Margaret Dragu

Margaret Dragu (born 1953) is a celebrated Canadian artist recognized for innovation in many disciplines including performance art, contemporary dance, social practice art, video art, installation art, independent publishing, radio, and interactive platforms like social media. Her work has been performed, screened, exhibited, and published in many countries. In 1998 her European tour was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (now Global Affairs Canada) with the German Hessiche Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst and the Cultural Department of the Netherlands. She has been awarded numerous funding awards from the Canada Council for the Arts as well as other arts funding agencies in Canada and Europe. In 2024 she delivered the International Women’s Day Address at Contemporary Art Conversations, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University. alt=Margaret Dragu is in the foreground looking at her right hand and index finger which are held above her head. She has grey hair and is wearing high visibility equipment with a small camera strapped to her chest. Behind her a crowd of participants are facing in the same direction and holding the same pose. There is a chain link fence behind them. Margaret Dragu performing NEW NORMAL an embodied novel: dusk 2 dark. Photograph by Henry Chan.

Early life and career Margaret Dragu was born in Regina, SK in 1953. Her family moved to Calgary in 1963 where from 1969 to 1971 she studied dance under Yone Kvietys Young, a Calgary-based instructor of contemporary dance. Kvietys Young ran two dance companies that Dragu was part of, Calgary Creative Dancers (for children) and Contemporary Dance Calgary (for adults). From Calgary, Dragu moved to New York in 1971, where she trained at the Alwin Nikolais -Murray Louis Dance School. Both dance mentors Yone Kvetys-Young and Laura Foreman demonstrated for Dragu an ease in working with visual artists and with situating their work in art galleries, and this affinity to art stayed with her throughout her practice.

In addition to teaching dance classes in a community art school called Art Dump Workshop and developing her contemporary art and dance practice during her time in Montreal she also began a career as a burlesque performer (striptease) artist. In her words, “I wanted to cross-pollinate popular culture and fine art by inverting the sacred art gallery and the profane striptease club.” When describing her time in Toronto, Dragu declared, “I was a passionate collaborator, pair-ing and trio-ing with painters, sculptors, photographers, theatre artists, writers, sound designers, scenographers, fashion designers, film makers, video artists, and activists.”

A move to the Vancouver region in 1986 took place after Margaret Dragu performed X’s and O’s for the Canada Pavillion at Expo 86. During the Expo 86 commission she met Jim Stewart Munro.

Early Performance Art and Theater Productions (Toronto) While living in Toronto (1975 to 1986), Margaret Dragu produced and performed in numerous theatrical and experimental dance and art performances that took place in theatre venues, artist-run organizations, national galleries, university theatres, and site-specific venues like botanical gardens, back alleys, and car parkades. Her works garnered critical attention and were recognized for their energy and intensity (Stephen Godfrey, The Globe and Mail, March 1979). She was featured on the covers of Toronto weekly's Now in 1982 and Broadcast Week Magazine in 1985. (Performance) in the 1st World Festival of W.O.R.K.S. (Clive Robertson and Paul Woodrow), Year of the Rat 4670 in Calgary. Margaret Dragu performed the role of Spencer's Mom in Spencer’s Mom by Jim Garrard at the Salon Theatre (Toronto) in 1981. Margaret Dragu performed in Picnic in the Drift by Tanya Mass and Rina Fraticelli at the Ice House Theatre (Toronto) in 1981. Airport Dance (choreography) for Susan Macpherson, Jacki Burroughs, and Ricardo Arbreut at the YPT Theatre (Toronto) in 1981.

1982 and 1983 X’s and O’s for the Canada Pavillion at Expo 86 (Vancouver).

Mid-Career Art and Performance Art In 1986 Margaret Dragu relocated to the Vancouver region but lived away from the artistic centre in Finn Slough. With this relative isolation and the birth of her daughter, her work in the years 1987 to 1990 took up writing, independent publishing, visual art, and video productions. With limited access to Vancouver's art events and networks, she nurtured connections with people closer to home who she met in her work as a fitness instructor and personal trainer. From her relationships with other mothers, she worked to form the Momz Radio Collective which produced the Momz Radio programs on Vancouver Coop Radio and other independent University and community radio stations in Canada and the US, and teh book Mothers Talk Back, which she edited with Sarah Sheard and Susan Swan From 2004 to 2008 Dragu corresponded through textile art with Pam Hall, who was residing on the opposite shore of the continent in St. John's, Newfoundland). The nearly 3000 stitched, printed, and painted textiles squares formed house structures in an exhibition Marginalia at the Richmond Art Gallery in 2008, and live performances in 2005, 2008, and 2010.

In 2006, Dragu first appeared as Lady Justice, a persona she would regularly present with an evolving group of participating artists. Lady Justice was a feminist intervention that took place in multiple locations in Canada and Europe. For instance, she appeared during commemoration events at the site of Marker of Change, the women's monument to those who died in the massacre at Montreal's École Polytechnique (Thornton Park, Vancouver). The first performance of Lady Justice was at Niagara Artists’ Centre/NAC (St. Catherines, ON) and SEXE!Action/VIVA!Art Action (Montréal). Another long-range persona was Verb Woman whose performance took many forms, often providing unexpected artist's services or what Dragu called “Art Aktions” such as mending, wrapping, and fitness. Masque of the Red Death (choreography) by Edgar Allen Poe, produced by Public Dreams Society and grunt gallery at Burrard Bridge Public Building (Vancouver). Performance at Vancouver Performance Poets, grunt gallery (Vancouver).

