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Ep. 56 - The Art of Contortion (Nadère arts vivants)
Saison 3 · Épisode 56
jeudi 23 janvier 2025 • Durée 37:19
Gabrielle Martin chats with Andréane Leclerc of Nadére arts vivants for the Season 3 Finale of PuSh Play! Throughout the Festival, Andréane will be sharing her practice through a variety of workshops and consultations for students and professionals as part of a PuSh Festival Artist Residency.
Show Notes
Gabrielle and Andréane discuss:
How do you integrate difficult contortion movements with somatic practices? What is the relationship between your practices 20 years ago and those you have today?
How do you write circus?
What does it mean to deconstruct and body and language of contortion?
What is dramaturgy in this context?
How are you working in the community?
How does contortion inform non-contortionist bodies?
What does relational ecology look like in the rehearsal process and onstage?
What are you currently researching?
About Andréane Leclerc
A conceptual and performance artist, Andréane Leclerc is interested in human encounters that guide her towards interdisciplinary and interartistic processes. Trained as a contortionist (National Circus School of Montreal, 2001), she draws inspiration from her 20 years of circus practice to reflect on contortion as a philosophical posture and to develop her scenic language. Her approach, focused on listening, relational ecology and perceptive attention, is part of new body practices emerging from the somatic and performance fields.
In 2013, she completed a master's degree on the dramaturgy of prowess at the UQAM theater department. That same year, with her partner Geoffroy Faribault, she founded the company Nadère arts vivants in order to pursue her exploration of a body/matter evolving in sensation rather than in sensationalism. She created the conceptual pieces Di(x)parue 2009; Bath House 2013; Mange-Moi 2013; Cherepaka 2014; The Whore of Babylon Featuring The Tiger Lillies 2015; Sang Bleu 2018; À l'Est de Nod 2022 and (X) currently in creation. Her pieces have been presented in Tokyo, Florence, Cairo, Tenerife, Sao Paolo, Guadalajara, Chicago, Rouyn-Noranda and Montreal, on contemporary stages, as well as in museums and galleries.
In parallel to her artistic career, Andréane Leclerc is a teacher and offers contortion classes to physical artists since 2015. She also develops interdisciplinary dramaturgy workshops for circus, dance, theater and performance artists (Studio 303, En Piste, Playwrights workshop Montreal in Montreal, La Gata Cirko in Bogota, La Grainerie in Toulouse, Fabbrica Europa in Florence). In 2017, she participated in the creation of Cirque OFF, a living manifesto for the biodiversity of circus arts in Montreal (Studio 303). She also occasionally act as a dramaturgy and movement consultant (Dialogue of Disobedience & Black light, white noise by and with Dana Dugan, 2018 & 2022) and performs for various international projects (Variations pour une déchéance annoncée by Angela Konrad, 2012; The Tiger Lillies Perform Hamlet since 2016).
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Majula joined the conversation from what is now known as Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello, and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Artistic Director, and today's episode highlights the dramaturgy of the circus body and relational ecology. I'm speaking with Andréa Leclerc of Nadir Arvivant, a performer, director, researcher and pedagogue. Andréa Leclerc has developed a somatic practice inspired by contortion for over 25 years. She creates transdisciplinary scenic works based on cooperation, listening and relational ecology. She's also a 2025 Push Artist in Residence, and will be sharing her practice through a variety of workshops and consultations for students and professionals throughout the festival.Find out more at our Push in the Community page. Here is my conversation with Andréa. I am thrilled to be in this conversation with you today. We're going to be talking about your practice and what you'll be up to at Push and what brings you here, what's brought you to this point in your career and what you're thinking about next. And just as we are about to get into that, I really just want to take a moment and acknowledge the land I'm on today. And, you know, this morning I was reading an article about PFAS or forever chemicals in our water, and I know we're all really aware of the signs of our extractive dynamic with the earth. And these signs are all around us and they seem to be pressing in daily. And I just I'm really incredibly grateful to live in this rich nature of so-called Vancouver, these unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish peoples. And to reflect on what it means to be a citizen of these lands and to live in reciprocity, which, you know, a totally different posturing than this extractive dynamic that's got us here today.And again, where are you where are you calling from? And I would love you just to I would love to hear you share your relationship to the land you're on. Yes, thank you, Gabrielle. I would like to acknowledge that the dramaturgy called Spirit, which runs through another of the event creation, has been shaped by contact with various unceded indigenous territories where beings and their memories coexist. So I'm joining this conversation from Jojagi Mounia in Montreal, which has long been a meeting place for diplomatic activities between indigenous nations. You started practicing contortion over 25 years ago, and this has evolved into your own unique somatic practice and pedagogy. And many many people would not associate contortion with its references to circus, virtuosity, the extreme, you know, painful looking positions with somatic practice, which tends to refer to more internal mind body methodologies. I would love it if you can describe how you made the connection between contortion, the contortion you were practicing, you know, when you started 25 years ago and the contortion you practiced today.
03:13
Yes, that's a very good question, because it's actually at the core of my problematic that has been leading my research from all that disconnection between what I perceived and live and embody my contortion body and all the perceived from and the perception from the audience that they were projecting upon my body when I was doing more classical circus forms. So since I was very young, contortion always have been for me a place for breath and accessing imaginary landscape and other sphere that were for me very fertile in terms of creation. And I always wanted and so new narratives and so on. So I was really traveling throughout my body and it was a way to resonate with the world and a way to be and live, experience the world. And so that always have been something I wanted to share with the audience.But then I'm starting from a very classical approach of contortion. So I was I did my education at the National Circus School in Montreal and I graduated in 2001. So a few years ago now, I've been really, fun, highly skilled, like contortion practice. So sitting on the head on handstand with very precise code and codification from spectacular, I would say, marketing law, when I'm understanding that. And so by, but that was just a way to do. And so by traveling the world working as a contortionist, at some point, even though, like, I was also formed as a contemporary circus artist, I always felt so unsatisfied by the impossibility to reach the audience with what I wanted to express.So then I was like, okay, so then how can I do that? And at some point, I did one creation in Germany. And we it was the first time I was doing like, proper, I would say, research on quantum physics. And it was a show inspired by quantum physics. And we had talks with researchers and scientific and scientists. And there was like an opening on new possibilities. And so there was very clear dramaturgical choices that has been made in matter to be linked with the subject. And so for me, there was a before and an after, because with that creation, there was a possibility to question the codification of how to write circus.And so art did not add to happen in between the circus technique. But the technique and the body and the circus body could talk itself out. Then there was some limitation of my research by was I opening door to actually come back to the university in theaters studying dramaturgy of the body, where I really passed few years to deconstruct the language of spectacular deconstruct the language of contortion deconstruct the body of contortion to try to make this body a matter for scenic representation.And how does that body through contortion, of course, because that is my first entrance door, how does that body can generate imagination and stimulate the true sensation and kinetic kinesthetic, and also composition of the stage, stimulate the imaginary role of the audience? So how can it become a language that audience can read? And that is really dramaturgy, right? Like just for our listeners who may not be as familiar with that term, or when you talk about dramaturgy of the body or dramaturgy of the circus body.
08:00
I can also reflect on how I interpret that. But can you kind of outline that a little bit more? Actually, yeah, I think it's a, I can go further, it was more about then after that to deconstruct and enter this somatic practice, so a language. So I was not any more into like a circus language, but I was in an embodied practice of amplitudes. So that was how I could actually get out from the spectacular aspect from the contortion to enter like a more sensation tools of writing. But then after that, from And then I can develop more about what is made that somatic practice, of course, but then the idea was really to enter about into interrelation of the body and how like composition of the body can generate new ideas or new meaning through sensation.So basically, I've been working a lot upon Francis Bacon and logic of sensation of Gilles Deleuze in order to get out of a way to represent in a narrative way or in an illustrative way, but to really work around the figure and the dramaturgy of the sensation. And with the painting of Francis Bacon, it's also about how the body relate to the space and how the body relate to oneself and how the body relate to the overall and the triptych, so the whole composition of the painting together. So for me, that really became true, like an abstract body made of flesh, bones, sensation and finding new relation within the body, a place for new composition and rethinking all our perceptive idea upon the body and finding new possibility of adjustment to generate new meanings and new mental representation. And so new dramaturgy. Yeah. And I think that term or that word you used reading is really important, like how the audience reads that body.And so often in circus, you know, the acrobatic vocabulary of circus has been expressed in a really until very recently, like a kind of narrow piece, a narrow context with a lot of this projected narrative of, you know, the cabaret or, you know, certain often it's used in theatrical interdisciplinary context in the contemporary world where, you know, there's a there's a text narrative, but what is the what is what does the body say? And I think that you've kind of distilled, you know, hearing you talk about amplitude, distilled kind of the truth of the body through this vocabulary. And then it's like how to dive into that. And to really explore like, what is the truth of that language through the body, which I mean, I think it's obvious to say through the body when we're thinking, okay, circus is clearly usually such a physical practice, but also the the the research development has often physical research has often been a quite operated in a quite a different sphere from say, contemporary dance. And so I've felt that often, when we talk about dramaturgy in the circus realm, it's more like a theatrical dramaturgy in terms of, you know, there's a text or there's like, a storyline, and that is the the physical vocabulary inserts into that, rather than digging into the like, yeah, what is when you really dive into amplitude, or these things that you're referring to, what is that?
12:17
Where does that take you in terms of an experience for the audience and for the artist? I'm really excited by your work.And I guess I think you were already talking about what's been revealed, you know, yeah, you did your master's degree on dramaturgy, the circus body at the University of Quebec at Montreal. And do you have anything further to share about what that revealed has revealed to you? Yeah, but to answer what you just said, or to rebound on what you just expressed around circus, I think, yeah, there's a there was an idea in content in modern circus in mother to wish to tell a story that to break out the traditional circus was to add dance and theater to circus where in a more multidisciplinary approach and in the we're calling it more like a mosaic type of writing of following each of the act and the prowess, and then inserting some theater and dance. And so for me, I was more thinking about if if circus is an art form, it needs to be talking on its be capable to talk on its own and express itself on its own. So more about how to dig into the language not only of the circus, but of the prowess, which is normally a vocabulary, sorry, in the circus world. But now to see it really as a complex organization, to unfold that and see how we can recreate now new way of writing in matter to get out of a certain type of tendency and circus not to generalize, because there is very beautiful and extreme, complex works happening. But to I'm still talking about more like the new circus, maybe ideas was still in the cabaret and those more like popular format, I am interested into searching beyond the self and the eye and the meep to enter into something that the artists can talk about something that transcends the personal point of view. Of course, the la pajole, so what they want to talk comes from them, it's their fire. But then after that, through the art piece that they're creating, it goes beyond the eye and they can talk about other subjects and only what they are living inside their body to become something more an encountering between different people, a place to meet. Yeah, which is also unique, because often circus discipline, the whole discipline practice formation is often very, well, I was gonna say individual, yes and no, because interestingly, like I think circus training spaces or where circus artists practice day to day, often tend to be very communal spaces, sometimes more so than dance or community spaces, but clearly it depends where you are. But for example, in Montreal, that was my experience. But also so much of it is solo work, whereas the dance, often a dance student will be focused on developing their skill and their technique in the ensemble context. And obviously, this is a big generalization and it's discipline specific, but within circus, but that often there is such a it's such a self focused practice. So I'm really also interested in your work for how you're working in community through your pedagogical practice and in the how you've designed your creative process and the presentation of your work.
16:25
Yes, it's very interesting what you're saying because it's true that circus has a very solitude aspect to the development of their own discipline. The work of a circus artist is very personal.But then it's interesting how collectivity also organizes itself in a way of living in a type of nomadism or circus nomadism that is still happening and how all like how the circus is traveling as a ladean of that discipline. And so with what you're saying in terms of contortion, I think what I wanted to do is that even from within the circus world, contortion is the only practice that has its own body in terms of an apparatus. So all circus discipline is always in relation to an object. Contortion, its object is its own body. And so I felt really isolated within even the circus world. And so I think that need my personal need to build bridges, my need to be in relation to be in dialogue and to share my practice to find a way that through my practice and all what my practice have been giving me in terms of knowledge, because I really believe that the body's own knowledge are way beyond our mind that can produce.And so it was about how can I build those bridges to enter in dialogue to create new possibilities through that entrance door. And there's a question, how does contortion inform non-contortionist bodies that you've shared as a starting point for your creative approach, or at least in the recent years? So why does that question draw you in and what have you discovered so far? Um, yeah, I mean, in parallel to my studies, I've been asked to give contortion classes to non contortionist people, because people are very interested to do a contortion and explore. And that has been for me, a huge school, I learned so much from all those encounters. And it's a huge drive in my artistic process.Because contortion for me became, with that question became a philosophy, because it was not anymore about what one self can do, because we did a workshop of like 15 hours, I'm not going to show someone to sit on their own head. And so it was more about how to defocus from the goal oriented, and then to really enter a process. That's one thing. Also, because when we didn't 15 hours, or if we're goal oriented, and with contortion, it doesn't goes with the rhythm of the body. And so it's, and especially as we're getting older, because now I were more with professional artists, so we're not six years old anymore, or nine years old, where the body is all very soft and virgin to the life, we hold history, we hold trauma, we hold time that sits within our body has been forming, we hold also belief that has been also forming our body. So with time, by focusing on the process, I realize how the limits and the zone of resistance that we can feel that one that our construction of life has been forming us that we feel that is blocking us to access contortion is actually places of protection. And so we have to find gratitude towards those resistance. They are very important because they're talking to us and they have things to reveal us. So we cannot like avoid what our body is telling us.
21:06
So then, about how does contortion inform non contortionist bodies about how to get in dialogue with your body, and to listen to what your body has to say throughout the process, to dig into those limits that are constructions of oneself, to enter places of amplitudes and opening, because without that without passing those face it phases, then you the body will keep protecting you. So you need to acknowledge that and you need to work with those sensations.And so that's how I am shifting focuses and the mind and to enter in a place, a posture of listening. So now for me, contortion is a is a posture of listening is a posture to enter in relation is a place to receive information and then see how we can re transform them in movement. I love I love hearing you discuss your process and I think and your philosophy and I think it's especially exciting because it is so truly unique. I think also with circus being such a relatively young discipline, the number of practitioners locally internationally, who are really like teasing out or expanding upon a foundation of circus languages, it's really rare and it's really interesting.And so you create transdisciplinary scenic works, based on cooperation, listening, and you've spoken about relational ecology. So what does relational ecology look like in the rehearsal process and on stage? And I would love it if you want to talk about your piece, Alestinod, because I know that that's really an example of this transdisciplinary work, where you're really developing a relational ecology. The question how does contortion from non contortionist body and what I just kind of explained are is really the foundation about the piece of Alestinod.And so this whole philosophy and this idea how to embrace one's voice and one's history and how each individual are fundamentally essential for the survival of a group. And so as contortion is my, again, disciplinary entrance door, I am focusing on the experience of each of the artists within the performance and I am embracing their voice within the piece.And so with Alice the Nerd, I developed all based on the contortion systemic organization to access amplitude and ecosystem in a complex choreographical partition, which we are activating within very precise law of movement and interrelation. So it's not a choreographical piece with a beginning and an end and a very formal writing.The choice all the performers within Alice the Nerd engage their agency within the piece to get in relation. And so that's how I also reverse our idea about performance and it's performative piece, but not a performance piece because we are not producing movement. It's about how we're not producing and as it's a piece that question limits at structure, as I just explained about contortion, my idea about contortion, we're not pushing boundaries and we're not activating or we're not engaging a language, which is a colonial way of thinking.
25:39
It's really just a system of law and organization within the group with a very precise, like I said, writing of organizing the movement where each of the participant performers receive information and transform them with their agency and so contribute. So somehow being in that piece is an action verb. So it's not just a state. So you are and so you take action in full consciousness.And so with this, then there's like very complex composition that are happening through just living time and space throughout the body. And so that's how I would explain more the relational ecology. And with this also, I'm rethinking my posture as a choreographer. So I've been developing this complex, um, scenic writing, uh, with the dramaturge, um, Miriam Stefani Peraton Lambert. And I work with local performer, uh, every time I remount or even recreate, um, locally, the piece, Aleister Donaud. So with this approach comes from an ecological statement also to first to create big scale piece, because there's between 13 and 30 people on stage. and but without traveling, first of all. Secondly, it takes a lot of time. So I'm not just like passing on a formal piece. It is a practice that is being shared. And so that the local artists are learning and engaging in. And so this takes time and time is resources, but times allow that regenerating nation of also resources and creates meaning. And then we did this as the piece has been already created as I see my posture as a choreographer in those places as a facilitator. And so I have a role, but it's not a dominated role. I have a role, of course, to hold the space, guide the performer, show and share the practice and so on. But there's a kind of, I try to reverse or rethink what is an ethical posture of a choreographer in the relation with the performer, especially contortion that cannot push boundaries, but how we can create together and turn in dialogue together through the piece that is that place of encountering and doing together. So how can we find how can we do together? And so at a question, also the model of creation and so the performance, of course, a question, also the model of production and touring, especially, but locally and also internationally. And so all those places of resistance become a place about dialogue and how we can do together. So it's about also facing realities and different realities and how you can acknowledge them. And so not to blend everyone in one way and diminutive way about who has more resources is more about, okay, how can we make that out, how we can find solution. And so we have to rethink the model. So it's really a place, I think, Alison, that is really a piece that demand to apply very at the core, or the idea and new idea about the situation and the ecological crisis we're facing on now. Getting out of theory and let's get it into practice. So it's not perfect. There's a lot of places, but I really wish that I'm contributing for evolving and it's a place of learning and it's a place of mutual growing and a place to stimulate critical thinking through practice.
30:22
And as you're speaking, I'm hearing about the relational ecology on the micro level, on the macro, or maybe not the micro, but like the different layers of how you are creating the work and sharing the work with the public and the relational ecology between the bodies in the space, the composition, the process of formation and the philosophical process that I'm sure is woven through that or the philosophy that's woven through that process with the artists. And then there's the relationship between how your work intersects with the world in terms of embedding for a longer term process, a more durational process, not touring with a large cast and really thinking about how your work actually connects and relates to the local culture and the local bodies.It's really fascinating. And having experienced an excerpt of this work, it's also, even though you say it's performative and not as much a performance, and I think that's a really interesting and differentiation to make, and I can see the truth in that, it was incredibly captivating. So the depth of the work in terms of the the action of being that you've created and how you've worked out that with the artist is really, really fascinating and compelling to watch. And we hope that we will be lucky enough to host this piece in the future here so that people can experience it from the inside and from the out.I would just love to hear about what you are currently researching, where you're going, what direction you're going with all this wealth of practice and research behind you. Many things. No. I think in the continuity, Alice did not open in 2022, so directly while right in the middle of a pandemic. We've been touring that piece, but first of all, we've been touring that piece in Armenia, Mexico, Buenos Aires, so Argentina and France, and also in Quebec in different regions here. As I just said, Alice did not, it's an ongoing recreation process. So I feel I have so much to learn from Alice did not still. So that's kind of, you know, you know, let's see what is the life of Alice did not will be. But of course, like that's a big, big trend that will live within me for still, I think many years because I still have a lot to learn from it. But in parallel, I have I'm also developing a solo, so another traditional performance. But I have probably for another four years maybe to do research for it because I, as I said, like I am returning to my own body right now, I am facing a place of rupture in my life in terms of like, I think with all the change of context in the world, I am questioning a lot about what is the meaning and role of art into the society.And I want to be really aligned with that. And I am with all Alice did not the master degree, the workshop I've been giving. I am just seeing how much all the bodies knows way more that we do human beings that are inhabiting our body. And so I really want to put myself as an artist to listen what nature has to say, and what my body has to say, and what are the new contemporary mythologies that are that are going to be born from what exists already.
34:51
So see differently. So a big shift in my posture, my way to read, my way to listen, my way to receive, and trying to listen what is happening and what are the shifts right now.And so encounters with other artists, people, culture, be in contact with different realities, learning, listening, and see where this will form itself into the new project. I love that term new contemporary mythologies. That's really beautiful. Thank you so much, Andrean. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you. I have been following your work for a very long time coming from the circus world myself. I've just been so inspired about your practice from afar, and I'm really so pleased that we've been able to welcome you, that we will be hosting you very shortly in residence here, so that other people have the opportunity to get to know your practice in a variety of ways. Thank you so much, Gabrielle. I'm so looking forward to being in Vancouver and meet everyone over there, the land and the people.
36:12
That was Gabrielle Martin and André-Anne Leclerc from Nader Arvivant. Throughout the festival, André-Anne will be sharing her practice through a variety of workshops and consultations for students and professionals as part of the Push Festival Artist Residency.The Push Play podcast is produced by myself, Ben Jarland, and me, Trisha Knowles. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. This is the final episode of Season 3 of Push Play.We hope you'll have a chance to get out to see some of the works being presented in Vancouver and online January 23rd to February 9th. If you'd like to explore more of Push over the past 20 years, please look at our special 20th anniversary retrospective Push Play Season where Gabrielle Martin talks with an artist from one of the shows in each of the past years of Push. And to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theatre, dance,
37:06
music and multimedia performances at the
37:09
25 Push Festival, visit pushfestival.ca and follow us on social media.
Ep. 55 - Finding and Meeting the Other (What is Already Here?)
Saison 3 · Épisode 55
lundi 20 janvier 2025 • Durée 40:10
Gabrielle Martin chats with Majula Drammeh and Joseph K Kasua. They are presenting a special studio showing and discussion of What is already here? at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Check out the show on February 7 at the VIVO Media Arts Centre.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Majulah and Joseph discuss:
For your show, What is Already Here, which stemmed from a 2022 installation, what was the evolution of the project and what were the themes explored? How did it start?
How did the pandemic influence the creation process?
How have themes of extraction, colonialism and digital technology weave into the work?
Why did you choose to call this a “futuristic afro-play” and what do you mean to achieve with this form?
What is your collaboration like, given your different points of departure? What drew you to work together, and how do your practices complement one another?
About Majula Drammeh
I am a performer, dancer, dramaturg and performance maker based in Stockholm and Malmö, Sweden. My main focus is on interactive, participatory immersive work within the fields of dance and performance as well as somatic practices. I am looking to explore how these can act as a bridge for people to participate and discover themselves in an open, permissive and inclusive way. In the interpersonal.
I am interested in giving space for both audience/ participants and performers to deal with their own bodily identity and the political baggage it carries. And I strive to present interactive performing arts where the body of the minority is the norm, and hopefully contribute to the decline of history-less of which the non-white body is consigned too.
As a performer and dancer my focus is on using somatic practices and experiences to create a focus that is vulnerable, present and invites the participant to be present with themselves too. I use my choreographic and improvisational experiences to find methods of meeting the room, space and objects to create a relational bridge to them. These are also methods I communicate in my teaching.
Ep. 54 - Conjuring the Future (The Goldberg Variations)
Saison 3 · Épisode 54
jeudi 16 janvier 2025 • Durée 26:49
Gabrielle Martin chats with Clayton Lee, who will be presenting The Goldberg Variations at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Check out the show on January 30 at the Waterfront Theatre, supported by CMHC Granville Island.
Show Notes
Gabrielle and Clayton discuss:
Why do you only perform the Goldberg Variations once per engagement?
What does it mean to identify as a performance artist and not just a musician?
What are your thoughts in relation to care and consent in your work?
To what extent is your own story the subject of your artistic projects?
How do you use performance to actively reshape your life?
What is allowed and not allowed in different performance contexts, and how do you respond to this?
What did it mean to get married as part of a performance?
What contexts are you currently playing with in your future work?
How do we continue this work beyond?
About Clayton Lee
Clayton Lee is a Canadian curator, producer, and performance artist. He is currently the Artistic Director of Fierce Festival in Birmingham, UK and, as part of the Living Room Collective, will be representing Canada at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Clayton joined the conversation from Toronto, on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.
Ep. 53 - Risk and Empowerment (Inner Sublimity)
Saison 3 · Épisode 53
lundi 13 janvier 2025 • Durée 42:22
Gabrielle Martin chats with Sammy Chien and Caroline MacCaull of Chimerik. They are presenting Inner Sublimity at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Check out the show on February 7, 8 and 9 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Sammy and Caroline discuss:
What does it look like to transcend eastern and western philosophy in your work overall and in “Inner Sublimity” in particular?
How does this project exist within a revitalization of Taiwanese culture?
Why is it risky, and empowering, to talk about Taiwan?
What is mediumship and what is its power in this performance?
How does the space influence the design of the experience?
What does it mean to use technology as an extension of the body?
What was the creation journey for this piece?
About Sammy Chien
Sammy Chien 簡上翔 is a Taiwanese-Canadian immigrant and queer artist-of-colour, who’s a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary artist, director, performer, researcher and mentor in film, sound art, new media, performance, movement and spiritual practice. With over 500 collaborative projects, his work has been shared across Canada, Western Europe, and Asia including Centre Pompidou (Paris), the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), National Art Centre (Ottawa), Stratford Festival, Art Night Venezia (Venice Biennale) and Documenta 15. He’s worked with pioneers of digital performance: Troika Ranch and Wong Kar Wai’s Cinematographer Christopher Doyle and hundreds of internationally celebrated artists and companies. Sammy has been featured on magazines, TV and commercials such as Discorder, Keedan, CBC Arts and BenQ. Sammy is currently co-leading dance projects “We Were One” & “Inner Sublimity”; intergenerational media arts project “Ritual-Spective 迴融”; documentary film “Soul Speaking”, funded by Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. Sammy is the official instructor of Isadora, Council of MotionDAO, Co-Artistic Director of Third Space Arts Collective and Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of Chimerik 似不像, a multi-award winning interdisciplinary non-profit arts organization who’s worked with Google, Microsoft & NIKE, while prioritizing the focus on empowering various underrepresented communities with various sectoral change research and digital community projects such as Chimerik’s Virtual Live Art Database.
Ep. 52 - From the Ordinary to the Universal (Dimanche)
Saison 3 · Épisode 52
jeudi 9 janvier 2025 • Durée 25:35
Gabrielle Martin chats with Julie Tenret of Focus and Sandrine Heyraud of Chaliwaté about their show Dimanche, which will be presented at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Dimanche will be presented with our friends at the Cultch on February 6, 7 and 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse, supported by Vancouver Civic Theatres.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Julie and Sandrine discuss:
How do you address something with extreme clarity but also appeal to a broad audience?
How do you tackle the theme of climate change and denial?
Why is it important to show our vulnerability, fragility and smallness in nature? How do you achieve this?
What do you mean by the work being “artisanal”?
How do you mix physical and object theatre?
How does humour as well as emotional distance fit into the work?
How would you describe the journey of your two companies coming together? Have your different techniques stayed separate or been blended together?
Is the storyboarding process typical for you?
How have your artistic practices evolved since both companies were founded in 2009?
What can you tell us about your new project?
