See for yourselves!

Posted: May 7th, 2012 under Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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By Shannon Roszell

The Palimpsest Project 1.3
A performance/lecture in defense of (re)appearance
by re[public] in/decency (Toronto/Chicago)

It’s not so simple trying to understand our past, the roots of our country, of North America…land rights, small pox, men with light skin and big ships. Fast forward to March 26, 2012 to gallerywest at 1172 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where Coman Poon and Erica Mott meet us with smiles, snacks and camouflage bandanas. Maps of North America are painted on the white gallery walls in black chalkboard paint and we are having a party.

I arrive late. Of course I do. Maybe I should learn to check where I am going before I park and pay the green P machine 8 blocks from the gallery. Maybe that’s irrelevant now. Maybe it’s not. The parking lot at Queen and Ossington didn’t always look like that. There is land under there, under the rubber of my tires. But I don’t think about it now as I check my iPhone, swear to myself and peel out of the driveway.

I’m parked closer to our performance Mecca now, but of course not close enough because I’m not detail-oriented when it comes to things like geography. But maybe I should be. Maybe that lack of questioning, that acceptance of things at their surface value is exactly what Coman and Erica are driving towards in this piece. Maybe I shouldn’t have run here with a recovering broken foot. Feet to pavement. Low to the ground. Low impact. Low speed but still a run, maybe a tiny trot. Definitely not a canter.

My fellow audience-participant-witnesses have staked claim of land on the maps. I’m not sure how or why but now others are coming in and evicting them. The reason for this is unclear but the end result is announced nevertheless. Three empty chairs sit cautiously by the walls awaiting the beginning of the piece. But where’s Norma? Her chair sits empty. We are told Norma is the one with the indigenous roots. It is essential she be here.

Music fades. Laptops come out. Erica and Coman are having a Skype conversation. We can all anticipate how well that goes–frozen screen, sound cutting out, their conversation is truncated by a slow internet connection. Coman is based in Toronto while Erica works out of Chicago and they are accustomed to spending much of their time with a border between them–the 49^th parallel. The physicality of the border is mirrored again and again by the unreliability of technology. They are separated.

“Well we can’t have a performance sitting down,” says Erica. “What about the body?” Erica, with her long blond hair streaming behind her marches her black cowboy boots into a back room, a black room. She is once again separated from Coman but their Apple Laptops uphold the connection. I follow Erica, how can I not? I want to know about the body. My body. My broken bloody foot that’s throbbing as I watch this unfold. My dry mouth that sees boxed white wine and wishes for a cold mouthful.

palimpsest |ˈpalimpˌsest|
noun
–a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.

–something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form: Sutton Place is a palimpsest of the taste of successive owners.

DERIVATIVES

palimpsestic |ˌpalimpˈsestik|adjective

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: via Latin from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin ‘again’ + psēstos ‘rubbed smooth.’

While Coman forges a series of logical connections between space and place in the front gallery, linking webs of wool throughout the gallery, Erica is in her own space, performing and re-performing a blond-haired-cowboy-boot-plank-jumping-military-march. She’s been watching YouTube videos of military marches, she tells Coman (and us). All the while these two distinct actions are performed, there is an audio track hurling information about the Iroquois, about settlement, about the North American Free Trade Agreement, about the war of 1812, about colonization, about democracy, about spheres of influence.

But I can’t focus on this because Erica’s body is in plank position. Her long body poised and strong, relying on the virility of her wrists who connect palms to floor and hands to arms. She bends her elbows, the black cowboy boots precariously holding her steady on the slick wood floor, she straightens her elbows with such force that her body is momentarily air born. It’s only a matter of inches but she is traveling side to side like this. The impact of the movement is absorbed in her shoulder blades and her head pulls down the middle and bobs with each contact her wrists make with the floor.

But wait, now there is a “message from the future” from Erica who writes a note on a piece of paper and sends it out to Coman on a clothes line. A message from the future. How prophetic.

I can’t keep track of Coman’s actions but there is quite a crowd who is doing just that. I can’t leave the back room. Erica picks up a piece of coloured chalk and writes, “Is citizenship about consumption.” Movement continues. “What have you received that was free?” Her dance is repeated, plank, jump-jump-jump-jump, back and forth throughout that tiny black room. “What do you have unfettered access to?” Expansion. Expansion of a long body in a small room that is somehow larger than Erica thought. “What labour have you done? What has it changed? What has it kept?”

We hold steady here in this pattern of discovery, repetition and digital reciprocity. A cycle of military movement then expansion, punctuated by a public questioning. Erica’s breath betrays her exhaustion. “Coman, I’m tired. Can we have a party?”

