About:

vîv began as eight artists who agreed to work as a collective to re-create the underlying conditions and working methods in dance. We've been rethinking how we practice and train together, how we build community, and how we create dance through joy and collaboration. In the Bay Area, we've started PEER Practices, a non-hierarchical dance training model that challenges the teacher-student dynamic. Using PEER Practices as the base from which we build our collaboration, we commission work from choreographers we collectively agree to support. We organize, raise funds, and make art. We’re pioneering new ways of making art and a life in dance. Dancer powered dance. This past fall we commissioned OUROBOROS(8) from la ALTERNATIVA, under the artistic direction of Kathleen Hermesdorf and the musical direction of Albert Mathias. The project centers on the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros, a serpent eating its tail that appears across many cultures and religious traditions. In our creative process, we dove into the multiple layers of meaning of this symbol, from the cyclical nature of birth and death, to the snake-like qualities of undulation and shedding skin. As a symbol of recreation, the Ouroboros directly connects to our mission to re-create the underlying conditions and working methods in dance. We are the source of our own motivation and we aim to sustain ourselves artistically and financially.

http://withviv.com