if . . .

The beginning of March offered Saskatoon audiences a rare sighting of two productions of plays by Judith Thompson. Recognized by some , “as one of the major playwrights in the English-speaking world ...", her profoundly dark and disturbing visions present challenges to mainstream companies. It is not surprising then both plays were performed by what may be described as outlier ensembles. White Line Productions performed The Crackwalker at The Remai Arts Centre's BackStage Stage and Goat Songs Theatre performed Lion in the Streets at The Refinery Arts and Spirit Centre. Director Kristen Holfeuer assembled her Crackwalker cast from the creative firepower of recent University of Saskatchewan Drama Department graduates while Bethani Jade directed her young, fearless group of high-school and current university students in the fragmented and disruptive narrative Lion in the Streets . Does it really take gender to recognize the common condition of oppression with the will to powe...

Alterati – The Other Culture "This is a statement, not an appeal. Most great art movements, like surrealism, dada, or situationism all started with a manifesto, a statement of position. Here is our position: We are already here. The proscenium has been breached, disbanded and dismantled. Information networks span the globe, and cultures, ideas, and realities are converging and being redefined minute-by-minute. This revolution will not be broadcast, although it may be televised, on demand, portable and configurable — but it will be your choice. Possibly, it will be your creation. Remember the Future of “no future”? Well, this is it. That’s not a statement of doom. It’s an expression of freedom. Kill your clocks, burn your calendars, and hang out. Alterati has built the platform. All you need do is show up." Alterati - See: Manifesto :: note :: ... love a manifesto ...

Passing on to All New Year greetings from Monk Dae Yo Hwa Eom Sa The 19th Branch Temple of Korean Buddhist Chogye Order 눈이 많이 오고 강추위도 잦았던 겨울이 지금도 기성을 부리네요 화엄사 향기님들 모두 평안하시지요 기축년이 어느덧 가고 경인년 신년이 시작이면서 민족 고유의 명절인 설날이 오네요 올해는 연휴가 짧아 고향에 머무시는 시간도 많지 않고 혹여 길이 막히지 않을까 싶은데 느긋한 마음으로 안전운전 하셔서 무사무탈하게 잘 다녀오세요 복 많이 지으시고 평안하시길 바랍니다 ♬까치까치 설날은 ♬ ♬ ♬ Magpie Magpie New Year is ♬ ♬ - See: Temple :: note :: ... received this e-mail greeting ... the Temple Stay this summer was an emotional experience & Monk Dae Yo was an inspiring, generous, kind & benevolent director whose smile attracted compassion within all ...

The sea creature lurked silently at the bottom of the ocean. Mermaids played skipping games making bubbles outside their magic shell. Suddenly a splash sounds above them. Two Haenyo, skilled women divers who are known to be able to hold their breath for more than two minutes and dive to depths of 20 meters start their day foraging the ocean floor for octopus, abalone, sea urchins, sea slugs, cucumber and seaweed. The sea creature curiously approaches the divers. They panic fearing an attack & call for help. A passing fisherman hauls the divers onto his boat and spears the sea creature. Mortally wounded the creature falls to the bottom of the ocean. The mermaids mourn the loss of their companion & protector. They dance over him calling on spirits to bring the creature back to life. Joyously they succeed. Swimming to the boat they summon the divers coaxing them to climb on the creatures back. Together they are carried to the shell kingdom where the mermaids gift the divers with t...

The eternities went for his reveries and deeper The blaze of intention The dream lifeline design Trekking introspection Excavating the gap At the abyss the underly totem runes buried again buried again shock :: note :: ... a response to the night ...

Live the Question Becoming the answer The journey I trace The impulse I follow The loneliness I assume Reveals the way I am In the silence I listen to the forgotten question Remembering to learn my way. - ae ran (Transliteration of Parcours by raymon) :: note :: ... written for an acting course ...

