Theatre Passe Muraille

4 Corners – Queen And Bathurst (No Personal Noise)

4 Corners — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:31:26 +0000

.This is a starting point for a new project created in collaboration with Theatre Passe Muraille. We are looking at the 4 corners of Queen St West and Bathurst in Toronto, ON

Class structure and ever changing power shifts are what we hear. What do you hear?

This recording was produced in November of 2011. It is a binaural recording requiring the listener to use headphones for maximum effect. This is a permanent record of a moment of passing time.

Enjoy.

4 Corners – Queen And Bathurst (No Personal Noise) by FIXT POINT

CN Tower – On Leaving Saskatoon and Running Back To Toronto

CN Tower Project — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:24:56 +0000

Flying into Pearson from Diefenbaker. You notice things. Toronto has a lake. Saskatoon has a river.

Love Letters To Toronto

I combed my hair for you
I changed my life for you
I want to love you so badly

Above are three things actors said in rehearsal.

I am watching five actors engage with the idea of Toronto. It’s early days. On the seventh day we kept working. We looked at a photograph of working men at the end of a steel girder high up above the railway grounds of former Toronto. The CN Tower being built. Someone asked, “What was the name of the helicopter that dropped in the last piece of steel?”

We used the magic of the internet to watch a short video on Mohawk skywalkers. The men who had the courage and grace to walk narrow beams high above the earth. The aboriginals who built the skyscrapers of New York. We looked at a famous picture of lunching workers on an impossibly high beam. Greg Gale pointed out the Newfoundlanders in the photograph.

We imagined Theatre Passe Muraille’s tall ceiling. The one with the steel cross beams. What if gods dwelled up there and observed the mortals struggling below? What if everybody played a god and then intervened in the earthlings’ goings and comings below?

On the end of the seventh day we rested, had a company “social.”

I rose late and typed into google search “name of helicopter that built the CN Tower.” Up came a short video entitled Building the CN Tower posted on U-Tube by Shinjukuback. A massive monster with insect wings descends from above. It looks like an unfriendly early human with long arms – a steel head – and delicate wings. The camera caresses the length and vast power of the communications tower that apparently was obsolete by the time it was finished.

posted by Layne Coleman

Fare Game – First Video

Fare Game — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:40:26 +0000

Fare Game – First Video

When you jump in a cab, what are you thinking? Are you thinking about where you’re going? Are you thinking about whether you’ll be on time? Are you thinking about the driver?

We are. And by we, I mean us, the Toronto Taxi Collective, made up of creator/performers Ruth Madoc-Jones, Marjorie Chan and Alex Williams. We think about the drivers a lot. Here are our first imaginings and seeds of FARE GAME: Life in Toronto’s Taxis.

Fare Game – First Video from Alex Williams on Vimeo.

Video for project proposal for the Beyond the Walls Project for Theatre Passe Muraille. Fare Game is a new play about life in Toronto’s Taxis that premières in November 2012.

Created By Ruth Madoc-Jones, Marjorie Chan & Alex Williams

(all blogs by Marjorie Chan on behalf of the Toronto Taxi Collective (Ruth Madoc-Jones, Marjorie Chan and Alex Williams)

Theatre Beyond Walls

Andy Mckim — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:00:46 +0000

Visit our brand new Theatre Beyond Walls Website here. Or Follow what people are saying about us below

Hey Folks,

Thanks for coming to hear about our big news! Today we are launching our 2012 Fall Season: Theatre Beyond Walls. This is our Toronto-building season which is a culmination of the past 18 months of work and the generous support of the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation. Please follow our live Twitter feed below to find out more about the season and who is involved.

Thanks,

Andy

*Join us in the conversation by using the hashtag #tbw2012 when you tweet!

We Can Do It

Kendra Fry — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:48:02 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about feminism and being the mom of a four year old girl. There’s been a series of things that have brought this to the forefront.

While at my parents’ home, my mother had set out a book that I had loved as a child called “Girls Can Be Anything” (http://www.librarything.com/work/798090). It’s a charming little book about how girls can do any job they want. Much as I liked it as a kid, I couldn’t read it to my daughter. The fact that the book needed to reinforce that girls can do anything, created the possibility of a limitation on girls potential that had never come up. I didn’t think that the possibility of limitations had occurred to her. Until yesterday.

Apropos of nothing my daughter says “Sometimes girls can be scientists, right?” To which I said “Yes, your cousin Lana is a scientist, you can be too.” But why did she say “sometimes”? Girls can be scientists all of the time. Why “girls” and not just “Sometime I could be a scientist, right”? What does that mean?