About Dimanche
The Companies Focus (created by Julie Tenret) and Chaliwaté (consisting of Sandrine Heyraud and Sicaire Durieux) gathered around the collective writing of Dimanche. For a long time, the two companies had been following and appreciating the work of the other. It became apparent that they had a similar approach, a shared taste for unusual, visual, artisanal and poetic forms of theatre. The three artists decided to pool their talents to create a new form of writing combining gestural theatre, object theatre, puppetry, acting and video. This project is a continuation of their respective research. Since 2016, they have worked meticulously to create a unique, visual and poetic language that draws its inspiration from everyday life, the intimate, the “infra-ordinary”, to tap into the universal.
Ep. 51 - Unclassifiable (Bijuriya)
Saison 3 · Épisode 51
lundi 6 janvier 2025 • Durée 34:52
Gabrielle Martin chats with Gabriel Dharmoo, who is presenting Bijuriya at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival on January 28 and 29 at the ANNEX, with Music on Main and the Indian Summer Festival and support from the Government of Quebec.
Show Notes
Gabrielle and Gabriel discuss:
How do we artfully engage with colonialism?
What does it mean to have a transcultural perspective?
What does it mean to be an artist at the intersection of high and low, east and west?
Have you always worked across so many forms and disciplines or was there a trajectory that led from one to the other?
Are you more interested in self-directed projects these days?
What does it mean for you to investigate queerness?
Can you talk about the direction of your aesthetic since Anthropologie Imaginaire?
What are you working on next?
About Gabriel Dharmoo
Gabriel Dharmoo is a composer, vocalist, improviser, interdisciplinary artist and researcher.
After studying with Éric Morin at Université Laval, he completed studies in composition and analysis at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with Serge Provost, graduating with two Prix avec grande distinction, the highest honour awarded. His works have been performed in Canada, the U.S., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Singapore, and South Africa. He has received many awards for his compositions, including the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for his chamber work Wanmansho (2017) and the Conseil Québécois de la Musique Opus Award for his opera À chaque ventre son monstre (2018). He was also awarded the Canadian Music Centre's Harry Freedman Recording Award (2018).
Having researched Carnatic music with four renowned masters in Chennai (India) in 2008 and 2011, his musical style encourages the fluidity of ideas between tradition and innovation. He has participated in many cross-cultural and inter-traditional musical projects, many led by Sandeep Bhagwati in Montreal (Sound of Montreal, Ville étrange) and in Berlin (Zungenmusiken, Miyagi Haikus).
Ep. 50 - The Negotiation (L’Addition)
Saison 3 · Épisode 50
jeudi 2 janvier 2025 • Durée 28:31
Gabrielle Martin chats with Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutas (Bert and Nasi) who are presenting L’Addition at the 2025 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. L’Addition, directed by Tim Etchells, will be performed at the Alliance Française Vancouver on January 25 and 26 in association with Here & Now, and supported by the consulat général de France à Vancouver.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Bert and Nasi discuss:
How did you come to know each other and begin your collaboration?
What were the shifts and evolution of your work over the period of creating six shows together?
What does it mean to work with a political message?
What does it mean to occupy space and be in this world?
In your “Less Workshop”, you discuss using space for political and artistic negotiation. Do these ideas define your work?
What has it meant to create work in the UK over the past 12 years of austerity?
How do we prioritize simplicity when dealing with complex matters? How do we inject feelings into facts?
What did it mean to work with Tim Etchells?
What are the different ways to lead a creative process?
What can people expect from the show or from the next work of yours?
About Bert and Nasi
Bert and Nasi are a contemporary performance duo that met in 2015 and have since created an entire repertoire of shows in the midst of a period of national and international austerity. Their work, in turn, is stripped back and minimalist, whilst dealing with complex ideas and emotions. Their shows lie somewhere between performance, dance and theatre but if you had to pin them down on it, they'd probably say it's theatre.
Together they have performed their shows on the international stages of PuSh Festival (Canada), Festival de Otoño (Spain), Sarajevo Mess (Bosnia), Adelaide International Festival (Australia), InTeatro (Italy), Avignon Festival (France) as well as MiTsp (Brazil).
Ep. 49 - The One to One Affair (Marie Chouinard)
Saison 3 · Épisode 49
lundi 30 décembre 2024 • Durée 26:05
Gabrielle Martin chats with the legendary Marie Chouinard. Marie’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Rite of Spring will be presented at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival on February 3 at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre.
Show Notes
Gabrielle and Marie discuss:
Can you describe the evolution of your artistic inquiry, especially since you started professional practice in 1978 and founded your own company in 1990?
Are you still called to the solo form?
How is your work connected to something more profound or spiritual?
How has the impact of your work changed as the sociopolitical context has shifted over time?
What are the challenges of arts leadership and how have they changed over the years?
What are you currently researching?
About Marie Chouinard
Marie Chouinard was born in Quebec. At the age of 16, her life was transformed after spending 4 months alone in Percé. As a choreographer, she traveled the world over as soloist for 12 years before founding the COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD in 1990. Her works, radical and profound, with a unique signature are nonetheless enduring and appear in the repertoires of major international ballet companies.
Marie Chouinard is a director (films, applications, virtual reality works), an author (Zéro Douze, Chantiers des extases), a visual artist (photographs, drawings, installations), and she also creates choreographies for site-specific installations, for the screen, and in real-time for the web. Named Officière des Arts et des Lettre in France, recipient of a Bessie Award in New York, she has received some thirty of the most prestigious awards and honors. She founded the Prix de la Danse de Montréal in 2011 and was director of dance at the Venice Biennale from 2017 to 2020. Marie Chouinard is preparing a solo exhibition.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Ep. 48 - Seeing Double (A Wake of Vultures)
Saison 3 · Épisode 48
jeudi 26 décembre 2024 • Durée 47:56
Gabrielle Martin chats with Nancy Tam, Daniel O’Shea, Conor Wylie of A Wake of Vultures. They are presenting two shows at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival: K Body and Mind and Walking at Night by Myself. Both will be at the Scotiabank Dance Centre as a double feature on February 1 and 2.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Nancy, Daniel and Conor discuss:
What is the glue that keeps the company moving together and working?
Can that be explained with astrology?
How do you create devised work and is it similar or different from convention?
How do you play around with various layers of performance?
What is your shared interest in detachment and “trippiness”?
What rituals does your rehearsal practice have?
What’s the role and benefits of shorthand?
What makes these two works “sister pieces” to be presented together?
What is the place of futurism and retro in your work?
How did form affect the work and how did video impact the performance?
About A Wake of Vultures
Formed in 2013, A Wake of Vultures (WOV) is a project-based interdisciplinary performance company. WOV is a research, development, and producing vehicle for the works of its three members: Nancy Tam (music, sound design, theatre), Daniel O’Shea (film, theatre), and Conor Wylie (theatre). Switching between individual and collective project leadership, we connect with local, national, and international communities through collaboration and touring.
We began collaborating and bonding as friends over our shared fascination in social rituals, science fiction, anime, and questions of reality and perception. We follow our idiosyncratic curiosities, blending low-brow inspirations with high-concept ideas, creating bizarre convergences that propose hybrid visions of the future. Our work is marked by formal detachment, ritual, unstable perspectives, and a blend of retro and new technologies, taking diverse forms like audio walks, performative installations, and plays. WOV has been presented in Canada, the US, Germany, and Hong Kong.
Ep. 47 - The Space Between Words (De glace / From Ice)
Saison 3 · Épisode 47
jeudi 19 décembre 2024 • Durée 18:24
Gabrielle Martin chats with Anne-Marie Ouellet, whose work, De glace / From Ice, will be presented at the 20th PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. You can catch her show from January 31 to February 2 at the Roundhouse in Vancouver, in association with Théâtre la Seizième and the Vancouver International Children’s Festival.
Show Notes
Gabrielle and Anne-Marie discuss:
Why did you choose a Nordic tale as inspiration for De Glace?
What does it mean to allow the unspeakable to emerge? How do you create an environment that fosters this?
Can you describe the visual aesthetic of L’eau du bain
What about the various technology and design used for this work, especially audio?
What’s exciting and interesting about the child’s presence on stage?
About Anne-Marie Ouellet
Anne-Marie Ouellet lives and works in Montreal (Quebec), Canada. Her interdisciplinary practice explores matters pertaining to the standards that govern behaviors in the public and private space. Through the elaboration and experimentation of different types of behaviors, Anne-Marie Ouellet creates organizational structures in the form of interventions in collaboration with groups of participants who wear her clothes-uniforms in the urban space. Her work mainly gravitates around the notions of individualism and collectivity, standardization and regimentation.
With an MFA from Université du Quebec à Montréal (2011), Anne-Marie Ouellet has exhibited in Quebec at Musée d'art de Joliette (2022), Le lieu (Quebec, 2019), Verticale (Laval, 2017), Optica (Montreal, 2015), Maison des arts de Laval (2013), Galerie de l'UQAM, Montreal (2011), Manif d'art 4, Quebec (2008), and at the Musée Régional de Rimouski (2005). She also participated in events and artist residencies in Quebec (Sagamie, Alma, (2020), Axenéo7, Gatineau (2016), PRAXIS, Ste-Thérèse (2012) and DARE-DARE, Montreal (2012)), France (FRAC/Alsace, Strasbourg (2006)), and Germany (B_Tour Festival, Berlin (2013) et Oberweilt e.V., Stuttgart (2007)).
I work as a dramaturg for mainly dance artists and I am intrigued with processes and the path they lead the work on. How, with close attention, the process reveals the very core of an artist’s work and clarifies what decisions need to be made when we listen closely.
I grew up in Hjulsta/Tensta suburb of Stockholm, Sweden.
I studied at the Dance and Circus School in Stockholm in 2006 and received my bachelor’s degree in dance from Laban Center London (2009) and in 2021.I received a master’s degree in performing arts from Stockholm University of the Arts.
I have been teaching at Stockholm University of Arts and The Royal Danish Art Academy amongst others.
About Joseph K. Kasua
Born in Lubumbashi in 1995, Joseph K. Kasau Wa Mambwe is a visual artist, filmmaker and author based in Lubumbashi. He holds a degree in Information and Communication Sciences from the University of Lubumbashi, specialising in Performing Arts (Audiovisual, Cinema and Theatre).His passion for art started very early in Lubumbashi's cinemas, and was nourished by multiple visual influences that later formalised in his artistic practice, which is situated at the intersection of cinema, video art, photography, creative writing and addresses in his work the complexity of memory and identity in a postcolonial urban context. He is a fellow of the Trame 2022 residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, of the Delfina Foundation residency programme in England on food politics, of the Tri-continental Quilombo project (DRC - SWITZERLAND - BRAZIL) from 2021 to 2023. Kasau Wa Mambwe also works as a Fixer, Assistant Director, Editorial Assistant and as a Communication Officer for African and Western structures and collectives, among others Les Films de la Passerelle (Belgium), the Lubumbashi Biennale (2019), Museum of Tervuren (Belgium), PODIUM Esslingen (Germany) and GROUP50:50 (DRC - SWITZERLAND - Germany).
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Majula joined the conversation from Stockholm, Sweden, and Joseph joined from Lubumbashi in the DR Congo.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights interpersonal processes and works that give birth to themselves. I'm speaking with Majula Drammeh and Joseph K. Casao-Wamambue, Push artists in residence who will be developing their work, what is already here, in residency during the festival and sharing the studio showing and conversation on February 7th, 2025. In a world fixated on unyielding technological progress, this interactive theater installation in development urges audiences to reconnect with the tangible through a resounding affirmation of collective belonging. Set in a subterranean laboratory built from discarded electronic waste, the work in development draws on ancestral wisdom and Afro-futurist divisions, inviting participants to challenge their digital dependencies and rediscover what it means to be human in a time of digital alienation. Born and based in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph K. Casao-Wamambue holds a degree in information and communication sciences from the University of Lubumbashi with a specialization in performing arts. From theater and cinema to photography, installation and creative writing, Joseph's work addresses the complexity of memory and identity in a post-colonial urban context. Rooted in dance and choreography, Majula Drammeh's artistic practice explores how the performing arts can provide spaces for interpersonal relationships, addressing vulnerability and challenging societal norms. Her work often exists in non-traditional theater spaces and asks the participants to fully emerge themselves in topics such as time consumerism in a capitalist age. Here's my conversation with Joseph and Majula. It's really nice to be in conversation with you today. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you more about this project, about your practice. Thank you for joining me. I know it's evening where you are, it's morning where I am. I'm going to start by just acknowledging where I am joining this conversation from. So I am on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh. And as a settler here, it's important. I'm responsible to continue my thinking and education on what the history of colonization looks like here and its implications and ongoing effects today. And I think something that's really interesting is thinking and learning I've done around the different types of colonialism and their impacts today and how that affects what colonization looks like today or neocolonialism based on where we are.
03:01
With my own background, my father coming from Zimbabwe, colonization now looks much different than it has here in Canada. And so, you know, I think that's important in framing the difference specifically between settler colonialism, where large numbers of settlers claim land, become a majority, and often employ a logic of elimination, engineering the disappearance of the original inhabitants versus an extractive colonialism where colonizers, you know, destroy or push away indigenous inhabitants to access resources, but more typically depend on mediation and the labor of the indigenous peoples. And and then other forms like planter or trade colonialism, and this is there's one kind of very simple and nice reference, a typology of colonialism by Nancy Shoemaker. That's a great reference. And so that's kind of some of my thinking today that I wanted to share. And Joseph and Majula, could you please share where you are joining the conversation from?
04:11
So I'm joining the conversation from Lumbashi. Lumbashi is, I can say, the second biggest city in the Republic Democratic of Congo. It's a city full of mining and exploitation, so it's really related to the colonialism history that you were talking about. And I was born here, and I've always acknowledged that Lumbashi, as a qualification, they say that it's a copper city. And for all my life, I haven't really been in touch with the copper, so that's symbolized the fact that our land don't really belong to us. So there are so many people, so many countries that are under us, and taking all the decisions that belong to us. So yeah, I'm joining from this territory.
05:24
and I am joining from Stockholm, Sweden, and actually I have no roots to this country because my mother is from Finland and my father is from Gambia and they ended up here because of work in the 70s. So in Sweden we call people that have a parent of colour and a parent from another country people of in betweenesship. So we're in between wherever we are basically. So yeah and I think this has coloured my experience as a human throughout my entire life and I mean Sweden is a very rich and very social democratic country or it has been until quite recently it's more right-wing now and I mean it's not dealt so much with its past in terms of I mean it actually still has in one sense a colony in the far north with the Sami people who are the Swedish indigenous people and it's still a very very hot topic here and it's just recently passed maybe I would say eight to ten years that Sweden has actually also acknowledged the fact that they were dealing with slave trade and owned a colony in St. Bartelemy. So yeah I'm in all of that mess with my in betweeness ship.
07:16
Thank you for sharing that. I want to dive right into talking about what is already here. So this is a project born from thinking on the pandemic's impact on the way we socialize and the wider dematerialization of social and human relations. So it stemmed from a 2022 interactive installation of Joseph's Terre toi rue men or human territories. And what is already here, your collaborative project is a futuristic Afro play in which you explore a number of conspiracy theories about surveillance and talk about Africa as the place from which all the resources and green energies destined to save the world from its climate crisis are drawn. Can you talk about the evolution of the project both in its form and in the research trajectories or themes explored?
08:05
I think, of course, the project started out as a personal reflection, as you said, but now Modula is here. And for me, I think it's changed everything. I mean, procedures, approach, and even form. And so my background is from theater, but I've made a kind of big detour in video, in film, and visual art. And Modula came from a dance background, mainly. So our meeting made us rethink the form we wanted to give to our project, in a way, I can say. So it was this kind of regeneration that led us to think of a border piece, in a way, in which dance for words, words for sounds, for play, for let's say for life. And then Modula and I, I don't know, should I talk about how we met? That's what you told me. How we started the project.
09:22
But I would also love to hear more about, can you talk about the evolution of the project, both in its form and in the research trajectories or the themes explored, the more you started to now, going back to the beginning.
09:38
In 2022, I started a reflection on the project and at that moment, I was calling it a reboot, reboot because I wanted to reboot myself, considering myself as a machine because I studied communication and mass media sciences. After the school, I was working with so much artists, festival, art space as a community manager sometimes, but communication officer, mostly, and I remember that time I had often five Instagram, five Twitter, five Facebook accounts, and at a certain moment, I wanted to, let's say, to reconnect a bit because I realized that I was more connected to people who were far from me and I was really far from people who were close to me. So I started thinking about this situation in a way, and then I had to develop the project into a residency in Switzerland, where I prefer to call the project Terre d'Oruma in French, human territory, because I realized that since the pandemic, we have been calling to, let's say, to end with physical meeting with social interaction, but then I started to think, we were already in that situation before with our phone, with too much screen around us, so we were in touch with people, but not really, and then the lockdown made us think really about this situation, because then we had a kind of official restriction so that, okay, don't meet people, don't talk to people, don't be in touch with people, so I mean, this in a way amplified the reflection that I had, and I remember that I wanted to call the project Terre d'Oruma because I was in need of meeting people in different territories, in different places, so all the residency that I wanted to be going out, meeting people, discussing with them, and kind of creating a map of a certain humanity that I was in lack of, and while in this residency, I met Madula in a very interesting festival in Riga, and Madula was talking about those things, the same as me, so we're like, okay, and then we start discussing, we start growing the conversation, and then I remember that the discussion that I had with Madula helped me a lot to construct, to build the performance that I was working on in Switzerland, so once I did that, I was like, okay, the next step of the project was supposed to be some things taking plus more physical, and I know that I've been far away with those visual art projects mostly, exhibition, installation, and I would love to experience something more physical because, yeah, in a way the project needs something like this, and I couldn't see someone else with whom I could develop it if it was not Madula, so I asked her if she could join the project, the adventure, and yeah, she was okay, so here we are.
13:25
During the pandemic, first I was like, yeah, now we have the possibility to be in solitary. But we weren't quite the opposite. We were on the phones. Everything possible was made through the lens, like all meetings and all decisions. Everything just went more and more into the digital. And I was worried about how do we, how can we won't be able to reverse this? And I don't mean it's a bad thing. I mean, we wouldn't have been able to do what we're doing here now if it wasn't because of Zoom, basically. But I mean, I have always worked in the interpersonal. So that became really hard for me to do any kind of work in that sense. And I was also worried about social media addiction and all these addictions that come along with using these devices and started to read more on that. And also with inspiration from like meditation practice and practice from moving with other bodies as a dancer. I felt that now is my time to be off the phone. I mean, after the pandemic, I decided to get a dumb phone so I don't even own a smartphone anymore because I wanted to be with humans and meet them. And on that trajectory, I met Joseph who was in the same thought as me, as myself. So yeah, and came from a totally other background than I did. And also didn't think in the frame of like, because for me, it's very challenging to see things in the boxes of this is theater, this is dance, this is performance, this is visual art. Because I don't believe that we actually express ourselves in those framed ways. I mean, we're complex. So our art will be complex. And so when he said that he's open for like doing something that has anything necessary for it to be art that we want to put in it, I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what I want to do. So yeah, that's the art.
16:00
And I'm hearing these, and also like reading from what you've written about the project, this thinking around social networks, the effect of both the pandemic and our, you know, digital technology on social networks and how these are redefining the social and even ethical codes of how humans interact and make the world this is something you've written about. And, and this, what is already here also is looking at surveillance and green energies and its relation to extraction of resources from Africa. How, how has it, how have those themes? How did those connect with the project for you from what you've been talking about in terms of like how we socialize in the digital technology implications?
16:50
And I can say a few words and then perhaps Joseph wants to say something too. But for me, it wasn't so much about like, oh, should we work with these materials? I mean, coming partly from Africa, you see how resources are taken from countries and made into devices and, you know, we see it with our own eyes. So we have I think we just have that I felt when we discussed that we like have this common pre-knowledge of like, we know it's not just the phone you get in the store. We know that the track of where it comes from and where the like contents of the phone with the actual physical parts come from and where they end up, you know, as well. And so for me, it felt not so strange to have that connected to this. So it becomes like a zooming out. Like if we look at if we go from the from the social media and zoom out and look at the broader picture, that's kind of where we are, you know. So then we could bring those things into the to the work. So that's how how I do it.
18:08
As you mentioned, she's also from, she has African origin. So, I mean, in a way what is already here is some things that we really want to embody in a way, our history. And I'm someone who came from Congo. We know all the politics and all the, where the resource came from. But in a way we were thinking about to bring this narrative on a political level in a way. So that to just make people think about, I think that what is already here is some things also very related to Majula and I as humans first. And so as human, as we belong to some history, we belong to some narratives. And we wanted to bring those narratives on stage with us. So it's not just Joseph coming to play some things that have been experienced. I also want to come with all my context, with all the politics around me. And that's in a way pushes to talk about where the others resource come from. They come from Africa, from Latin America, from also so, but the context we know the most is maybe where we come from. I mean, Congo for me. And for example, the lithium staff, the electronics car, all the world that you know in Congo, in a way it supports those production. The green vehicle, the people who paid the tributes, they are from Africa and mainly from Congo. In a way it's good to bring those narratives on the stage and to tell to the world that, okay, this is what is happening. So me coming here as a patient is not only talking about my disease, it's also to talk about the disease of all my people, all the region where I come from. Because it's like almost three hours from where I am, when they took the lithium and everything. So yeah, it's a reflection that, so because I believe that art is not just being in one state and creating beauty. I mean, we start do art when we end up with the beauty and we start telling story about our story, let's say. So yeah, for me, in a way that was really important. And I really like the fact that Madula and I share that need.
21:00
The work, in terms of the form, with Hertwech Eman, it started with installation, interactive installation, but there was, because it was interactive, my understanding is that your body, the bodies of the people were implicated in terms of like how they moved in space and that it was not like an installation and that there was some sort of exchange and conversation happening in the process. I wasn't there, I didn't, so you know, you can fully paint the picture if you'd like or correct me where I'm mistaken, but now it's going in the direction of a play, though I know that you both work in a very transdisciplinary way, but you describe it as a futuristic afro play and I know you've spoken about the need to bring the body and have the body more central in the form, I'm curious, how you, like I'd just love to hear you talk more about form, about why this this form, what you mean by a futuristic afro play.
22:11
I come from theater normally. And then I make a big detour into visual art, cinema, video. And in my part, I wanted in a way to come back to where I start from, which is theater. I don't really know why. So this is some things that came to me recently. And so I was thinking about, OK, the next step of this project going to be something physical. I was thinking about the performance. I didn't know what exactly. And then when I met Majula, and as I was saying, once Majula came in the project, so it was a different project. It was some things that were supposed to change in a way because it's not only me, it's also Majula. So she also bring what she is in the project. So in this kind of free adaptation, so we were thinking about how we can express through the art our encounter. Because not only the encounter of Joseph and Majula is also an encounter of video, of dance, worlds, of body. So how can those elements share a space in a way? So it's not really a question that we had already announced. But we think that the play and the need of the play is to find an answer in a very formal way. So yeah, a little bit complicated.
23:57
Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I don't come from theater. But my experience in interpersonal and participatory interactive work is that you need to have an excuse to behave in a certain way, or to talk about things or to ask the participants to do something. And that's where the word play can be helpful. Because we say we're doing a play, but it doesn't mean that it's just like a fantasy, it's whatever. It can be a play really close to our reality that we live in. But we can use that play to go places, think about things and present them in ways that we're not used to or comfortable with. And especially if we are asking the participants to also be transparent or reflect or feel something, then the place is a really good excuse to do that. And also in terms of dramaturgy, we can use the format of a play to go places. We have to go to the next, to the next, to the next, kind of. And also the idea of Afro play, for me, is a really nice way to say it's not, it might not be what you're expecting when you go to the theater. Because it's speaking maybe in another way in terms of it's not a theater with a stage and before an audience and how come they're talking and now I don't understand what they're saying or now she's dancing. What I said earlier, it doesn't have to have a strict form because it's still giving birth to itself, kind of. It's not yet there. So it's about this, yeah, for me it's a lot about that, to be able to create something that will probably not be what you expect when you go to a performance.
26:01
Now, thank you. I want to talk more about your artistic approaches.
26:07
Can I just add, I was trying to use the excuse there, because when Madula talked about the excuse, I remember. I mean, we also use the future as an excuse to, you know, because what is the future for us? I think the future is the place of invention, of creation, is the place where we put all our thoughts in. So it might be wrong. Maybe it's not true what we are saying, but yeah, it is in the future. So we never know. We don't know what will happen in the future. So in a way, we take this Afro-futurist form in order to put our thoughts as person with all the context around, and to address some political issue, question, not only political, but also human issue, to address them in a very free form. So the future is also this escape space where we can escape from our imaginary, and yeah, and propose an inventive world in which we live, Madula and I, and all the people that are working with us on the project.
27:27
And I also now want to hear a little bit more about your collaboration from your different points of departure as artists, which you've been speaking to, but yeah, you know, Joseph your work spans theatre, film, photography, installation, creative writing, and a theme you've been working with, or, you know, generally your work is interested in addressing the complexity of memory and identity in a post colonial urban context. And Majula, your work explores bodily identities and the political nuances associated with them, generally through dance and interactive performance so I would love to hear you've spoken about it a bit but I'd love to hear more about what drew you to collaborate with each other and how your practices complement each other and actually more so the latter because yeah you've really spoken about you know the common commonality you found together. So maybe you can speak more about how in this process, your practices complement each other or where there's tension points.
28:30
I mean, I can talk a bit about the, I mean, what's great in the CoLab is that we have so much knowledge. We have so much width of knowledge because we come from so different artistic backgrounds, which means also that we're curious on each other and how the artistic ideas that we have, which also means that, I mean, when Josef was in Stockholm in March this year, March-April, I think the first week we were just talking, talking, talking about different ideas and really taking them in, like, oh, could we do that? You know, it never ended because we were willing to, like, let's take everything in. Let's write everything down. And I think we're both very open in terms of process for putting ideas out there. And then at some point, yeah, we looked at that like, OK, here are some things that we actually feel that we want to keep and continue. So I think, I think we were lucky in the sense that the both of us are curious and are open minded. And I also get the feeling that none of us is too, like, too, like, hooked on. This is my, this is my artistic expression. Rather, like, what will my artistic expression be in this collaboration, I think. And that's what makes it work. And we're willing to try each other's ideas. So I would say that, yeah, that's kind of where we need.
30:05
In a way, the process, it's about losing control. I think, in a way. I just remember it's just something that doesn't. I just remember that the first time, when I started this project, I wanted to experience something that's physical. So I created this world installation with motherboards. And I was like, OK, I'm not going to work with video. I'm not going to work with immaterial material, in a way. But I remember that, as a videographer, I did a video in that process. Even if it was to document what I was doing, but I did a short movie at the end. So when I'm coming in a collaboration, it's like I'm coming with everything that I know. But in this project, it's a bit also different. So trying to do the things I do the less, in a way. And as I said, it has been a while I didn't play. I didn't perform in a very theatrical way. So it's also challenging each other to, OK. I remember that even in the process, we were like, OK. Ah, that's how you work. OK. I agree. OK, let's go. Ah, that's how you work. OK. So it's something of also losing control to find the other, and to meet the other. So yeah, for me, the process is more about that.