... listening to Ted Harrison interview on The Next Chapter he explains ... simplify the shapes & add more colour ... gradually the colour takes over ... the colour was a discovery ... ... strikes me Gabriel Josipovici follows this aesthetic in his novels I've recently read: conversations in another Room & Everything Passes ... ... in the theatre render the action & deepen concentration ... wonder on the pedagogical application ... - See: ArtistsSpeak :: note :: ... ? ...

66 Events #six_events in 2008 was performed by hundreds in 29 countries across the globe over 6 days #sixty_six_events is over a full 24 hour period and can be performed by anyone, anywhere. #freely interpret and perform any number of the 66 events within the given time #document your actions and send to info@sixtysixevents.com ( Crg Hill's poetry scorecard ) - See: events :: note :: ... missed it ... next year? ...

what theatre really is or princesses of the new moon they form a gentle circle on a darkened stage listening faces so seriously still desiring this ones gift & that ones voice they await the tone which releases them into the wild lights fade, seats empty, doors open as the future slides in. you'd think I'd tire of this endless seasonal come & go experience is brutal, generous & expansive a worthy loss. simply be faithful to the eternal visionary tradition of unovertakeable,tender loss. :: note :: ... end of term ...

I am wary of performance and attend when obligated yet often am aroused to write. I prefer description supported by action. I go looking, searching, asking, questioning, reacting to data, leaping in, constructing notes to [re]act on my responses instead of contemplating on them. I dislike a cursory summary of the narrative action and shy from offering judgemental impressions. I prefer to present details, referencing examples to illustrate an assembling attention. I try to situate the work within the context of the oeuvre of the playwright/director/ensemble or whatever seems appropriate: a close reading of content, form and working procedures, historical and biographical tidbits, the canonical vocabulary of theory, innovation or stated intention. I require an intelligence of feeling and academic rigour parallel with associative linking to create a complexity that blurs serious and playful thinking. My wish is to stimulate questions that encourage a working manifesto for all types of pra...

What are the artistic processes of performance & how to articulate how I witness the uncapturable in performance practice are questions that guide my exploration. I meditate on them from the vantage point of my own self-narrative, as a performance practitioner whose artistry, in many ways, relies on the willingness of others to disclose, to open themselves. I left my home and theatre practices turning twenty to immerse myself in another tradition. After an extensive stay within the Grotowski and Grotowski diaspora I returned home to dwell in the perceived place of my creative center. The work inexplicably led to the vocation of education & specifically playing in the territory education of the imagination. One of the frames through which I construct my research is a focus on the formal in practice: attention to the shapes of narratives, the physical intimacy that changes the time and space of an encounter, the fullness of the movements of touch and density (dancingness & si...

Opens with the King (Morgan) and Evil Queen (Sonia) fighting, the Evil Queen hands the king a mask. The King takes it and then banishes her from the kingdom and throws the mask after her. End Scene. Next: An old lady (Mary?) is walking along when all of a sudden a monster (Macy) attacks and captures her. While the monsters back is turned the old lady uses her magic to escape and attempts to run away. The monster sees her and a battle of magic begins between the two. The monster pushes the old women to the back of it's lair, when it seems the monster has won the old women grabs her cane and bashes the monster over the head. The monster falls down stunned, the old lady then uses her magic to remove the curse that has fallen on the monster. The monster wakes up and is transformed into a young girl. The old lady beckons the girl to follow her and the two begin their journey to the king by walking on water. Meanwhile: The Evil Queen is bored and is playing with her servant, she tosses t...

Bonne annee 2010, ouverte sur le monde, chaleureuse et fraternelle. Ouvrons nos fenetres pour regarder et apprecier la richesse et la diversite de ceux que nous rencontrons. Rejouissons nous de cette lumiere qui vient a nous. :: note :: ... greeting from Cised Paris an international student service for University Paris 8 ...

Wegman :: note :: ... walking by the river encountered a jogger with dog ... the innocent eyes & curious gaze captivated me ... " Wish I were a dog", I exclaimed ... partner responded "You are - You are!" ... finally found myself ...