Then last week in the Toronto Star I read this article http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1114459–lego-for-girls-that-s-easy-to-assemble-draws-fire The article details the new line of Lego called Heartlake City that Lego has released with girls as a specific market target. Full disclosure here: my daughter loves her duplo building sets, but also loves her dress up princesses. Her weekend classes include soccer, highland dance and pottery, all her own choices. But, the broad interests of my daughter aside, what does it say that in this day and age Lego feels a need to create a line specifically for girls? If it’s not pink then it’s not interesting to girls? Lego in the past wasn’t for girls? If that’s the case, I missed that memo.

In my mid twenties I worked at a Women’s Shelter. At the time, I oddly would not have described myself as feminist. I would have (and did) argue strongly that feminism had moved us to a place where women were valued equally and continuing to harp on the point was needless. Then in my early days as a General Manager in theatre I read the Ontario Arts Council report on Women in Theatre. According to the Ontario Arts Council over a three year period between 1999 and 2003 the following stats represented the presence of female artists in positions of power in Ontario producing theatre companies funded by the OAC (http://www.arts.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=399)

Women playwrights produced- 33%

Women Directors- 28%

Women Artistic Directors- 31%

Hmm… but on average theatre audiences are 60 to 70% women right. Interesting. I found my feminism returning to the forefront.

While women have made lots of gains in the world and even the above stats on women in theatre are a 40% or so gain over 20 years before, there is obviously still a reason to be feminist. Because I would like the message of “Girls Can Be Anything” to be 100% true, not just “it’s better than it used to be”. Ultimately I owe it to my daughter, whether she decides to be a Highland Dancer or a Scientist.

The Big Bop Theory

Kendra Fry — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:46:03 +0000

The newly restored facade of the former Big Bop was revealed at Queen and Bathurst this past week.

This corner of our community is particularly interesting and engaging to us at Theatre Passe Muraille. What does it mean when you have Starbucks, CB2 (Crate and Barrel), The Meeting Place and Pizza Pizza on the four corners of an intersection? It’s certainly a meeting place of divergent communities and potentially world views.

While the new facade is an undeniable improvement, in conjunction with the newly opened Loblaws and Winners are we heading into an era of gentrification of this section of Queen West? I noticed the other day just how sleek and modern looking the section of Queen West from University to Spadina is. The section from Spadina to Bathurst, not so much. It’s filled with vintage clothing stores, social service agencies, seamstresses, and old school favourite indie stores like the Java Hut and Peach Berserk. What do you think about the transformation of the old Big Bop?

http://www.blogto.com/city/2012/01/a_lesson_in_heritage_restoration_at_queen_bathurst/

What if We Occupied Language?

Andy Mckim — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:06:57 +0000

The American Dialect Society has decided that “occupy” is their word of the year. I am pleased. I never thought that I would see a day when critical thinking in the public sphere reached such a height as it did this year. And it was only because those who were using the word occupy refused to be pigeonholed, which forced discussion of what the 99% meant. So much so that I even saw this question in today’s Toronto Star Living section, of all places. They were talking about the demise of Martha Stewart. Their argument was that “the world has changed. Greece is on the edge of default, a quarter of Americans owe more on their house than their mortgage is worth, and libraries in Toronto are now seen as a luxury that taxpayers can’t afford. In a world of 99 per centers, Stewart has always represented those who aspire to be part of the one per cent. The one per cent that has become a symbol of smug privilege. Middle America decided it had better things to do than decorate quail eggs.” We see instances of this kind of thinking everywhere now and we have Adbusters to thank for creating the Occupy movement.

Before Christmas the New York Times published an article about the power of language to move people’s minds and it is worth looking at again in light of “occupy” being chosen as the word of the year.

Andy McKim

New York Times, DECEMBER 21, 2011, 8:00 PM

What if We Occupied Language?

By H. SAMY ALIM

When I flew out from the San Francisco airport last October, we crossed above the ports that Occupy Oakland helped shut down, and arrived in Germany to be met by traffic caused by Occupy Berlin protestors. But the movement has not only transformed public space, it has transformed the public discourse as well.

Occupy.

It is now nearly impossible to hear the word and not think of the Occupy movement.

Even as distinguished an expert as the lexicographer and columnist Ben Zimmer admitted as much this week: “occupy,” he said, is the odds-on favorite to be chosen as the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year.

It has already succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate, taking phrases like “debt-ceiling” and “budget crisis” out of the limelight and putting terms like “inequality” and “greed” squarely in the center. This discursive shift has made it more difficult for Washington to continue to promote the spurious reasons for the financial meltdown and the unequal outcomes it has exposed and further produced.

To most, the irony of a progressive social movement using the term “occupy” to reshape how Americans think about issues of democracy and equality has been clear. After all, it is generally nations, armies and police who occupy, usually by force. And in this, the United States has been a leader. The American government is just now after nine years ending its overt occupation of Iraq, is still entrenched in Afghanistan and is maintaining troops on the ground in dozens of countries worldwide. All this is not to obscure the fact that the United States as we know it came into being by way of an occupation — a gradual and devastatingly violent one that all but extinguished entire Native American populations across thousands of miles of land.

