On the Roam! An APAP Showcase of Compelling Alberta-Made Theatre

Join us on January 7, 2021 at 3 PM EST (1 PM MST) for an exciting 75-minute virtual showcase of dance theatre, epic puppetry, and compelling stories as we highlight some of the most celebrated touring and digital theatre productions from Calgary, Canada! A live Q&A with the artists will follow. magpieexchange.com/ontheroam

Hosted by Magpie Exchange Arts Management, the showcase will feature selections from:

• The Old Trout Puppet Workshop's Famous Puppet Death Scenes, a riveting parade of theatrical demises hailed as "...nothing short of glorious...an absolute must" by The Edinburgh Guide. Who could forget the first time they saw a puppet die? After premiering at the PuSh Festival, this critically-acclaimed masterwork of puppetry for adults has toured internationally, most recently to the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville-Mezières. www.theoldtrouts.org Represented by Tanguay Impresario, paulhtanguay@gmail.com.

• Ghost River Theatre's GIANT gathers theatre lovers and wrestling aficionados ringside for an epic look at André the Giant's rise to stardom and his struggles with gigantism. "An achievement worthy of its title." (The Calgary Herald) With captivating imagery, animated objects, and creative use of scale, GIANT is a boisterous alternative to the traditional biopic. A powerful all-female cast provides indispensable lenses for interrogating the hyper-masculine world of professional wrestling. An outdoor production is in development. “This was a singular production just as André was a singular human.” (CBC Radio) magpieexchange.com/giant

• Cloudsway Dance Theatre's Sansei: The Storyteller , "...a timely story presented in a uniquely beautiful style." (CBC Manitoba) On December 7, 1941, an attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the internment and dispossession of tens of thousands of Japanese Canadians. In a tale that is both illuminating and profoundly personal, creator and performer Kunji Mark Ikeda weaves together layers of dance, narrative, historical audio, and family recollections in a moving exploration of his family’s experiences and how the rampant racism of past generations has affected the Japanese community today. magpieexchange.com/sanseithestoryteller

• Previews of new digital productions and works in development.

The showcase also features a presentation by Inside Out Theatre on their Good Host Audience Inclusion Program, a transformative model of audience accessibility and inclusion for the performing arts community. Offering presenters across cities and performing arts seasons an array of theatre-specific services such as ASL interpretation, audio descriptions, touch tours, and production-specific relaxed performance guidance, the Good Host creates a city-wide accessible season for local audiences. Inside Out Theatre speaks and provides consultations across North America on the program.

On the Roam! APAP Showcase of Alberta-made Theatre

Thursday, January 7, 2021   |   3 PM EST to 5 PM EST
The 90- minute showcase will be streamed via VIMEO. A 30-minute Q&A with the artists will follow.
APAP delegates:  The showcase URL will be in APAP's showcase listings and at the Magpie Exchange Arts Management booth.

magpieexchange.com/ontheroam

RSVP to christy@magpieexchange.com
1.587.896.0312        Calgary AB   (MST)

SensoryBox, Ghost River Theatre's New Hybrid Show

Last week, excited audience members were welcomed back to Calgary’s West Village Theatre as Ghost River Theatre premiered its new socially-distanced sensory production, SensoryBox, also live streamed to audiences attending the shows from home. According to co-creator Eric Rose, “It is our intention to celebrate and examine our relationship to touch at this particular moment in time. We are experimenting with how visceral touch can be in a live performance and through an online medium.” Under Rose’s vision, the performance creation company is currently exploring the meanings and possibilities of hybrid live and digital theatre experiences.

The 65-minute SensoryBox experience starts with the delight of a wrapped gift of mysterious contents - for home audiences, delivered to their doors in advance of the performance date. During the show, blindfolded and alongside the guiding voice of performer Mike Tan, audience members uncover the contents of the box and rediscover the importance of play. SensoryBox is both a delightful exploration of the unknown and a comforting reframing of everyday things - like hugs - which suddenly feel daunting to us at this uncertain time of a pandemic. The experience takes our isolation and separation, and offers communal connectivity and discovery across digital platforms through to the tips of our fingers.

It is amazing to think that for the premiere, audiences joined from as far away as Serbia and New Zealand and that blindfolded, we were simultaneously yet personally interpreting identical objects through our sense of touch. SensoryBox runs until October 3rd (live and via Vimeo) and is available to be presented as a live/ and or streamed production.

Written by: Eric Rose & Christopher Duthie 

Direction: Eric Rose 

Art Direction & Design: Emily Promise Allison 

Stage Management: Sara Turner 

Featuring: Mike Tan

The 35//50 Initiative: Committing Mohkinstsis' Theatre & Dance Community to Meaningful Action

In acknowledgement of the past and current work and ongoing leadership of BIPOC artists in Calgary to challenge our community to do better, here is the STATEMENT ON THE 35//50 INITIATIVE from its founding coalition of BIPOC artists.

