inFORMING CONTENT Workshop Leader Deborah Pearson leads a workshop exploring immersive theatre and its relationship to ethics.
FREE EVENT June 19: 10am – 1pm
A series of brief “ethics talks” on a range of topics from post-graduate ethicists from the University of Toronto. current . urgent . compelling.
FREE EVENT June 20: 7pm – 9pm
Workshop participants will respond to the “ethics talks” by creating site-specific theatre. immediate . experimental . intimate .
Performances will be directed by Team Leaders Claire Calnan, Susanna Hood, Ravi Jain, Michael Rubenfeld, Mumbi Tindyebwa.
More information available here and here on the Africa Trilogy Blog, and here on Facebook.
Deborah Pearson is co-director of the artist-led experimental Edinburgh Fringe venue Forest Fringe. In January she and her co-director Andy Field were named in the Stage List of the 100 most influential figures in UK Theatre.
“Suppose I were not to talk to you about Democracy, but about the sea, which is in some respects rather like Democracy! We all have our views of the sea. Some of us hate it and are never well when we are at it or on it. Others love it, and are never so happy as when they are in it or on it or looking at it. But certain facts about the sea are quite independent of our feelings towards it. If I take it for granted that the sea exists, none of you will contradict me. If I say the sea is sometimes furiously violent and always uncertain, and that those who are most familiar with it trust it least, you will not immediately shreik out that I do not believe in the sea; that I am an enemy of the sea; that I want to abolish the sea; that I am going to make bathing illegal. If I tell you that you cannot breathe in the sea, you will not take that as a personal insult and ask me indignantly if I consider you inferior to a fish.
Well, you must please be equally sensible when I tell you some hard facts about democracy. When I tell you that it is sometimes furiously violent and always dangerous and trechearous, and those familiar with it as practical statesman trust it least, you must not at once denounce me as a paid agent of Benitto Mussolini, or declare that I have become a Tory Die Hard in my old age, and accuse of me wanting to take away your votes and make an end of parliament, and the franchise, and free speech, and public meeting, and trial by jury.
Our business is not to deny the perils of Democracy, but to provide against them as far as we can, and then consider whether the risks we cannot provide against are worth taking.”
Marie Jones performs in Citizen Theatre‘s inaugural performance: A PWYC staged reading of GB Shaw’s: The Apple Cart: A political extravaganza at The Piston on May 25th at 7pm.
Laura Nordin (pictured with co-star Carlos Gonzalez-Vio) stars in the Theatre Cipher production of Agamemnon at the Church Hall of Christ the Saviour Cathedral (823 Manning — three blocks north of Bloor between Bathurst and Christie) Wednesday through Sunday at 8 PM, between MAY 22 and JUNE 5. Tickets are $10 – $20 and can be purchased here.
“If you look about, you will see that only operations that are well established, high-turnover, standardized or heavily subsidized can afford, commonly, to carry the costs of new construction. Chain stores, chain restaurants and banks go into new construction. But neighbourhood bars, foreign restaurants and pawn shops go into older buildings. Supermarkets and shoe stores often go into new buildings; good bookstores and antique dealers seldom do. Well-subsidized opera and art museums often go into new buildings. but the unformalized feeders of the arts – studios, galleries, stores for musical instruments and arts supplies, backrooms where the low earning power of a seat and a table can absorb uneconomic discussions – these go into old buildings. Perhaps more significant, hundreds of ordinary enterprises, necessary to the safety and public life of streets and neighbourhoods and appreciated for their convenience and personal quality, can make out successfully in old buildings, but are inexorably slain by the high overhead of new construction.
As for really new ideas of any kind – no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be – there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
The Tale of a Town runs May 1st -16th and BEGINS AT: Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Avenue and ENDS AT: the SCAR MFC Theatre, 609 Queen Street West, Toronto.
I remember I was playing in my grandma’s backyard after some wedding or something. And um… I had this beautiful white dress and I was playing with some boys on the back lawn when I felt it. All hot all over my legs and I didn’t know what to do so I just lay down. I didn’t want none of them to see it you know so I just lay down like someone lays down when they’re reading a book or something with their head in the hands and all. Like I was just enjoying the day or something when really my guts are screaming and I think I’m dying I really did think this was it I was leaking all my insides out and I was just lying there in the grass smiling, feeling my blood pouring out from under me and mixing with the dirt. I felt my blood mixing with the dirt and I was just lying there getting my white dress all dirty underneath but none of the boys could see that. They just saw me lying in the grass and smiling like I was sunning myself or something and they said “Come on, let’s go to the park” and I didn’t move. And they called at me again and said “Come on Magpie, let’s go to the park” but I wasn’t getting up and showing them I was dying. I just kept lying there and they started getting mad at me and saying “Stop laying around like a cow” and they started calling me a cow because I told them I just wanted to lie there, maybe all day. (Pause) And then they got bored with me and left. And then… when I knew no one was watching… I went inside and made myself clean again. That’s what I did Cody. I made myself clean again.
Jordan is the founder of Suburban Beast, a company dedicated to the creation of ‘documentary-performance’.
He is writing and directing the company’s new show Post Eden, which will receive a workshop production at Ryerson Theatre School from April 14-18, 2010. For more info click here.
Jessica Huras is the founder of Heart in Hand Theatre. She will be performing in the company’s premiere production of Claudia Dey’s Trout Stanley, opening at Bread & Circus April 22, 2010.
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Adam Lazarus is Artistic Producer of the Toronto Festival of Clowns, through which he is accepting submissions and teaching workshops in Bouffon and physical approaches to theatre creation.
Check out these websites for more info: www.torontoclown.com & www.quiptake.com
Adam Paolozza is artistic director of TheatreRUN. He will be singing a selection of classic 1960’s Italian love songs at La Dolce Vita, a fundraiser for The Pasolini Project, on January 28 at Bar Italia.
He is the director and, along with Coleen MacPherson, co-translator of The Pasolini Project, a new adaptation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s tragedy about democracy and social change, Pylade.
Click here for more info on La Dolce Vita and The Pasolini Project.
Arguably the most horrifying piece of music you will ever hear: Penderecki’s “Threnody”. The first few unmistakable seconds make an appearance in TALKING MASKS:
(Moving) Image:
Fussing over baby Oedipus — from Pasolini’s take on the myth:
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
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