Theatre from Canada program

THEATRE FROM CANADA CARRIAGEWORKS, SEYMOUR CENTRE, CITY RECITAL HALL & MAGIC MIRRORS SPIEGELTENT 9–29 JANUARY

TOMBOY SURVIVAL GUIDE IVAN COYOTE | CANADA | AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE

Photo: Robin Toma

MAGIC MIRRORS SPIEGELTENT MERITON FESTIVAL VILLAGE 25–29 JANUARY 75 MINS

Australia and Canada are connected in so many ways that it makes sense for Sydney Festival to feature a program that specifically showcases some of the spectacular work produced in Canada over the past few years.

From the delicate intimacy of the one-man theatre shows Huff and Anthropologies Imaginaires to the glorious athleticism of the dance piece Inheritor Album, and the musical magic of Tomboy Survival Guide and Nicole Lizée’s wonderful Sex, Lynch and Video Games (with the Australian Art Orchestra), this program jumps nimbly between genres and styles.

Whether you’re focusing on one show or going for gold with all five, we hope you get a taste of the vibrant beauty and invigorating brilliance inherent in the work currently being created by Canadian artists.

Storyteller & Writer Ivan Coyote Bass Guitar Pebbles Willekes Drums Sally Zori Trumpet Alison Gorman Tomboy Survival Guide was written by Ivan Coyote with score composed by Ivan Coyote, Alison Gorman, Veda Hille, Pebbles Willekes and Sally Zori ABOUT THE SHOW Tomboy Survival Guide is a show for misfits and boy-girls and butches and lady mechanics. It’s a show for nelly boys and drama queens and anyone who ever put the camp in camping.

Writer Ivan Coyote has been sending literary missives from the sparklingly murky moat waters that separate the gender walls we have built our world’s castles upon for two decades and 11 books now. Pebbles Willekes has been laying down the butchest of basslines for over 30 years.

Sally Zori shows everyone how to drum like a mother who wears army boots. Alison Gorman does it on trumpet in a bespoke suit.

All four artists are not seeking storytelling in spite of music.

They don’t want text over the tune. They have crafted and finessed a conversation between the narrative and the melody, the heart and the beat, the plot turns and the pianissimo.

Part hymn, part howl and part homage to the bent but beautiful, the scarred but still sacred. Blending story, stomp, swagger, and song to call all tomboys to the round table to plot the downfall of the gender binary.

IVAN COYOTE Ivan Coyote is the award-winning author of 10 books, as well as the creator of four short films, and has released three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote is a seasoned stage performer and long-time road dog, and over the last 18 years has become an audience favourite at arts festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam.

The Globe and Mail newspaper called Coyote “a naturalborn storyteller” and the Ottawa Xpress once said that “Coyote is to Canadian literature what kd lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture”.

Coyote often grapples with the complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity in their work, as well as topics such as family, class, social justice and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, a quick wit and the nuanced and finely-honed timing of a gifted raconteur. Coyote’s stories remind of us of our own fallible and imperfect humanity while at the same time inspiring us to change the world. Coyote’s 11th book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was released in 2016 with Arsenal Pulp Press.

SEX, LYNCH AND VIDEO GAMES – AN EXPLORATION OF 90S SCREEN CULTURE CANADA | AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE

CITY RECITAL HALL 19 JANUARY 75 MINS

Composer, Turntables & Electronics Nicole Lizée Trumpet & Electronics Peter Knight Conductor, Trumpet & Voice Tristram Williams Turntables Martin Ng Piano Eve Egoyan & Andrea Keller Guitar Steve Raegele Percussion Vanessa Tomlinson Drums & Revox B77 Reel-toReel Tape Machine Joe Talia Double Bass Sam Pankhurst Violin Veronique Serret Saxophone, Flute & Bass Clarinet Tony Hicks Bass Trombone & Electronics Adrian Sherriff Voice Gian Slater Audio Design Jem Savage Produced By Insite Arts

ABOUT THE WORK The three works in this concert represent embedded obsessions: the depiction of cities in vintage video game culture, the karaoke phenomenon gone horribly awry (or as remembered the morning after!), harnessing the beauty of glitch and malfunction all while paying homage to the great David Lynch. The nature of these works is one of distortion and filtering through the gauzy corridors of my mind.

The ultimate goal is to discover portals – to stop time, dive into the scene and build an experience.

Each sound and visual is captured in time – a moment on cartridge, tape or film that I isolate and encapsulate in a piece. All are treated as instruments within the group: the sound of road and bridge construction in Sim City, Nicholas Cage’s scream in Wild at Heart, Billy Joel’s background singers in ‘The Longest Time’. This specificity is what I strive to blend with a live ensemble.

