CHOREOSENSING TORONTO'S RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBOURHOOD PUBLIC SPACES
Whether it’s urban or suburban areas in cities, public spaces in residential areas are fundamental to everyday life experiences which have been linked to well-being and quality of life of residents. Consciously or unconsciously, we connect with them through multi-sensory interactions that create overall impressions of our neighbourhood and help establish meaningful connections with the neighbourhood community. However, the drive for creating functional cities in the West through disembodied practices has detached public spaces from our bodies, instituting the stage of mutual disengagement as a retreat from everyday public spaces and deteriorating the sense of belonging to the residential neighbourhood. As a result, residents either tend to avoid connecting with public spaces altogether or resemble an ‘auto-pilot’ state manifested through their lack of sensory attention while on public spaces - they see the surrounding but do not look, they hear the surrounding but do not listen. Focusing on two most dominant senses – visual and auditory – my research develops an interdisciplinary practice which I call ‘ChoreoSensing’ that attempts to establish a deeper sensory and embodied engagement of residents with socio-spatial dimensions of their neighbourhood public spaces. The interdisciplinary practice is developed through four practice – sensory practice, choreographic practice, participatory practice and tactical urbanism practice. The purpose of my research is to empower residents to (re)awaken their sensory engagement with neighbourhood public spaces and subsequently, enhance their sense of belonging to the neighbourhood through a series of performative and grassroots initiatives.
SPECIAL THANKS
Danae Theodoridou, David Limaverde, Heleen de Hoon, Ulla Havenga, Xenia Tsompanidou, PPS peers 2022-2023, Imran Noor Mohammed, Christine Samuel, Shawn Barry, Nancy Van Rooy, Diane Silver, Dewan Karim, The Residents of Toronto Island and The Residents of Pine Ridge Neighbourhood, Pickering, Ontario, Canada.
