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February 2012

Tuesday February 7, 2012
Bryden MacDonald's Whale Riding Weather at the Sex Festival

Wednesday February 8, 2012
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje and Daniel Brooks - Theatre Passe Muraille

Thursday February 9, 2012
bill bissett: problematics - UFV

Thursday February 9, 2012
The Long Poem Workshop - Jay MillAr

Thursday February 9, 2012
Problem Child & The End of Civilization - George F. Walker - Telus Studio Theatre

Thursday February 9, 2012
Moving Along - Chris Craddock - Roxy Theatre

Wednesday February 15, 2012
Write Here Readers Series - North Island College

Thursday February 16, 2012
2012 Gabriola Poetry Festival

Friday February 17, 2012
House - Daniel MacIvor - The ARTS Project Theatre

Saturday February 18, 2012
HOME FRONT, a reading series - Sharon Thesen

Thursday February 23, 2012
Talking Stick Festival presents In a World Created by a Drunken God

Friday February 24, 2012
Galiano Literary Festival - 2012

Saturday February 25, 2012
red diva projects - Marie Clements, Michelle St. John, Women from DTES Centre

Tuesday February 28, 2012
The Leisure Society - Trafalgar Studios - UK

March 2012

Thursday March 1, 2012
Fred Wah - Versefest in Ottawa

Thursday March 1, 2012
Gordon - Morris Panych - Revue Stage

Thursday March 1, 2012
Where the Blood Mixes - Kevin Loring - Remai Arts Centre

Friday March 9, 2012
Ms Thing - Vancouver Women in Film Festival - Embracing the Darkness

Saturday March 10, 2012
How To Write A Poem For The Queen: a workshop with the Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Wednesday March 21, 2012
BellaLuna's Fresco - Lucia Frangione - Shadbolt Centre and Cultch

Friday March 23, 2012
Words on the Water - Campbell River Writer's Festival 2012

April 2012

Friday April 13, 2012
Bordertown Cafe - Kelly Rebar - Toledo Repertoire Theatre

Thursday April 19, 2012
Down Dangerous Passes Road - Michel Marc Bouchard - Encore Theatre

Tuesday April 24, 2012
The Real World? - Michel Tremblay -Tarragon Theatre

Monday April 30, 2012
M.A.C. Farrant at Banff Centre in 2012

Posted: Tuesday February 7, 2012

Bryden MacDonald's Whale Riding Weather at the Sex Festival

Whale Riding Weather

By Bryden MacDonald

Tuesday February 7th to Sunday February 12th
8PM nightly and Sat. & Sun. 4PM Matinees

Plutonium Playhouse, 2315 Hunter Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia

$25/$20

A love story in which a faded queen finds his mind slipping away from him along with his young lover, who meets a new, even younger man.

“The characters in Whale Riding Weather remind me of those Catholic pictures of Christ opening his chest to show us his sacred heart—except that this time Christ’s gay, he’s in his underwear, and he’s really, really drunk.”
-straight.com

Written by Bryden MacDonald, directed by Thom Fitzgerald. Starring Hugo Dann, Hugh Thompson, and Ryan Doucette. Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.

Click here to get tickets.

Posted: Wednesday February 8, 2012

Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje and Daniel Brooks - Theatre Passe Muraille

Divisadero: a performance

Produced by Necessary Angel
Produced in association with The Film Farm

Text by Michael Ondaatje
Directed by Daniel Brooks

Songs written and performed by Justin Rutledge
Featuring performances by Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus, Amy Rutherford & Justin Rutledge

February 8th – 26th, 2012

Theatre Passe Muraille
16 Ryerson Avenue
Toronto, Ontario

Click Here to Buy Tickets or call 416 504 7529

Michael Ondaatje collaborates with Daniel Brooks to adapt his Governor Generals Award-winning novel, Divisadero. Following a highly successful run last season, this is Ondaatjes first full-length work for the stage in over two decades. Divisadero: a performanceis a violent and passionate narrative about how a single event powerfully shapes the lives of two sisters. Examining themes of memory, identity, love and the grip of the past on the present, it is an exploration of the intimate relationship between the speaker and the listener and of language’s ability to weave a magical spell. The production features original music written for the piece and performed by Juno-nominated singer/songwriter Justin Rutledge who is part of the ensemble cast which features Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus, and Amy Rutherford. Divisadero: a performance is designed by Andrea Lundy, Alexander MacSween, and John Thompson.