He turned to jade and left the world. He danced death outside to no secret. He closed his blind eyes tightly shut and invited some close friends over. The friends lost their way somewhere. They reappeared inside the deep dark. Since his soul snapped and sunk, they held a magnifying glass inches away. :: note :: ... a pillaged poem ... Strangers by Annie Finch ...

On a hot summer day, a country in mourning, we each went our way to the very end. Awaiting her return, the day after winter solstice, anticipating footprints in the snow I close my eyes to perceive the airport kiss which like vapour disappears forever illusive. Have just replaced the calendar, surprised that 1998 matches 2010, acknowledge the ignorance of time, comforted by the ignorance, a better part of beauty, in the briefest of times charms the magic of the moment. Are we sharp-witted fools sacrificing cold blooded existence to a studied cultural fanaticism, artists out of desperation barricading ourselves from catastrophe, self-disciplined martyrs ruthlessly pursuing danger, exploiting the chance, the last compassionate chance towards a fatal & ambitious ideal nonsense. The mirror reflects the look of a wild man. Switch on the coloured festive lights as a beacon. How will she look? You don't have to be with a person in order to feel bound to them as to no other. Cross th...

The Urban Dictionary defines skit skit: "to cum or to want to be cummed on by either sex" and yet SKIT SKIT is a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based sketch comedy troupe composed (this time round) of Ashton Francis, Kristen Holfeuer, Matthew Keyes, Ed Mendez and Tara Schoonbaert. This wonderfully skilled group last performed @ The Refinery December 17, 18 & 19th. Cam Fuller of The StarPhoenix wrote they are "a big hit with the audience" & their Facebook page affirms this. No small feat in a genre that puts a high premium on novelty. A mix of video clips around Heritage Minutes & Sexy Singles flows seamlessly into live SNL type sketches boldly & exuberantly performed at a carefully crafted pace. The writing is paradoxically broad & concise at its best when they follow the comedy edge of making serious stuff humorous. Where the troupe shines most are their provocations at the arts. Matthew Keyes does a priceless Nichelback parody, Tara Schoonbaert...

With warning as lightning heralds thunder love rumbles my heart. Textwork is a practice, not a product. It is praxis, part and parcel of the critique of the everyday creative life act. It invites something out of nothing. A source. TextwUrk is not a metaphor, not metaphorical. It is creative work. A passion. It exists precisely in the obdurate interstice between body and voice. It exists in the arrow - the connection. It is memory. It is invisible to illuminate. It is not a set of procedures or perceptions. It is the crisis noise in the system. It is not the encapsulation or object of the crisis noise or the system. It is continuous; it is parasitic; it is thetic. It seeks obstacle. It is of no interest except as cultural residue: it is of great interest to the actor's studies. It is nothing more than the continuous reification, territorialization and rendering of the actor's work/etude - as if the etude were always already cleansed, available for the taking - as if the etude w...

Within the Penumbra By F. D. Schultz Most of what you see tonight is in the shadow, in silhouette, in twilight, dawn ... within the Penumbra. Most of life happens as T.S. Eliot writes in "The Hollow Men": "Between the conception / And the creation Between the emotion / And the response Falls the Shadow / Life is very long" We yearn for freedom. The freedom to seek the truth though truth is never what it seems. Conceived in a world of order, rules and laws we choose between friendship & betrayal, between security and adventure, between the authorities of love & wrath into hope & despair ... within the Pneumbra. Follow the cast & playwright caught in the eternal mysterious spirit world in the time of Pandora's Box on a journey towards that moment where nothing is left but to stand face to face in affirmation or regret ... yes or no ... within the Pnuembra. Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, And time futur...

Dreamt a delightful dream last night; today received word from my beloved. Her voice a hundred times over rested on my chest; I fell asleep. The heart ecstatic at being ever so pressed warmed the cold, grey afternoon. - See: Writings :: note :: ... inspired by 30 Sijo Poems translated by Chung Chong-Wha ...