31:43
Can you talk about the version of what is already here that will be developed during the Push Festival while you're artists in residence? Yeah, because my understanding is that conversation with local artists, researchers, public who are thinking about these issues and how they affect society, but that conversation and that exchange with local community is really important to how you will develop this iteration of the work and that you are planning to also open the studio at different points to bring people in. Can you talk about, yeah, what you have envisioned for your process at Push so far?
32:34
A part of it will be to build the installation. That's a big part of it, of course, to actualize the envisioned space that we have in which the performance will happen, the play. And another part is also connecting back to this humanity. For me, at least, it's really important to create the space. Sure, it's futuristic, and it probably will be quite like out there. But when people come to that space, they feel that this place is, it concerns them. And we can't do that if we don't meet people, if we don't listen to what they have to say, what they feel, and any thoughts they have about the topics. Because otherwise, it's based on the thoughts of me and Joseph only. But we want to have, it's complex, and we want to have that complexity within the play. And also important fact, we need to meet people live. And also, I mean, we have been talking, and I've been reading on some about these issues, like about being addicted to phones, or about techno-feudalism. And I feel the importance of having those discussions to be able for that to color the whole work, basically.
34:06
So we had a first residency in March, April, as Majula mentioned it. And we tried to work a little bit on the dramaturgy. And our need is that in November, in the framework of the Biennale of Lubumbashi, to meet another residency. Unfortunately, Majula can't join because of some sanitary problem, issues that are in combo, but we'll make it online. So we mostly working on the sound of the piece with Frank Mocca. So we wanted to take the time in Vancouver to start thinking on the light level of the project and all the installation level of the project. So I know that we couldn't have enough time to create the whole installation, but the idea is to rethink now the installation in a platform. Because what we had is like an installation that I display in the gallery, but now we have to think it's in a platform. So we probably start by there and to see what could be the possibility. How can we adapt it and see in the meantime to continue also on the dramaturgy with Majula, because we all be there. So that's why we're trying to bring with us our friend, Tabiso, who is like working a lot on light level. So to start those reflections with him in that space and to experiment. So we don't know what would be the, you know, the outputs, but we know that we'll experiment a lot and we'll try a lot to see how it can take, the play can take the space in a sort of thing on the sonography with different people. That is also interesting for us to meet not only professionals, but also people, because we need to start writing, to start understanding what are the concerns of the people, what are our concerns. So those interactions will help us in a way to structure, to also to say that, okay, let's lose again control and put more of what people really think about the topic, not us. Yeah, I think in a way it will be that.
37:03
I'm so looking forward to it. I'm so excited that this is happening. I think that and this is, you know, our first artist in residency. There may have been some earlier ones. It hasn't been like, you know, we're in our 20th anniversary year for 2025. I'm sure there's been there have been some artists in residence here or there, maybe in, you know, informal or formal ways over the years, but really it hasn't been something that we've been doing. And I'm really excited about supporting the development of new work and also exactly the process you're talking about, inviting our communities to get to know you, to get to know your practice and to engage in these conversations. I'm thrilled that you'll be here for the majority of the festival and that, you know, that people will have the opportunity to step inside your into your world and see what you're working on. Joseph, we also met in Riga at the Homo Novus festival. And so that's just been a really, it's so nice that a conversation, one conversation, you know, there has led to this and led to me meeting you, and hopefully Tabisa will join as well. So thank you so much for being in conversation with me today and introducing our listeners to your approach.
38:25
Thank you so much for having us. We're really looking forward to coming to your part of the world and to meet the people. Yeah.
38:38
Yeah, as we've seen in Israel, we say, yeah, so which mean, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for the conversation. Because I think that every conversation that we had on the project help us to understand better what we want to do in a way. So that's the incredible things with discussion. I wish the play could be a discussion.
39:01
Who knows?
39:05
You just heard Gabrielle Martin's conversation with Majula Drame and Joseph K. Kasao Mobambwe, who will be doing an artist residency at Push Festival this year, which runs January 23rd to February 9th. A studio showing of their work in progress, What Is Already Here?, will be presented with Vivo Media Arts Center on Friday, February 7th. Push Play is produced by myself, Trisha Knowles, and the lovely Ben Charlam. Original music by Joseph Kiribayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. This year marks the 20th festival for Push International Performing Arts Festival. If you'd like to explore more of Push over the last 20 years, please look for our special 20th anniversary retrospective Push Play season. And for more information on the 2025 Push Festival, and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca and follow us on social media.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabriel Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights a future conjuring and adding texture to the conversation.
00:17
I'm speaking with Clayton Lee, artist behind the Goldberg Variations, which is being presented at the Push Festival January 30th, 2025. Through an unapologetic investigation of desire, power dynamics, and identity, Clayton Lee explores his childhood obsession with the professional wrestler Bill Goldberg and the impact it has had on his sexual and romantic history.
00:38
The perplexing crossroads between dominance, submission, heartbreak, and vulnerability are laid bare in this candid and thoroughly unconventional performance, where fantasies are both indulged and deconstructed.
00:50
Clayton Lee is a Canadian curator, producer, and performance artist. He is currently the Artistic Director of Fierce Festival in Birmingham, UK, and as part of the Living Room Collective will be representing Canada at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
01:06
Here's my conversation with Clayton. A thrilling to be talking to you, thrilling to be part of the festival. Before we dive right into it, I would like to acknowledge that I'm on the stolen, ancestral, and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh.
01:29
And I think today it's important to acknowledge the recent passing of Murray Sinclair, the Anishinaabe Senator, and renowned Manitoba lawyer, who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He passed on November 4th.
01:44
And he served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba and directed the pediatric cardiac surgery inquest into the deaths of 12 children at a Winnipeg hospital before taking the reins of the TRC, one of the...
02:00
important bodies in Canada's recent history, which released its final report in 2015. And his work with the TRC, well with his work, his conclusion was that residential schools amounted to a cultural genocide, or his conclusion with his collaborators.
02:19
And this conclusion, this document has reshaped Canadians' understanding of the government-run boarding schools that devastated generations of Indigenous communities. And I'd just like to share a quote from him.
02:32
We have described for you a mountain. We have shown you the path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing. And Clayton, where are you joining this conversation from today? Well, normally I'd be in Birmingham, UK, but today I'm calling from Toronto, which is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat, as well as the treaty territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit.
02:59
Unlike many artists, you prefer to only perform the Goldberg gradations once during an engagement. So for example, you requested to perform only one show at the Push Festival. Why is that? Oh, there's so many reasons for that.
03:17
You know, I think the kind of major difference between the ways in which I approach making versus other folks is I identify as a performance artist. And whereas I think most of the folks in the festival or in the festival circuit come from theater or dance kind of lineages and theater and dance, you know, have this kind of tradition of repeatability, right?
03:39
Where they make the work and then they kind of repeat it over and over again, hopefully on tour or over multiple weeks in a single city. And I'm, you know, for any number of reasons, I've framed Goldberg, the Goldberg variations as kind of a one-off live encounter event.
03:58
What this means for me is one, that the work is never the same twice. So the work is always being built and added onto it's iterative process. I kind of vaguely shape the conceptual framework for the piece is box sculptor variations with his 30 variations.
04:18
And the idea is every time I perform, I add one or two new variations to the work. And I'm interested simultaneously in what it means to present large scale work and to think about the spectacle of the live encounter and how to do this in ways of, ways within scarcity mindsets, right?
04:39
Where we don't have ton of money, but how do we pull all our resources into a way that feels big and bold and, you know, more daring than a kind of two or three performance run could be. So I really throw all the excitement into one basket and do it.
04:59
in that way for this. The stakes are high. The stakes are high and I think that's the way I like to kind of frame it, right? I really think about this performance as a score that I've built and I have no idea how it'll work and then the minute the performance starts the roller coaster begins and you know you can't get off of it and whatever happens happens and that's the kind of level of chaos slash controlled chaos I really thrive in.
05:29
Yeah and I really and I think the audience can feel that too, right? Because it's this one-off thing. They are kind of learning and experiencing it at the same time as I am. It is super exciting and you use the element of surprise and one result of this can be audience members yourself or your collaborators and or collaborators faced with the unexpected.
05:51
What are your thoughts on care and consent in relation to your work given this kind of the unexpected? Yeah, I think consent, of course, is key in all cases. And care, I have a funny relationship with care in the context of live performance, right?
06:11
And there's an artist named Bruno Gio who talks about how care is often a strategy to kind of maintain the status quo, that if we're never unable to kind of feel discomfort, how do we actually find new ways of being, right?
06:25
Not to say I'm explicitly interested in kind of abandoning care or kind of rejecting it, but for me, the work is not just about care. And I think when you or the audience experiences it, you'll kind of see very quickly that that's not part of the work.
06:43
And simultaneously, I'm interested in this kind of question around how artists of color are positioned within contemporary performance, right? This kind of critical need for representation, but the kind of limits of it.
06:58
And what I mean by that is, artists of color are often meant to be the kind of spokesperson for their communities. They're kind of intersecting communities. And for me, I'm not interested in doing that at all.
07:10
What if we don't position ourselves as forces of good necessarily, but forces that are kind of complex and are asking these kind of tangly, often unethical, often problematic questions, right? And what if we make that the starting point of the work and go from there?
07:29
And then I think the other kind of conversation around consent is, and perhaps this goes back to this kind of fine distinction between dance theater and performance art, but I think audiences often forget that there is inherent agency in their role as an audience member, that they can get up whenever they want, that they can leave whenever they want, that if they're gonna talk during the performance,
07:49
no one's gonna really stop. There are kind of these kind of standard practices in place, but also who's gonna stop them, right? And actually, I'm interested. interested in the ways in which audience members can or cannot exercise their own agency in the performance, and I can invite that in, right?
08:10
When I, you know, said earlier about kind of creating the score, it's like the kind of audience is in a way co-creating it with me, and if they want to kind of respond in any number of ways, that's invited, right?
08:23
You know, there are elements, there are kind of lines I don't cross, like, you know, this is not explicitly, this works not by, you know, it's not whatever, whatever, but it is kind of pushing the boundaries quite intentionally around care and what it means to be, you know, problematic or not, and yeah.
08:43
Yeah, I appreciate what you say about discomfort. I think there's some discourse around the difference between emotional and psychological safety, and that's like, you know, without emotional discomfort, there's no, there's no growth.
08:58
There's no room for diversity of perspective and opinion either, because inevitably we'll be uncomfortable when confronted by really different perspectives. I've presented this work before to kind of somewhat controversial results.
09:19
And I think so often that's coming from a place of what are the audiences or the presenters expectations of me as an artist? Who do they think I am as an artist? What kind of work do they think I make and what kind of artists do they think I can be?
09:37
And actually this work, so much of this work is about dismantling them. And there is this kind of inherent tension of, oh, actually you expect me to do this, but I'm doing this instead, and therefore you feel uncomfortable.
09:48
But then for me, there's the kind of reflection that's kind of quite essential in that. It's like, why, yeah, what were you expecting of me? Where are those expectations coming from? And how do we actually seek to not just dismantle them, but actually add texture to the conversation?
10:06
It should never be as simple as this equals good, this equals bad. I think the current discourse, especially in kind of performance circles are so reductive and simplified in these ways. And actually, no, I reject this wholeheartedly.
10:23
And actually what happens when we play in that kind of gray area and indulge in it where possible. The Goldberg Variations is in part an examination of your own desire. To what extent is your own story the subject of your artistic projects?
10:39
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, this one is very much my quote unquote story, though I often kind of reject this notion of people telling their own story. So I'm simultaneously kind of disgusted by myself and kind of making this work.
10:57
And I think... kind of there are two kind of key differences for me in kind of making this right the kind of you know I first thought of the title and the kind of reason for the title maybe in 2017 so seven years ago um but I wasn't able to make it until two years ago right and the kind of distance I had then that kind of drove that kind of conversation and who I was you know when I first made this are kind of two very different people and that kind of distance was useful but simultaneously I think in thinking about this like one-off encounter or this kind of site responsive work I'm simultaneously interested in this work as an examination of my past but also this kind of present and future conjuring moment right where I really am using this project to think about who I am right now think about the distance between who I am right now and the kind of feelings I'm thinking about you know I was thinking about seven years ago also how do we how do I use this performance to actively reshape my life and how do I use this performance to you know indulge in communities and meet with people that I wouldn't normally meet with right and I think there's something there's something in this work that has actually changed the way I move through this world and one thing what I mean by that is this piece is asking a lot of the audience and also of the presenters right and it you know the kind of work I made when I was first starting it was very small scale I was afraid to kind of take up a space you know I used to travel with a work that was just my laptop right and this work is the kind of opposite of that but if there's something in the kind of conceit of this work and the subject matter that has given me permission to actually ask for things of what if you know as artists we're often so um willing to kind of reduce ourselves or shrink ourselves down to make to make ourselves palatable and easy to tour right so that we're not kind of causing uh what's the word causing labor on to kind of present presenters but actually for me it's this this work is interesting because it's asking what if I start insisting on things or asking for you know crazier crazier things right when I first conceived this work it's always through the lens of like what if I did this what if I did this and those are tied up with ambition desire uh and trying to kind of like wash off this feeling of like not not being able to be an artist or whatever that makes any sense like I think we're so often afraid of the kind of things that we want to be and this piece is a strategy for me to kind of step into that I don't know if I answered your question at all but oh yeah yeah you did um and that giving oneself permission to ask you know I think there's like fear that I would imagine those fear to be perceived as a demand artist,
13:59
but my experience in working with you in this dynamic is not that. And yeah, you can always ask and then it's up to whoever you're engaging with to do what they will with that request. Yeah. And I think a large part of my work, you know, I, my day job is in kind of curating and producing, right?
14:18
Um, so I love kind of working within organizational or institutional frameworks to see what the kind of possibilities are. You know, we think of these spaces as so stagnant and immovable, but actually I'm in part using this work to think about how I relate to these institutions as an artist and using this work to in bigger or small ways shift the ways in which these institutions or organizations work.
14:44
You know, when I did, I was in residency with this piece at the Art Gallery of Ontario for three months and, you know, we had three meetings going back and forth of whether or not I was allowed to use the word faggot into the gallery space.
14:56
And for me, It's with a lot of labor on my part to kind of have those conversations, but it's simultaneously thrilling of like, why can't we use that word? Why can't I use that word in this context? And to not ever, I never approach these things with a kind of certain resolve, but as a kind of opening of, again, what if we do this?
15:16
What is actually allowed? What isn't allowed? Why isn't allowed? And let's get to the very end of that. And if, you know, I'm not allowed to say the word faggot in the context of the art gallery, then that's fine.
15:26
But actually, then we have this conversation and it feels, to me, both funny and potentially, or having the capacity rather to break things open. Right? It's not, for me, it's never just about the word faggot in the fact, it's about what do these conversations break open and allow ourselves to accept as new ways of thinking or working.
15:53
I want to step back to your mention of conjuring future, future conjuring. Can we talk about the content of some of the past iterations of this work? Oh, yes. What to say, what to say. I mean, we'll cut this after if you want me to say this, but the fact that you got married in one of the iterations, talk about future conjuring.
16:19
Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah, so I'm just trying to think. Yeah, absolutely. This kind of thing of how does this work meet my current moment, right? And, you know, the kind of coyness of so I got married as the finale for my art gallery of Ontario performance.
16:35
And there's this kind of funny thing of recognizing the context where, you know, the art gallery of Ontario often rents its space out for weddings and is famously one of the most expensive venues in the city.
16:45
So how funny would it be if I made them pay for my wedding and did as part of it again. Also, you know, this work is about desire and love and romance and the feelings that come with it. Right. And this kind of funny thing of aligning where I was in my life, i.e.
17:03
I guess about to get married, which is something I also never thought I'd do, but making it part of this conversation felt interesting, you know, and the version. Again, I don't know if we'll keep any of this, but I'll defer to you.
17:16
You know, one of the iteration that you saw on Montreal was there was an extended section where I went in search of a stripper that was really obsessed with. Right. And I spent, you know, dozens and dozens of hours getting in touch with him and trying to find him and, you know, and, you know, and you did.
17:35
Well, I did find him, but he never actually showed up. Okay. I hired him. Another variation. But there's something in this, this thing of like, actually, again, the question is what if I invite this stripper I'm obsessed with into the performance.
17:52
Right. And what happens if I get to meet him? Right. And all these things of Yeah, seeing these kind of questions through to their end. And it's a way for me to kind of find new communities or find new friends or find new collaborators, which otherwise I wouldn't have ever worked with, right?
18:12
I mean, as an example, the New York version, I had the initial... I had this funny dream of like, oh, what if Philip Glass performed in the show? Right? Because I was performing at NYU Skirball, and the year earlier they presented The Tower of Glass by Philip Glass.
18:28
So I was like, oh, what if Philip Glass performed? And then, of course, he wasn't available or, you know, was quite sick and not performing anymore. So then I went down the list of like, oh, who are these other big name composers that I could work with?
18:40
And then eventually landing on or getting to meet Adam Tenler, who performed at last year's push and meeting him through this kind of funny path. And, you know, I, you know, adored him and was so happy to have met him through this performance.
18:52
But otherwise would never have met him, right? So this thing of like, I'm so... Can I use this work as a strategy to kind of reach the kind of tentacles out, right? And find new collaborators and find new friends and all these things of...
19:09
I don't know what will happen when I start a process. But at the end, it's like, oh, there's something really generative about being able to kind of reach out or reach in or whatever and see what happens.
19:19
You've been speaking about how this work involves with every performance, every variation, and the project you're collaborating on for the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture. What's the name of this project you're doing?
19:33
We're called the Living Room Collective, but we're currently finalizing the title. Okay, okay. That, you know, these are just examples that reflect explorations of different forms for you from developing sense to design and architecture.
19:50
What context are you currently playing with or contexts? Yeah. You know, I think... I think what I've noticed about myself is the real desire to bounce around in context to context. And I think what I mean by that is like my mother worked at IBM for like 40 years or something.
20:10
And I think that has had such kind of profound impact on my life where I was like, Oh my God, I can't imagine working for the same company for that long. So I think throughout my kind of practice slash vocal career, you know, I find myself bouncing around and dipping my toes into new contexts.
20:28
You know, I started off in theatre, then performance art happened or whatever, and then dance and all these kinds of things. And I'm really interested in the ways in which each context has various ways of moving through the world.
20:47
Right. The language of dance is different than language theatre. The language of theatre is different than language performance art. But then what happens when you kind of expand that outward? and reach out into new communities.
20:59
So for the Venice Biennale of architecture, I worked with an architect for Rhubarb when I was a festival director there two years ago. And now we're doing the Canada Pavilion with other collaborators.
21:09
And for me, it's this kind of very strange toe-dipping experience into the world of architecture where half the meetings I'm in, I'm just googling things on the side because I don't understand what's happening.
21:22
But there's also something really luxurious in being able to do that, to kind of bring my own lens and bring my own perspective into these conversations and simultaneously let those conversations influence the ways in which I do things, right?
21:38
And I'm, you know, with this project that has me meeting with a lot of different contexts. So, you know, folks from the classical music world, DJs, bodybuilders, wrestlers, all these kinds of folks. And there's something quite intentional about the strategy that I've employed, where I'm interested in what it means to spend time with folks that aren't directly in what I would identify as my community,
22:04
right? And what happens when you spend time with bodybuilders? What happens when you spend time with wrestlers? And I think we are so obsessed with, you know, we kind of exist in such an echo chamber, right?
22:19
We're in our own community and we're so happy to kind of stick within it. But I think there's something valuable in spending time with folks that are not like us at all. And to do so, you know, of course, with the lens of criticality, but to do so with as little judgment as possible, or not even judgment, because I judge, you know, whatever, but like with a kind of openness that is so frowned upon,
22:47
right? Because we're in a moment that loves to, yeah, immediately kind of reduce or deny or reject because of who they present. as but actually what if we say no to that and spend time with folks that we either may think are quote unquote problematic and yes they may be problematic but actually there are like always is more to them than we kind of uh first assume uh so like right now i'm obsessed with my home gym in birmingham um and like and slowly befriending everyone there and you know it's just kind of very strange experience where you know the gym owner it's Ultimate Fitness Birmingham if anyone wants to google this but you know we're the gym owner eventually you know photograph one of the events that fierce where i work right and this this very strange mixing is so um so compelling to me of what happens when we attempt to step outside of these kind of boxes that we create for ourselves and find new ways of moving and living thank you so much Clayton I am,
23:49
this is the beginning of my day. I am feeling inspired. I am feeling thought-provoked. I'm feeling so excited to have you at the festival. I'm feeling so excited for audiences that don't, and myself, who don't know what we're gonna experience when we walk into the venue.
24:08
Yeah, I'm so thrilled that you're gonna be present for the festival and sharing your work. Just to say to the audience, if audiences are listening to this before, I really invite them to kind of talk to me after, if the kind of work has provoked or ignited or whatever.
24:26
Because I think the conversation that kind of accompanies the work is such a critical part of it. And I generally, I mean, I hate doing panels or whatever, whatever, but it's like, actually, how do we continue this work beyond?
24:42
And how does the prickliness of the thing kind of resonate with folks? Yeah, so folks can reach out to me, message me on Instagram, whatever, whatever, I'm happy to. Yeah, have the conversation in those ways, because I think it's part of the process, so.
24:59
Great, and there'll be a chat with you after the show as well. Oh, is there? Yeah, I think so. Oh, cool. Do we know who's doing it yet? I had some ideas. We'll chat about it. Okay, okay. So, okay, for the audience, there may or may not be about a show.
25:13
No, no, I love a post-show Q&A. Okay, there'll be a post-show Q&A. Okay, okay. All right, thanks, Clayton. That was the Goldberg Variations Clayton Lee in conversation with Gabrielle Martin. The Goldberg Variations will show at the Waterfront Theatre on January 30th for one night only during the 2025 Push International Performing Arts Festival.
25:39
Push Play is produced by myself, Trisha Knowles, and the lovely Ben Charlam. Original music by Joseph Kiribayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts.
25:53
This year marks the 20th festival for Push International Performing Arts Festival. If you'd like to explore more of Push over the last 20 years, please look for our special 20th anniversary retrospective Push Play season.
26:05
And for more information on the 2025 Push Festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca and follow us on social media.
26:20
Coming up on the next Push Play. So as human, as we belong to some history, we belong to some narratives, and we wanted to bring those narratives on stage with us. So it's not just Joseph coming to, you know, to play some things that have been experiencing.
26:38
No, I also want to come with all my context with all the politics around me.
Sammy is the winner of the Changemaker Award for BCMA 2022 (BC Museums Association) for creative engagements that increase awareness of underrepresented voices & the 2023/2024 Chrystal Dance Prize. www.sammychien.com
About Caroline MacCaull
Caroline MacCaull (she/they) is a queer interdisciplinary artist living and working on the unceded and stolen territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First nations. As a dance-technology artist her work often questions reality and our perceptions. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts and has had her work presented by Shooting Gallery Performance Series, Co.ERASGA’s Salon Series, Gallery Series 258, Vines Arts Festival, New Works, K.Format/documenta 15 (Kassel, Germany), Drink & Draw (Berlin), FOUND festival (Edmonton), Festival International de Danse Animée (Réunion) and the Scotiabank Dance Centre. She has been artist-in-residence at What Lab (Vancouver), LEÑA (Galiano Island), Dance Victoria (Victoria, BC), ArtStarts Ignites (Vancouver), DeerLake (Burnaby), Dance on Fluid (Taiwan) and NKK Dance Centre (Siem Reap, Cambodia). As a movement artist she has had the opportunity to collaborate and interpret movement with Peter Chin/Tribal Crackling Wind, Okams Racer, The Falling Company, Oksana Augustine and Restless Productions. Caroline is currently the Co-Artistic Director of the Chimerik 似不像 which has given her the opportunity to work as a New Media/Projection Artist on various projects with many different artists/organizations. Some of these include: Veronique West(Rumble Theatre), Mily Mumford (PTC), Jasmine Chen(Rice and Beans Theatre), Zahra Shahab, Restless Productions, Affair of Honor, Ralph Escamillan(Van Vogue Jam), Luke Reece(Theatre Passe Muraille), Arts Club, Active / Passive, Indian Summer Festival, Stratford Festival and Mayumi Lashbrook(Aeris Korper). Caroline is very grateful to be one of the 2023/2024 Chrystal Dance Prize recipients.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:01
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights collective healing and overcoming our shadow selves.
00:17
I'm speaking with Sami Chen and Caroline McCall, artists behind Inner Sublimity, which is being presented at the Push Festival February 7th to 9th, 2025. Inner Sublimity traverses currents of Eastern and Western philosophy through dance, creating a dynamic dialogue between traditions preserved across generations.
00:36
Through this synthesis of paradigms, the artists spark new connections between disparate cultural backgrounds, carving an artistic practice that challenges colonial narratives and enriches contemporary explorations of spirituality.
00:50
Sami and Caroline are the co-artistic directors of Chameric, a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary non-profit organization consisting of artists from underrepresented groups, from various age groups, backgrounds, levels of experience and disciplines.
01:05
Chameric has collaborated on over 500 multidisciplinary projects, which have been exhibited internationally. Sami is a first-generation Taiwanese-Canadian immigrant and queer artist of colour, director, performer, researcher, and mentor who works with film, sound art, new media, performing arts, and spiritual practice.
01:24
Caroline is a femme-identified queer artist with background in movement, dance, new media, and mediumship. Here is my conversation with Caroline and Sami. And I know just before we hit record, you commented that today is the U.S.
01:41
election, so it's an interesting day to be doing this. There's all sorts of other pressures and nerves in the air. Yeah, it feels like you're saying it feels like a pressure cooker. You know, we are all in right now and not knowing what's going to happen next, but we are in here talking about, you know, you know, this exploration, this spirituality, and it just feels like the right time to be, to have those pressure and then something might come out that we don't even know as well.
02:09
So it's kind of exciting. I appreciate that optimism in terms of the unknown, the unknown can still be a positive place. We are on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the settler on these lands, and I continue to try to educate myself on the ongoing legacy of colonization, the ongoing colonialism here, and I often lean on or reach to the Yellowhead Institute for their incredible words and just framing the state that we're living in now.
02:55
So I'm just going to share some words from them on with regard to land back. Land theft is currently driven by an unsustainable undemocratic and fatal rush toward mass extinction through extraction development and capitalist imperatives.
03:10
It is further enabled by a racist erasure of indigenous law and jurisdiction. And as Yellowhead Research Fellow Henderson has noted, this fatal rush functions as a kind of malware released into our ecological system.
03:25
Indigenous legal orders embody critical knowledge that can relink society to a healthy balance within the natural world. This change must begin on the ground. Canada ceding real jurisdiction to indigenous peoples for this transformation to happen.
03:40
So thank you to the Yellowhead Institute's land back resources, specifically the red paper. We're going to shift gears a little bit in just getting right into talking about inner sublimity, which is the work, your work that's going to be realized during the push festival.
