the form, or go through the counts, so I had a strong understanding that piece from several different angles. On the last night of the run at the Roundhouse, one of the dancers ripped her achilles, and so a couple hours before the last performance, I had to insert myself into the piece. It's an intense piece so it was a pretty stressful situation for me. but I dove in, and I felt empowered because I had been working alongside Karen [Jamieson], like a Rehearsal Director throughout that process. From that time on, we worked together often and I worked in many roles with Karen [Jamieson], as a dancer, a rehearsal director, an outside eye and a collaborator.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Were there commonalities between your own and Karen [Jamieson]'s practice that you saw emerge throughout your time working together?

Darcy McMurray: Well, Karen has a very different approach to movement and physicality than I do, but as we started to learn from each other – as I started to learn from her – it was clear that although she was coming at movement from a completely different perspective, we also noticed that there were many intersecting points. As we worked, I would speak about the anatomy that I understood, as Karen [Jamieson] introduced some of the energetic points on the body. We started to get quite interested in where our trainings met, as we weaved our concepts together. We interlaced the energetic body with scientific anatomy and found they often are reflective of each other, so you can speak about the same thing in different ways. We are quite interested in how we could continually weave this information together.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Was there a particular point, or experience, where you felt like you had a mutual understanding, or realization of where those two forms of knowledge could come together and unite in a powerful way?

Darcy McMurray: Karen [Jamieson] would often start her dance rehearsals in the times we worked with a standing meditation. She would guide the entire company through a half-an-hour or forty minute standing meditation. It was through that practice that I started to contemplate my understanding of anatomy with the information that I was receiving from Karen [Jamieson]'s practice, and so those meditations prompted my first musings with where this information, this collection of information, might intersect. It wasn't until years later that we started to dialogue around it and through that, Karen [Jamieson] became curious of how anatomy intersects with all of the training and practices that she has.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: To dive a bit more into some of the projects that you have worked on with Karen, there's Sisyphus and then the next work that you worked on with Karen [Jamieson] was the Solo From Chaos, in 2008, right?

Darcy McMurray: Oh, right. Yeah. Karen [Jamieson] asked if I'd be interested in learning Solo from Chaos, so we began the process together of re-learning this piece. I was trying to recreate what Karen had invented or manifested at the time of creating that work. That was the first remount of Solo From Chaos, which we took on tour throughout BC, and later re-worked and performed at The Dance Centre in another iteration, as a duet.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What was it like to re-stage a piece like that?

Darcy McMurray: For Solo From Chaos, at the time, in 2008, we were trying to work a lot from video. I was really trying to see what she had created before and to see if I could recreate that as true as possible. It was a piece that has huge meaning for me. It was a time in my life where there were a lot of transformations going on, and the piece created a through-line along with that. I performed it on tour and have re-visited it in other iterations throughout the years. I started to have a sense of embodiment of the piece, it morphed from something that I was trying to recreate, to a piece that I was trying to source. I have a lot of joy with that piece.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What was it like to work with Karen [Jamieson]? Was there a mentorship process that kind of came out of it? Did she have similar objectives in trying to recreate it as true to its original form as possible?

Darcy McMurray: During the time of the first remount, I think we were trying to source out the best videos to recreate the piece, and if the video didn't land and in what her memory was, we'd work on what the intention was in person. She's amazing to work with because her work is so intentional. If something was unclear, we would contemplate the root of the intention through discussion and memories.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: So, in the way that you went about recreating this piece, there's the discussion element to it, there's the watching of the archival footage, is it also watching [Karen Jamieson] do it live?

Darcy McMurray: Yeah, Karen [Jamieson] would definitely start to go through the piece and talk about what it was, and how how she remembered doing it, and she was able physically to still do the majority of it along with putting herself way up on the ladder, and starting to show me what she had imagined. If we couldn't see on the [archival] video because it was so grainy, or in the dark, she’d work off of memory. When we recreated it as a duet later on, we were also playing with the idea of older and younger, of time, space and shifts. We recreated the piece however we were able to physicalize and manifest the movement within ourselves at that time. It was like going through a photo album, you could witness before and after, now and then.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: There's something really interesting about trying to embody someone else's past work from twenty to thirty years ago. It’s inevitable to mark it with your own experiences. Have you worked with dance archives in other ways to produce work?

Darcy McMurray: Yeah, a lot actually. I've learnt many, many things off of video. It's not the most pleasurable experience [laughs]. It's quite different when you have the artist in front of you, and with you in person, so if anything feels unclear, or the intention is hard to grasp, you can brainstorm and bounce ideas around. As you know, we looked at this work again, just recently [Body to Body], and it was a very different approach that Karen [Jamieson] took this time, so as to really try and drop down into what was the true essence of the work. That was an interesting process. We did use video to understand how the piece was structured, and what movements were used, but it was amazing to be able to distill the work into what felt like a true essence, or how we understood it, as dancers, as interpreters and as artists. It was not so much trying to recreate what had been done before, versus using the structure of the piece as a tool to understand the intention of the creation.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: If I remember correctly, one of the new understandings that emerged from the recent Body to Body: Solo from Chaos re-creation was the duet element to it. It seems like the way that you approached it was, as you said, about finding the essence or the elementary components of the work, and that started to bring out these new understandings of it which also gave room for play.