3 Piñatas arrive from the future. It’s a party. We’re celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the War of 1812. We’re celebrating the 20-year anniversary of NAFTA. Piñatas are smashed. I get to help. The clothesline comes down in our estrogen-driven fury and the piñatas are destroyed. Inside each are prizes for us, tiny ziplock bags of earth, air and water. I’m told I can take some home that I own them now.

Norma never arrives. She misses the performance. But I’m glad I didn’t.  I’m still vibrating at the mere thought of it.

Documentation of the event is on display at gallerywest, 1172 Queen Street West.

Images courtesy of gallerywest.

Posted: April 2nd, 2012 under Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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By Shannon Roszell

Rough House Productions’ A Last Resort

Love. It’s not planned and in my life, it’s not fancy. When alliances develop, they are hard to break. We grow attached to people that we didn’t expect to, maybe didn’t even want to. In A Last Resort, love according to Camille Gingras and Candelario Andrade was unintentional yet there they sit side by side in front of matching laptop computers. Love seems to have shown up and thrown the “Plan” out the window.

For Camille the checklist involves a man with a Canadian passport who speaks English, has a steady job, can buy a dog and have some kids. Sounds reasonable. Maybe not all that different from my list. But then Candelario showed up. There is something in the tequila that night and he never really leaves. Yes, he departs for Mexico, his home country only to return once again. Candelario is there however unlikely their love may be.

Faced with the risk of deportation, the couple travel back to remote Mexico searching for paradise. But it isn’t here; this resort is “like a tropical version of Rosemary’s baby.” We witness as Camille and Candelario are hurled into a reality that neither of them imagined possible. We too find ourselves lost amidst the waves of the Pacific Ocean as the couple move closer to reckoning.

This raw retelling of their love story is gently underscored by video projections that the couple control onstage. This leaves us space to see the inner workings of the technical aspects of the performance just as we witness the naked complexity of these two unlikely lovers as they try to unite despite gaps in experience and understanding.

Like the tide, prepare for a continuous cycle of heart swell and heartbreak.

A Last Resort plays tonight and tomorrow (Friday March 30^th and Saturday 31^st) at 8pm at The Theatre Centre, as part of Free Fall ’12. Get your bum in the seat, you won’t regret it.

Posted: March 30th, 2012 under Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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By Shannon Roszell

WeeTube 5400 was performed by the dynamic James Long and Maiko Bae Yamamoto of Theatre Replacement, Vancouver. We all know how delightfully ridiculous and pitifully entertaining YouTube can be. It is just these aspects of the public, pop-culture, “democratic” archive that drive the performance.

Performers welcome us to the theatre where they we choose from a series of curated YouTube videos that take our notions the unimaginable and banally fascinating to the next level. Once we view these clips in their entirety, James and Maiko dramatize the first 3-4 minutes of the comments. At times hilarious, other times offensive, nonsensical or questionable, this performance duo certainly shed light on just how Wee this Tube can be. Get yourself a drink or 5 and LOL, as you enjoy all the stupidity that the internet has to offer. Oh, and enjoy a freshly baked cookie courtesy of the comfy kitchen onstage.

The last performance of WeeTube 5400 is tonight (March 28) at 8pm at The Theatre Centre.

Photos courtesy of my iPhone. Thanks Apple.

Posted: March 28th, 2012 under Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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Free Fall ’12 starts Saturday March 24… have you uploaded your memories yet?

by Aislinn Rose

Jonathan Goldsbie (Route 501 Revisited), Aislinn Rose (Out The Window), Andrew Templeton (Babylonia) – Click the image for information on the Free Fall ’12 lineup

Last month I sat on a Social Media Week panel to talk about the online component I had created for Liza Balkan’s Out The Window, part of Free Fall ’12. Joining me on that panel was Radix Theatre’s Andrew Templeton from Vancouver, to talk about the company’s workshop presentation of Babylonia. From the moment he played the trailer I was enthralled:

Babylonia Trailer from radix theatre on Vimeo.

Investigating actual research in an area called “mind uploading” Babylonia seeks to marry ‘real world’ narratives with an online universe, leading to a performance that blurs the lines between the two. This does, however, require audience members to engage with the piece online before attending the performance.

Last night, not knowing what to expect, I logged on to the Babylonia site, and was asked to begin the process of uploading my “memory anchors”. I was given the option of uploading memories in plain text, or via video and sound files, and was then asked to pinpoint on the map where these memories took place. So far, I’ve only uploaded memories in text, but perhaps tonight I’ll be brave enough to go back online to add a video. Their next request is for a memory of an incident that changed my life.