August 1, 2020

To our colleagues in the artistic industry,

Led by a coalition of BIPOC artists we, the members of the Mohkinstsis (including the City of Calgary) theatre and dance community, recognize and appreciate the various statements, commitments, and initiatives you have taken on in response to the Black Lives Matter Movement. In the spirit of ongoing engagement, we would like to invite you to commit to the 35//50 Initiative. Our goal in this work is to offer a meaningful action for our artistic community to take steps towards a more equitable, diverse, inclusive and accessible future in the performing arts.

The 35//50 Initiative is based on two facts: Between 35-43% of our city are BIPOC and rising. Only 17% of employed professionals in our artistic community are BIPOC (as of 2017.) Over the next three years, we are committed to seeing our civic landscape more equitably reflected in our professional landscape: a minimum of 35% BIPOC and 50% female or non-binary people in paid, professional positions. Hence the 35//50 Initiative. While our main focus is on BIPOC representation within our city we firmly believe in intersectionality and that this work can also advance gender equity. To successfully shift this discrepancy by 2024-2025 we need your ongoing commitment. We welcome you into this initiative to hold organizations in Mohkinstsis mutually accountable in reflecting the place where we work and live.

Following the immense changes brought on by both the Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19, this renewed sense of purpose presents an opportunity to move forward in a bold new way. We believe this initiative will lead to a stronger, more creative and more diverse community of artistic leaders, performers, and audiences. We’ve selected 2024-2025 as a target date as it aligns with the census cycle of the City of Calgary. The City of Calgary will collect data in 2021, and the Calgary Arts Development Authority will conduct a comprehensive survey of our artistic sector in 2021-2022. This allows three years to respond to the changing data regarding the demographics of our city, and presents an opportunity for our artistic sector to prove itself as a cultural leader.

In the short term, we would like each organization to track the numbers of their administrative and artistic teams of those who identify as BIPOC and those who identify as female or non-binary. In the spirit of transparency, we ask that this demographic information be gathered and made publicly available at the end of each artistic season in order to present an ongoing narrative of our organizational efforts. We aim to display a shift both qualitatively and quantitatively, and will differentiate decision-making positions and boards of governance from onstage performers and other artistic contributors. The members of the 35//50 Initiative will synthesize this data to assess our collective shift over time. In the long term, we are also calling for a fundamental shift in how artistic organizations and projects are funded. We are offering a similar call to sponsors, investors, and funding bodies to uphold a similar mandate by 2024-2025, and offering proactive solutions for them to shift their processes. At this time, our hope is that an organization that does not meet a minimum of 30% BIPOC - lower than our shared belief - see its access to funds restricted. To this end, we have prepared a template set of organizational beliefs. Please feel free to share this template with your Board of Directors, and consider adopting a version of it for use within your organization.

35//50 Initiative - Organizational Beliefs:

We value equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. We recognize that our community is made up of approximately 35% BIPOC and 50% female and non-binary people. We recognize the artistic community hasn’t reflected the make-up of our community. We believe that representation within our organization will lead to a greater equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility within our community. We understand to achieve this goal, significant investment in the following will be required to ensure equitable hiring practice and a healthy work environment for BIPOC staff and contractors:

• Anti-racism organizational transformation

Establishment of:

• Equitable Hiring Policies

• Anti-Harassment Policies

• HR procedures (onboarding and offboarding policies)

• Harassment reporting (third party) mechanism

• Ongoing Anti-oppression training for all permanent staff and board.

We are committed to our organization reflecting our community. This includes our Organization,), Artistic Leadership (Artistic Director, Executive Director, etc. ), Producer / Curator, Educational Director, Board of Directors, Administrative Staff, Programming, Writer / Choreographers / Creators, Directors / Designers, On-stage performers, Technical / Backstage artists.

We aim to have our organization be made of a minimum 35% BIPOC and 50% female + non-binary by 2024-2025 season. We are committed to tracking and reporting on our progress towards this goal. We believe that organizations who cannot commit to a certain level of representation should receive restricted or probationary funding. We recognize this work is difficult. It offers unique challenges to organizations who are often met with a huge variety of difficulties. However, we are capable of bringing positive change to Alberta through these transparent actions and making our workplace safer for a wider range of artists. This work is underway across Canada and we hope you will be part of the change. Please post a public response by August 31, 2020 acknowledging receipt of this letter, and outlining your next steps with regard to your organizational participation in the 35//50 Initiative. Please note that all signatories are committed to prioritizing work with organizations who share in these beliefs and strive to uphold them at every opportunity.

Sincerely, Co-contributors (listed alphabetically):

Thomas Geddes, Steve Gin, Kunji Mark Ikeda, Gina Puntil, Jenna Rodgers, Makambe K. Simamba, Michelle Thrush, Pamela Tzeng, Kiana Wu

Solidarity, Space, and Connection in the Time of COVID

After a summer of altering futures, social mobilization, and endless virtual town halls, our hearts and minds are full and exhausted in the arts sector. I am optimistic that as our society adjusts to significant change with COVID, we will also take leaps forward to address systemic racism and the climate crisis. It is heartening to work in a sector that despite being hit so hard by COVID, continues to self-examine and challenge itself to do better.