Darcy McMurray: When I originally learned the piece in 2008, with Karen [Jamieson], Pepe Danza did the vocal score that Ahmed Hassan had originally created for the piece. When Pepe and I performed the piece, it very much felt like a duet was happening, live between dancer and musician. When the piece was taken on tour, we used a recording. It was a very different experience performing this piece which had no counts, no music, only breath and sound as a score. The movement is mainly set to a rhythm of breath, which needs to be sourced in the moment, intentionally, and therefore, it tends to flatten the piece when done to a recording because you've got another part of your mind trying to pay attention to something that really has nothing to do with the piece. When Josh Martin, Amber Funk Barton, and myself had the opportunity to look at the piece again, Josh Martin brought up the idea that the dancers could try doing the breath and creating the sound score. It seemed like a fun idea at the time, and as we started to play around with it, we realized that it was actually a crucial component of the piece, because it allowed the dancer to stay true to intentions and be supported, and carried along through the piece, as opposed to catching up and slowing down, to simply stay with the score, as you're trying to access these fundamental components of Solo From Chaos.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: If I remember correctly, you all took turns doing the breath work for each other, right? There was kind of a cyclical, vocal rotation that was really great. Then there was the experience of dance set to breath. Going back to the Body to Body project though, what's it like participating in an extended project like this? Are there new things that emerge every time you go back to re-stage one of these older works?

Darcy McMurray: One of the underlying themes in working with Karen [Jamieson] is how can one source movement? This became a question that we'd investigate repeatedly, as we explored how our modalities could weave together. As I had a long-standing relationship working with Karen [Jamieson], I too was getting older; from when I had first started working with her, to this point where it's been almost two decades of work together. I realized that this concept was going to be crucial to my health as a dancer. This exploration in the Body to Body project was also an exploration into how I imagined my longevity, as a mover. As we shared our information, we were trying to see how we can stay healthy, enjoy moving, and use this practice to feed ourselves as artists for as long as possible.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah, it's so rare that we get the opportunity to work with someone for so long, and also to return back to these former selves and these former lives. It sounds like it’s a very special project to embark upon. Now to turn to a new set of questions, what do you think has changed the most for the Vancouver contemporary dance community since Coming Out of Chaos was produced in the early ‘80s?

Darcy McMurray: In speaking with some of the elder artists, I get a sense that they had the opportunity to delve into work so completely; they were offered time to investigate, to look at how a collaboration could manifest and morph. In the contemporary scene today, artists are not given that luxury. A lot of the ideas need to be contemplated extensively and preconceived in the mind, because once the dancers are in the studio, it's a very constricted timeline. There's an efficiency, and a practicality that is constantly put into practice with contemporary dancers of this era, and not only that, but there's a whole multitude of skills that they need to acquire, so that they are securing funding, understanding how to communicate with the multitude of what is going to bring a piece together. It's amazing to see how diverse and functional the artists that are working today have become. It's a bit romantic, the luxury that had been available in the past, and it's just no longer a reality.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Through doing this project, one thing that I’ve noticed is that the dancers from Chaos really started looking at themselves, looking at their own work, and developing their own companies from there. My sense is that the focus on the self is no longer quite as strong, or that drive to develop one’s own company, with one’s own name. I see less of that individualism, and company-focus happening in the contemporary dance scene today.

Darcy McMurray: Yeah, that was quite a particular time in the Vancouver scene, when a core group went off in their own directions and they essentially created the foundation of Vancouver's dance scene. It's harder to do that these days. I just think the landscape has changed.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Do you think the way that it's going now is sustainable? Do you think it's realistic to keep doing it this way, as dancers?

Darcy McMurray: I'm not sure. I definitely have a concern for arts in general, and dance has always been on the fringe. I know that artists are among the most resilient humans on the planet, so they will always find a way. Will it be easy? I doubt it.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. It always feels like being on the verge of crisis in the arts. My background comes from the visual arts side of things, but these conversations seem to be all across the board. It’s saddening seeing the negative impacts too–the competition that emerges amongst people from within the community–

Darcy McMurray: –when there's scarcity.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: I think that’s why there’s such a strong desire for collaboration, and for this need to work together, to resist, but due to the way that funding operates, and the limited opportunities, it becomes competitive.

Darcy McMurray: Mhmm, or stifling.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: It just seems like something needs to change. As you alluded to earlier, with COVID-19, and these emergency funding opportunities that are coming forward right now, I wonder how that’s going to affect long-term funding?

Darcy McMurray: We are in an interesting time and we're all just making it up right now. We'll see how the dust settles.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: Yeah. Lastly, why is preserving Vancouver's contemporary dance history and heritage important to you?

Darcy McMurray: I think that if Vancouver's dance history and heritage is not preserved, there will be a gap in communication and information. Essentially, we know that those gaps are a way to destroy culture. If we can't continue this clear communication between the youth and the elders, and all people in-between, the arts will have an unhealthy fracture that will weaken our arts culture.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: What more do you think needs to be done to be able to preserve those histories? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that, as someone who's currently making work.

Darcy McMurray: When I recall myself as a young artist, I wasn't entirely sure how to access dance history in an engaging and dynamic way. For emerging artists, it takes so much work to simply be involved in the scene, and so much of your life is focusing on the present and your aspirations. It would have been amazing to understand where to seek out and connect with mentors. I think that if there had been information sharing sessions, or more discussion circles, it would have been so nourishing as a young artist. I wonder how those communication lines could be strengthened and promoted throughout the dance community so that we're gathering and sharing amongst the generations. It would feed everybody, I think.

Emma Metcalfe Hurst: That's all of my questions. I really appreciate your perspective and your participation in this project, Darcy. Thank you!