04:03
inner sublimity traverses currents of Eastern and Western philosophy. And I would love to hear what that looks like and feels like within this work, and how it relates to your wider practices. First, we want to say we love how you frame the question of look and feel, it just right off the bat for us to want to hear that question and really dive right into the body of the feeling, you know, and I will say that is probably where we will begin the process,
04:35
you know, about integrating the East, Eastern and Western philosophy and culture is through energetic practice. So why I say that because, you know, in dance, you know, and embodiment, it is really based on feeling the sentient, right?
04:50
And this senses our primary faculty of to connect everything together in our research, our journeys and inspiration, how we create work. And a lot of that in multiple different cultures and whether it's Eastern or Western, there is a lot of theories and research around consciousness and energy vibration.
05:12
And then for Eastern, it's quite, there is a lot of more focus in terms of energetic practices, such as qigong, it's one of the form. And it's kind of quite a wildly practiced form that focus on the flow of energy in the body.
05:28
So then, you know, you can gain this intelligence and control over energy through the body, which we all have, but just not paying attention and really cultivate, you know, the control or the embodiment of energy.
05:43
So I want to make it. I want to share that with the audience, you know, like the qigong is not just, you know, a practice that has to be its own form, but almost as a philosophy. And I was an inspiration for people to understand that it's just an entry point for us to access energy through our body and our consciousness, right?
06:04
So our mind activating those pathways and then have energy moving through. And it doesn't not only translate visually, but also by feeling energetically and vibrationally as well. So that I would say that is some of the entry point that we have is that you will actually feel the energy shift in the work, how we connect to each other, how we connect with the audience, how we connect with the space and how we connect with the spirit in the space as well.
06:38
Yeah. And I guess I wanted to just also kind of take a little bit of a side note off of that. But when we're talking about Eastern and Western philosophy within this context of this work and in our larger practice, we also really want to go into the nuances and complexities of those kind of dialogues, rather than thinking, oh, everything is great.
06:58
And, you know, we're able to move in this way together. We really want to dive into some of those shadow places where there's hard conversations, there's different kind of, you know, I think in a broad stroke, there's a lot of appropriation of these different cultures.
07:15
And we want to go into those difficult and challenging subjects so that we can arrive to a place where we have a deeper understanding of each other. And so throughout the work, there's moments of very meditative state.
07:28
When we talk about Eastern culture, we talk about this kind of like time passing, how we're witnessing time is a little bit at a slower pace, perhaps. But we also want to go into those moments of tension, conflict and really feel together what it means.
07:45
to be witnessing and experiencing that as a collective, so that we can also make decisions to kind of arrive to a new place together. So that's kind of some of the feelings that we're trying to wrap up within this work and within some of our broader practices within the context of Sami and myself both being from Eastern and Western kind of places.
08:07
Yeah, Kiran, you're right about like how, I mean, we're just talking about generalizing terms, right? Like how Western sense of time is quite linear based, right? You have the beginning, middle, and you're taught to think about narrative, you know, shapes and form, linear kind of progression.
08:25
And then in Eastern, again, generally speaking, you know, I'm generalizing the kind of overall framework of what holds the foundation of the culture a lot of the time, the sense of time is very different.
08:35
It's more cyclical, you know, there is more sense of meditativeness, which, you know, then the time kind of expands differently in the less linear. sense, you know, but of course, acknowledging the globalization, you know, a lot of people say, when I go to Asia, I don't feel the same way.
08:51
It's like, yes, it's modernization, modernity, globalization that's happening. We are in this big mess together, integrating both cultures from different routes, and that messiness and the shadow work, the conflict, you know, the dilemma is why we're also very interested in talking about that discomfort, what that is, and going deep down so we don't stay on this kind of just the point of like the generalization,
09:15
the superficial way of looking at each culture. And how does this project exist as part of a wider revitalizing movement of ancient wisdom and spirituality, specifically Taiwanese? Well, even talking about Taiwan is a very risky, it's anti-oppression work politically to be even talking about Taiwan.
09:39
So it's, I do want to say that it's very empowering to be in a place where we can even speak about that in this current political climate, because for the audience that doesn't understand the political situation, the history that, you know, there is like complex history, like colonialism that's going on in Taiwan that happened over the last 400 years.
10:03
And there were Dutch people and Spanish and Japanese colonialism that happened. And Taiwan has its own people, like my family has been there over 16 generations in our family book, we can trace back for 16 generations.
10:21
And then, and then another seven generations before they were installed in China to the migration. So when we talk about that, right now, Taiwan is being censored to be called a country with, you know, having its own presidency and currency and different, there's difference in culture as well.
10:43
I'm not here. to advocate Taiwanese independence, but I'm just talking about how it is where we are right now in Canada to be able to talk freely about this kind of discourse is actually a super valuable and progressive thing to actually have that kind of value we have right now.
11:01
And I'm grateful for being able to even speak about that. And the revitalization of spirituality in Taiwan is quite interesting because of the culture itself, you know, growing up, I didn't realize until I came to the West, you know, how we are quite conditioned, you know, in our brain to be very spiritual.
11:24
So ancestral rituals. a very common thing we do, everyday lives, we go to temples and it's not specific religion, it's more a mix and match of different folklore religion together. So it just became a lifestyle, right, growing up.
11:39
And we don't even question, just like something that we do with our parents, our grandparents or aunties, uncles, you know, and big families, we all do that together, even friends, you know, when you need certain things, you go to temple for certain, certain like requests that you have, you know, not, I don't want to advocate greed and all that stuff on spiritual, what we can talk about later, but it's just so ingrained in our culture.
12:00
And so it wasn't never a question, even the phone phrase situation, the direction of the space, how we understand energy, it's already in the culture so much. And I don't think people value that so much because just, you know, it's normalized, right?
12:15
And the globalization, the Westernization, it's been deemed as superstition, you know, and being reduced to lower value or uneducated kind of thinking. So the revitalization is about going back to the empowerment of those roots and history and to our spiritual culture that has been rooted for hundreds of years, tracing back and its mixture with indigenous culture as well, with indigenous people in Taiwan as well,
12:44
there is a lot of crossover sharing knowledge that also happened as much as the, you know, the problem of colonization and racial happiness or just also acknowledge that that happens everywhere. So, but now while talking about integration, revitalization and a lot of ritual practice are kind of integrating together in new ways.
13:05
And the young people are finding a, there's almost like a trend to like go back to the roots of what is Taiwanese ritual, Taiwanese spirituality, the kind of a temple shamans that are seen like from the older generation now are being empowered back, like they'll integrate techno music, electronic music, rave.
13:27
parties, you know, all these really like current underground movement with this grassroots kind of an older generational historic culture. Yeah, so that's interesting. Yeah, when we were there in Taiwan, it was quite interesting because we spent four months in Taiwan this last year doing some research and different kind of yeah, practiced in development with this piece as well.
13:54
And so we spent a lot of time having dialogues with various people from different kind of backgrounds and in various kind of religions, either monks or different kind of shamans or in the temples. And it was so interesting to also hear about this kind of almost this need to come back to this like almost emergent feeling of needing to come back to something much larger than yourself.
14:22
I think when we talk a lot about like Westernization in specifically Taiwan, like Taiwan is very heavily reliant on the US right now for their power dynamics. And I think a lot about the control and different invisible things that we don't always see that are happening behind the scenes and how that is also holding Taiwan in a different way.
14:43
And I think coming back to the people and coming back to these kind of everyday rituals is allowing a new kind of sense of belonging and identity that is kind of been missing over the last little while.
14:54
Oh, yes. And speaking of which, I do want to, because Gabriel, you mentioned about the ancient western. It is one of our research from years ago is, many of you might already know this, the word dance, the Chinese character of dance that we're using language in Taiwan that is the traditional character.
15:20
It's like a lot closer to the Oracle bone script. So I'm talking about this ancient Chinese language that's used across the Chinese speakers around the world. The character of dance, its original form is a shaman with holding spiritual tools like jades and feathers, rotating, basically doing ancestral and ancient rituals.
15:44
That is the character where dance evolved from. So then thinking about how we talk about dance and performance in the common everyday language while looking at a shaman doing rituals. And that is the secret work of what dance is.
16:03
So that is kind of that connection back to this culture and our context of movement practice. So this is a work that's been in development. And so I haven't seen what will be this realization of it, which is really exciting.
16:18
But when we sat down to talk about this work, you know what, I've seen some other pieces of your work. when we sat down to talk about what this piece could be. I mean, I just was really excited in terms of all the research and the intersection of practices that you hold.
16:35
And I would love to hear you speak about what mediumship is and the power, its power in this performance context. Yeah, thank you. So originally, I'll just give a tiny bit of context, but originally when just before I met Sammy in 2019, I was having these experiences Westernly diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychosis, and I wasn't quite sure where to reach out to in alignment with finding resources beyond beyond just the Western kind of medical approach.
17:14
And shortly after that, I had met Sammy and he had exposed me. and brought me to some of his different spiritual teachers from Taiwan and from various other places in the world and started opening up some of these kind of ideas for me of what this could be in a different context.
17:33
And through that kind of expanding experience and research, we've begun begun to explore how this can also be transcended into a way of sharing this kind of experience through performance. For the audience listening to this, it's in the Western lens, again, generalizing it.
17:55
When we talk about this kind of spiritual experiences, people think about ghost possession. They think about paranormal activity. They think about woo-woo stuff right away. So it's scary, right? Or they think about this person is crazy.
18:08
You are mentally ill, that it is your making stuff out psychologically. So that's usually where people go to in the Western context right away. And for us, again, growing up in the Eastern world, if you would tell my mom or my aunties about, oh, this is what I'm experiencing.
18:27
They will say, well, do you want to go to the temple and ask the shaman to see if there's something going on spiritually that's bugging you about this? So right away, I didn't come in with the prejudice, or around like what her experiences are and actually understand there, we just need to help find the expert, the right expert to figure out what to do.
18:48
And that's where this whole thing unfolds into actually full on, you know, legitimize meditation practice. Yeah. So that was so empowering to have those moments of dialogue and also to have these like intergenerational dialogues with his family and being able to share and not feel judged in these moments and really allowed us to go deeper into what are these experiences and how can we transform them into something that is more current and maybe it could work within our artistic practice.
19:19
So through, I mean now it's been about four years of specifically working on how to integrate this like safely into our performance practice, but we've kind of cultivated a space where we're able to call spirit and go into like a mediumship trance state, on stage performing it live and allowing people to feel what that actually means in that context and maybe receive what they need at that moment without me having to specifically tell them anything.
19:50
Just because I feel like sometimes with a more outdated states of mediumship, it is very much like it can get into states of telling you how you should feel or how you should experience your ancestors in your way and or in the way that I am prescribing to you.
20:08
But I really want to kind of open that up and also kind of decolonize some of that practice in a way of letting it flow and see how it can touch you in the way that. you need to be held in that, in that moment.
20:22
And just for the audience, like this is real stuff we're doing. It's not just performing a mediumship. It's actually doing this for real. So that's what it's, there is a sense of like real stake, you know, real risk.
20:39
And then when I say race, it's like, we are not just pretending and have to hit the marks, you know, the shapes are in shape. It's like, no, we really have to mind body spiritually, like be there and fully channel and connect and practice with the spirits on you, making sure you're, you know, it's the same, you know, building that rapport as well and have that same framework and bring a whole new,
21:00
a kind of experience for the audience, right? Whole new framework. Yes. And this work is being designed for performance at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which is, you know, a very exciting partnership and a very exciting space.
21:15
But I would actually like to hear what excites you about realizing this work in that space. And maybe you can speak a little bit more to, yeah, how the space influences the design of the experience. Because I know that there's a number of performance or aspects to the design of this experience that draw people into a state of presence, embodied space, and also a space of ritual.
21:42
If you're, I don't know if you're actually using that word with regard to your performance. But yeah, love to hear about that, about the excitement around the use of the space and the general design elements to evoke these kinds of effects, yeah.
21:56
For the audience doesn't know the history of Vancouver Art Gallery, right? The VAG, it was built in 1906 as a provincial courthouse. And the basement is actually a prison, you know? So when you go in, there are some parts when the art party or the old fields, you know, when you open up those spaces there, that's a courtroom.
22:12
And this is like, you know, actually a prison. So, and, you know, it's historically, so that. context is very interesting to be in that building. And also it's the it's very iconic, right? It's a capital A kind of art in there.
22:27
Like, you know, people go there to to see what is the most like prestigious art in the city. And at the same time, you know, it's speaking of like that, it's historically a while, sorry, a white male dominated kind of a space, right?
22:44
You know, people think of like, only white men does art in here as I'm watching white men, white men, type painting. So I think to partner up with the VAC, when push festival, you know, and doing this type of work, it's really progressive.
22:57
And it's quite, you know, quite revolutionary to bring in this kind of work to witness something like this. And then we are taking a lot of risks in the way of like, you know, in theater is a different kind of safe space for performers.
23:10
You know, we're taking more risks in a different way. When we are in the gallery setting, you know, I feel like We both feel like the gallery space they set out has a different kind of amplification and resonance of the energy when we perform.
23:24
And also gallery is used to holding space for audience while coming to see stillness, to see still object, still paintings and sculpture close up in fine details. It demands already that kind of attention, right?
23:41
Very different from theater in many different ways. And then imagine this kind of audience is cultivating this kind of a scale of perception quality or coming to see this type of work where it's slow.
23:53
There's a lot of refined slowness movement, a lot of details and shift of vibration that's just slow and refined for them to actually take the time to be in the space to feel that as if you're watching a sculpture, moving, moving slowly, right?
24:09
And that to me, it's quite, it's very exciting. Yeah, totally. It's so exciting. And I also think that we're really grateful for this opportunity to get to spend more time in the Vancouver Art Gallery and think about how the work can really be integrated within that kind of space.
24:25
I mean, there's definitely a lot of creative challenges that come up working in a museum space, just even technically you can't have certain objects in there and you have to be careful of where the art is.
24:37
And so it's also allowing us to re-imagine and rethink how this work can cohesively kind of work with this space. Because a lot of our art and our practices about really that deep integration with either technology or with movement and I think also the space and how that all works together through an experience.
24:59
So we're really grateful to get to have that time. And every Tuesday where it's closed, we get to spend time to really think about how that will work together in the new year. So yeah, very grateful to think about how this can be reimagined in this way.
25:14
And you've been very creative and it's. since it was going to be in this space. And then there was a really large art piece that, I mean, the team at The Vag has been so great with us, you know, but just realistically, I think we had that surprise last week.
25:29
Oh, there's actually a giant art piece that can only go in the space that you were going to have your performance in, so. And now the audience get to go through this gate of heaven before they come to see our work.
25:41
And then it's going to be surrounded by a bunch of paintings that are in similar themes. So almost like when we think of attending churches or temples, they're all sacred kind of architecture. We're all coming to a different type of creative sacred architecture being surrounded by that.
25:56
And it's not something as like, you know, Dan's audience would just get to experience, right? Because you get to then have a totally different experience by the space and then see this, you know, to feel this experience coming out of that as well.
26:11
Yeah. I find that really, really exciting for the audience to actually go through, yeah. And you just referenced it, Caroline, technology in your work. So that's something that you're also really known for, that America is really known for, audiovisual, incredible audiovisual design.
26:30
You speak about using technology as extensions of the body. I would love to know what that looks like in this work. I think because we're really diving into this energetic practice within this work, it only makes sense for us to also continue to expand that through the unseen kind of visualization using technology of what that could be or what that could look like.
26:57
We, of course, don't want to spoon-feed the audience, but we want to allow them to open their mind and not have to worry about having to watch the body so closely in this kind of way, but also thinking about the whole space being the body.
27:15
Yeah. And just to, not to brag, but just like this is something that we've been doing over 15 years in our company is really to give you some audience, some context. This is one of our primary research is to center on the body embodiment sensory with technology, right?
27:39
So dance technology is our center of our research and our work. And we specialize this sense of immediacy, making sure that technology does not overpower the body, overpower the frequency that you animate from the body, the actual performance value and the experience, right?
28:02
The technology is always here to support. It's part of the body. So you won't be like your hands are not going to take over the whole show. Your eyes aren't going to take over the whole show, but the gates is so important.
28:13
your finger articulation, it just is important as your full body's movement, right? So we've got to think of that as part of our technology as well. It's part of our body, and that's something we really advocate and focus on.
28:27
So for this piece, really, we want to make sure that technology really is becoming a channel to kind of continue to open the bandwidth of what our body and spirit and our energy can do. It's continuing to amplify those bandwidth of frequency.
28:44
And so some people are really, really sensitive to that. So some audience might be like, I can feel you without opening my eyes. I can go through the experience, just like just feeling you being on stage, da, da, da, da.
28:56
But somebody says, I don't really see that, but because there's a projection that bridge the gap of those information, now it allows me to be on the same ride with this other person who are, you know, a meditator or a monk, you know?
29:10
So it's just like, they are, it's there to really facilitate the experience. So then help you amplify those channels so you can all be connected in a deeper sense. Yeah, I'm just gonna jump in because I've seen and experienced your work.
29:24
And so I know I feel very clear when you're describing that. I have images and I get that, but I'm wondering if you could give an example. So specifically with this work, we've kind of created a, we'll call it a DIY kind of motion capture setting system.
29:44
Sorry, not setting system. And by using that, we're able to kind of really show the particles that are falling off of the body, thinking of it as like, what if our energy were to expand through the ground?
29:59
What would that feel like? And how would that look? What would that look like? I think specifically thinking of it as a collaborator in this way, as a reflection, as an expansion allows us to really center on thinking about how technology can really support the work versus again, what Sammy was saying, like take away from the experience or compete with the work.
30:26
Yeah, because part of the actual experience is that like, when you work with energy, we in our practice, we call sending the power. And then when you send the power, you can gather energy, energy going through, we conjure the energy.
30:39
And then to expand that, you can imagine your own energy kind of expanding. outside of your skin and then you start to go beyond to like some people might kiss your astral body you know and subtle body and all these turns so you really can feel the shift that happens so the audience that are sensitive they can feel that shift so audience like cannot feel that shift right away you know we have projection to kind of just hint that you know subtly that this energy are actually shifting and going beyond your skin you're on your body and how that it's almost like a vibration that particle lies and comes back and another thing that Caroline does you know i hope it's not spoiled too much but the pendulum you know is another kind of technology we're using working with the spiritual mediumship practice yeah so with the pendulum we're we're using it as a way of actually guiding the movement through the space but also as a way now to expand into the soundscape as well live so we're thinking about how spirit could guide how the sound is changing in real time as well as the movement and the projection.
31:47
So this kind of extension of body, extension of self, extension of sound. Sound, yeah, and power I think is all rooted together in this kind of beautiful way that we're continuing to explore. But just a good, there are so many different example.
32:03
Those are just two that we can pick up. We do want the audience to create their own journey as well to think about how their own technology that this mechanism designed by modern nature, how your technology can also interface with our work as well.
32:19
And that is the most exciting part of why we want to create performance for audience to witness that as well. The continuation of the technology working with the body. And you talk about the creation journey for this piece with regard to research, creative exploration, iterations.
32:35
Yeah, this is a long time research that has kind of shifted through many different iterations and explorations until it's landed into this piece that we're really excited about. When we first were talking about some of this initial research, it was back in 2020 when we were kind of going through a phase where we were both really dealing with our own shadows at that moment and our own biases against each other.
33:04
Meaning like Sammy had dealt with a lot of racism and there was a lot of work that I was highlighting for him to unpack and same with me. And I had a lot of anger towards men were, and there was a lot of unpacking to do with that kind of process.
33:25
Since then, we've done many different residencies kind of across the world, including in Cambodia, working with Peter Chin as a mentor to kind of think about how we can formalize some of these grand ideas.
33:44
Yeah, it's, I just want to say like when we first met each other, it really felt like it's like our worst enemy manifested in what each other stands for in the societal lens, you know, there's like a social in both our social conditioning of like what our worst enemies, you know, this for me, it was like, I didn't trust white people, you know, I did it, I, you know, someone mentor that were racialized mentor that were still traumatized by,
34:11
you know, a lot of racism, they will, I was really conditioning saying that we can't trust white people about doing sharing our culture, you know, what can be tokenized appropriated, you know, there is a lot of fear, there's a lot of like, I would say, you know, there's danger and risk in sharing like deeper spirituality and, and I'm sure a lot of people are still feeling that way, you know, so we want to say that's real,
34:34
you know, that's what it is something that people are going through and we fall through that. We had to go through so much shadow work. There's a lot of pain. At the same time, I feel like what I used to call white people out on, I stand in that power of being seen as a man, which I never really identified myself as man, but on the societal lens, I'm still, I represent men in Caroline's lens.
35:03
So for me, it was interesting. I go through my own fragility, male fragility, be like, no, that's not me. I didn't do all this stuff. And then she's doing the same thing. We're both like, well, innocent, but we hate you, each other.
35:16
And at the same time, that complex, because love really brought us together to really fight through all these stereotypes and stigma and pain that we, it's so ingrained deep down to our psychic and our subconscious level.
35:31
But then a lot of times people would have given up already. I've given up so many times too, just to be safe, right? We need to take care of ourselves. But because our journey being twin flames, having our soul to be reincarnated into this lifetime to meet together, that we felt like we really, it's our purpose to really have to learn and push through those hardship and the shadow, the deeper shadow work.
35:57
And then we really want to share that part of the process and journey. And it really is not easy to face your own fear, discomfort, the darkest part of you. You don't begin healing until you recognize those dark part of you in the shadow.
36:18
But then you can do that by yourself too. You gotta do it with yourself and with people that you trust can help you do those baby steps until you, I wouldn't say you get out of it, but you just grow more muscle, you get more trust and you have more trust in humanity as well in different ways.
36:36
And then, through the process we're like we want to share more of this story because the more we get to know each other the more feel like we can share this connection and love we have for each other and hopefully that will amplify further to just elicit evoke some of the more creative and loving energy around the world a little bit right yeah i think especially globally there's so much divide happening right now and part of the reason why we're so excited by this work and by what we're doing together is kind of trying to think about how we can collectively heal some of these kind of misunderstandings or i mean shadows and really facing those things like i didn't know that that hurt you and really how do we unpack some of these situations together and through a more intersectional kind of lens and so Yeah,
37:26
it's been a lot of work and it's we've arrived in various kind of creative processes and then also personal processes. There's a lot of peers emotionally down in the studio and the journey. Yeah. But then it's still like it's always worth every process at all.
37:45
That was so worth to conjure that to process and to let go and release some of the things that it's not needed anymore as well. Like, oh, the things we really care about, we hold on to this value. It's like, oh, actually, that's not needed in this current time.
37:57
No, that's that's that's that's into something else. And that that feels very healthy and like moving forward. Right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. When I hear you speak, like, first of all, it's so generous of you to share the real internal processes that, you know, I think creative process is often gets to those deep personal places, especially if you're really if you're going deep, if you're really doing like authentic research.
38:23
And so just to hear kind of the honesty around that and and the root of also, you know, your mediumship practice. It's, I think, really generous to share that with our with me and with the listeners because it's it's honest and because I think it's relatable.
38:43
A lot of these things are, you know, with regard to like the personal work we have to do, understanding. Intersectionality, how we are situated socially given the power constructs we exist in and and also like, you know, how mental health is viewed and and our general Western disconnect from spirituality and all these things.
39:04
So I'm just so excited that that you are bringing this work to push. I'm so excited to experience it in this iteration. I genuinely look forward to discovering it and just being present in the moment to experience it alongside the other audience members.
39:26
participants who will be there on the journey. And I'm so thrilled to follow your practice. Yeah, I think we're very blessed to be in conversation with you. Thank you so much. We are so grateful. And again, I, when we say our gratitude, it's not just, you know, a usual gratitude.
39:49
It's like, there's so many layers as we talk about, you know, how brave you are to pick up, to actually program our work, you know, and how much value you see, because you also are super open-minded person with such a diverse, you know, view on what's going on with the world.
40:05
You understand the complexity and that's needed in this political landscape that's happening right now. I would say some people might not get our work and someone like you, who does, who are, you know, bring us, this project into such a...
40:21
a beautiful and empowering kind of platform to share that in this really, I would say rare, collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery as well. For us, it really amplifies our deep, deep value of our project and our belief and some of the really deep down, so I think the sole value, the sole work that we wanna do for the world.
40:48
So again, thank you so much for having us to talk about the project and also be able to share this for real in the Vancouver Art Gallery Super Push Festival. Yes, thank you so much. We're so grateful.
41:00
It's been such a pleasure to get to talk to you and get to know more about you as well and we're so excited. Thank you. Thank you. You just heard Gabrielle Martin's conversation with Sami Chen and Caroline Rigal of Chamerique.
41:19
Presented with the Vancouver Art Gallery, inner sublimity will show at Push Festival February 7th to 9th. Push Play is produced by myself, Trisha Knowles, and the lovely Ben Charland. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi.
41:33
New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. This year marks the 20th festival for Push International Performing Arts Festival. If you'd like to explore more of Push over the last 20 years, please look for our special 20th anniversary retrospective Push Play season.
41:52
And for more information on the 2025 Push Festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca and follow us on social media.
42:06
Coming up on the next Push Play. How do I use this performance to actively reshape my life? And how do I use this performance to indulge in communities and meet with people that I wouldn't normally meet with?
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Bettina joined the conversation from Brussels, Belgium.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights an artisanal approach to connect with humanity.
00:17
I'm speaking with Julie Teneré and Sandrine Heroux, two of the lead artists behind Dimanche, which is being presented at the Push Festival February 6th to 8th, 2025. Between dreamlike fiction and stark reality, Dimanche paints a sharp yet tender portrait of humanity caught off guard by devastating natural disasters.
00:37
It depicts the ingenuity and stubbornness of humans as they cling to habits amid ecological collapse, asking how much longer can we ignore the storm at our door. Directed by Julie Teneré, who graduated from INSAS, the company Focus, from Brussels, creates shows combining theater of objects, puppets, actors, and video.
00:57
The scenic language she proposes is essentially visual, metaphorical, poetic, artisanal, and very close to a cinematographic writing. Trained in the gestural arts, Siqueur Duryu and Sandrine Heroux created Chaluaté Company in 2005.
01:15
Based in Brussels, they defend a visual language without words, poetic, physical, and artisanal, mixing gestural theater, object theater, circus, and dance. Here is my conversation with Julie and Sandrine.
01:31
I would like to acknowledge that I'm joining the conversation from the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, so the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. I'm a settler on these lands, and part of my responsibility as a settler is to continue to educate myself on settler colonialism and the indigenous fight for sovereignty.
01:57
It's not just an indigenous fight, but foreign. indigenous sovereignty over these lands. And so I reference it often, the Yellowhead Institute has this really great, many great reports, including the red paper, which looks at how indigenous consent is ignored, coerced, negotiated, or enforced in Canada with regard to land.
02:20
And I'm just gonna share a little excerpt from this red paper. We analyze how the land tenure regime in Canada is structured upon the denial of indigenous jurisdiction through the creation and enforcement of legal fictions.