If I want the sound of an oboe I’ll use an oboe – but if I want the sound of Naomi Watts’s shivering exhalations in Mulholland Drive then I will use exactly that. Sound is music and music is sound. Ultimately, the hierarchies and conventions relating to instruments and the sounds around us in our collective culture fall away.

It is an honour to have been invited to Sydney Festival. That the AAO and Eve Egoyan have come together to play my music in this city in this incredible country that has become so dear to me is simply amazing. I could not be more excited by this electrifying pairing!

Nicole Lizée

NICOLE LIZÉE Called a “brilliant musical scientist” and lauded for “creating a stir with listeners for her breathless imagination and ability to capture Gen-X and beyond generation”, JUNO-nominated composer and video artist Nicole Lizée creates new work from an eclectic mix of influences including turntablism, glitch, rave culture, Hitchcock, Kubrick and 1960s psychedelia.

She has been commissioned to create more than 50 works, including pieces for the Kronos Quartet, BBC Proms, San Francisco Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, NYC’s Kaufman Center, So Percussion and Eve Egoyan. Her music has been performed worldwide in venues including Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, and in festivals including the BBC Proms (UK), Roskilde (Denmark), Bang On a Can (USA), Classical:NEXT (Rotterdam), All Tomorrow’s Parties (UK), Barbican’s Sound Unbound (UK), Metropolis (Australia), Luminato (Canada) and Dark Music Days (Iceland).

Lizée was awarded the prestigious 2013 Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. She is a 2016 Lucas Artists Fellow (California) and 2010 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (New York City/Italy). In 2015 she was selected by composer Howard Shore to be his protégée as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.

Additional awards and nominations include a Prix Opus, an Images Festival Award, a Dora Mavor Moore Award in Opera, the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers’ Top 10 List, two Prix collégien de musique contemporaine and the Canada Council Robert Fleming Prize for achievements in composition.

AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA The Australian Art Orchestra, under Artistic Director and composer Peter Knight, epitomises a 21st century approach to music making. Its musicians are as comfortable improvising as they are reading high-level notation, they can play a burning rock or jazz groove, and are at home collaborating across cultures and disciplines.

INHERITOR ALBUM

COMPANY 605 I CANADA I AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE

CARRIAGEWORKS 15–19 JANUARY 60 MINS Photo: David Cooper

NICOLE LIZÉE WITH THE AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA

Choreography & Direction Company 605 Original Sound Design Kristen Roos Film/Animation for Projections Miwa Matreyek Lighting Design Jason Dubois Projection Programming Wladimiro A. Woyno R. Performers Josh Martin, Lisa Gelley, Laura Avery, Renee Sigouin, Hayden Fong & Ralph Escamillan Technical Director Graham Ockley Projection Technician James Nesbitt

ABOUT THE WORK Vancouver’s Company 605 brings their trademark explosive physicality in this newly imagined version of Inheritor Album. The work is a collection of short pieces inspired by concepts of inheritance and succession, producing an album of extraordinarily affecting images and movement set to an electronic sound score. The six performers pull apart the roles of inheritor and predecessor to create brief snapshots of a generation in transition, balancing strong individuality with a powerfully connected ensemble. Known for their raw athletic power, the dancers are pushed to the limits of physical possibility against a backdrop of stunning animations by award-winning L.A.-based media artist Miwa Matreyek exploring endurance, transformation and what we leave behind.

COMPANY 605 Led by Artistic Co-Directors Lisa Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is dedicated to producing new dance work through a shared creative process. As part of a generation of creators inspired by the merging of urban and contemporary forms, 605 places emphasis on movement innovation and physically demanding works, valuing collaboration as an essential tool for new directions in dance.

605 remains an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, celebrating the tension created through their attempt to co-exist. Each project explores new paths and creative methods to build powerful and engaging performances, juxtaposing raw with precision, and highlighting effort, risk and interconnection. Through constant collaboration with all involved artists and performers, Company 605 continues to push into new territory and awaken a fresh and ever-evolving aesthetic, together building a highly athletic art form derived from the human experience.

ANTHROPOLOGIES IMAGINAIRES

HUFF

NATIVE EARTH PERFORMING ARTS CANADA I AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE

Voice & Performance Gabriel Dharmoo Creator Gabriel Dharmoo Script & Musical Composition Gabriel Dharmoo Director of Photography Ménad Kesraoui Editor Paul Neudorf Sound James O’Callaghan Actors on film Alexandrine Agostini, Daniel Anez, Florence Blain Mbaye, Luc-Martial Dagenais & Catherine Lefrançois Production Assistant Paul Neudorf ABOUT THE WORK Winner of awards at the 2015 Amsterdam Fringe Festival and the 2016 SummerWorks Performance Festival in Toronto, Anthropologies Imaginaires is a solo performance about the virtuosity, versatility and strangeness of the human voice.