You can see the location of my first uploaded memory here:

I have no idea what will happen when I visit Babylonia on Monday (performances are Saturday March 24^th at 7pm; Sunday March 25^th at 5pm, and Monday March 26^th at 7pm) but I’m looking forward to seeing how my real-life memories, offered up to an online universe, will intersect with a virtual reality in a physical performance space.

I think you should try it too.

Posted: March 23rd, 2012 under Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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2004 was my first official year as Artistic Director of The Theatre Centre. It was then that I met Andrew Laurenson, Artistic Director of Radix Theatre who was coming to Toronto to produce Half A Tank (a performance that had audience watching from inside their car and listening in on the radio) as part of Free Fall ’04. We met through our mutual friend Stephen O’Connell (bluemouth inc.) – who at the time along with David Duclos (former AD of The Theatre Centre) were assisting with the curation of Free Fall. It was my first year as Artistic Director of The Theatre Centre and I had little context for the work of Radix Theatre – let alone the vibrant interdisciplinary scene emerging in Vancouver at the time.

Eight years later I am so delighted by the close association The Theatre Centre has with Vancouver independent companies. Along with Radix Theatre, The Theatre Centre has introduced Toronto audiences to the work of Boca Del Lupo, Theatre Replacement, Rumble Productions, Battery Opera, The Chop Theatre and this year, Rough House.

I have put together the recent history of The Theatre Centre and artists from Vancouver:

2002: Radix Theatre, Box2

2004: Radix Theatre, Half a Tank

2006: Boca Del Lupo, The Perfectionist

2007: Battery Opera, [storm]

2008: Rumble Productions/Theatre Replacement, Clarke and I Somewhere in Connecticut

2009: Theatre Replacement, Bio Boxes

2010: The Chop Theatre, Kismet one to one hundred

2012: Radix Theatre, Babylonia; Theatre Replacement, WeeTube 5400; Rough House, A Last Resort

It has not been an easy two years for artists from Vancouver. It started with an announcement from the provincial government that funding for the arts was to be cut by 50%. Hard work and ‘common sense’ (no pun intended for those of us who lived through provincial arts cuts in Ontario) has seen some of that funding returned. And most recently, the city lost one of its largest and oldest cultural institutions, The Vancouver Playhouse.

Despite the difficult times, some of the most original, imaginative and entertaining new work continues to be made by artists from there.

I hope you can come out to see the work. We don’t get to see the work of these companies in Toronto often – and certainly not back to back as they are programmed at Free Fall ’12.

This Free Fall you can see all three performances from Vancouver as part of the special Vancouver Festival Pass. Get your pass here – only a limited number available!

Posted: March 15th, 2012 under Franco's Blog, Free Fall '12, Theatre Centre Blog.
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Social Media Week, February 13-17, 12 cities and globally on the interwebs

This whole Social Media Week thing has grown pretty big. Within a month or so from its announcement, the Toronto edition of this online/offline social media extravaganza got bigger (and better?), with multiple events happening every day of the week. Social media has been the hot topic of business and everyday culture for the last few years, and it is not surprising that initiatives like SMW create so much buzz. I haven’t been thinking about it much, until the lovely Twitter brought news of @MikeBloomberg officially declaring next week NYC’s Social Media Week, when I started to hope Mr Ford does something similar. While I am still hoping, it does feel a bit special that the good old TO is one of the 12 cities where SMW events are happening ‘in person’.

Digital Storytelling and Live Performance, Feb 13, 2pm @The Drake Underground (#SMWFreeFall on Twitter)

Well, yeah, we are hosting this one. But we still think you should come over for a number of reasons.

First of all, this event kickstarts FREE FALL ’12, our biennial festival of new work.

Secondly, you get to interact with FREE FALL artists presenting innovative online components as integral part of their artistic process: we’ve got Jonathan Goldsbie talk about the use of Twitter in his piece Route 510 Revisited;  Aislinn Rose will discuss The Brain, an online component to Liza Balkan’s Out The Window and Andrew Templeton will talk about online platforms and narratives intersecting with Radix Theatre’s Babylonia.

And finally, the event is happening at The Drake Underground, which is always a cool place to be. The event registration is now ‘sold out’ on SMW’s website, but we are sure to be able to squeeze you in if you show up – we hope you do!

There is a handful of SMW events this year that discuss social media and the arts. Praxis Theatre and Toronto Fringe are hosting a panel called Theatre and Online Interactivity on Feb 14 at 7pm. Read this post on Praxis blog to know more.