02:35
This is followed by limited recognition, which includes an evolving notion of the duty to consult and corresponding government and industry responses. So today, while states are encouraged to adopt the principle of free prior informed consent at the international level, in the Canadian context since 2007, when the UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was first presented, There has been state opposition to a fulsome implementation of free prior and informed consent.
03:06
And I just really appreciate the clarity of this document and the other Yellowhead documents and what an incredible educational tool it is for myself and I know for others. Julie and Sandrine, where are you joining this conversation from today?
03:23
From Brussels, in Belgium. Great, thank you. And is that where both your companies have been based since they were founded? Yes, exactly. Even though we studied maybe in other countries, we started working really professionally in Brussels and in Belgium.
03:44
And soon I'm going to ask you about the history of your companies because they were both founded in 2009, so they have a beautiful history. But first I want to speak more specifically about kind of the themes of Dimanche.
03:57
So, Julie, you've described your work as aiming to deal with social issues, starting from the intimate, the infra-ordinary, to reach the universal. And this is clearly successful in Dimanche. You know, the climate catastrophe is a subject that there is surprisingly little theatre about considering the scale of impending change for humanity.
04:20
But you both, the focus and Chaluaté, seem to have done something very rare to create this work that addresses the fate of the path that we are on with extreme clarity while connecting deeply with the audience across a range of emotions.
04:36
So I'm curious what you think makes this work successful. Of course, there is the theme that is climate change, that is what we are all experiencing today. And what we concentrated on was the denial in which we found ourselves and the people surrounding us between the conscience and knowing that.
04:59
there is a quick action to take, an urgency and the difficulty to translate it in our everyday lives, in our everyday actions. And so it was, for example, we had this sentence of Bill Watterson in Calvin Hobbs that was saying, this is not denial, it's just the reality that I accept.
05:29
And so it was, yes, all this, this absurdity between this knowledge that we have now with all the scientific evidence that we are facing really an extreme urgency of action facing climate change and this impossibility sometimes in our everyday lives to translate it in actions.
05:54
So that was the starting point. That gives rise to a very sadistic situation and so that creates humor and tragedy, and in our work we try always to talk about tragedy through the prism of the humor and tenderness.
06:17
And it was also to recall big things with very simple means because the show is actually with a very artisanal, an artisanal way of using accessories, etc. And because it shows our vulnerability and fragility facing nature and our smallness facing nature, so that was something we really also, was also possible by the means we use in the show, the tools we use that are object theater with physical theater and puppetry.
06:58
When you say artisanal, because this is a, you know, the word exists in English obviously, but I don't often hear it used in the context of theater work. For you, does that relate to the objects? When you say, what do you, can you explain a little bit more what you mean by artisanal?
07:15
It's that there's not a lot of machinery or very sophisticated. We think that there is a big part of the emotion. It's to advocate something bigger than us, which a very simply way. Simple means. Simple means, you know, and that gives something very fragile and very, very human, it brings humanity and poetry.
07:49
And for example, in Dimanche, there was also the mix between physical theater and object theater where, for example, the body is the landscape. and sort of a metaphorically saying that we are parts of the nature.
08:03
So there was also this game between the scales that is very rich between the fact that you can zoom in the images and then take a certain distance. Yeah, I'm hearing that the play and the humor is really key.
08:19
I mean, and I feel that was my own experience, you know, in reflecting on a subject that's so heavy, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it just is. But also I think there's something, you know, both of your practices are rooted in object theater, visual theater, physical theater.
08:42
And I think with the use of objects, puppets, There's something about the metaphoric language that you both talk about. And I think that there's something there, too, in terms of our ability to, by taking kind of a step back, or playing with perception, or taking it out of from the very literal kind of narrative theatrical context, where we're seeing like, you know, a couple characters going through this particular series of events,
09:20
I think that the fact that we can relate at moments with a polar bear. That's why also it was very important for us, the question of the humor inside this, this piece is because also it brings an emotional distance.
09:34
And it's activates our sense of proportion, proportion. And yeah, and as you were saying, it it lets us see the absurdity of our human condition. But also, yet it, it brings another point of view, another way of looking at things.
09:56
So it was very important for us not to be in a more realistic approach or scientific approach, because I mean, we're not we are first of all, telling a story and trying to, to put all the means to tell that story.
10:11
Yeah, and humor poetry, it's really something that we always search for. In August 2018, your companies came together to present backup of 30 minute performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And then Dimanche is the full length development of that work, which I had the privilege of seeing in Edinburgh in 2023.
10:34
Can you talk about the journey of collaboration between your two companies, and also the distinct signatures from each of your approaches in Dimanche? Like will we see, can you refer to a certain use of form or technique as something that's more focus or chalawate, or is it a true blend of aesthetics and techniques?
10:55
Well, I think we have, we met first in 2015. Because we used to have shows that were often presented in the same festivals or in the same theatres, and so our paths often crossed. And I think we had also a common taste for unusual theatrical forms.
11:26
As we were saying, very artisanal way of treating images without words. That was something also that was common to us, that we weren't, we, let's say we, the absence of words aroused visual creativity for the both companies.
11:48
And so even though we had different skills, Judy came more from object theater and puppetry, and with Siqueir we came more from a physical background of the arts of movement. But the language was very similar.
12:06
Of the shows that we had, there was a similar, as she says, language. And so it was very organic, the way that we met and the way that the creation was started. And there was really a blend of these tools without saying, OK, now is the puppetry moment, now is the object theater moment, or the physical moment.
12:32
It was really first to tell the story, what we wanted to tell, what were the images that the subject aroused for us, and then how we can make them the more. And I think we had a different approach. But finally, it doesn't depend about our tools.
13:00
Yeah, you know, it was just because we are a different person, but we tried to write a story and was very concentrated about that. And so we took like three years to create the show. It's a very long process.
13:12
And the first years, we just was writing on the table. We really tried to realize a storyboard and a story and then re-approve it on the stage. And some things are reveals themselves. Very interesting orders, not a duel, and yeah.
13:39
Then we re-write things. Of course, seeing how it works on stage. But re-write, this show really like a movie. re-imagines like a movie, it's our process. And so everything with object theater by other tools, but with object theater, we can dream absolutely every we want.
14:03
There is no, yes, no limits. There is no limits. And then we try to translate all the time. We try to find the translation on the stage because we don't want to write a movie, but we won't write a piece of theater, but it's always to try to find a tradition with a very artisanal language.
14:31
And so we try to create a new language with an remix on and mixed all these skills, but yeah, but it's very, we, the very... La Richesque, the rich, the important things for us, it's the collective processes.
14:54
So there is absolutely not one person on this side. And finally, we talk so much that it's just impossible to see how we find this idea. You know, we talk and you propose something interesting. I propose something not interesting, but because I think about it and you know what I mean.
15:15
So finally, it's always quite magical, because you don't really know how the ideas are aroused, but it's a lot of confiance, how do you say, trust, no, it's a lot of trust between us three, because I think that was something that was very important in the collective work, because there's not one person that is a stage director.
15:48
We are three, really writing and experiencing on scene, on stage, the ideas. So it's a lot of trust and a lot of... And for a show like Dimanche, we have write a show, and finally, we lived a lot of things we really loved, but it was not...
16:07
Serving the proposed. Yes. And so it's a long process. But it's very interesting and funny, you know. It's a lot of joy, yes. It's first a lot of joy to work together and the first years we write at three, but the second years, and then finally, we have a big team with us.
16:37
And the sound in our process of writing is very important. We write the song because we don't speak, like Sandrine said. And so we write a song because we, uh, it's as dramaturgical as the rest of the, the tools, because it also, uh, brings the situations, the, the, yeah, it really participates with us.
17:03
Uh, so we worked with someone that comes, came from cinema. And so that really specialized all the sounds on stage. So it would really come from the different, uh, spaces. And so that was something really, that was, um, uh, a big work also.
17:23
Was that new to this process or had you done that before work with that sound in that way in previous projects? Yes, a lot, but maybe it was, uh, even more specifically worked in Dimanche. And the process of storyboarding, is that also usual for your process?
17:41
That first you're going to sit down and really map it out visually like that? I think for Julie, yes. For us, with Siqueur, it was not so clear, because it depends on the shows we made. Sometimes it came more from improvisation, even though there was a theme and direction we wanted to take.
18:04
Maybe we worked at first a lot already on trying things. For my presentation and for Dimash, it was very necessary, because we talk about a very complex subject. When you improvise something, there is always something very interesting, and it complicates to choose what we follow and what we leave.
18:31
Because we had write a script and a scenario, it gives us a guide. Yeah, like limits. And so it was possible to improvise everything that gives us a very big freedom. Yeah, I guess my next question is about the evolution of your artistic practices.
18:57
As mentioned, both of your companies were started in 2009. I would love to hear about who you were as artists then compared to now. Also, maybe after this process, I'm curious if Julie, you're integrating more mime work and Santorini, you're integrating more puppets.
19:14
If this Dimash creative process has affected how you work in your future projects. Generally, I would love to hear about the evolution of your creative process, your interests. I think it's complicated to know that, because we are writing together a new show.
19:36
That's three right now. So yes, I feel that we always tried at each show to open on new or collaborations or new tools. So on a recent show, we worked a lot with circus, but on another show, we also worked a lot with object theater.
20:01
So it was also always something that was serving the dramaturgy and the story we wanted to tell to go and pick things that can bring the best image that serves the story. It's true that we had never, for example, done puppetry before, but it was very, yeah, it was very exciting to work on that with Judy and it's for sure the fact that we worked on Dimanche for the new show, there's something maybe more evidence than that is,
20:41
of course, that we experienced before. So, After it's difficult to always know how we change in our languages because there are so many influences, so many things that are also maturity in our time and work that changes, of course, the way that we that we avoid the creations.
21:05
But for Dimanche, it was the first time we worked together, the two companies. And so I think I really imagine a movie through the prism of the object because it's my formation. And finally, it's like in a bit too the usually, usually, there's some habits.
21:28
But when I it's interesting for me to have to have the body on the stage all the time, you know, because it's not evident for me, for example. But I really love it. And that brings a very poetry dimension.
21:50
But it's not evident for me, you know. And so I'm very enthusiastic and exciting to see another language and that brings me a lot. But I can explain more. That's great. Can you talk to us about the new project?
22:11
Oh, it's really the beginning. We're starting, we're just starting from the beginning of September. We started working on this new project. But we tried always a subject society through the prism of poetry.
22:25
And so that will be something like that. And we mix again, again, our different tools. But I say different, but finally, it's a mix of what we say. But the language, finally, will be very, I suppose, different from Dimanche.
22:45
because we we try to create something like a surprise for ourselves too and so we don't we really don't want to do exactly the same show but uh monday you know but we will do our best it's a surprise for us because we you can write a long time and finally at the end we discover our show and so it's oh okay that's it's that's okay wow yeah i think especially when you're working with the body um when you're not working with text i think there's um there's maybe even more space or i guess it depends how you're working with text but i feel like that that process of letting the work reveal itself you know or when you really get the bodies in space or the objects in space i suppose and you really start to understand them it's always a discovery when when the show finally is presented we also discover Yeah,
23:44
what we didn't especially think we were showing, but that reveals itself. Okay, well, we'll have to, we'll be excited to follow. For our sake, we'll hope that it's a faster process, but I really respect a long creative process as well.
23:59
Understand that, you know, that's, I'm sure that's why Dimanche is as strong as it is, because it's had that really rich process. It's been a real pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
24:12
Thank you very much. It's an absolute pleasure. When Heather Redford and I saw the work, so Heather is the director of The Cult and we're co-presenting this work in Vancouver. And when we saw the work in Edinburgh, we just got up and looked at each other right away.
24:27
And, you know, it was just this, this, just this total clarity with regard to what an impactful piece this is and how much we would love for our audiences to experience it. So we're just thrilled that it's finally happening.
24:42
Yeah. Thank you. We're thrilled as well. That was Julie Tenre and Sandrine Herro from Focus and Shaliwate Companies. Their work, Dimanche, will be presented with our friends at The Cult during the 20th International Performing Arts Festival on February 6th, 7th, and 8th at the Vancouver Playhouse.
25:05
Push Play is produced by myself, Trisha Knowles, and Ben Charland. Special thanks to Joseph Hirabayashi for the original music composition. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.
25:18
Coming up on the next Push Play. I think in a broad stroke, there's a lot of appropriation of these different cultures. And we want to go into those difficult and challenging subjects so that we can arrive to a place where we have a deeper understanding of each other.
As a vocalist and interdisciplinary artist, his career has led him around the globe, notably with his solo show Anthropologies imaginaires at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival (2015) and the SummerWorks Performance Festival (2016). They also explore queer arts and drag artistry as Bijuriya (@bijuriya.drag).
He is an associate composer at the Canadian Music Centre and a member of SOCAN, the Canadian New Music Network, and the Canadian League of Composers. Since 2015, Gabriel has been a PhD candidate at Concordia University's PhD "Individualized Program" with Sandeep Bhagwati (Music), Noah Drew (Theatre) and David Howes (Anthropology).
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Gabriel joined the conversation from what is now known as Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights intersectional exploration and drag-pop aesthetics.
00:18
I'm speaking with Gabrielle Darmout, artist behind Bijuria, which is being presented at the Push Festival, January 28th and 29th, 2025. In this quirky yet poignant examination of the intersections between queerness and brownness, Gabrielle Darmout engages in a self-reflexive dialogue with his drag persona, Bijuria.
00:38
This musical conversation delves into the power of song to express the hybrid, multifaceted layers that coexist with an identity, offering an insightful reflection on the fluidity of human experience.
00:51
Gabrielle Darmout is a music composer, vocalist, and interdisciplinary artist. He was awarded the 2017 Jules Léger Prize for Chamber Music, following up on his internationally acclaimed solo, Anthropologie Imaginaire.
01:05
His new production, Bijuria, merges music, drag, and theatre, and has been presented a dozen times in Canada since 2022. Here's my conversation with Gabrielle. So just before we dive into really getting to know you, I want to acknowledge that I am participating in this conversation today from the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples.
01:35
So the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Tsleil-Waututh. I'm a settler here, and it's my responsibility to continue to think about what that means, my relation to decolonization and restitution, and educating myself.
01:52
And that looks differently each day. And recently, I mean, I refer to this actually quite often. in these land acknowledgments is acknowledging Yellowhead Institute because it's an incredible wealth of information and an incredible educational resource.
02:10
So I've been reading their cashback red paper and it really does a great job of framing what cashback is all about, about restitution from the perspective of stolen wealth. And framing it that it's not a charity project and it's a part of decolonization and understanding that colonization is an economic project based on land theft that requires a political system that operates through domination and violence to maintain theft and therefore enriches the settler state necessarily,
02:49
impoverishes or in enriching the settler state and necessarily impoverishes and criminalizes the colonized. And I just find it so, their writing is so clear in how they frame these things that, yeah, I learn a lot.
03:04
Gabrielle, where are you joining this call from today? Thanks for sharing that. I am talking to you from home in Montreal or Joe Chaggy. Here's land of the Kanyakahaga, who are recognized as the custodians of the land and waters.
03:21
I have Indo-Caribbean ancestry from my father's side. So a whole history of indenture and a race sort of cultural ties to the South Asian subcontinent. And my mother is a French Canadian, present of such things, so I'm half white, half brown, but are they really halves?
03:46
You can't quantize it that way, but that's been my, yeah, my art is a good way for me to actually engage with all questions related to identity and power or decolonization or reflecting on coloniality as this thing that is part of everything and that we have to mindfully engage with.
04:15
And art for me has been the channel. Thank you for sharing that. And definitely I can relate to an aspect of what you're saying, and it's just a very kind of simple way of also being half-half, half-black, half-white, if we can call it them halves, it's much more complicated and richly complicated than that or complex.
04:38
But this is something that I'm super interested about your practice is the trans-cultural perspective. And it really stands out in your work, both in the perspective you bring to the work. and in the disciplines that you engage with and the historical context for those forms that you're working with.
04:58
So as a composer, you completed studies in composition and analysis at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal with people I'm not familiar with, but who sound very important, and you graduated with two pre-Vécagrand distinction, the highest honor to be awarded, and you've since won numerous prestigious awards.
05:20
Your compositions have been performed around the world, and as well as studying in Western music traditions, you researched Carnatic music with four renowned masters in Chennai over several years, and you're a drag performer.
05:34
So what does it mean to be an artist at the intersection of Western and Eastern artistic practices, as well as the intersection of high and low or popular art forms? First, I just want to say how I can't see how it could be any other way, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
05:55
It's not very straightforward of a path that I've had, but I've always kind of balanced all these ingredients that we just mentioned, whether we think of it as geography or in terms of type of art form, like with quotation marks high and low or popular or sophisticated art forms.
06:21
It's always been kind of a balancing act because I did undergo kind of training in music, which is very, very directly linked with Western classical music. So we could call it like urological. Santi Bhagwadi calls it urological.
06:43
So it's Eurocentric, but it's not anymore. It's everywhere. This type of music is everywhere, but it follows rules that have been born out of arts music at a certain period of history in a certain place.
06:57
And the tough part is like, it's kind of great music in many ways, but it's hard for me to be all in and it's hard for me to do only that. Even if I look at it from an avant-garde kind of position, because I could easily say I don't like classical music from the past.
07:17
Now I'm in the present doing that. That's one way of looking at it. But I don't feel like that sphere is where I want to have both feet in. So underground arts or I guess grassroots arts or hybrid forms, formats have always interested me.
07:42
And I also don't disavow the existence of art that's linked to through capitalism or commercial art or pop culture and all that. But I, so I engage with everything and I also am critical of everything in a way.
08:03
And the only way I can exist with this is through playfulness and through question marks, just asking lots of questions about it and thinking that it's both super, super, super serious and also kind of not really at the same time and sort of not funny, but something that can be, you know, poked at for the subject of satire or exploration.
08:33
Have you always been working in all of these forms? Like, for example, have you been you know, expressing yourself in drag, as well as pursuing this formal education in classical music? Or has there been kind of a trajectory that led you from one to the other back to the other?
08:53
Or yeah, how did that work? And also with with your training in Carnatic music as well? Yeah, no, it's, it's closer to the second part of your your second hypothesis is closer to the truth in the sense that I was, I'm, I say that I kept balancing it, but the proportion that it occupies in my life, or my activities or my projects have shifted has shifted.
09:21
So when I was a student at the conservatoire, for sure, I was way more invested in that type of urological music composition, and very invested in playing that game. I think near 20s is kind of the era of seeking a validation as well.
09:39
And validation from peers and from a network or from a community was something that I, I kind of was very, you know, that it affected a lot of decisions in a lot of ways that in choices, not necessarily negatively, but sometimes I do feel like that's a big part of it's such a formative decade.
10:06
And I've spent a lot of it in that field. But at the same time, I was doing other types of projects. But I also always had in mind that I wanted to go to India and study classical Indian music Carnatic music, which is one of two systems of classical Indian music from the south of India.
10:25
And I went there after my after I graduated from conservatoire. So that's 2008 11 ish that I went there. And then drag came 10 years after that. So 2018 that I started. And I guess if I look at the broad patterns, with hindsight, I'd say that I've been gradually and mindfully distancing from the more urological contemporary or new arts performance, interdisciplinarity, and that involved drag as well.
11:16
So it's a balance, but there's also a direction to it. Now when I take on projects that I feel are more linked to contemporary music, I choose them more, I don't know, I choose them. I weigh the pros and cons way more.
11:38
And I take less and less of this for different reasons. And is that also maybe because in those projects you are, are those opportunities to come in as a composer or a musician? I'm curious about also the relationship between, is more of your work expressed these days as like self-directed projects?
12:00
And is that a priority of yours? Or do you also enjoy working as a musician on other people's compositions? So with composition and say composing in that tradition of being commissioned to write a piece for a specific ensemble, et cetera, I've done a lot of that in the 2010s and it became a less and less.
12:23
And then the pandemic just really made me go like, okay, like, let's, let's, let's consider what this is. And if I like it, I never actually really liked it. I never liked composition, the act of being alone and writing the notes, that part I've, I've never felt healthy doing that.
12:43
It's always felt very, it was hard for me to find joy, except maybe at the beginning and then near the end when you're like, this is actually going to be performed. I'm actually going to work with people.
12:55
And so that social part of it is very rewarding for me. So I've kind of I've been drawn to projects where I have more agency also in what I can engage with. And that's not necessarily a question of like permission, like people wouldn't want me to do a piece on identity.
13:21
It's not so much about that. It's for me, it's more, I can't see how the media matches the message of what I'm trying to put out there. So with the piece that I did in 2014, kind of live arts performance.
13:41
I knew that I wanted to explore power, coloniality, voice, satire, all tons of stuff I wanted to explore with that piece. And I could not do that with Wood Quintet's commission, like it makes no sense to me.
14:01
So I knew that this was a live theater slash music slash voice hybrid that I had to do and self produce. And so that's been kind of what I've been craving. It's because I still like to collaborate on things.
14:20
Because it just makes for a more balanced kind of creative cycle as well to sometimes be involved in other people's things or to perform or to not be the one organizing everything and all of that. I think that's a very healthy balance, but for sure.
14:37
all the projects that I dream up of are are usually also not very typical in their formats and need me to have a very slow time in the slow gestation period. I don't know if that's a word in English as well.
14:58
Yeah. And so these I'm curious to learn a little bit more about these forms. Like, was there a moment of kind of rupture where you just got introduced, you know, where you immerse yourself in in drag or karmatic music, or I know that you're also working in other with other forms and disciplines as well.
15:20
Or it sounds like it's kind of been more an organic process of, you know, those being the natural forms to to realize the dramaturgy necessary. But I am just curious to learn a little bit more about that integration of these different practices and what that what that was like to start working.
15:44
And maybe also it was like to start being having your work in those forms received by different public or the same public differently. Yeah, I think it's been organic, but very mindful and also a process in which I allow myself space and grace, I guess, because there's lots of overlapping things.
16:11
And if you look at it like chronologically, I'm still like I have an album of chamber music with the National Arts Center Orchestra musicians that came out last year, which kind of celebrates stuff I was doing in the 2010s.
16:26
I'm still it's, it feels like a bit of a bubble in time to go back to that. But I would I still felt proud. I still feel proud of that work. And I still want to kind of engage with it, but that also came with the question, do I want to write a new piece for orchestra?
16:44
And my gut feeling was no. But let me look backward and see what I want to do with the NAC Orchestra, and that it was to celebrate things that already existed, and that didn't take creative energies away from the stuff that I feel is me now or me in the future.
17:04
So I guess I finished my PhD last year, and my whole thesis was just kind of research creation around voice and theater music and anthropology. And my framework is one of alignment, or seeking alignment, or in my case, seeking vocal alignment, where I want my literal voice that sings and speaks and does things.
17:37
the voice that sounds and then the more conceptual voice, like what we want to say as artists or as people, and to have those kind of aligned and different projects. So you're like, huh, I'm actually using my voice to be my voice.
17:52
Anyways, it's a little confusing kind of thing, but just to kind of bring all of that together. And for me, that takes time. And it takes a bit of accepting contradiction also, because you, you can't, you can't switch.
18:08
We can't switch so fast. I think maybe some people are wired that way. But for me, I kind of need to really feel things out. And that's been so I think this, this like seeking alignment thing, this, this process has has been what led me to, to think like, oh, I did this project.
18:31
And these are the little things about it that I feel are still a bit misaligned. So how can I address that in the next one? And, oh, maybe this way, oh, maybe going more, more. So maybe less commissioned work, more self directed work, that was one step, and then maybe more Indian music influence and less of that European stuff.
18:53
That was another way of aligning. And then with the jury, it was the queer kind of like really going into more of a queer way of, of doing things and of engaging with queer culture as well. And this intersects well, because you're talking about queerness, which, you know, Visuria engages with.
19:13
And I would just love if you could talk a little bit about more about how your practice investigates queerness, and specifically with this work. Yeah, of course, Visuria is a drag persona. It's the name of the show, but also the name of my my drag personality.
19:32
She's she's a character. who's also me, and the explanation between my queerness and my brownness has been really not that it was impossible to do it before I did drag, but really accelerated that and got me the confidence to tackle my South Asian-ness with more confidence and with less of this imposter syndrome that lots of mixed people have sometimes, when in reality, because it's a feeling, because the reality is that every South Asian person,
20:13
even if they're like fully South Asian, will have huge differences in terms of cultural language, religion, background, family history, journey across the globe and all of that. So it's kind of, it's a bit self, not self-centered, but like it's.
20:37
It's easy to just think of like how we are different when in reality, the experience now of engaging more with the South Asian queer community has just revealed how many, all the different ways you can feel like a misfit, it could be because of all these reasons that I've mentioned.
21:00
And for me, Bijiria really helped me to lean into this queerness, not just in theory, because I've always been attracted to that queerness as a lens kind of approach, you know, that you kind of look at things sideways and you have different ways of working on and against dominant culture, the kind of Munoz, this identification model, like I really related to.
21:31
But this was, this felt more real, more grounded in community and challenging myself to not stick with the cultural reference, with the cultural references, say, of the canon and more of the communities I'm already engaged with.
21:52
So Bijiria kind of offers me the opportunity to have lots of different influences and cultural references intermingle in my work from Bollywood to Trinidad stuff to Quebec stuff to sound design that's more experimental, which comes from my work as a composer.
22:18
Yeah, so I feel like the queerness and Bijiria go hand in hand for sure. And you've also been reflecting on coloniality on the new music scene and you unpack how coloniality is reflected in your music making community.
22:40
How have your kind of more academic observations influenced the direction and formats of your work? I think I like the idea that to tackles power. So in a sense, coloniality is just like this structure of a power that we can write off the top of our heads, like white male patriarchy, wealthy, et cetera, North American, European, all of these things that we associate as intersect.
23:14
If you have that as part of your intersection, you have more privilege in a sense. But I like the model that thinks about having a multitude of counter discourses to channel, to challenge the fact that There's not one way of being in the world, which is such an evident kind of statement to do, but it's mind-boggling to me that it's not integrated at all.
23:47
So I tend to want to really lean into specificity of who I am or what I'm thinking or just specificity as a kind of counter-cultural suggestion. You know, it's not like everyone be like me, and that's not what's interesting here.
24:07
It's to have a community of artists that are offering different types of non-standard ways of doing, and that's artists, and that's not the end either. We need artists, we need militant, we need activists, we need all sorts of people to do this.
24:29
So that's why I kind of like to emphasize that I'm an artist, and there are hints of critique and activism to what I engage with, but I feel like what I do best is be creative about the question marks and about the challenges and just be glad that there's other people that are wired to do it differently, and all together we contribute, hopefully, to some sort of questioning or, what's the word, kind of disintegrating the rigidity of what is considered to be a standard way.
25:23
And standard ways exist in so many different spheres. It could be political, it could be social, it could be different things. but it could be about arts as well. So I'm kind of always been wary of artistic figures, kind of emphasizing that this is the way to do this.
25:49
This is how that to me makes absolutely no sense. And I think as artists, we have to just really tap into what we have and go strong in that direction. Speaking about directions, Anthropologie Imagineur was presented by Push and Music on Main in 2016 to much acclaim.
