The Brutal Joy
Justine A. Chambers
From Toronto to Denver: The Art of Connection
Justine A. Chambers, One hundred more, 2024, On view at 32 Lisgar as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art, 2024
Some of the most meaningful connections across borders begin with a shared experience. Encountering a new perspective through art can stay with us long after we've left a place, inspiring us to carry those ideas home and share them with others.
That spirit of discovery is what led us to Canadian dance artist Justine A. Chambers. During our 2024 Toronto Culture Trip, we experienced One hundred more, a video installation Chambers created with collaborator Laurie Young for the Toronto Biennial of Art. Through its exploration of movement, resistance, and the expressive power of everyday gestures, the work offered a perspective that resonated with us. We left Toronto wanting to share Chambers' artistic voice with our own community in Colorado.
wo years later, that connection has grown into something new. With the generous support of the Consulate General of Canada and Denver Arts & Venues, Biennial of the Americas will welcome Chambers to Denver on November 6, 2026, for a special presentation of The Brutal Joy: A Lecture at The Studio Loft in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
Though distinct from the work we first encountered in Toronto, The Brutal Joy: A Lecture continues Chambers' exploration of movement, memory, and the histories we carry within us. Her visit is a reminder of what becomes possible when art moves beyond the place where we first encounter it, creating opportunities for new audiences, conversations, and connections.
the artist
Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist and educator based in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives and works on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her artistic practice is deeply connected to her Black matrilineal heritage, exploring its relationship with contemporary dance, visual arts, and the knowledge carried through the body.
At the heart of her work is a question often asked by her grandmother: "You feel me?" For Chambers, this question extends beyond understanding another person's perspective. It is an invitation to recognize what we carry within ourselves and how our experiences shape the ways we move through and relate to the world.
Through close observation, collaboration, and an attention to the movements of everyday life, Chambers explores the body as a living archive of personal and collective histories. Her work encourages us to consider how familiar gestures, shared rhythms, and cultural traditions hold knowledge, create relationships, and offer new ways of being together.
The performance
The Brutal Joy: A Lecture offers an exploration of the ideas, histories, and creative processes behind Justine A. Chambers' internationally touring choreographic project, The Brutal Joy. Through this performative lecture, Chambers considers how dance and personal style can hold histories that are not always captured in traditional archives, preserving knowledge through movement, expression, and shared experience.
Drawing from childhood memories of family gatherings on Chicago's South Side, the work explores Black vernacular line dance and Black sartorial traditions, including the legacy of Black dandyism. Chambers examines how rhythm, gesture, and personal style carry cultural knowledge across generations, and how these practices can become expressions of self-determination, collective ritual, and Black life.
Moving between personal memory and cultural history, the lecture also considers the creative structures of the riff, the vamp, and the break, exploring how repetition, variation, and interruption can open new possibilities for expression. Through these ideas, Chambers invites audiences to consider movement not only as a way of remembering the past, but as a means of imagining different futures.
the shop at matter
The evening will also feature a pop-up from Denver-based The Shop at MATTER, offering a curated selection of fiction and nonfiction books centering Black, brown, queer, feminist, and other diverse voices. Founded by designers Rick Griffith and Debra Johnson, MATTER brings another opportunity to explore ideas, stories, and perspectives connected to the evening's themes.