The performer appears onstage by himself, evoking the chants and rituals of fictional, exoticised ‘others’. On screen behind the singer, various anthropologists and other humanities experts hold forth on the origins and meaning of these vocalisations.

The result is an aural landscape that questions concepts of normality. Anthropologies Imaginaires is a humorous exploration of post-colonialism, post-exoticism, cultural extinction, globalization, normalised racism and cultural appropriation.

A distinguished composer and vocalist, Gabriel Dharmoo mixes musical styles to create discourse. He’s an artist interested not only in music, but in what it can represent, and how it can be used to interrogate our cultural assumptions. An intellectual artist in the best sense, Dharmoo is equally concerned with beauty and meaning.

His purpose is quizzical and satirical and his creations hold a light up to our own cultural perspectives, provoking us to examine the way we look at others.

GABRIEL DHARMOO Gabriel Dharmoo’s artistic practice encompasses composition, vocal improvisation, live arts and research. His musical compositions have been performed in Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, Singapore and South Africa. He was awarded the SOCAN Jan V. Matejcek Award (2016), the Fernand-Lindsay Prix d’Europe Composition Prize (2011), the Canada Council for the Art Robert Fleming Prize (2011) as well as six prizes from the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers. Besides his Western classical training, he sought training, mentorship and research in South Indian Carnatic music, overtone singing, yodeling, beatboxing and other experimental vocal techniques. He is currently enrolled in Concordia University’s PhD “Individualized Program” with Sandeep Bhagwati (Music), Noah Drew (Theatre) and David Howes (Anthropology of the Senses).

SEYMOUR CENTRE 24–28 JANUARY 70 MINS Photo: Akipari

Photo: Marion Desjardins

CANADA I AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE SEYMOUR CENTRE 9–11 & 13–15 JANUARY 50 MINS

Playwright/Performer Cliff Cardinal Director/Dramaturg Karin Randoja Set & Costume Designer Jackie Chau Lighting Designer Michelle Ramsay Sound Designer Alex Williams Stage Manager Jennifer Stobart ABOUT THE SHOW Huff is the wrenching, yet darkly comic tale of Indigenous brothers, caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and struggling to cope with the death of their mother. Wind’s fantastic dream world bleeds into his haunting reality, as he’s preyed on by the Trickster through the hallways at school, the abandoned motel he loves more than home, and his own fragile psyche.

With his signature biting humour and raw, vivid imagery, Cardinal expertly portrays over a dozen characters in his captivating solo performance. Huff is a daring solo show by award-winning Indigenous playwright Cliff Cardinal, one of the most exciting new voices in Canadian theatre.

CLIFF CARDINAL – PLAYWRIGHT/PERFORMER Winner of the 2015 RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwright Prize, Cliff Cardinal made his theatrical debut with Native Earth in Freeman’s Wake by Yvette Nolan (Rhubarb Festival).

His first play Stitch premiered Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival to great acclaim, winning both The Spotlight Award for Performance and Theatre Passe Muraille’s Emerging Artist Award for notable artistic impression. Huff was awarded Buddies in Bad Times’ 2012 Vanguard Award for Risk & Innovation. Of Cardinal’s play Maria Gets A New Life, NOW Magazine said “This captivating tale of an off-grid mother solidifies Cardinal as one of the most talented and intriguing writers in the country.”

This tour was made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts. Huff has been developed, in part, through The Collaborations, an initiative of Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre and the support of VideoCabaret.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Kantor, original producer/designer of Huff; Christine Brubaker, Robert Plitt and the voice of their son Arlo.

Canada’s oldest professional Indigenous theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts is dedicated to developing, producing and presenting professional artistic expressions of the Indigenous experience in Canada.

MERITON FESTIVAL VILLAGE

6-29 JANUARY HYDE PARK NORTH ENTRY NEAR ARCHIBALD FOUNTAIN SOUL OF SYDNEY NUARY 8, 15, 22 & 29 JA

VARIOUS DATES HAIR SALON THE HAIR SALON THROUGH 6–8, 11–15,JAN 18–22, 25– 29 JANUARY

ROLLER JAM 7, 14, 21 & 28 JANUARY

EVERYONE’S FAVOUR AND HAS A SCHEDULEITE MERITON FESTIVAL VILLAGE IS BIGGER AN FULL OF FANTASTIC FR EE EVENTS THROUGHOD BETTER THAN EVER – UT JANUARY. THE PERM SET 6-29 JANUARY

LET’S DANCE 10 JANUARY

BREAKING GROUND 27 JANUARY