26:14
And can you talk about the direction trajectory of your aesthetic, formal conceptual interests from Anthropologie Imagineur to Visuria and beyond? Yeah, Anthropologie Imagineur for listeners who haven't seen it is a solo performance for myself as a vocal performer who does not actually speak but more so vocalizes and kind of evokes traditional-ish song or vocalization that you could assume are linked to cultures that are on the verge of extinction if not extinct.
26:59
But in reality they are it's all fake so it's kind of a mockumentary. So behind me, I'm the only performer on stage, but behind me is a projection with five speaking heads who you assume are anthropologists or musicologists who have an increasingly flawed and problematic analysis of the sounds that I'm doing.
27:28
So with that project, it was already a very big step from from being a composer. I've always been a improviser and I've used my voice a lot in different performance settings, mostly underground, and this was kind of bringing this vocal exploration with a theatrical framing.
27:50
I'm super proud of that piece, but I knew from its success, I guess, that I wanted to do another one and my hunch for a long time was really that this next piece tackles something a bit more vulnerable and personal, which is my intersection as a queer and brown person.
28:15
So this is what Pejoria allowed to do and in terms of formal kind of like how my my artistry has developed in a way that there's There's more, like the theater part of it takes up more space, because in in Autopolégy Maginart I framed it, I've used theater to frame it, which was and the script did not me speaking it, it's like it's the mockumentary doing it.
28:47
So with drag it allowed me to lead more into character work, if we, you know, sound-wise and music-wise got me to tap into songwriting in a more of a drag-pop aesthetic, which is something I used to do more as a joke.
29:09
I've written lots of joke songs in my life, but never like genuine songs. So carrying that through instead of composing orchestral or chamber music, but really like accepting how I can play with other types of music that I do enjoy but haven't really done.
29:34
I did this in collaboration with a co-composer Gabrielle, another Gabrielle, Gabrielle D'Eau. And so this is how, I guess, my trajectory expanded in each piece. So Bijerio kind of embraces more of the performance and the speaking and the theater side of it.
29:59
And, I mean, the makeup and the drag artistry, which is also a huge thing to learn, very long learning curve. And it's a skill I'm very glad to have developed and really sharpened my visual brain, having been an ear-based person in my work for all of my life.
30:25
And would you say that an approach more rooted in theater is the direction that you see yourself going, or that's just this project? And are you working on something next? Do you have inklings of what you want to explore from here?
30:46
Yeah, I have a project in mind that I'm working on, which would be also at the intersection of music and theater, I'd say. It's too early to kind of be able to say what the proportion is. But to say the truth, I don't really know what theater means, in a sense.
31:07
I think we have kind of fixed ideas of what every art form is. And when we haven't trained in it, we can think of it as the cliche version of what it is. So for me, it's very easy to think in a very nuanced way about music and about sound.
31:29
and I know that some of the stuff I do that's more theater leaning isn't music, so I call it theater, but I don't have, yeah, it's hard for me to identify with the field in a sense, because I don't feel that's where I come from, and that's not where my points of reference are, except when I go see, except as a viewer, but as a viewer, I tend to go see more of a interdisciplinary form of theater, stuff that you'd have at Bush,
32:09
for example, but in Montreal, the F.T.A., for example, or all the O.F.T.A. and all the, that kind of community, the Arvizant, or live arts, I guess you would translate. So yeah, I see myself, yeah, going towards theater, but in a hybrid and...
32:29
unclassifiable sort of way, I guess. And I love dance as well. And sometimes I've been programmed as because you're in dance festivals. So in a sense, all these communities see things in the work that fits, but usually what they're looking for is a fresh take also on what those art forms are, what those boxes are.
32:55
And in some way it's a benefit to not come from a field but kind of like dapple with it. But I think only if you really lean into what you do have and the stuff that you do have a grasp over, which for me is sound and music.
33:14
So that'll always be kind of at the center of my process. And hopefully as the formats expand, it can relate to other artistic communities as well. Thank you so much Gabrielle for this conversation. It's been such a pleasure.
33:33
Thank you. And I look forward to visiting your city. You just heard Gabrielle Darmou in conversation with Push Artistic Director Gabriel Martin in support of their work, Bijuria, appearing as part of the 20th Push International Performing Arts Festival on January 28th and 29th at the Annex.
33:55
Bijuria is presented with our good friends at Music on Main and the Indian Summer Festival with support from the Government of Quebec. My name is Ben Charland and I produce this podcast alongside the wonderful Tricia Knowles.
34:08
Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information on the 2025 Festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca.
34:29
And on the next Push Play. So it was very important for us not to be in a moralistic approach or scientific approach because I mean we are first of all telling a story and trying to put all the means to tell that story.
34:45
Yeah and humor, poetry, it's really something that we always search for.
In 2020, Bert and Nasi received the Forced Entertainment Award in memory of Huw Chadbourn, which celebrates the work of contemporary artists reinventing theatre and performance in new ways and for new audiences.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Bert joined the conversation from Paris, while Nasi was in Marseille.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's director of programming, and today's episode highlights doing less and injecting feelings into facts.
00:17
I'm speaking with Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutas, performers and two of the creators of La Disson. A seemingly commonplace interaction between two men in a restaurant fractures into an absurdist kaleidoscope of shifting angles that reflect the comically nonsensical nature of life.
00:35
La Disson will be presented at the Push Festival January 25 and 26, 2025. Bert and Nasi are a contemporary performance duo that met in 2015 and have since created an entire repertoire of shows in the midst of a period of national and international austerity.
00:52
Their work, in turn, is stripped back and minimalist, though it deals with complex ideas and emotions. Tim Echols is the director of La Disson and is an artist and writer based in the UK, whose work shifts between performance, visual art, and fiction.
01:06
Echols has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as the leader of the world-renowned Sheffield-based performance group, Forest Entertainment. Here's my conversation with Bert and Nasi. I do want to just start by acknowledging that I am joining this conversation from the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.
01:33
I'm a settler here, and part of my responsibility as a settler is to continue to educate myself on the state of reconciliation, the history of genocide and colonization, and to continue to engage in decolonization efforts.
01:54
There's always more we can do, but I really lean on the Yellowhead Institute here. which is an incredible resource of policies and reports, just tracking things like Canada's progress with regard to, for example, the truth and reconciliation calls to action.
02:12
So I'm just gonna reference one of the more recent reports, a decade of disappointment, reconciliation in the system of a crown. And again, really just kind of reflecting on the 10 years since the 94 calls to action.
02:28
And this report, I think it's really powerful. It talks about how reconciliation is not just about apologizing for past wrongs, at which Canada is quite adept. It's about ending current wrongs that are happening today and preventing future wrongs, both of which Canada fails to do, and that the legacy calls to action happen to be those with the least progress.
02:51
And these are these four calls to action that, basically provide annual funding comparison metrics between indigenous and non-indigenous populations on and off reserve populations. And the logic of these calls is to clearly identify Canada's unwillingness to adequately invest resources to support indigenous communities over whom it has exerted control for the last 160 plus years.
03:18
And I just really, this is a plug for Yellowhead and that's a report to check out. And it's just definitely frames things in such a powerful and honest way. Bert and Nasi, where are you joining the call today from?
03:34
So I'm actually in Paris because we went to see with Nasi, but Nasi is already in Marseille, but we went to see our friends, Forced Entertainment, perform in Paris, their latest show for their 40th anniversary called Signal to Noise.
03:55
I don't know if you already saw it. I haven't seen it, but I've been following. It's exciting. Yeah. Read about it. It's a great show and there's a lot of moments when you laugh, but there's also a hot moment when you kind of despair what's happening on stage as well, because it echoes brilliantly with a lot of foreign political contexts.
04:21
And yeah, it's pretty and sure it's really good. And are these, Forced Entertainment, have you been long time friends or is this really a relationship that's grown from the work on La Descien? We've known them for a while now, not 40 years.
04:41
We weren't there at the beginning. Actually, yeah, we're a bit younger, but we have been working with them since 2020 actually, because we won an award. that they gave out to people, and we were one of the people they gave an award to, and that started a kind of mentoring relationship.
05:07
They kind of fell during COVID. So it was kind of like a, yeah, kind of weird time. But also it was cool to like, we started meeting them online and kind of, they started mentoring us. We started working with Tim and Eileen, who is the company producer.
05:28
And yeah, it kind of started from there, really, like, we got to know them a bit more. And obviously beforehand, we were like big fans of their work. So it was super cool to like, chat to them about stuff, you know, stuff to do with making work.
05:47
Sorry, I'm in Marseille. And Bert, you're not usually based in Paris, are you? No, I'm also based in Marseille, same as we live five months. down from each other. Yeah, we live five minutes from each other, yeah.
05:58
Quite unusual that you're catching us at a moment when we're actually very far apart, which is not often the case, because we tour and do most of the things together, so. Push has had the pleasure of hosting you before.
06:13
Push presented Palmyra in 2019. And this is, Palmyra is an exploration of revenge, the politics of destruction, and what we consider to be barbaric, inviting people to step back from the news. It looks at what lies beneath and beyond civilization.
06:30
So since then you've created six shows. Can you talk about the evolution or shifts within your work over this period? When we came and we did Palmyra at Push, it was a really nice experience. And that show was, we loved doing that show.
06:49
But yeah, there's definitely been like, I think, yes, six shows later. I guess like with this show, with La Duchamp, I think we're kind of, we're playing with similar stuff. There's stuff that kind of relates to those two shows, but in terms of the dynamic, in terms of the kind of, sometimes the intensity of both those shows.
07:13
But I'd say that in our work, we kind of stepped back from overtly political material and using that as like a springboard into making. I think we kind of, I don't know, in the brushstrokes we started to do in making work, it became a bit like thicker and a bit like, you know, incorporating like lots of things.
07:40
Like we feel our work is still political, just like any person who like occupies a space with other people can be a political act and can be a political thing. But yeah, I suppose. like we we moved a little bit towards we started to explore different kind of ways of of occupying a space and making and making work.
08:07
That's fascinating to me and is that like that was just about needing more kind of uh points of reference or needing different research trajectories or you know wanting to move away from you know how sometimes work with a political message can be didactic or I'm just curious to hear you speak more about that shift and what like inspired that.
08:32
Yeah I think I think also like Palmyra like resonated very strongly so for us it was really a show about Palmyra and Syria and what was going on in the Middle East but actually a lot of because of its open-ended nature uh in the sense that we never spoke about you know We never said these words on stage, so it was all to do with actions and how people were kind of perceiving what we were doing to each other on stage and stuff.
09:00
People kind of projected a lot of meaning onto the show. And Amira, for example, we we ended up presenting in loads of different contexts in different festivals and different countries. And in the case of Canada, for example, it really kind of spoke about the indigenous indigenous experience.
09:19
And in Brazil, the same. And in Northern Ireland, it was also about that kind of colonized experience. So it was it kind of like started kind of like speaking louder than we'd anticipated. And I think that's that that was kind of the success of the show.
09:40
And then, like, the more we kind of like carried on, the more like, actually, like, maybe we don't have to say what the show is about. Maybe we don't need to kind of place it, even though, like, you know, the title is there and that's it.
09:54
But maybe actually just kind of putting two people on stage and and and considering other things about what those two people are doing on stage and their relationship and the nature of collaboration and working with one another and working with the audience and all of these things can kind of like lend itself to be political.
10:15
But it was more the question. It was more the kind of like, let's see where that that takes us and let's see where that takes people as well. And it kind of ended up being more of an exploration in the latest kind of like shows as well of like something that's a bit more existential as well and a bit more kind of metaphysical maybe and about what it is to kind of occupy a space with the audience.
10:39
Also, like, what is it to kind of like be in this world and think like this? I also think like in a very blunt sort of way, those first three shows, we made Eurohouse, Palmyra and one they were like intense we did like some pretty weird nasty shit to each other in those shows and then we toured them a lot and then but kind of like in a very simple way i think when we came to make the end which was like a dance movement piece that we made we kind of wanted to make something a bit like together and kind of really being together in exploring something a bit more metaphysical and also a bit more personal so that really contributed in terms of like moving away from these kind of like kind of very like head-to-head this conflict vibe that we kind of we still like kind of love but we kind of like just kind of stepped back a little bit from that from that vibe for a few years but this show I think we're very much back in that vibe and so it's and we're happy to be to be there as well.
11:58
I have a question about a workshop that you offer so and we're hoping that we'll be able to host it here while you're in Vancouver and the workshop's titled Less Workshop in which you explore ideas around disagreement, frustration, hatred and reconciliation, particularly as these to contemporary society and using the stage as a space for artistic and political negotiation.
12:23
And so we've already been speaking about this to some extent but my question tied to that was would you say that these ideas define your work and can you speak more to artistic and political negotiation?
12:36
I think it was a workshop that we started developing when we were making these kind of first of all it took us quite a lot of time to try and articulate those ideas in a space with the students and with other people so we still feel quite attached to these ideas and also we feel like actually we've got something to kind of offer in that sense that actually seeing how we can kind of portray the political just with kind of people and in relation to an audience this is something that we feel we can do.
13:16
In the later part of what we do it's a little bit more tricky because a lot of it rests on on us and our collaboration and us both and it's a bit more personal so this is something that in a way like we feel a little bit less inclined to kind of go down because it's like well this is kind of this is the road we're on as as makers and as collaborators but probably that those students that will be with us in the space will have a very different way of making work and will have a very different kind of road for their for their own work and their own collaboration.
13:51
So that's why we're kind of at the moment we're still sticking to this because we feel at least that that is something that Probably people can use and and and can understand Something maybe that's kind of like relatively new or something that they can use to create Yeah political work with a bit of with a bit of distance maybe there's from the beginning we've always had I Mean we don't have much set in our shows historically and Normally,
14:25
it's just like very much just two of us in a space Maybe with a laptop maybe with a table or some chairs and We just explore stuff through that. So I guess those were like the founding principles that we Started making work with kind of through necessity because in the UK for the past like 12 years I uh we had uh you know the Tory government uh arts funding was cut like which is so common nowadays like seems all across the world um and so we kind of found this form um sort of out of necessity and then and then kind of fell in love with this form like and and and actually enjoyed it and and kind of we were very passionate about about really bringing something into a room with not much means and like really creating an experience with an audience in a room yeah that's kind of carried on being a real like principle that we have when we think about work and when we think about what it means to perform live work to an audience um it's really great to hear examples of of what defines your work the aesthetics the form uh and also your practice you've shared that your practice revolves around questions such as how do we prioritize simplicity when talking about very complex matters and how do you inject feeling into facts and also how can we do less which you've spoken to but with regard to the first two can you can you offer us some more similar examples as to how you're answering or how you have answered these questions we just like the the the surprise that when you really prioritize simplicity in a space and you just focus on like like you being like the audience being in a room with you when you when you make and when you perform sometimes it unlocks something that is that is more impressive than if you kind of bring some sort of like high budget thing into into it or you kind of have this big image like the simplicity of just like this this moment that you're sharing with in a space with some people that's the thing that really like we we like that's the thing that gets us going sort of you know and that's no shade i'm like these big budget productions,
16:52
but we like that simplicity, we like that. Hopefully everybody can see La Decine because La Decine is an answer to that question as well. It's just like how riveting a work can be with such simple substance in terms of like, you know, text, set, all of these things.
17:20
And how the intensity that's created and also the references to, you know, bigger themes of, you know, the directionlessness of our modern world. Or there's many things that you can also like apply and relate to within it and read into it.
17:38
And it's, yeah, it's a great example of that extremely minimal form, yeah. But some people listening will not have seen the work. or they'll listen to this after having seen the work. So it's great to hear from you a little bit more.
17:52
I'm just thinking, I'm just going back to the how do you inject feeling into facts? And I imagine that when you're even working with more political work in the past, that bringing it to the personal or finding that emotional language on stage is key to make it relatable.
18:09
That's what I read into that question. Is that kind of some point? It really started also for us, again, from that very first show that we started developing together in Greece, which was about what was going on there and the whole austerity going on in there and the feelings that we could sense when we were there.
18:38
And we started opening the room to people who were following the process and initially it was kind of like we were using information about the debt and about what's going on with the European Union and stuff like this.
18:53
And it felt very actually quite cold. And it felt like also kind of basically saying what a lot of people knew or didn't know, but actually like it was like this kind of overload of information that didn't really create feelings.
19:10
And then we shifted and then we kind of like, we've got this, but we also have another version which was kind of without words, where basically we were playing games and I was humiliating Nasi on stage and asking him to do things that was very uncomfortable to see and to witness in a room.
19:32
And that was it, that was just like two kids basically just bullying each other on stage with the complicity of the audience watching it and having to kind of take part somehow. And that for them, the reaction.
19:48
reaction was like a very, very stark reaction compared to the first showing that we've done. Because it was, they said, that's it. That's what we're feeling. That's what we're experiencing when we're at the moment and you're showing it and you're making me see it, but not in kind of like in through information, but through feelings.
20:12
And that feels like quite different kind of show actually. And that's when we carried on. That's when we kind of stuck. So maybe there is something there that actually opens it for a lot of people. La Decion was directed by Tim Etchells, produced by Forest Entertainment and commissioned by Festival d'Avignon.
20:33
Usually you direct your own work. What was that collaboration like and how does it make La Decion similar to or different from the rest of your body of work? It was an amazing experience. It was super, super cool.
20:48
I'm working with Tim. I mean, he's been doing this for a long time and we've been such fans of Four Stents that it was just amazing to have the experience of him, of making a show with him. And seeing like his instincts in a room and how he kind of leads a process was really special for both of us.
21:13
There were many moments where we were like, this is really cool. We're going to remember this experience. And I think what was nice was that I think with us two and him, we really found each other on the same page very quickly and very easily.
21:34
And I think all of us were sort of surprised about that. Like the show felt like a real organic collaboration where like our worlds that are not too dissimilar anyway, like really kind of, there's a nice balance in the show.
21:52
And I think people are aware of our work and who saw Palmyra when we were last time in Vancouver and who are also aware of Four Stents and also his solo stuff. I think people have said that they can really see that kind of that balance between the two, between all of us and kind of making something that's quite new and quite fresh.
22:19
Yeah, it was great. It was cool. And we're very proud of the show that came out. There's something really magical about this experience of, like I said, the opening of the podcast is that we went to see them last night in Paris.
22:34
They're celebrating their 40th anniversary and they're showing work that is still kind of really pushing boundaries after 40 years. and then being able to kind of like be privy to this and learn from people who've done it for a really long time, have been touring for a really long time where we can share like the difficulties of it or the kind of experience of doing that sort of work or wanting to go towards that sort of work as well,
23:09
is a, yeah, is a really great experience for us, I think. And Nasi talked about how, you know, just how Tim leads a process, just being in the room with him and how that was different. Like, how is that different?
23:27
How is it different from how you lead a process? It wasn't like crazy, crazy different, but for sure, like he's, we're kind of like all in it together, but then you have someone who's just on the outside and not only just someone, you've got Tim Echols on the outside, so he's just directing you in, in a...
23:47
in the best possible way, like kind of guiding kind of like if he sees something working, he'll like tell you to lean into it a little bit more. And, and he's so deaf that like, kind of guiding an improvisation or sending it in a way if he sees like there might be a bit of joy somewhere in the room.
24:05
I'm talking about like when we're improvising and stuff, trying to find material. And it was just a it's just a real pleasure to have that. And normally, when we're by ourselves, it's, yeah, we, we, we're like, searching in the moment, but we don't have that person on the outside.
24:25
So normally, we stop and we chat a lot, which we also do with Tim. But but yeah, I guess it's just it's just a, it's a great thing to have, to have that. Also, the level of detail he goes into in terms of looking at stuff and looking at improvisations and re recreating kind of improvisations is something that was really new for us and something that yeah, we, we learned a lot from doing how to not only have things that are fluid and kind of live,
25:03
but then also really kind of like focusing on the minuscule details of a moment, which he and forced dense, forced entertainment, I really have a lot of experience and kind of like really kind of to the to the to the very small detail kind of like recreating these very funny, very cool moments.
25:24
And if people see La Decion, what could they expect? If they're then going to go see the next Bert and Nasi work, what could they expect to, to be a through line or something that they might see in that other work of yours, that next work of yours, both of you on stage, for one.
25:43
But no, no, I think it's also like the I think what people recognize in the show and the work is really this kind of direct address and direct way we have of addressing an audience and of looking at people in the eyes and really making them feel like they're part of this thing with us, part of this problem that we're kind of setting out for people in the room.
26:11
And so that's I think something that we're very keen to develop from the start, but that we're still really like passionate about is this sense of like, what is it to develop work where you make the audience feel like this is for me, like this is, like I'm here with them because they're looking at me and they want me to be part of this thing.
26:39
Whether I want it or not, because sometimes people don't want it, we're gonna kind of like really drag them to it. somehow, some way or another. Not through interaction, because we don't ask people to talk.
26:52
But the way that we deliver it, I think there's no way that you wouldn't feel included somehow. So that's the hope and that's the through line, I think, throughout everything we've done since the beginning.
27:11
Thank you so much. Thank you. I am thrilled to experience this work live here with our public and to have you back with us here. Yeah, thank you so much for your time. Thanks. Looking forward to being back.
27:26
Yeah, that's gonna be great. That was Gabriel Martin in conversation with Burt and Nasi. They will join Push for its 20th festival with their work La Decion being presented on January 25th and 26th at Alliance Française Vancouver in association with Here and Now.
27:45
My name is Ben Charland and I produce this podcast alongside the wonderful Tricia Knowles original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts.
27:59
For more information on the 2025 festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theatre, dance, music and multimedia performances visit pushfestival.ca and on the next Push Play. I'm kind of always been wary of artistic figures kind of emphasizing that this is the way to do this.
28:23
This is how. That to me makes absolutely no sense.
Marie joined the conversation from what is now known as Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights play as a well source of energy.
00:16
I'm speaking with Mary Schwinard, choreographer of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and The Rite of Spring, which are being presented at the Push Festival February 3rd, 2025. Mary Schwinard presents two unorthodox performances inspired by Ballet Roos masterpieces and reimagined into viscerally provocative experiences.
00:38
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun interprets the lustful flirtations of a half goat creature with raw primal physicality, and The Rite of Spring captures the explosive energy of creation in a vivid celebration of dance as it bursts into modernity.
00:54
Mary Schwinard, a Quebec choreographer with a unique career path founded company Mary Schwinard in 1990 after an internationally acclaimed solo career. Her multidisciplinary works integrating dance, visual arts, and technology have earned her many prestigious awards and a prominent place in the world of contemporary dance.
01:14
Here's my conversation with Marie. You have been an iconic figure that I've been aware of and admired for a very long time, so it's just a real treat to be able to actually talk to you and get to hear more about you, these works that will be presented at the Push Festival and the Chilliwack Cultural Centre and to hear more about your wider practice.
01:38
So just before we dive into the conversation, I would just like to acknowledge that this conversation is happening. I am here on the traditional ancestral and stolen territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
01:55
And as a settler here, I continue to think about what it means to be on the these lands, and what it means to bring a land based approach into different fields of work. And so today I just wanted to share reflections upon reading work by Dr.
02:13
Lindsay Lachance, Lachance, who is a award winning dramaturge, and holds a Canada Research Chair position in land based and relational dramaturgies. And so I'll just share a little bit from her article, which is tiny sparks everywhere, birch bark biting as land based dramaturgies, which has been published by the Canadian Theatre Review, and translated to French and published in Le Curieu Manual de Dramaturgies pour la dans le tiâtre et autre mâtérieure de bonjour.
02:43
And she speaks to the Algonquin Anishinaabe practice of birch bark biting as a basis for her dramaturgical principles of intention, superposition, holding, profound listening, and resurfacing emergence.
02:59
and brings into question how our capacity to engage with intangible realities is possible without this attentive presence. So that attentive presence being a key practice of land-based dramaturgies that distinguishes it from other approaches.
03:15
And I think that it's so interesting to have the opportunity to hear these kind of concrete examples of what land-based approaches mean. And, you know, specifically it's relevant today as we talk about dramaturgy artistic process.
03:29
So I encourage you to check out Dr. Lindsay Lachance's work. Today we're going to jump right into getting a sense of your practice, your parkour. Marie, can you walk us through the evolution of your artistic inquiry since the founding of your company, which in 1990, you founded it in 1990, and you'd already been creating dance as a soloist for 12 years before that.
03:57
And what were you interested in doing on stage in 1990, compared to now? Actually, the history of my practice, like you said, starts in 1978. And it has always been a relationship with art as somehow a sacred practice that is putting us in contact with what is beyond, beyond our history, even beyond our society, beyond, really beyond.
04:37
And that's why it took me so many years before I could consider working with a group of people, because somehow in my way of approaching dance, it was a one-to-one affair, like with the woman divinity, if you want, whatever, but just a one-to-one one affair.
04:59
It's like me in front of life, me in front of cosmos, me in front of my ancestors that are even before human beings. I really feel that there is a link with even the material world which is imbued with the spirit even before life appeared on this planet.
05:21
So I was so much into this practice and then of course that work was going to be brought in front of people, bring in front of people. And of course I'm also creating for, of course, people. But the basis is this link with what is beyond and then bringing this as a celebration or something and offering to my brothers and sisters to share.
05:52
And then it took me years before I was in front of this. impossibility of creating a new work because I was seeing, because I was the only interpret of my work, I was a soloist performer, I needed to be two or three simultaneously in the space.
06:12
And then so I then I was like, wow, then pushing that idea besides and trying again to come back to create a solo. And it was really persistent for weeks that I could not start a creation because I needed to be more than one in the space.
06:29
So this is where I started to have a company in 1990. And I had to really fight against myself because I thought, oh, if I work with people that will be less sacred somehow, that was in my spirit at that time, you know.
06:46
And so I had to fight. So it took another few weeks to have this combat with my, this fight with my own perception of things. So then finally, I surrendered to the idea of actually then I discovered it has to be to share even in the process of creation, because for me, the process of creation was really so sacred and lonely.
07:12
And then I realized, well, it will be a shared process. So then in 1990, I started the creating with a group of seven people. And I chose the number seven, because it's really, you know, the brain of the human being is made so that when there is a group of seven, the brain says it's a group.
07:36
If you are six, the brain will say, oh, it's two, three euros, or three duets. The brain is made like that. But from seven, the brain says, okay, it's a bunch, it's a group, it's seven. So that's how I chose the number seven.
07:50
And then I started creating, and then it was really a work of transmission, transmission in the way of breathing, transmission in the way of standing, transmission of how can you feel the radiation from your cellular organism and all those things.
08:06
So it was really the first month was really I was not even somehow creating. I was more transmitting knowledge, information, intuition. And from there, interestingly, from this transmission, I could see how their body were reacting to my demands.
08:24
And then I could see the beginning of the new work there in their bodies at that moment. So it's a long story I made to answer you. That's great. And I wanted that was great because you're speaking a lot about solo form and the ensemble work and your relationship to that.