Posted: February 11th, 2012 under By Lilya, Theatre Centre Blog.
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I can’t remember much before I hit ten years of age, but this memory has stuck.

I have an older sister. Her name is Nicoletta, Niki to her friends, but mostly I call her Ni. She is seven years older than me. She got me to do the dumbest shit when I was growing up. I’m sure we all have similar stories. She was a big Bay City Rollers fan. I remember vividly sitting in front of our TV in the basement taking pictures of the band playing a live tv concert. She took her fanaticism one step further one Saturday afternoon (would have been more poetic if it was a ‘Saturday Night’) and gathered a few of her friends to air band a Bay City Rollers concert in our garage. I was forced to play the drummer. She invited the neighbours. Some came. The whole thing was ridiculous.

Your brother. Remember? is the latest work by Obie Award winning American performer Zachary Oberzan. “The work splices home videos, Hollywood film footage, and live performance. As kids in Maine, Zachary and his older brother Gator loved making parodies of films, most notably Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Kickboxer, and the notorious cult film Faces of Death. Then twenty years passed. Zack returned to his childhood home to re-create these films, shot for shot, as precisely as possible–but now seen through a twenty-year lens of emotional and physical wear and tear.”

I was fortunate to see Rambo Solo, an earlier work by Zachary, at the FTA in Montreal in 2009. The work was a brilliant retelling of the First Blood story. To understand his intensity as a performer, you have to watch this trailer where Zachary plays all the characters in the Rambo movie from his Manhattan apartment.

Please join us at the Theatre Centre from January 26-28 for the performance.

Franco

P.S.

I wish I had videotaped that Bay City Rollers concert!

Posted: January 10th, 2012 under Franco's Blog, January 2012 Newsletter, Theatre Centre Blog.
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Happy new year to all – we hope everyone had a lovely holiday season!

I don’t have any brothers. But I have been thinking about brotherly (and sisterly) love, familial relationships, growing up and apart, growing up in the 80s, Jean-Claude Van Damme and other interesting things a lot recently – all because I have been looking forward to seeing Your Brother. Remember? and participating in the bizzare experiment Zachary and Gator Oberzan put together.

Your brother. Remember? by Zachary Oberzan plays January 26-28 at 8pm.

Your brother. Remember? uses scenes from Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Kickboxer, cult flick Faces of Death, home videos of Zachary and his brother Gator acting out parts of those films twenty years ago and them acting out the same bits now. Zachary is the sole performer on the stage, complementing the videos with commentary and singing. I am convinced I HAVE to see this show. Are you?

Here is what media and audiences thought of past performances of Your brother. Remember?:

• Goosebumps, one doesn’t receive a gift like that every day in theatre… Clumsy, honest and… unavoidable. (De Morgen, Belgium)
• Intellectually complex but emotionally simple, Your Brother. Remember? is a moving work of experimental drama. (newyorktheatrereview.blogspot.com)
• Your Brother. Remember? is a show that everyone should see – a touching, humorous, serious and twisted piece about brotherly love throughout life’s many battles. (Adresseavisen, Norway)

Tickets are available for sale now! Just call 416-538-0899 or buy from TOtix. Bring your sibling to get a 2-for-1 deal!

Posted: January 5th, 2012 under By Lilya, Coming Up..., January 2012 Newsletter, Theatre Centre Blog.
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Yes, it is that time of year. The time of excessive sugar, excessive spending and squealing at the sight of sparkly plastic snowflakes. Here are a few things that have been happening with us this December:

1.We are in residency mode! Kitchenband Productions are in the space at the moment. We will take a peak at what they have been working on during our final Residency Showing on December 20 at 7 pm – all are welcome! View the invite here.

2. We have been following Toronto Budget Committee deputations on December 7 and 8 remotely – thanks to multiple Twitter correspondents and extensive reports by Torontoist: Day 1 and Day 2. Amazing to read some of the arguments and suggestions that deputants brought to help oppose cuts to the City’s essential services, including arts and culture funding.

3. Holiday music marathon - non-stop, with brief breaks for Regina Spektor. Battles JB vs MJ vs Mariah vs Hanky, the Christmas Poo – ongoing.

4. Holiday Office Decorating Party on December 3 complete with pizza, ginger bread cookies, candy cane, mulled cider and Franco handcrafting a garland out of a piece of ribbon and green and red shiny balls. Check out the photos!

Posted: December 8th, 2011 under By Lilya, Dec 2011 Newsletter, Theatre Centre Blog.
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