Yet in a very short time, this movement has dramatically changed how we think about occupation. In early September, “occupy” signaled on-going military incursions. Now it signifies progressive political protest. It’s no longer primarily about force of military power; instead it signifies standing up to injustice, inequality and abuse of power. It’s no longer about simply occupying a space; it’s about transforming that space.

In this sense, Occupy Wall Street has occupied language, has made “occupy” its own. And, importantly, people from diverse ethnicities, cultures and languages have participated in this linguistic occupation — it is distinct from the history of forcible occupation in that it is built to accommodate all, not just the most powerful or violent.

As Geoff Nunberg, the long-time chair of the usage panel for American Heritage Dictionary, and others have explained, the earliest usage of occupy in English that was linked to protest can be traced to English media descriptions of Italian demonstrations in the 1920s, in which workers “occupied” factories until their demands were met. This is a far cry from some of its earlier meanings. In fact, The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that “occupy” once meant “to have sexual intercourse with.” One could imagine what a phrase like “Occupy Wall Street” might have meant back then.

In October, Zimmer, who is also the chair of the American Dialect Society’s New Word Committee, noted on NPR’s “On the Media” that the meaning of occupy has changed dramatically since its arrival into the English language in the 14th century. “It’s almost always been used as a transitive verb,” Zimmer said. “That’s a verb that takes an object, so you occupy a place or a space. But then it became used as a rallying cry, without an object, just to mean to take part in what are now called the Occupy protests. It’s being used as a modifier — Occupy protest, Occupy movement. So it’s this very flexible word now that’s filling many grammatical slots in the language.”

What if we transformed the meaning of occupy yet again? Specifically, what if we thought of Occupy Language as more than the language of the Occupy movement, and began to think about it as a movement in and of itself? What kinds of issues would Occupy Language address? What would taking language back from its self-appointed “masters” look like? We might start by looking at these questions from the perspective of race and discrimination, and answer with how to foster fairness and equality in that realm.

Occupy Language might draw inspiration from both the way that the Occupy movement has reshaped definitions of “occupy,” which teaches us that we give words meaning and that discourses are not immutable,and from the way indigenous movements have contested its use, which teaches us to be ever-mindful about how language both empowers and oppresses, unifies and isolates.

For starters, Occupy Language might first look inward. In a recent interview, Julian Padilla of the People of Color Working Group pushed the Occupy movement to examine its linguistic choices:

To occupy means to hold space, and I think a group of anti-capitalists holding space on Wall Street is powerful, but I do wish the NYC movement would change its name to “‘decolonise Wall Street”’ to take into account history, indigenous critiques, people of colour and imperialism… Occupying space is not inherently bad, it’s all about who and how and why. When white colonizers occupy land, they don’t just sleep there over night, they steal and destroy. When indigenous people occupied Alcatraz Island it was (an act of) protest.

This linguistic change can remind Americans that a majority of the 99 percent has benefited from the occupation of native territories.

Occupy Language might also support the campaign to stop the media from using the word “illegal” to refer to “undocumented” immigrants. From the campaign’s perspective, only inanimate objects and actions are labeled illegal in English; therefore the use of “illegals” to refer to human beings is dehumanizing. The New York Times style book currently asks writers to avoid terms like “illegal alien” and “undocumented,” but says nothing about “illegals.” Yet The Times’ standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, did recently weigh in on this, saying that the term “illegals” has an “unnecessarily pejorative tone” and that “it’s wise to steer clear.”

Pejorative, discriminatory language can have real life consequences. In this case, activists worry about the coincidence of the rise in the use of the term “illegals” and the spike in hate crimes against all Latinos. As difficult as it might be to prove causation here, the National Institute for Latino Policy reports that the F.B.I.’s annual Hate Crime Statistics show that Latinos comprised two thirds of the victims of ethnically motivated hate crimes in 2010. When someone is repeatedly described as something, language has quietly paved the way for violent action.

But Occupy Language should concern itself with more than just the words we use; it should also work towards eliminating language-based racism and discrimination. In the legal system, CNN recently reported that the U.S. Justice Department alleges that Arizona’s infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among other offenses, has discriminated against “Latino inmates with limited English by punishing them and denying critical services.” In education, as linguistic anthropologist Ana Celia Zentella notes, hostility towards those who speak “English with an accent” (Asians, Latinos, and African Americans) continues to be a problem. In housing, The National Fair Housing Alliance has long recognized “accents” as playing a significant role in housing discrimination. On the job market, language-based discrimination intersects with issues of race, ethnicity, class and national origin to make it more difficult for well-qualified applicants with an “accent” to receive equal opportunities.