Recently, discussions on How to be Together offered by Zürcher Theater Spektakel and Tanz im August ended my summer with some other food for thought about arts participation and international connection during the age of COVID. Here are a few morsels…

Solidarity. This COVID moment is an opportunity for solidarity. Not only because “we are all in this together.” With the privileged free world at a standstill and everyone connecting virtually, the playing field for transnational exchange is somewhat leveled between artists living with and without freedom of movement. While freedom of speech and access to technology can still be a barrier, physical borders are closed whether you practice art in a democracy or dictatorship. Let us seize this moment, act in solidarity, and engage virtually with artistic counterparts in more restricted societies. If these artists are facing increased economic, health, or ecological challenges with the pandemic, ask what we can do to support their practice and help them hang on. Can we make this moment of universal lock-down a moment of universal solidarity?

Space. Conversations about an artist’s ability to define digital performance space point me back to a personal experience with space from November 2014. I attended a symposium in San Antonio on engaging the Latinx community in the arts. One night, we took small-group field trips - my group visited the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center (esperanzacenter.org) which is situated in a poor, inner-city area. We were driven in two hired SUVs – mine arrived first and we waited outside in the windy dark amid abandoned houses for the other SUV to arrive. I became cold and edgy. Change space: we entered intimate rooms packed with beautiful Día de Muertos family altars covered in photos, flowers, lit candles, offerings, and mementos. I found myself welcomed by a flood of photos of smiling faces, proud soldiers, and embracing families across generations. Volunteers awaited eager to share food and stories. Although culturally-unfamiliar, the space emanated warmth and love. I felt bonded to the Esperanza Center. The contrast between my feelings outside and inside could not have been greater.

When thinking of how audiences experience new space, I often refer to that night and the feelings emanated within the Esperanza space – warmth, pride of place, love, and generosity - and their impact on me. The space was new but the feelings were familiar and welcome. Can such feelings be captured and conveyed digitally? With digital presenting, we are examining how artists can create space and transcend the distance and disparate settings in which audiences are consuming art. One possibility may be to frame space through intangible feelings, including before and after shows.

Connection. How do artists create connection and energy with a physically absent audience? How do artists avoid fictionalizing them? This summer, I have loved the opportunity for audiences to chat online and post comments during shows. In this way, audiences have become more present during performances - at least to each other. This simultaneous interaction reminds me that in some African performance traditions – such as Ewe – the level of audience feedback vocalized during a performance is a measure of quality. I have pondered if the complacency of Eurocentric audiences detracts from their overall engagement and valuing of a performance. Now in the face of new delivery platforms being embraced across generations, is our collective audience behaviour unconsciously changing to be more engaged, as we strive to be connected in our isolation? Will our embrace of interaction during performances outlive the digital experience and help buoy live audiences towards more engaged practices?

Tomorrow's Child: Remastered as a Binaural Experience at Home

Ghost River Theatre’s unforgettable immersive audio experience, Tomorrow’s Child, has now been remastered using binaural technology for audiences wearing earphones in the comfort of their own homes. This latest version, being presented by Vertigo Theatre and Ghost River Theatre starting this week, is now also available to presenters outside of Calgary seeking quality digital programming options.

Tomorrow’s Child

Adapted from the Ray Bradbury story, Tomorrow's Child, by Matthew Waddell, Eric Rose and David van Belle

“…YOUR EARS RECEIVE THE AUDIO EQUIVALENT OF A FIVE STAR DINNER.”  Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald

Vertigo Theatre and Ghost River Theatre have joined forces to bring back the critically-acclaimed audio experience Tomorrow’s Child.  This multi-award winning one-of-a-kind blindfolded performance has been remastered for listening through headphones or earbuds and personal devices. The show invites audiences to fully immerse themselves in the world of sci-fi giant Ray Bradbury’s Retro-Futurism through the 3D audio effects of binaural technology!

Adapted from Bradbury’s short story, Tomorrow’s Child explores our sense of hearing and crafts a landscape of sound that goes far beyond our everyday listening - it re-imagines the quirks of 50’s sci-fi within a multi-layered sonic environment.

The story follows two new parents, Polly and Peter, in the imagined retro-future of 1988, as they confront the reality that their baby has been born into another dimension.  Will they accept the interstellar divide between parent and child?  Polly’s experiences as an isolated mother with a child who is ‘other’ reflects struggles our society currently faces with isolation and disconnection.

The Calgary performances presented by Vertigo Theatre and Ghost River Theatre run June 4-6 and June 11 -13, 2020 as 60-minute long ticketed, live-streamed events. Tickets are available through the Vertigo Theatre Box Office.

Follow the journey of Tomorrow’s Child at #TomorrowsChild2020!

For inquiries about booking the binaural version of Tomorrow’s Child, contact christy@magpieexchange.com.

Tomorrow’s Child: based on the short story “Tomorrow Child” by Ray Bradbury, originally published as “The Shape of Things”©  1947; renewed 1975 by Ray Bradbury. Performed by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.