08:44
And the solo form, as you mentioned, it's been very central to your early work. You have a collection of solo repertoire created between 1978. in 1998 that still tours internationally, performed by dancers in your company.
08:58
And, you know, since then, a lot of your work has been ensemble, but do you still have ideas that call you to explore the solo form? Yes, yes, I've created a few solo forms since 1990 and also duets, yeah, but also many solo.
09:18
The last one I created for myself was a few years ago, I think it's five years ago. It's a solo, a three hour long solo. Last time I performed, it was in Japan. And this is a solo where I have interaction.
09:32
It's not on a stage, it was in a museum. It's a solo where I have interaction, intimate interaction with some member of the audience that will come to me and we will share a little very short talking, like 40 seconds, one minute, where they will transmit to me their innermost desire, appeal, or what they feel is next in their life and what they feel they will need some help for this next step to happen.
10:01
And then I create on the spot, I create a dance for them, but for all the audience that is around us and encircle around us. And the audience had no idea what that person told me, but it's very interesting how they get totally engaged, you know, into this dance.
10:19
It makes sense even for them somehow, but very much for the person or so who gave me a secret somehow. And so I went like that for three hours, going from one person to another one. So that's the last solo I created.
10:36
And what I like to do is also the time after I've created a solo for myself, I transmit it later to the dancers of my company. So for example, now I'm in the process of creating a new solo, and once it will be created.
10:53
but I'm not ready yet to perform it at all, what we see. And eventually it will be transmitted to the dancers in the company. Thanks for sharing that. It sounds like also this three hour durational solo that you created.
11:07
It's a solo and in a lot of ways a group work as well, because you're creating with so many members of the audience throughout these three hours. Yeah, I'm creating for them. I'm creating as a demand from them to help their process somehow.
11:26
Yeah, I'm creating right there in front of all those people. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah, it really is clear how much that both the performance element and creative process is really linked towards connecting to something a little bit.
11:47
more profound and spiritual, is that's what I'm hearing when I hear you speak. Well, it's connected to someone specific in their demand. I must say that when they are talking to me, I'm also, we are very close, but somehow I'm scanning their energy and their bodies.
12:04
So I will answer not only their verbal demand, but also what I feel from the demand of their bodies and their way of holding themselves in the space and things like that. So it's multi-layered. And I want to talk about Prelude to the Afternoon of Afon and Right of Spring, which are the works I've presented here at Push 2025.
12:31
And these are works that you premiered in 1994 and 1993, respectively, and that still tour the world today, which is a remarkable longevity and relevance. And how has the impact of the work changed as the socio-aesthetic or political context have over the years?
12:51
Or if so, how? And if not, also, I'm curious about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me smile at question because actually the first version of the music on Debussy. And it's only many years later after an orchestra in Taiwan asked me to go and play with their orchestra on Right of Spring.
13:22
And they said, don't you have another piece? Because only one piece is not much for an orchestra. And I said, yes, but you know, I have an afternoon of a phone, but I never did it on the music of Debussy.
13:36
And they said, well, let's do it. I said, OK, great. So it's true that the version with the music of Debussy was premier. And I guess it's 1994 in Taiwan. But the original choreography without that music was in, I'm not sure of the date, 1988, I think.
13:55
So yes, so now it makes me smile today because in those days, you know, we're not so much speaking about French and everything, you know, but for me it was very important that it needed a woman for me to be dancing the afternoon of a fawn and the fawn, you have to remember that the fawn is this very, very erotic and very strongly physical young animal god male being alone in the nature and just feeling the appeal of the nymphias,
14:34
the woman. And for me it was obvious that I should dance that. And it was just like something that... I don't know, that is beyond you, beyond your own decision, you know. And actually, I realized that since then, when when each time I have transmitted that solo, I have to say that I was wearing horns, you know, like the phone, he has horns, and I was at one point breaking one horn from my head and putting it on my pubic bone as a phallus.
15:06
So this is still what we are doing. But I noticed that since then, each time I have transmitted that solo to a woman of the company, it is transforming them. There is something, it's like an initiation somehow, you know.
15:23
So yeah, and once, but you know, in 1988, we were not so much talking about gender, and well, a bit, you know, but not like today, you know, today is like the subject and with many other subject ecology, everything.
15:39
Native people, everything. So, but yeah, so this, but this piece is still of today. And I must say that I'm somehow, I must say that there is something of which I am, how could I say, happy with about my work is that it seems that it does not, it does not fall into out of, you know, it's relevant.
16:08
It's always actual somehow, even a piece I created in, you know, so many years ago, 50 years ago or something, is still of today somehow. So that, that's really a joy for me to realize that yes, I tell myself, yes, my dear, you are really creating outside of society and everything you are really creating from your relationship with what is beyond, because it's, it's traveling through time.
16:34
So I guess this is a sign. Well, now I'm just, you know, maybe because I'm 69, I can dare say things like that, you know. Yeah, I think you can. And you're one of the very few Canadian contemporary dance companies, choreographers.
16:51
Well, your company has been established for, you know, as you mentioned, since 1990, with, you know, currently full-time company members and your own studios. So beyond a choreographer, you've been a long time major arts leader in the country.
17:07
And I'm curious how the challenges of arts leadership have changed for you over the past 35 years. You know, have they changed? If so, how? If not, what stays the same? I don't really, you know, for me, it's a continuum somehow.
17:26
I feel I feel my life and my creation really as a continuum. I feel somehow that I'm, you know, the voice of myself in my mind when I think is the voice of myself when I was seven years old, you know, six years old, I don't know.
17:40
So I really feel it's... It's more, this life is more about the continuum. This is primarily the continuum. And I feel the same in creation. One creation is just being born somehow from the previous one and from the actual moment of the now where I feel, okay, now what is my next steps?
18:05
So it's always related to the now, but in a continuity without me wanting it, it's continuity of course of what was before me in myself or whatever. So I feel more, so for me, the challenge has always been the same.
18:24
The challenge has always been how to create something that is totally linked with a very deeply anchored urge to put something into the world. It's always that, and that story has not changed. And it is always finding the best, the most accurate or the most precise or the most organic at the same time, way to incarnate this intuition.
19:02
So it's always that. So, and I don't feel so much that there has been big moments or changes. Someone could say, oh, going from solo world to group work. Yes, maybe, but not so much. It's a total continuity somehow.
19:24
I think you were asking also the challenge as our director or as general manager of my company. It's always the same, the challenge you have to deal with your budget that are never enough somehow. And you have to be extremely creative, not only in your work.
19:43
but in your way of using the money that you have, very creative, very, very creative. So it's creation, it's happening not only in the art, but also in the managing of everything. You have to find solutions, find solutions all the time.
20:05
Like a problem is an occasion for a new solution, for a new exploration, you know? So sometimes when people in my company, sometimes they have a problem and they call me or they come to see me and say, yeah, give me, give me, give me your problem.
20:21
I love it. Because I like to be in this situation where I have to create instantaneously a solution. But I must say that some of the times, wow, it's a, wow. Yeah, I have to think for myself, I have to think two or three days to find a solution, you know?
20:42
But it's always a challenge to create. And it's always mostly a joy. For me, it's a game. Directing a company and creating works is a game. It's like playing, playing with the forces of life, playing with the forces of beauty, of truth, of revelation.
21:02
It's a game. It's a game where you are playing with elements, you know? So there is a joy for me in playing. Like a kid, I play. I play creation. I play organizing. I play, yeah. Yeah, and I still like it.
21:24
I must tell you, I still like it so much. It's like great joy for me to create and to embark dancers into this process. It's really an exciting joy. And I must say that sometimes, you know, I arrive just a few minutes before 1 o'clock because my creation time is from 1 o'clock to 5.30 in the morning.
21:47
The dancers, they warm up, they do their technique, everything. But you know, when it's one minute to one, I'm like, I'm like excited. And we're like, I'm like a kid, you know? It's going to start, you know?
21:58
And it's funny, you know? I'm always excited. And just because I'm very, you know, at the same time, I'm very precise, you know? So I wait for it to be very one o'clock before I start. I don't start two minutes before, you know?
22:11
So this excitement, I can tell you, I assure you, you can ask my dancers. I have it almost every time, you know, this excitement to start at one o'clock, you know? It's really clear listening to you how you have managed to continue to create work and be an arts creation to the playfulness.
22:38
It really is clear that, you know, at what point it's a book. And so I would love to just hear about what you are currently researching in your creative process. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, now, you know, I'm not only creating things for the stage, or not only creating for events that are not happening on the stage, let's say outside, like I did this summer.
23:03
Summer I created a new piece that is only to be performed outside, going from village to village, like in a caravan. But I'm also creating works for video installation and VR and photography and sculpture.
23:20
So I'm also in those processes these days. This process is happening. And I'm also, I will have a work premiere next July in Stuttgart. And yeah, in this piece, I've already created the lights for it last week.
23:38
and I'm really excited. I really think, because I also create the lights and the costume and the stenography and everything, so I'm so happy because I really created wonderful lights. Like really myself, because I was having this idea before going in the theater, yeah, I mean do this like that and we'll see, you know, but it was beyond my expectation.
24:01
So beautiful. So I'm really excited with this new, new creation that will be coming up soon. Yeah, yeah. Great. Do we get to know the name of it? Does it have a name? Not yet, right? Yeah, okay. Just keep, you know, keep, maybe, maybe it's a name in progress, you know, and I'm, the name is, I will see, you know, just before I have to establish everything officially for the premiere in Institute Garden that the name will be there for now.
24:31
Not yet. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure and just hearing you speak about your practice like energizes me hearing your passion about it. So thank you so much for sharing, you know, this with me and for our listeners.
24:46
Gabrielle, thank you so much. It was a pleasure and having your smile in front of me during this time was great. Thank you so much. You just heard Gabrielle Martin in conversation with Marie Schwenard, whose works prelude to the afternoon of Fawn and Rite of Spring will be performed on February 3rd at the Chilliwack Cultural Center as part of the 20th Push International Performing Arts Festival, supported by the Government of Quebec.
25:14
I'm Ben Charland and I produce this podcast alongside the wonderful Tricia Knowles. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts.
25:28
For more information on the 2025 festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca and on the next Push Play. Sometimes it unlocks something that is more impressive than if you kind of bring some sort of like high budget thing into it or you kind of have this big image like the simplicity of just like this moment that you're sharing with in a space with some people,
26:00
that's the thing that gets us going.
Individually, we are freelance artists thriving inside Vancouver’s independent performance scene through fruitful and ongoing collaborations with Fight with a Stick, Theatre Replacement, Music on Main, Plastic Orchid Factory, MACHiNENOiSY, Radix Theatre, Justine Chambers, Rob Kitsos, Playwrights Theatre Centre, rice&beans theatre, Remy Siu, and many others. Each collaboration provides us with new methodologies, skills, and vocabularies to bring back to A Wake of Vultures.
In many ways, we three are hybrid people: we practice a variety of artistic disciplines; we come from a mix of settler backgrounds (Europe + Asia); we have differing relationships to gender and queerness. These notions of identity inform our work, but don’t define it. We prefer to live in the margins. It is natural to us that many of our collaborators come from marginalized or underrepresented communities, with regards to race, queerness, gender, and disability; we value collaborations with artists who are critical, interdisciplinary, and intercultural in their mindsets.
WOV is an ongoing, evolving collaboration bonded by an intense friendship: we eat together, dance together, work together.
Conor Wylie
Conor Wylie is a performer, writer, and director creating experimental theatre. He lives and works in Vancouver, BC, located on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) nations. Conor regularly collaborates with Theatre Replacement, where he is an artistic associate, as well as with many members of Vancouver’s esteemed Progress Lab consortium.
In recent years, science-fiction and videogame aesthetics have figured prominently in his works. He co-wrote and performed Visitors from Far Away to the State Machine with Hong Kong Exile, about two aliens on an erotic honeymoon to Earth, performed live on webcams and featuring animations inspired by several generations of videogame graphics. He also collaborated on Theatre Replacement’s MINE, a cinematic performance investigating mythical, pop-culture, and personal stories of mothers and sons, performed in the sandbox videogame Minecraft. His works have played across Canada at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, The Cultch, Music on Main, Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), Uno Festival (Victoria), Summerworks (Toronto), and the Magnetic North Theatre Festival (Yukon), and toured around Iceland, the UK, and Hong Kong.
In 2017, he was selected for the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Theatre Artist by Marcus Youssef. In 2019, he was chosen as the Siminovitch Prize Protégé by his dear mentors James Long and Maiko Yamamoto. In 2022, he was named Best Director of a Canadian Feature by the Vancouver Asian Film Festival for his work on K BODY AND MIND.
Daniel O’Shea
Daniel O’Shea makes theatre, designs projections, and creates films, using technology and design as a keystone to support narrative and deepen dramaturgy. In his own works PKD Workshow (2013) and Are we not drawn onward to new era (2018), Daniel employs a low-fi DYI aesthetic, exposing the guts of the performance machinery in parallel to the convoluting the ideas spectating. In 2020 he completed his first feature length film collaboration centred around pre-extradition bill Hong Kong. His work focuses on states of presence, unbalancing audienceship and novel constructions of light through design and new media. Daniel’s artistic research has explored the ephemeral nature of a ‘self’, interruptions of technology on human processes, and the results cognitive dissonance.
Daniel’s work has been seen in Canada and internationally. Daniel is engaged with Vancouver’s thriving contemporary performance scene and often engages in crossover with indie film and the digital arts.
Nancy Tam
Nancy is a sound artist who works and lives as an uninvited guest on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her work fuses sound and performance as primary mediums for the collaborative devising of interdisciplinary performances. Nancy is a founding member of the interdisciplinary performance collective A Wake of Vultures as well as the Toronto-based Toy Piano Composers collective. As a performance maker, Nancy works closely with Fight With A Stick performance company, having devised and collaborated on the Critic’s Choice Award winning show Revolutions in 2017. Her compositions, performances, and collaborations have toured in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the U.S. and throughout Canada. An excerpt of her latest multi-media composition Walking at Night by Myself will be touring to Hong Kong in April 2019.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:01
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights old school magic, sci-fi prayers, hybridity, and more.
00:18
I'm speaking with Dan, Connor, and Nancy, the artists behind Seeing Double, which is being presented at the Push Festival, February 1st and 2nd, 2025. Seeing Double plays tribute to spooky late night double features with two performances that push pulpy cinematic genres into uncharted conceptual territories.
00:38
Stripping the psychological horror genre down to its bare bones, walking at night by myself undermines the reliability of perception in an audiovisual blitz of surround sound and vivid optical illusion.
00:51
K-Body and Mind is a cyberpunk odyssey channeled through a multimedia experience that reflects on tech-assisted immortality. Nancy Tam experiments with form and practices, dramaturgy to create immersive sonic designs and environmental performances for onstage and on-screen media.
01:09
Her research triangulates between sound, space, and body to examine the uncanny valley of haptics. She was a featured artist at Prague Quadrennial, 2023 for the Canadian Exhibition. Daniel O'Shea makes theater, designs projections, and creates films using technology and design as a keystone to support narrative and deepen dramaturgy.
01:32
Daniel employs a low-fi DIY aesthetic exposing the guts of the performance machinery in parallel to convoluting the idea of spectating. Connor Wiley performs, writes, and directs experimental plays, films, and video games, employing devised and collaborative processes to create fresh and unusual worlds.
01:50
He uses the science fiction genre to explore cultural and societal stories of grief, hope, and transformation. Here is my conversation with Dan, Connor, and Nancy. I just heard that this is the first time you've been in the same room in months.
02:07
It's true. We've just been kind of off in our own little avenues and projects, so getting back together is like a lot of energy, a lot of catching up, a lot of silliness that's working its way out. This is how vultures, the creatures are, right?
02:30
Like they fly off their solo and then they flock when there's something to eat. We're here for the ride of the reunion, the reunion special. Back together at last, now to Dan and Connor. I will just acknowledge that we are all in this conversation on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.
02:58
I'm a settler here and it's my responsibility to continue thinking and educating myself on the history and the ongoing effects of colonization. And that looks like different things, different days. And today it's a reflection on inspired by Malcolm Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, where he talks about this colonial and environmental double fracture of modernity.
03:22
So referring to how humans have institutionalized hierarchies of white humans over non-whites and humans over nature, allowing the extractivism of colonization and nature and the exploitation of nature.
03:32
And that the climate crisis really can't be addressed without connecting the environmental movement with the anti-colonial movement. Great book, recommend it. And it's definitely some important thinking shared within it.
03:47
So I'm going to jump right into some questions about wake of vultures for people who don't know. So wake of vultures is a project based interdisciplinary performance company formed in 2013. It's a research development and producing vehicle for the three of you who began bonding over a shared fascination in social rituals, science fiction, anime, and questions of reality and perception.
04:13
So to be together for over 10 years beyond shared fascinations, what is the secret? What is the glue? Is it like this perfect balance of astrological signs or something more pragmatic? The glue is actually just friendship and pleasure in each other and deep, kind of profound interest in each other and how we think and how we engage with the world.
04:41
And yeah, I think that more than anything has kind of seen us through the space in between projects and the hard times inside of projects and yeah, all the kind of bumpiness that can come with. creative partnerships.
05:00
I totally agree with that. And I think like, you know, sometimes when you think about artistic partnerships or working partnerships that are built in friendships or like romantic relationships and stuff like that, like that can also be a bit combustible, right?
05:14
It's not always, you know, conducive to a professional environment. But I think what we have going also is that we have treated this as a long term relationship, you know, like we've helped each other to account.
05:28
We've been, you know, we've taken time to, you know, take a retreat and really talk things through and get on the same page and not kind of like coast through. So it's taken a lot of, you know, work that comes from that like loving friendship.
05:43
Yeah, I think also, like, the bond and the friendship that we share seeps into our working relationship in such a way that organizationally, we each will take leadership in various ways, in macro and micro ways.
06:03
So, and by that, I mean like, macroly speaking, for example, like I led Walking at Night by Myself, Connor led K Body and Mind, and then, you know, Dan will lead another project. And it's not like a schedule thing.
06:20
And in fact, we kind of watch out for one another and go like, hey man, like, it's been kind of, you know, two out of three, like we've been doing a lot of leadership. Like, let's, let's like how, it's not so much like, now it's your turn to do something.
06:34
It's more like, how do we help like bring something together that then someone else can lead? And that kind of generosity is driven by love and friendship. And then in micro ways, like I think the ways that we drive the design led process is very much reliant on the trust that we have in each other and the respect that we have for the expertise in the room, where, you know, it's not like everyone needs to chime in all the time to make a decision.
07:09
You know, it's like, oh, this, like whatever, you know, maybe it's like a filmic thing or setting up a shot. It's like, I don't, I don't really need to say anything. Like I do trust like Dan and his eye and what he's got going on, you know?
07:24
And so there's a lot of that where I think perhaps sets us apart from what traditional or conventional ideas of devised theater or devised organization work that like I've always seen it as like a rolling triangle of leadership and rolling triangle is really like admitting to that there is hierarchies, but it is always evolving and it is always emergent and it is held by each other.
07:55
and how by the trust and love that we are able to keep that rolling going on. And just, there perhaps is an astrological component. Oh. Because. Finally. I think the real heart here. A mutual friend of ours is very knowledgeable in this kind of stuff.
08:21
And when he learned about our birthdays, he was like, Oh yeah, that totally makes sense. Because apparently each of us is like the young element of our like element family. You can really see how much I know.
08:43
Go on. So as a, as a cancer, I'm like a young water sign. And as this is a real test. Yeah. As an Aries. Connor is a young fire sign. Yes. And as a. No, Jesus. When's my birthday, Dan? As a Gemini, Gemini.
09:08
Yeah, obviously. So Gemini of you right there. Nancy is a young air sign. And so even though we are all different in our elements, we are kind of connected in this whatever it means to be a young. Thing, you know, that resonates.
09:30
Beautiful. We're just three young things. I would love to actually just circle back to what you said, Nancy, about design led process. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Sure. And like you'll chime in as well.
09:48
What I what I think is a design led process is informed by my experience with other companies as well. But within this constellation, my practice based in performance making with a huge component of it under the lens of sound design and and Daniel with his, you know, performance practice and composition practice like but under the lens of visual design and for Connor narrative design, it is really like thinking around like form and content working together rather than going like a straight route of like first we have a script and then we design for it.
10:37
So a lot of our processes will actually come from a different realized design elements such as sound design, such as projection design. And then we develop other elements around it, so that's what I mean by design-led process.
10:59
What are you guys? And sometimes it can be processes curious about a kind of effect in the audience or like a gag or a trick or some, yeah, some kind of phenomenon that we're interested in manifesting.
11:16
And then in exploring, okay, well, what are the ways that we can create this? Like, can we create this sonically? Can it happen through the staging? Can it happen through the narrative or the character or dialogue or something like that?
11:29
Finding all these ways to like, get at the same audience experience and then having, taking all of those and then forming a show and linking them together into, okay, how do we craft that experience?
11:43
So PKD work show function somewhere like that about, trying to structure the audience's perception of what layer of the show that they were engaging with, or walking definitely functions like that in terms of trying to activate a kind of perceptual landscape through all of these kind of tools and the design.
12:07
And the performance character of K-Body of Mine was very much like foundational before the narrative. And this kind of approach to take the structural elements and put them in first, and then trying to build a flesh around that kind of has led us to make, I don't know, what we think of it as like a different road to a show.
12:40
Dan, if you could give us just like a little synopsis or like a little background context on PKD Workshow since you mentioned it, like what is it? Oh, PKD Workshow was one of the first shows that we did together.
12:55
And the three of us, plus Sean. Yeah. Yeah. And that was interested in playing around with kind of layers of performance. So it had a kind of raw workshop layer put on top of it. And then as the workshop went on, it was revealed that actually a lot of things were rehearsed and a lot of things were prepared.
13:26
And so it played with, at what level am I really, at what level is the show being honest with me? And it was based around Philip K. Dick and his work, his science fiction work, and a lot of his like reality bending kind of pulpy DNA.
13:46
Yeah. I want to talk more about what, like, are there comments? So, your work is marked by formal detachment, ritual, and unstable perspectives, to name a few. Can you speak more to that? I think we all just have a kind of general aesthetic interest in trippiness, you know, in stuff that kind of bends your mind a bit.
14:10
And so, I guess that's the thing that I've been doing for many years in a lot of my projects, right? It's just like picking a kind of container that sort of maybe mischievously proposes that it's one thing, and then it inverts itself midway.
14:27
I think the unstable perspective, you know, that really speaks to PKD. I think it also speaks to K-body and mind, so does the formal detachment, in that the work itself is kind of a puzzle on the surface.
14:42
All the elements are kind of pulled apart. uh, you know, as you sort of like hear the sort of radio play, um, sound design and the voice acting, but then pair it with this kind of like disembodied robotic performance style.
14:59
Um, this detachment, um, causes you to kind of like fill in the blanks yourself, make a movie in your head. Um, and that was kind of inspired, you know, a long, a long time ago, the kind of formalism of Robert Wilson, um, or the minimalism of Richard Maxwell and the New York city players.
15:16
And I, and I know goes back further to, to Brecht and stuff like that too. So I think there's like some, some old school theater detachment that has always been interesting to me anyway. I don't know if there's more that you guys want to say about.
15:30
I think the, the ritual element in that, um, is often played out in how we exist in the rooms together when we're, we're making, um, there's, I don't know if it's a tendency or at this point, it's a conscious act, active, uh, drive, but we do tend to fall into rituals for any given project, whether it's, um, you know, arriving in a certain way or, um, you know, trying to manifest whatever values are feel appropriate for that project.
16:06
But, um, this, this sense of submitting to a kind of structure, a chosen, a chosen structure based on values and, and desired outcomes, it's like, um, yeah, I feel like we do become open to being what, what we need for to fulfill that, that ritual or that show, you know?
16:31
If I may elucidate a little bit though, like the ritual thing, right? Like this gets specific about it, right? Like there's all sorts of rituals that, you know, many, uh, rehearsal practices might have like a check-in or some kind of hunker at the end of the day to kind of let the day go and.
16:46
we kind of get interested in like making our own versions of that based on whatever thing we're working on. So in PKD work show, we had a little sci-fi prayer that we would do at the end of the day to kind of try to invoke the sort of spooky ghost of PKD in a way.
17:01
I'm remembering when we were making a short piece for Blink, which is an event that Leaky Heaven puts on every once in a while, you know, we had our notebooks full of like one minute performances that we were gonna do, you know, and we're like, okay, let's make a top five, you know, that would be a common ritual for people to do.
17:16
What's our top five here, you know? And then we were like, for fun, for ourselves. We were like, let's make a dark five also, you know? Like what are the five ones that would be really weird for us to do, you know, just as a thought experiment.
17:27
So, and then dark five has become like a, every once in a while and you're like, you need to get my bad ideas out. We'll just say it, move through it, find the next thing. So we kind of make these little custom rituals for ourselves and our processes, I think.
17:42
And I think like ritual too can be referred to in a philosophical like definition as well as like meaning making, right? Like you're imbuing a form with meaning. And I think like that word, you know, lends itself very well in theatrical practices and has been for a long, long, long, long, long time.
18:02
But I think for how it applies to us too is like, it's language making, it's vocabulary building, you know, we have all sorts of like having been friends and collaborators for like 10 plus years, like we just have so many short hands.
18:21
There have been like conversations where Dan and I will have by simply looking at each other. And we're like, okay, and like we don't realize and then people are like, well, but can you say it out loud?
18:33
Because we don't know what just happened. But like, you know, so the clarity of which are like, sometimes I'm that guy. And then sometimes this will happen. And then I'll be that guy, you know, and, and I think like the ritualizing of like, it can also be interpreted as, as just like building vocabulary and a language.
18:55
And I think that is probably experienced similarly with different groups that come together. And yeah, like, you know, trippiness or just like goofiness, I think there's also a lot of one upmanship of like, how do you like, spin a bit, you know, and usually those are the best, like gems that, you know, become part of or that, you know, has gone through so many iterations, then it loses goofiness,
19:28
but like, it be that little spark. And I think like, thinking around that, like, for, for walking, you know, one of those things, trying to break this, like, it's, in between of like a just like colored globes that are happening to like the rest of the show.
19:48
I'm like, okay, everybody, we're gonna, we're gonna just like make a joke in here. And then we found like a transition in between. So yeah, I think that like ritualizing or like meaning making slash like vocabulary building, it feels very much connected in the ways that we work.
20:09
Our work, I think looks like, will look pretty like, often looks pretty conceptually like serious, you know? Like, and we take it seriously, we build it seriously, but we also joke around and are really silly with each other.
20:24
Yeah, to make it. Walking at Night by Myself and Kay Body and Mind are two different company works that you have since realized are strange sisters and designed as a double feature. What makes these two works strange sisters?
20:38
Walking at Night by Myself as well as Kay Body and Mind feature. performers who are very similar in like the physical attributes, and then they are also dressed in like in the same uniform costumes. And this idea, this formal idea, as well as a design idea, actually came from K came from PKD workshop, which Daniel had brought up before.
