Choreographer, Performer and Filmmaker, George Stamos, let’s us in on the inspiration and concept behind his upcoming show Sister Nightlight – a live solo performance accompanied by 3 film screenings.
Sister Nightlight suggests an exploration of vulnerability and intimacy. What was the initial inspiration for this piece, and how did these themes take shape during its development?
The theme for this piece emerged in the context of the pandemic lockdowns. It was a tough time, and I felt a need to recall the things that brought a sense of awe to my life.
Dancing in clubs had always been an effective coping strategy for me, especially in Queer and mixed clubs where I felt a sense of belonging. It was a survival strategy going back to when I was 14, when I started sneaking into clubs dressed as a girl. So, I took stock of how going out and my eccentric encounters with funky clubgoers on the dance floor through the years had brought so much joy. I missed it, and it wasn’t possible during the lockdowns, so I funneled this reflection into my work.
I also remembered how connecting with nature at night as a child in Nova Scotia, when I sneaked away and ran wild on beaches or in the woods or gazed at the stars, brought me a similar sense of awe I felt in nightclubs. At least I could still do that, so I would go onto the mountain or in parks (in Montreal) late at night with my headphones and dance under the moon.
The two environments, clubs and nocturnal nature, overlapped in my creative space and gave birth to Sister Nightlight, like a gigantic neon pink jellyfish floating over a dancefloor. I appreciated how they both brought a sense of awe, and they harmonized well together.
In developing Sister Nightlight, I wanted to stay focused on cultivating that sense of awe and decided to focus on the people and places that brought me a sense of wonderment. As those people and places were primarily female or feminine, I bundled them into a container and called it “Sister Nightlight.” I’ve had fun playing with the idea of building Sister Nightlight as a conjured mystical entity providing comfort.
In the process, I narrowed in on how to deliver these divergent inspirations into a cohesive sensory journey as a show and how to reference personal experience. I was a go-go dancer for 10 years and had intense encounters with night creatures as a child alone in the woods, so I had much to pull from.
For the movement, I worked primarily with physical sensations, rhythmic motifs, tasks concerning objects and costumes, and choreographic games that required playfulness. Keeping a sense of play alive has been an essential and challenging aspect of this process.
My intention with Sister Nightlight is to highlight that sense of awe in the viewer and point to a larger, warm circle around humanity, to things that bring us all together. Unfortunately, I see our collective sense of awe continuing to fade almost daily amid current events, mass confusion, social media rhetoric and real-life violence. I want to help feed the flames of wonderment and imagination with this work.
The title evokes images of comfort and illumination in darkness. How does the concept of “nightlight” inform the atmosphere, movement, or emotional undercurrent of the work?
A nightlight provides comfort, especially in moments of uncertainty in the dark. There are also people in our lives who do this, and if we want to get metaphysical, there are also entities, imagined or real, that provide comfort and direction in dark times. With this work, I’ve focused on feeding that sense of awe in me and, hopefully, the viewer, which is so important in life. Especially now.
In building the Sister Nightlight universe, I decided to navigate away from trauma-focused narratives and toward emphasizing the sense of illumination rather than the many bleak reasons it is so needed. For those, I think most of us already know. There are so many.
What inspired the creation of the three accompanying films? Do they complement the themes explored in the live performance of Sister Nightlight?
The three films each stand on their own and are very different from each other, as well as the live solo. They also each feature an outstanding woman who inspires and has inspired me: Louise Lecavalier in Syzygy, Karla Etienne in OKF and Sara Shelton Mann in Potrero Hill. This fierce female presence on-screen in the evening complements the theme and opens up the idea of how “Sister Nightlight” can come in many forms and personalities.
Another short film I’m looking forward to premiering within the next year is part of my SNAP series and features the incomparable Zab Maboungou, who has undoubtedly been an inspiring Sister Nightlight for me as well. That film crosses over into the documentary genre, though, so this isn’t the proper context to premier it. It will have its own time!
The emotional tones of delight, sorrow, and frolicking are at the forefront of the three films I chose to include in the show, further making them complementary to the solo, and they are all movement-based films I appear in as well.
What role did collaboration play in shaping Sister Nightlight? Were there specific contributions from any collaborators that transformed the direction of the piece?
The work is a solo, and I’ve taken on many roles: sound designer, performer, choreographer, writer, stylist, dramaturg, project manager, etc.
This solo is actually the first piece I’ve made in a long time that doesn’t involve a lot of collaborators. I love the kind of energy and discussion that collaboration can bring. I’ve also really enjoyed how, in this sometimes lonely process, I can access my personal movement library of what I have to offer as a performer and intersect it with my inspirations more internally and work directly from imagination to manifesting the piece physically without the process of translating it to another person.
That said, the work of fashion designer Antonio Ortega has been very inspiring in this process, too. There is something about the intersection of reptilian and runway in his pieces that I live for and work perfectly with the theme, and outside eye, Robin Poitras provided essential artistic support in this process as well.
Were there moments in the creative process that led to unexpected discoveries about the themes of intimacy and minimalism? How did these insights influence the final work?
I look for a point in every process where the work begins to take on its own life and have its own sense of logic, when unexpected things start to show up. I’m happy that happened with this process, too. For instance, this work has asked me to dial back the movement phrases sometimes, to sit with simplicity, rhythm, and sensation, and to trust the images and minor shifts read as powerfully as grand gestures, perhaps sometimes even more. I made a lot of phrases that are not in the final piece, haha. They just weren’t necessary and ended up muddying the waters, so I haven’t included them.
Can you speak to your experience in creating dance for the stage compared to creating dance for film? How do the two mediums influence your choreographic approach, storytelling, and use of movement?
Dance for the stage is about presence—it’s ephemeral, immediate, and felt in real time with considered proximity to the audience. It’s about tuning into the live details of being. It’s about creating physical spaces and offering them to the other, to the audience.
Thus far, in making dance films, I utilize the creative mechanisms of cinema more than look at cinema as a way to represent a preexisting choreography. With film, the dance is also in the camerawork and editing, and it allows for a different kind of intimacy, where subtle details can be highlighted, where space and time can be resculpted for the screen. In making films, so much of the choreographing is actually in the editing.
I’m also interested in expanding my approach to dance film creation and looking at new projects on the horizon with longer shots of preset choreography, so for me, it’s an ongoing flow between film and dance.
Sister Nightlight
Choreographed and Performed by George Stamos
With film screenings of:
Syzygy – Featuring performers Louise Lecavalier, Rémy Saminadin, George Stamos
One Kind Favor – Featuring performers Karla Etienne, George Stamos
Potrero Hill (Walking with Sara) – Featuring performers Sara Shelton Mann, George Stamos
March 6 – 8, 2025
8PM @ The Citadel