JAMES STRECKER: What exactly do you like about the work you create, as originator or as interpreter, or as both if such is the case?
SOFÍA ONTIVEROS: The part I enjoy most about creating is being in the studio exploring and playing with ideas. I find it is easy to get stuck with big themes/concepts/ideas in my head, but once I begin to physically create, these completely transform into something I had not fully pictured before. I love seeing where the process takes me as I expel movement into my body or other’s bodies. This is where I learn the most as a choreographer and interpreter, as I either have to adjust or let go of specific plans based on how it reads when seeing and feeling its full form.
JS: Please tell us what you want the public to know about your work in the arts. For instance, how do you yourself describe it as a significant experience in your life and why exactly do you labour to make it exist?
SO: Something I hope people can translate out of my work is the real experiences and reflections within it. My movement ideas always come out of my journal, where I write reflective texts of personal journeys. I labour to make my art exist because I have found it the most healing to create movement out of these texts. Additionally, when in community with other dancers, the concept expands further as they include their own experiences into it. I do not aim to labour my art for praise or to stake a claim. I bring my creative ideas to life for the sake of self-expression, and providing a space for people to communicate both verbally and physically. Having a safe creative space as what brings you money is just an additional, a way to take the work we do (which is a lot) seriously in this capitalist system.
JS: Please give us a brief autobiography, some stuff about yourself that is relevant to the essence of your work in the arts.
SO: I am an artist, mover, choreographer, and researcher who aims to explore my identity and others’ identities through multidisciplinary work. I was born and raised in Monterrey, México, and immigrated to Tkaronto, Ontario in 2017 to pursue my dance studies. I graduated with a BFA in Performance Dance, and a minor in Environment and Urban Sustainability at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2021. My art form is strongly influenced by my identity as a cis, queer, white, Mexican, Latina woman, questioning and exploring social constructs and how they play a role in individual and interpersonal relationships. Texts always play a part in my choreography, whether as pre-choreographic inspiration or as part of the movement. Merging and embodying texts in dance composition aids not only in the research process, but also in growth and healing. I am constantly left with important reflections post-choreographic research.
JS: In what ways is your creative work fairly easy to do and in what ways is it difficult to realize? Why is it so?
SO: Creating my work feels easy, mentally at least, once in the process. Getting to the creative process and realization is what feels extremely difficult at times, especially as an emerging artist and recent graduate. Having to juggle working a stable job that allows me to pay rent and other necessary expenses, while simultaneously figuring out ways to finance and showcase my art can be exhausting. Once I am in the studio creating, I feel more at ease. I try to not put pressure on the outcome of what I am choreographing by focusing on concept exploration more than the final product. As an emerging artist, I am also still in the process of networking and searching for training, performance, and choreography opportunities. I am still learning what I want to get out of my dance career. This is an aspect that makes creative work even harder to do. There are so many training and performance experiences I want to have besides creating my work. Juggling these opportunities while also creating work is quite difficult at times.
JS: How does doing the kind of work you do in the arts change you as a person – and as a creator?
SO: I think I did not end up being a creator because of a mere coincidence of dancing at a young age. Since I began to take my dancing seriously when I was a teenager, my mind began exploding with ideas. I have struggled with mental health issues since I was a child, and expelling this into dance was a form of releasing anxious thoughts. I could not figure out where they stemmed from at such a young age, but I knew I needed some form of emotional release even then. Now with experience and ongoing healing journeys, I realize I chose a hard, slow, yet fulfilling path for myself. Dance is not my savior anymore, but simply a tool I choose to use for expression, connection, exploration, and reflection. Dance has taught me through the years that a fast path never works for me. It has taught me to build slowly, with care and love. It has built patience, taught me my goals and dreams actually look completely different than what I once pictured.
JS: What kind of audience does your work in the arts interest? What new audience are you also seeking? Why to both questions?
SO: I think as of now, my audience is mainly contemporary dancers. I am still trying to break out of simply creating contemporary dance movements. My instincts when I explore or improvise at times still tend to follow a certain rule book, which only dancers understand most of the time. I seek to interest non-dancers with my work, by incorporating more than dance movement in my work. I am currently in a creative process where, for the first time, I am incorporating more daily human movement and verbal communication with dancers. I want my work to translate humanity, rather than a Western contemporary aesthetic. This takes work and research, so I do not expect to reach non-dancer audiences right away.
JS: What are the most important parts of yourself that you put into your work in the arts?