21:10
And so I think like that has always been a through line. It feels like that's been like become like a company interest to to do like same, same, but different. Yeah, like some, some desire to have like a very dim room with people that look the same.
21:34
And you don't know who is who, or which is what, and, and how to like pin meaning or action or consequence on to either one that like the interchangeability of identity or something that I think works best on stage in person, because, you know, in film, you know, you can cut in between and you can have twins.
21:59
It's no, it's no problem, right? But there's just something trippy about seeing two people who look very similar and you can't quite pin down who's who it's like, oh, it's just an old school kind of magic trick.
22:10
And I mean, with K, that came from a place of like wanting to see if we can sort of separate your identity of who you are as a performer on stage from from who you're playing, which is like in a way an old clown kind of thing too.
22:26
But I think there's a certain trippiness that came out of the twinning in both of those shows that felt like they had resonance for each other. And then, you know, as is often the case for us, we like we because we love the long been and we love to like.
22:42
deep play and vocabulary building that like we've accrued like a great group of collaborators on this right and so um you know Jasmine Chen was in um because Walking Dead like multiple iterations of casts right you you Nancy was in it at one point and then Angie's always been in it and then once you wanted to step out of the work Jasmine stepped into the work so there was already a doubling of casting in between the two shows as well um and so it just felt like there's some interesting like identity conflation between the shows you know as you see Jasmine from one show to the next oh do you remember her as that last role into this new role um that feels like a resonance for me inside of those two works i think also like the all of these shows that we mentioned like really deal with like uh illusions as as a big part that drives the the work and um I think with walking,
23:42
I'm really, really trying to like go to the ends of that of like, okay, not only do you have like the two people who are dressed very similarly, now there is like illusions between or interactions of like the costumes and then also the projection, as well as you're in this, you know, immersive surround sound that also plays funny tricks on your ears as well and that whereas I think like, okay, it feels like you start off with like almost like two very different bodies or like two very different people because you also like see them both at the same time you see them like,
24:29
you know, like considering the rest of the show was like pretty bright light. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And then and then they start to come together, the identity starts to overlap, whereas like I think in walking is the opposite where you really propose, I really try to propose them as like one and the same and then through the length of the show that how do these characters or bodies individuate?
24:55
And so like, yeah, I just think like kind of the long game of asking these questions of like, who's who's who? When is this person themselves? When is it? When are they play? Are they playing? And when are they playing themselves?
25:14
Like those those questions become kind of eternally like fascinating in our work, just overall as our, you know, ongoing investigation. And there's like, there is, yeah, this duality, and this, the problematization of that duality, like walking at night by myself is the title.
25:35
And it features two, two people that look exactly the same. And so the question of like, which often comes up with people that see the show that they interpret like, okay, is this one person with two identity?
25:49
Is this two people walking together? Is one of them a shadow? Like all of these kind of questions in the way that Kay puts forward very straightforwardly that they're, you know, that sense of identity is split amongst all these bodies, and that one person can be another and that this, the whole collective project is about dispersing through the body and through these two bodies in this case.
26:21
So yeah, I think we just started to see all of the parallels and the casting and the thematic material and really thought something interesting could happen when both these play together and they start having a resonance with each other.
26:39
And we really wanted to find out like what is, was that kind of harmonic that these two create when they're back to back? Which will, and this scene double will premiere at Push 2025. That's right. Yeah, exciting.
26:54
I'm excited. Come experience the resonance. Let's also talk about the place of futurism and retro in your work, as terms that are referred to in how you describe key themes or aesthetic interests. This one, we're probably gonna be riffing quite a bit, but there's a big through line through all of our interests, which is like science fiction, speculative kind of fiction, a curiosity in the kind of near edge of what can be,
27:32
what is possible and kind of where things are going. In a way, it feels like we already live in the future with the kind of technological changes that we've kind of seen in our lifetime, but that kind of profound interest in what is possible.
27:54
As we work in that kind of like contemporary performance sphere and are incorporating technologies into our work, sometimes it feels like there's always a push to like use new software, use the newest tools, the like whatever's available to you.
28:07
And I definitely noticed with you, Dan, you're often like wiring things yourself, right? You're using old fluorescent tubes. We're doing a kind of like custom build thing that feels like there's so much interesting like design work that can be done using these old technologies in a different kind of way rather than always adopting the latest, which we do also, right?
28:31
We are using new technologies, but like just having this blend, I don't know, allows you to have like a certain. criticality or like allows you to like expose the machine as part of the work. Whereas sometimes, you know, it's just like a projector off stage is like meant to be kind of invisible.
28:48
And if you just, you know, viewing the product of what's happening, you know, like, I like that we often see the like, the guts of the machinery inside of it. It's another maybe detachment that happens, right?
28:58
When you see how it's made or whatever, that feels like, I don't know, at least distinctive about your visual aesthetic, your design aesthetic. This idea of futurism is like, it's so broad. And it also feels, I don't know, I've been just like, kind of thinking and reading Donna Haraway's work and thinking around like ideas like post humanist.
29:21
And like, obviously, we also encounter that and K body of mine. And yeah, I have like such complicated mixed meanings about the like, of the word because it feels like it's like, you know, some somewhere out there.
29:37
you know, whereas I think like the mix of like, as Connor said, like the technique and also the concept kind of like reveals like that all of our constructions conceptual and are practical or fallible and makes it more human actually and makes it more relatable and more of now.
29:56
And it's way more closely a reflection which, you know, sci-fi is a genre plays with anyhow. Like, you know, it puts a far off of the future. It puts it off world as a reflection of what is actually happening.
30:12
So I think in that way, both of these shows kind of do that and very abstracted maybe like somewhat distance ways. And then another thing that kind of I thought of is that for my own interests anyhow, I'm always really interested in like, or not, well, I don't know if it's interest, but this response to like, you know, everything has already been made, you know, this idea of like, there's nothing new anymore.
30:41
There's no originality anymore. Or like, you know, my response to it personally is just like, well, okay, well, if that is true, say if that is true, then like the newness is in the combination thereof.
30:56
And in the little Venn diagram piece where, you know, two old things are touching. So I think in the ways that we consider like the play between like retro or lo-fi or DIY and like, you know, heady concepts or futurism or post-modernism or post-humanism is actually just getting us to look at this like Venn diagram of different things that have already, that are existing.
31:29
Right, and I think that comes from, for myself anyway, it's like, have always, had to be this way, because I'm a sound artist, but I also am a theater maker. And I'm always borrowing grammar and methodologies and creation devices from both of these disciplines to making work.
31:56
So by just existing, it has to be a hybridity of these things. And to create, then, a new thing and a third, or a conceptual or philosophical third, which conceptually, walking at night by myself, really try to deal with that, but in a phenomenological way of how do you have one pattern and another pattern, just simply by existing together, create something new, something emergent and something spontaneous and almost,
32:34
yeah, like unrepeatable. That resonates for me inside of like, inside of K body and mind in that, you know, I don't think, yeah, I don't think I was trying to predict the future or, you know, or a future I'd it's a, you know, it's a very imagined world.
32:54
But, you know, it was a combination of it was the like excitement of trying to combine like, really, some of this like old school theatrical minimalism technique that I was like, I want to see if I could push that to the edge by like, doing it in a cyberpunk genre, right?
33:10
Like doing the matrix doing that ghost and ghost in the shell. These kinds of like super maximalist stories to really like push your imagination to the to the to the edge. Like that was the that was the jumping off point, right?
33:23
Was this like looking back. And I think, you know, as we went along, like, I remember a moment when we were working, we were, I was working with Leah Weinstein, who's the costume designer. And, you know, the first draft of the costumes, as I had kind of proposed, with these like sleek black costumes with these neon stripes had a real like Tron vibe, you know, and I was like, Oh, it like the show sounds cyberpunk,
33:54
and the story is cyberpunk. And now it looks cyberpunk. And somehow I was like, it's not, it's not right. It's not doing it because they're like, the sort of like neon cyberpunk aesthetic was already playing out in a super nostalgic way on Netflix or in you know, like altered carbon was had just sort of come out and like altered carbon is another show that I was like, Oh, you know, this is like actually a similar premise to what we have going on here,
34:18
except I really didn't like I really didn't like the approach of it. I didn't like the economics of it. I didn't like what it had to say about the future, you know, so that made me kind of go like, oh, I have to like actually disrupt the visuals and reach further back to imagine the future.
34:34
And so we ended up landing on a kind of kind of more Tarkovsky in. You're like a solaric. Exactly, yeah. Solaris vibe that was like cozier and softer. And I think that really played out in how it was filmed as well.
34:50
And the lighting and everything, the color palette that we chose, that there was like, yeah, a certain looking back. And what I guess felt like in those aesthetics, a kind of like optimism of the future that just felt so like lush and warm and we were going to be cozy, that ended up finding its way also into the story of the world as well too.
35:17
I didn't want to find this like, this cyberpunk dystopianism of living in these oppressive, realienating cities. It was like, and this, I mean, we live in, You know, some somewhat cyberpunk-y looking world now, you know, but it was like, oh, wait, no, what did these people who are living in this near future?
35:41
What do they actually dream of, you know, and can they actually try to actualize their ideal society? Not easily, you know, it's not it's not a utopia, you know, but like, what if we earnestly tried to make this better future?
36:01
Instead of, you know, creatively just, you know, saying, oh, yeah, no, corporations are going to control everything. And, you know, like, I had to pull myself, you know, out of the kind of nihilism or, you know, inevitability of.
36:18
Yeah. Yeah. Dream a little. Yeah, totally. And you referenced the film. So I wanted to chat about that a bit because cave body and mind had an iterative creation process created for the stage first, then turned into a film during the pandemic.
36:33
And now its final iteration integrates digital and live representation of the characters on the same stage. And so can you talk about what each layer of this development contributed with regard to or in terms of how form affected the dramaturgy of the work and what affect this integration of video and performance creates now?
36:53
Yeah, probably not succinctly. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we, you know, we theater replacement supported this project in the beginning through through their Collider program, which is the sort of project based residency.
37:07
And so we made a 20 minute version, which is effectively the like the bones of like chapter one. And the whole intention was to make it a live show. But there was a moment after we had finished performing that version where we, you know, we didn't make documentation of it.
37:26
And and so we shot it and very like we were instantly kind of like, oh, while the like, the kind of like glitch aesthetics of how the performers are performing and how all these layers come together actually lends itself really well to being on screen.
37:42
And so I put it in the back of my hand that I was like, okay, one day after we're finished this, maybe I'll make a web series or something like that. And then the pandemic came and we, you know, could no longer do the live premiere that we were slated for.
37:55
And so it just became very clear right away that, okay, now we gotta, we gotta shoot it. And, you know, we had discussed like live streams and stuff like that. And, you know, I knew that, you know, having, you know, witnessed live streams happening all the time, the kind of like video and audio compression of the internet and stream, you know, it was like, it was not the way to represent the kind of like intricate design work that,
38:20
you know, underpinned the show. So, and, you know, it just so happened that I had an amazing sound designer and a filmmaker. already on the team that understood the dramaturgy from, you know, the inside out.
38:33
And so it just became very clear that it was like, okay, no, we'll film it. And then we'll release it for streaming. And, you know, as you were saying Nan earlier about, you know, just turning over, you know, trust to each other.
38:49
Really it was like, Dan put the whole shot list together. Dan really like directed the filming of the project. And so we had that online release. And then when it finally came time to bring it back live, I think part of the iteration was like, man, we did so much work on that film and it's awesome.
39:13
And I don't want to throw that away. It doesn't make sense anymore in the iterative process of this thing to just like to throw that away and take it all the way back to the stage. And that's when we kind of, I think came up with the notion of the hybrid, the hybrid viewing.
39:31
And, you know, the work is already such a puzzle of layers. You know, the choreography is telling you one story. The lights are telling you another story that the voice and the text are telling you something.
39:42
The sound is telling you something. And then having that extra layer of film and having the performers doubled in front of the film is just one more opportunity for us to like make this show feel like it's calibrating itself.
39:57
It's trying to, you know, it's trying to give you the unified vision. It's working towards it, but the machine is falling apart because it's been invaded by this entity. And so it just became one extra layer inside of it that, you know, could, you know, just an extra level of the puzzle for you to figure out.
40:17
And an extra kind of layered towards the final manifestation not to spoil everything, but the emergence and the, and the, realization of the kind of the nascent entity, right? Slowly going through these mediated layers until arriving in a body that's doing what it's saying, how it's moving, and how it's being present, which is so much of the kind of emotional through line for that character.
40:54
And I think part of it too is like when, like from the very, very, very beginning, like even just the script itself, it's like written in such a way that's way more like a TV script, like the dialogue is like way more to like a TV or like a movie script than it is like a play script.
41:20
Yeah, that's true. So like that in itself lends so like it just lands so well when we saw it, it was like Well, yeah, that works. And knowing that it was this kind of like a radio play, wanted to make the sound design and the composition of it, the scoring, to be very much like a driver of action.
41:48
And narrative. And what is actually happening is contained in the sound. You can just kind of trust the sound more than you can trust what you're seeing on stage, I think. Right, right. And so when we see that combination on screen, you can kind of just sit back and follow.
42:09
And then it's not, I don't know, I've watched it like countless times. And I often will just kind of go like, whoa, but they're not actually moving. You can kind of just get into this ride. And then I think part of the company, I don't know, maybe aesthetic, maybe just like value is like, we like things to be very tight.
42:40
We like to be extremely precise. And we like to be really good at doing that. And when we were preparing for the live iteration and then for the filming, the two actors are acting live. I'm playing all of the sounds that you hear live.
43:05
And part of it was just like, well, I mean, yeah, we can show the film, but there is a kind of tightness that you only get when the stakes are higher, when you can see it happening. So that was kind of like part of the allure, I think, for us to go like, oh, how do we do that?
43:28
get it together. You know, um, and I don't know, I feel like with for us, it's like if there is a hard puzzle, it will probably try the ends of the earth to do it. I love what you said about this too, because I remember, you know, when we shot the when we shot the film, right, we shot runs of it, and then we shot took special individual shots of things, but like the bare bones of it are runs of the episodes,
43:54
you know. And it's like people don't know that when they watch the when they watch it on screen, right, they just assume that it's been shot like a TV show would usually be shot, right. And so you kind of like in the over the course of the performance, get to ask that question and have it answered, you know, you're like, is this how did they shoot this, you know, and then it's like, and then as they,
44:14
you know, as the farmers get more and more intricate into it, you're like, oh, oh, they can actually do it. Like they get really happens in front of you, you know, and it's a really interesting thing of like, watching these two people on the screen for as long as you do, and then seeing them in person, in front of you, there's just something kind of electric that happens about that, you know?
44:38
Yeah. Especially in that chapter two, where it is working with a kind of VHS logic. Yeah, right, right, right, yeah. Of the rewind and of the replay. And so, yeah, the logic of playing back a surveillance video on bodies actually moving through space in a forward in time, right?
45:03
Just makes that land even more about how they are subject to this kind of the force of the show or the pressure of the show to figure out what's going on and troubleshoot. And I think this relates to the earlier question of like, how is this like Strings Sisters or like, and why is it a double feature?
45:27
Because we like, we love cinema and we just love, we love watching TV and we love anime. And so both of these shows are kind of inspired by filmic genres and filmic tropes. Yeah, just like also another way that it lends itself to being a hybrid or like how, you know, something like kind of this mixing and muxing of on screen and on stage media.
45:57
Thank you. Well, I'm excited, obviously. Thanks, Gabriel. We're excited to be here too. But yeah, I really am grateful for you sharing and bringing us a little bit deeper into your process, your approach, how you work together and just, you know, dropping in some references that are really intriguing for those who haven't seen the work.
46:21
Get your popcorn in, come to the theater and get scared. Yeah, you're gonna get scared. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was Gabriel Martin's conversation with Nancy Tam, Daniel O'Shea, and Connor Wiley of Awake of Vultures.
46:43
Awake of Vultures will present a double feature at the PUSH International Performing Arts Festival supported by Do 604, K Body and Mind, and Walking at Night by Myself. You can take in both shows on the same night for a discount or purchase a single ticket to either work.
47:01
Both performances will be at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on February 1st and 2nd. I'm Ben Charland and I produce this podcast alongside the wonderful Trisha Knowles. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi.
47:14
New episodes of PUSH Play are released every Tuesday and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. For more information on the 2025 festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca.
47:32
And on the next push play... I needed to be two or three simultaneously in the space. And then so I then I was like, wow, then pushing that idea besides and trying again to come back to create a solo.
47:46
And it was really persistent for weeks that I could not start a creation because I needed to be more than one.
Land Acknowledgement
This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Anne-Marie joins the conversation from Ottawa, and recognizes the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation as the traditional owners of the land and honors their culture and history.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
00:01
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and today's episode highlights opening up the space between words and the light of the Northern sun.
00:18
I'm speaking with Anne-Marie Ouellette, one of the lead artists behind a glass, or From Ice in English, which is being presented at the Push Festival January 31st to February 2nd, 2025, with both English and French presentations.
00:33
Step into a frozen otherworld where friendship transcends the mortal realm in this mesmerizing tale of two girls bound by an unbreakable connection. Inspired by a Nordic literary gem, From Ice weaves its enchantment through smoke, light, and dreamlike disorientation, as ethereal voices guide spectators through snowy obscurity.
00:53
Laudebin was founded by Nancy Boucier, Anne-Marie Ouellette, and Thomas Sineum. Together they have created seven theatrical and installation works featuring original stage designs. Anne-Marie is Professor of Theatre at the University of Ottawa, a researcher-creator.
01:10
She specializes in directing non-actors in avant-garde contemporary creations. Here is my conversation with Anne-Marie. And so, just before we dive into talking a bit more about Dick Glass and about Laudebin, I want to acknowledge that I am joining the conversation from the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh.
01:38
I am a settler on these lands. Part of my ongoing education has been reading through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report summary, and also really utilizing the Yellowhead Institute as an educational resource.
01:54
We're coming towards the end of 2024, and at the beginning of the year, Yellowhead released their calls to action accountability a 2023 status update so just reviewing the year the year in review with regard to the calls to action and it really you know stood out to me that you know they shared within since eight years in the eight years since the release of the report and the 94 calls to action only 81 or rather 81 remain unfulfilled and zero were completed in 2023 and actually they stopped doing these annual reports because of that kind of dire outcome basically the lack of meaningful progress towards those calls to action and they identified for really key measurement calls to action you know and just identified that without basically meaningful instituted measurement the reality is that we don't have the data necessary to measure whether or not whether or not a lot of the remaining calls to action are complete,
03:02
there's no systems to measure it. And yeah, let alone whether Canada is making any meaningful progress towards the completion of these calls to action. So just reflecting on that as we come to the close of 2024.
03:16
Yeah. Anne-Marie, where are you joining the conversation from today? Today I'm from my office in Ottawa at Ottawa University. Ottawa is located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe nation.
03:34
Thank you. And so the glass is based on a Nordic tale. Can you talk about the source of inspiration, why you chose this tale, how you've adapted it or interpreted it for the glass? Yes, absolutely. So yes, the glass is an adaptation of a great classic from Norwegian literature called The Ice Palace and written by Thierry Vessas in 1962.
04:01
It's a very beautiful and mysterious novel that tells the story of two young girls called named Sis and Un. Sis and Un are both 11 years old and one day they're just suddenly struck by this intense and powerful connection.
04:19
Is it love? Is it friendship or friendship? That's not the point. It's something very stronger, something that changes them deeply and instantly. This age, 11, the age of the character is very important because at 11 you're right on the edge just between childhood and adulthood.
04:43
And every experience is very incredibly intense. Every experience feels incredibly intense. Actually, it's the first time with the domain that we're creating a show based on a story. Normally, as you, when you saw Whiteout, we built from different sources of inspiration to create a non-narrative experience.
05:08
But this novel, this Vézaz novel is so open and leaves so much to the reader's imagination. So we thought that left us enough room to create a multi-sensory experience. Yeah, and a multi-sensory experience, and you're referencing that the narrative is kind of like porous enough because it relates to your practice of generally working with non-linear narrative.
05:39
And in your artistic approach, you talk about opening up the space between words, allowing the unspeakable to emerge and the use of fragmented forms that privilege discontinuity so that meaning is not forcibly inoculated but emerges on its own.
05:56
Can you elaborate on how you create an environment that fosters this emergence of meaning for your audience? Yes, well, we try to create, as you said, the sensory experience to touch the senses of the spectator before speaking to their reason.
06:14
So for that, we try to bring the people inside the fictional space in the center of the fictional space so they can imagine the story in real time with us. We think that leaving room for everyone's imagination allows us to reach a wide audience.
06:34
The Last is not a show for children, neither a show for adults, it's a show for everyone, age eight and up. And everyone will manage their own experience. This novel, The High Palace, is not a show for children, but the main characters are children, children who are never patronized, always taken seriously.
07:00
The poetry is also very present in Vézaz's writing. Many things are suggested without being confirmed, and mystery covers from beginning to end. So during the process, we worked to magnify this mystery, to keep it alive.
07:19
So the stage is very misty. The light that spreads through the fog wrap the audience, bringing them with us onto a frozen lake at dawn. The sound of Iran Man is also very important for us. And for The Last, it is broadcast through headphones.
07:40
This offers a very intimate connection between the audience and the characters who are heard very closely without needing to project. That way, the sunscapes reach us in an absolutely enveloping way.
07:54
And so you're already speaking about your visual. aesthetic, which is so powerful and so iconic to your work. Can you describe the visual aesthetic of Laudubin, beyond the glass, even though obviously the glass is very much in this continuation of this approach?
08:17
And what influences your approach to incorporating these elements in your work? Laudubin was founded by three persons, so me, Thomas Cineau, the sun designer, and Nancy Bussière, the light designer. And we always work together from the beginning.
08:34
First meeting, we will ask everyone, what do you want to work on? And this is not me as a director coming with a project and an idea and a text and ask them to support it. So, it's three of us, so lying, so...
08:55
Soundlight and space are fundamental. We build everything together from the beginning. For the last, for example, I didn't adapt the text before the rehearsals, or people normally do. I worked on the text inside the teacher, responding to what we could create with sound, light, and sub-design.
09:17
There is that very important scene where the character of Umm disappears in that famous ice palace that we create just with light and fog. It was the first thing that we did in the process. So when we found this, we knew that we had a project there.
09:43
So just this example to tell you how the elements work together in a very fine interaction, interaction, and that need many phases of research and as you can imagine. In the novel, nature is central.
10:00
The characters' emotions aren't described directly. Instead, they are reflected through the transformation of the landscape. And our lighting designer, Nancy Bussire, is captivated by the light of northern countries and by the way the sun, which barely rises above the horizon, changes our perception of everything.
10:22
The last takes place over the course of a single winter from the first trees to the great top. And that was our first goal with this adaptation, recreating those landscapes and that northern climate.
10:38
So you've spoken about, yeah, the use of light, fog, sound, and their pivotal role in the design and the whole concept and development of this work. And they're so key to the overall experience. And I'd love to hear a bit more about the technology behind the immersive design elements.
11:00
Like you spoke about using audio on headphones, for example, whereas you could have had the audio just in the space without headphones. Yeah, whatever you want to share about the choices with regard to technology and design.
11:17
Well, the show that you saw in Montreal at Festival de France, called White Tout, staged a winter storm in the theater. So, a real white tout that starts on stage and reaches out into the audience space.
11:39
And for this, we developed a scenic device to let the light spread through fog, making the light almost feel touchable. So, with the last, we aim to continue exploring Nordic light. But we wanted to bring the audience closer to the action, placing them at the heart of the experience.
11:59
So we designed an immersive set and planned a song designed to be played through headphones. And this choice of headphones, made by Tomas, was tired of fighting against every sound in the space that we can control.
12:19
Also, the fun of the moving light and everything. So with headphones, it can offer you a very, very more precise sound conception. And when you have headphones, you feel inside the soundscape. You feel very close to the action.
12:43
And the other particularity of our work is something that we also developed for white art and that we keep refined or we keep refining. Refining, it's a device that help us to make the sound and light very interactive.
13:06
So sometimes it's the sound that triggers light effects. And sometimes it's the other way around, which helps us to make the people feel that everything, the elements are very interactive and related as it is in the real life.
13:25
When you feel a storm, this is not sun somewhere and light somewhere else. Everything works together. Thank you. That's a really clear explanation. When I hear you describing it, I just get goosebumps.
13:40
I'm so excited to experience the glass live because I haven't experienced it live. And as you're mentioning, it's so immersive that it's really the way it's designed to be experienced. Your work has featured children's tales and children themselves as performers.
13:59
What is interesting to you about the child's perspective and presence on stage? I believe that in life and on stage, children have a lot to teach us. And it's truly from this point of view that we work with them.
14:15
Their presence on stage is uncompromising. So we must therefore ensure that they have all the conditions to feel free on stage, that they have the space to keep playing as children do. We don't want to work with children and make them become small actors.
14:34
So as you said, many of our previous creation featured children and teenagers. But for the last, the technical aspects are too challenging to include children. It wouldn't be enjoyable. and just too limiting for them.
14:52
So we're working with actors, young actors actually, for some of them this is their first professional contract. But what we keep in that work, but what remains important is our desire to erase this artificial border between the adult world and the children's world.
15:17
When I was little, I thought that one day I would feel like an adult, but that day never came. I'm just, I'm still the same person. I just have a little bit more of responsibilities than when I was 11.
15:32
Fostering, playfulness, strange, strange, fostering playfulness, strangeness and imagination is also part of this responsibility today. Yes. Thank you so much for just giving some more context to your work, providing a little bit more of it.
15:54
So it's nice to hear it personalized through your voice to understand how the company works together. It makes so much sense that the three of you bring this sound lighting and theater, text-based narrative perspectives all into the process simultaneously to devise the work.
16:11
I think it's so clear in seeing the work and what makes it really stand out just with its completely unique perspective, artistic perspective. Thank you so much. I'm so looking forward to it. I know we're recording this interview in November and already half the shows are sold out, even actually before our launch because Seattle that says, yeah, I'm has already launched.
16:41
So hopefully there'll be tickets left by the time people hear this, if it's leading up to the festival. But it just goes to show that I think. people are very intrigued by what you're what you have to offer yeah yes thank you Gabriel it was very nice to talk to you and we're super excited to come to push we heard a lot of good things about the festival and it's it's it's also very exciting to be part of la caesium at the same time so gonna yeah I'm sure we're gonna meet a lot of beautiful people you just heard Gabriel Martin's conversation with Anne-Marie Ouellette of L'Ou De Bein.
17:23
Her show De Glasses or From Ice will be presented at the Push International Performing Arts Festival from January 31st to February 2nd 2025 at the Roundhouse in Vancouver. The festival will run from January 23rd to February 9th.
17:40
I'm Ben Charland and I produced this podcast alongside the wonderful Tricia Knowles original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.
17:54
And for more information on the 2025 festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca. And on the next Push Play...
18:09
Our work, I think, looks pretty conceptually serious, you know? And we take it seriously, we build it seriously, but we also joke around and are really silly with each other to make it.
