Physical Culture Drills and Alberta Girls Stepping Together Across Time

By embodying movement vocabulary and physical culture drills drawn from a 1911 textbook of physical exercises, in this girl-centred research project we examined how Alberta girls (aged 7 to 22) during the COVID-19 pandemic challenged ideas about Alberta settler girls who lived 100 years ago. Using performance-based historiography as a methodology, participants explored what embodying physical culture movement vocabulary could reveal about archives, past girls, and themselves. Debriefing led to insights concerning relevant social issues, such as gender equity, and current experiences like a growing appreciation for pre-pandemic community-oriented life. In asking provocative questions about the past, these girls demonstrated their potential to shift perceptions of how historically located and contemporary girls are imagined.