SO: I think the most important parts of myself I put into my work is my passion, openness, and curiosity. When I set my mind to a creative process, it is all I think about for a while. I tend to come to the studio with motif ideas and many images I thought about prior. I am passionate about creating work and I believe it shows when I talk about it in process. I have learned throughout the years to not be close-minded with certain expectations during creative processes, especially if the movement I choreograph comes from other dancers. I have also learned to be curious to how dancers interpret my choreography, and be willing to change a set idea, for the sake of exploring further something I had not seen before. These three parts of me are what have driven me to the most fulfilling work outcomes.
JS: What are your biggest challenges as a creative person in the arts?
SO: My biggest challenge as a creative person is definitely finding the right spaces for me. I think everyone thrives in different artistic environments, and not all are for everyone. I have found it challenging to find the right space because I am interested in many areas of dance and the arts in general. I never wanna close myself to one area as I wanna learn as much as I can. However, focusing in one area is necessary in order to have deeper, long-term learning. I find this challenging because I do not want to put myself in one box. I am afraid of feeling stuck in one path, fighting that fear and trusting my process has been challenging.
JS: Please describe at least one major turning point in your life that brought you to this point as a creative person in the arts.
SO: I think there have been many, but if I had to point out one it would be when I almost gave up on dance during the beginning of the pandemic. I was highly considering changing careers and not choosing this path. I was extremely discouraged, there was a time where I did not even want to dance at all. This was a major turning point for me because I had to sit with myself and really ask myself why. Through time, I realized I lived in a toxic mindset with dance. I thought dance came before anything in my life for so long. Being constricted from dancing during the pandemic was exactly what I needed to realize dancing was not the problem, the pressure of equating my art to my worth was.
JS: What are the hardest things for an outsider to understand about your life as a person in the arts?
SO: I find it is hard for outsiders to understand how healing dancing and moving your body is. Non-dancers tend to see, specifically contemporary movement, as random, weird, and dramatic. What they don’t realize is that many creators are in exploration processes, that at times we don’t search to produce something beautiful or entertaining, but simply research where a concept can take us, even if the product ends up being extremely strange. Getting rid of this pressure is so healing. It is like dancing with your friends at a party with no care in the world. It feels joyful.
JS: Please tell us what you haven’t attempted as yet that you would like to do in the arts.
SO: I want to attempt to move into more interdisciplinary arts. I would like to get comfortable with acting, dialogues, singing, and moving all at once. I find interdisciplinary work can reach many audiences and touch people more than just a dance piece. I am interested in getting to take more risks in these areas through my work.
JS: If you could re-live your life in the arts, how would you change it and why?
SO: I wish I had not done so much of what I thought would make me successful and noticed. It was that same thought that caused me to not take risks in dance environments. When I have felt the most free to be myself is when I took the most risks. I have learned since then, but if I was back in my first year of the dance university program, I would shake myself and tell her to calm down. I wish I had released myself of the pressures further, who knows what opportunities I wouldn’t have missed because of it.
JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s culture, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?
SO: I feel hopeful about how our generation of artists is speaking out more towards mental health, unsustainable ways of working, isms in the arts, and existing abuses of power. Specifically in dance, where we tend to move more and speak less, this makes me extremely hopeful for what we can achieve in the future for artistic work spaces. The pressures of capitalism in the arts still exist and take a hold on creation spaces. Our awareness and positions towards it gives me hope to create safer spaces, where people do not feel excluded. Something I do find depressing is how difficult financially it still is to be an artist in this system, unless you are famous or extremely successful. I want to live in a future where artists can create without having to reach for a ladder to get to the top.
JS: What exactly has the impact of the COVID pandemic been on your creative work and your life in the arts?
SO: I would not be where I am right now, with a healthier mindset towards my artistic pursuits, if it were not for the pandemic. As mentioned before, the pandemic was a hit of realization of how I was putting my mental and physical health aside for the sake of my productivity as a dancer. The pandemic taught me to be more curious of my other skills, and how I can merge them in my work. It also taught me to accept my present moment as a dancer, where I am, and stop chasing this made-up future and expectations I created in my head. It simply taught me my artistic dreams are not actually what I thought they were. They have become something much more fulfilling and healthy.
JS: How has the pandemic changed you as a person?
SO: As a person, the pandemic taught me to be more curious about my everyday life. I tend to focus on the big picture, big ideas, big everything. The pandemic taught me to start noticing the beauty in the little moments. I enjoy being with myself more now because of it. I learned so much from the nothingness of the pandemic. This nothingness opened my mind to give time to things I didn’t even have time to think of before.
JS: What’s next in the coming few years of your life in the arts?
SO: For the coming years, all I hope is to expand my learning as an artist further, through opportunities, research, training, and creations. This with the hope I can take these experiences into my creative process. I desire to have more tools and resources to create more interdisciplinary art. On the other hand, I hope I can also expand my career as an artist outside of dance. I am interested in working more on acting, singing, and writing.