In the face of such widespread language-based discrimination, Occupy Language can be a critical, progressive linguistic movement that exposes how language is used as a means of social, political and economic control. By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination.

As the global Occupy movement has shown, words can move entire nations of people — even the world — to action. Occupy Language, as a movement, should speak to the power of language to transform how we think about the past, how we act in the present, and how we envision the future.

The illustrations for this post are part of a collection of Occupy movement posters at the site Occuprint.

H. Samy Alim directs the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language (CREAL) at Stanford University. His forthcoming book, “Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.,” written with Geneva Smitherman, examines the racial politics of the Obama presidency through a linguistic lens.

Engaging With Our Community

Andy Mckim — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:00:16 +0000

I am really interested in talking about ways to engage with our community. This is a keynote I gave on the subject. I would enjoy hearing from you if you have any thoughts on the topic.

Andy McKim

Engaging with our community: Building the bridge whilst walking on it by Andy McKim from Theatre Passe Muraille from Creative New Zealand on Vimeo.

Throwback Thursdays

Taylor — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:00:52 +0000

Wowee, is it the new year already? Since we’re still getting in the swing of this whole “2012″ business lets start things off with a show that hit our stage within the last 5 seasons.

Who is this budding theatre superstar and what was the name of her one woman show?

Answer correctly and you could win a pair of tickets to see the one and only MARY WALSH when she comes to town for Dancing with Rage in March

Our friends Morro and Jasp at the Next Stage Theatre Festival

Robk — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:52:25 +0000

We spoke with Amy Lee (of Morro and Jasp) about their newest production Go Bake Yourself, opening tonight at the Next Stage Theatre Festival. Click here for a complete show listing. The Festival plays until January 15th at the Factory Theatre and there are a great bunch of new work by emerging artists on stage. Be sure to check it out. We can’t think of a better way to warm up your January than with some hot new theatre–okay bad pun–and a hot tottie in the Next Stage tent.

1. How long have you and Heather been working with Morro and Jasp? How many different shows have the two characters created?

Heather and I, and our director Byron, have just reached our seventh anniversary working with Morro and Jasp. In that time we have created six one act plays: The Funtastical Friendship of Morro and Jasp, The Truth According to Morro and Jasp, Morro and Jasp Go Green, The Bully Show (with Mixed Company Theatre), Morro and Jasp do Puberty, and Morro and Jasp GONE WILD. We have also created a few shorter pieces including Reflections and In a Pickle, and our newest adventure, Go Bake Yourself, falls somewhere between the two categories.
2. What prompted their initial creation?

Heather and I were in a devised theatre class together at York University and discovered that we really loved working together. Heather wrote a character piece that we performed at the student works festival and Byron saw it and approached us with an idea. He had studied Pochinko-style clown in high school and wanted to put on a clown piece, so we started training and making clown shows and just kinda never stopped.
3. Next Stage is a great place for artists who are taking a step beyond the Fringe circuit. How have Fringe Festivals in Canada been important to your career(s)?

Quite simply, the Fringe Festival is the reason we have continued to create. I think it is a rite of passage for the majority of theatre artists to put an application in the lottery and cross their fingers, but I don’t think any of us could have anticipated the impact that the Fringe has had on us. Through the Fringe we figured out who we are as a company, and were able to perform to unbelievably supportive audiences. It’s hard to figure out how our wacky clown fits into the world of theatre, but in the world of Fringe, fitting doesn’t matter, it’s about standing out. And that’s a beautiful thing.
4. You folks have often found yourselves performing at Theatre Passe Muraille. What keeps you coming back to our big red doors?

Theatre Passe Muraille is the home and birthplace of devised Canadian theatre, and since collective creation is what we do, we feel at home inside those red doors. The work there is always wonderfully eclectic and adventurous and so we feel like we can be our wacky selves there. Also, we love the staff a lot and hope to work there again soon.
5. What are you most excited about in this new show?

Any semblance of a fourth wall is entirely ripped down for Go Bake Yourself, which is amazing because we get to fully engage and share and celebrate with the audience. Also, this show is pure fun; we are simply trying to have the most fun experience with the audience in those thirty minutes as we possibly can. Also, we wrote a song.
6. Any final thoughts?

If we can just put a little cheese out there for a second and say, when we started this company seven years ago, we decided that our goal was “to heal the world, one smile at a time” and having the opportunity to do that, even just a little, makes us all feel ridiculously fortunate. So we want to thank all the people who come out and smile and laugh, and also thank places like Theatre Passe Muraille who help us and so many other independent artists have a chance to do the things that thrill us.

For more on Morro and Jasp, check out their website.