1992

1994

The Bardo Gap at Western Front, at LIVE International Performance Biennale (Vancouver). Improvisation for X’s and O’s with guitarist Brian Krocher at NAC (St.Catherines). Improvisation for X’s and O’s with violinist Jim S. Munro at grunt gallery (Vancouver). Improvisation for X’s and O’s with 25 Pounds of Potatoes, with Bobbie Kozinuk in Live at the End of the Century at Vogue Theatre (Vancouver). X’s and O’s for the Rites/Rights of May at Richmond Public Library and Cultural Centre (Richmond, BC).

2000 The Wall is in My Head/Ich habe die Mauer in meinem Kopf/le mur est dans ma téte/lu muro e dentra mia testa, for 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival (Gladstone Hotel, Toronto). Public/Private (conference presentation), for Changing Role of the Artist II, Richmond Art Gallery (Richmond). Pie Performance at Hamilton Art Gallery (Hamilton, ON).

2002

Casting, 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival.

2003

2004

2008 Marginalia: Getting out of the House (performance), Richmond Art Gallery (Richmond, BC). Marginalia (installation and video), with Pam Hall at Faucet Studio Residency, Struts Gallery (Sackville, NB). Lady Justice, at Magnetic North (Vancouver), Visualeyez Festival at Gallery Latitude 53 (Edmonton), and on-line at Revista Sin Texto: Dia Internacional del Reloj.

2009

2012-2014 Rising (nuestra seora del pan) at WIA Projects, Davenport-Perth Community Centre (Toronto, 2012). Verb Woman: the wall is in my head/a dance of forgetting (solo exhibition), Richmond Art Gallery (2013–2014). Verb Woman (performances) at 7a*11d Biennale (Toronto, 2012) and Stammtisch, Month of Performance (Berlin, 2013). The Library Project: Un-Conferences and Un-Symposia, European Centre for Culture & Debate GRAD (Belgrade, 2013), Babble (Babel) Festival, Hart House, University of Toronto (2014), and Brighouse Public Library (Richmond, 2014). Lady Justice, in ROSE: 25th Anniversary Montreal Massacre (Vancouver, 2012, 2014). Performance at Not Sent Letters & Guests, with Jeremy Todd and others, at VIVO Media Arts Centre (Vancouver, 20014).

2015 Transmitting Trio A (1966) With Sara Wookey, with Yvonne Rainer, Sara Wookey, at Fado Performance Inc., Dancemakers, and Art Gallery of Ontario, at TPW Gallery.

2016 The Library Project: Un-Conferences and Un-Symposia, at Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver). The Library Project: Un-Conferences and Un-Symposia, with Jorn Burmester at Metro Theatre and City Studio (Victoria, BC). Capitalist Duets, with Francesco Gigliardi and Public Recordings at Theatre Centre (Toronto).

2017

2018

2021 Try Leather, with Justine A. Chambers, William Locke Wheeler, Britta Wirthmüller, on-line and Tanzfabrik Theatre (Berlin). New Normal, an embodied novel: Chapter 4’s & Secret Services, with Brady Marks and Justine A. Chambers at School for Contemporary Arts (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver), Toronto Metropolitan University, INTERplay Livestreaming Performance Festival, and Friisland Centre, Forsøgsstationen Studios, TOEM (Copenhagen, Denmark). More Cleaning It and Loving (It) ...Again, with Jordan King, for Fado's Real to Reel series (Toronto).

2024

2025 Dragu's broadcast-style media art projects include (incomplete list):

Momz Radio, Vancouver Coop Radio (and other independent University and community radio stations in Canada and the US). Art Talking Women, VIVO and Cinevolution, 2016. Frugal Friday Flyers (from 2015), Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen 2021-2022, grunt Gallery (Vancouver) Tick and Talk of Common Time (2023), Western Front (launch) and Digital Stories Canada. Typical Day, a series of short, edited videos about how individual artists spend a typical day, that are posted on Margaret Dragu's Instagram feed (@ladragu), from 2024. New Normal: An Embodied Novel, from 2020.

Writing

Margaret Dragu and A. S. A. Harrison, Revelations: Essays on Striptease and Sexuality, London, ON: Nightwood Editions, 1988 (second printing, 1989). Margaret Dragu, Sarah Sheard, and Susan Swan (editors), Mothers Talk Back: Momz Radio, Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991. Margaret Dragu, Electric Storm Tale, (play) Herotica II Feminist Erotic Theatre Festival, Ruby Slippers Production, Vancouver: Station Streets Arts Centre, 1995. Margaret Dragu, "Confessions," in Brenda Lea Brown (editor), Bringing It Home, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1996, 89–105. Margaret Dragu, "The Passion List," in Carol Anderson (editor), This Passion: for the love of dance, Toronto: Dance Collection Danse Press/es, 1998, 9–15. Margaret Dragu, "Eye Yam, Eye Yam Not," in Brice Canyon (editor), Live at the End of the Century, Vancouver: Visible Arts Society grunt gallery, 2000, 56–69. Paul Couillard (editor), la Dragu, Toronto: Fado Performance Inc., 2002. Pam Hall and Margaret Dragu (exhibition catalogue), Marginalia: Getting Out of the House, Richmond, BC: Richmond Art Gallery, 2008. Margaret Dragu, "Divining Ms. Irene: The Performance Work of Irene Loughlin," in Johanna Householder and Tanya Mars (editors), More Caught in the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women, Toronto: YYZ Books, 2016, 303–336.

Independent Publishing Margaret Dragu has issued independent publications (artist books and zines) under the publishing moniker, Same Day Edit'''