Ayla Wolf
She Walks Both Worlds
She Walks Both Worlds
2023 | Embodied Practice | Performance | Film | Photography
Origins & Process
This work began on Pelee Island during the Stone & Sky Residency, where Doug MacLellan and I entered into an intuitive collaboration. There was no fixed outcome — only presence, the shoreline and the shifting sky. Beneath that openness, I carried a quiet seed of intention: she walks both worlds.
From our time on the island, I chose a handful of phtographs from many hundreds. Alongside them, I worked with video I captured of the shoreline — wind, water, the edge between land and lake — expanding the work from stillness into motion.
Immersed in this material, I turned toward sound, composing a visual and sonic score to integrate with live dance performance. This score became a flexible framework, a landscape of cues and currents.
The work unfolded in layers — image to sound, sound to movement, movement to presence — always rooted in the act of walking between worlds.
Artist Statement
She Walks Both Worlds examines my connection to nature, the complexities of my mixed heritage, and my lived experience of the spiritual realm. This body of work is a meditation on duality — on standing between cultures, between worlds, and learning to honour both. Structured in three segments, the series traces a journey of remembrance, reconciliation, and reclamation.
Structured improvisational dance performed live.
Not translated to the digital space.
One With Nature
This segment explores my relationship with nature — a daily, meditative communion that is both grounding and expansive.
“sense the rhythm in my feather bones”
Film fragments and a soundscape of birdsong, wind and flowing water evoke a visceral, embodied connection — to birds, to renewal, to emergence. Rooted in the Sacred Direction I call The East, this work moves through movement, image and improvisational dance to trace the flow of water, the softening of the body and the deepening of presence.
It is not about becoming nature.
It is remembering that I already am.
Walking A Fine Line
This segment explores my mixed heritage, particularly my distant Indigenous roots and the tension of navigating multiple identities.
“blurry vision enraged by fear of crossing”
Film fragments and percussive rhythms mirror the internal struggle to accept and integrate ancestral inheritances. Rooted in the Sacred Direction I call The West, movement, image and improvisational dance trace navigation, balance and eventual acceptance.
It is a crossing.
It is a claim.
Ancestor Speak
This segment explores my relationship with the spiritual realm — an ongoing dialogue with my ancestors and the wisdom they carry.
“A vine grows to reveal the memory that stillness moves”
Film fragments and airy soundscapes evoke a dreamlike state, rooted in the Sacred Direction I call The North. Movement, image and improvisational dance trace interconnection, belonging, and knowing.
It is an invocation.
It is a remembering.
Concepts
She Walks Both Worlds translates the intersections of nature, ancestry and spirit into layered visuals, movement, and sensory storytelling. The landscapes, the elements, and the unseen ancestral presence become collaborators, guiding improvisation, reflection and creation. Each segment — East, West, North— unfolds as a meditation on connection, identity and belonging, where body, lineage and spirit move together in dialogue.
Belonging & duality | Ancestry & spiritual dialogue | Nature & elemental connection | Visual, movement & sensory layering | Reflection & transformation
Materials & Medium
Photography
Film
Embodied Practice
Performance
Avalability & Inquries
Inquiries regarding exhibition, collaboration, and/or live performance are welcome.