Posted: Thursday February 9, 2012

bill bissett: problematics - UFV

bill bissett: problematics

Carl Peters on the poetry and painting of bill bissett

Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 1pm
Foundation Studio
C 1044

UFV (University of Fraser Valley)
Abbotsford, BC

Posted: Thursday February 9, 2012

The Long Poem Workshop - Jay MillAr

The Long Poem Workshop
(February 9 – April 12, 2012)
Posted in Courses, Jay MillAr

(Note: The Wednesday evening originally listed is full — second section added!)
Duration: 10 Weeks (30 hours), FEB 9 – APR 12, 6:30-9:30 pm, (Thursday Evenings)

Location: The League of Canadian Poets Offices, 192 Spadina Avenue
Toronto, Ontario

Capacity: 6 students

Instructor: Jay MillAr

And you have to go into the serial poem not knowing what the hell you’re doing. That’s the first thing. You have to be tricked into it. It has to be some path that you’ve never seen on a map before. I think all of my books as far as they’re successful have just followed the bloody path to see where it goes, and sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere.

— Jack Spicer, 1965

Led by poet and publisher Jay MillAr, this 10-week workshop will allow students to investigate the trends of the “genre” of the North American Long (or “Serial”) Poem, with particular emphasis on reading and discussing Canadian Long Poems. Provided with a safe haven from undesirable influences such as the marketplace and the academy (except, as Philip Whalen suggested, in the strictest sense of the word: academy: a walking grove of trees), students can explore the possibilities a Long Poem form has.

Required Text: The Long Poem Anthology, Sharon Thesen, ed (Talonbooks)

Course Work: Students are required to come to the first class prepared to share and discuss with the group an idea they have for a long or serial poem. All subsequent classes will then be run beginning with reading and discussion of work in The Long Poem Anthology, followed by sharing and discussing original writing. Successes and problems that arise in relation to the student’s ongoing work and the original idea presented in Class One will be of particular interest. The notion of “failure” will be addressed throughout the course, especially in the context of the Spicer quote provided at the beginning of this course description. Students will be continually asked to evaluate whether or not they are following the path their original idea projected for them.

Posted: Thursday February 9, 2012

Problem Child & The End of Civilization - George F. Walker - Telus Studio Theatre

Problem Child & The End Of Civilization
(mainstage production)

by George F. Walker
Feb. 9-18 at 7:30 pm

Telus Studio Theatre at UBC
Vancouver, BC

Director: Chris Robson

In these two blistering one-act plays a single seedy motel room houses the world of one of Canada’s most accomplished playwrights, George F. Walker. Fiercely funny and equally heartbreaking, Problem Child asks the question “how far would you go to get your baby back?” Holed up in a cheap motel, two young parents impatiently await a social worker’s verdict while fending off the antics of a drunken caretaker. The evening’s companion piece The End of Civilization, is a gripping stage-noir thriller about an average couple who are driven to cross legal and moral boundaries in order to avoid financial ruin. Both of these tales from the gritty side of life are infused with a dark hilarity.

“No other living playwright pushes the boundaries of comedy as
far with often stunning results.” – Chicago Sun-Times

Visit the UBC Theatre website for more information.

Posted: Thursday February 9, 2012

Moving Along - Chris Craddock - Roxy Theatre

Moving Along
by Chris Craddock

Feb. 9, 2012 through Feb. 26
Previews Feb. 7

Theatre Network ~live at the Roxy
10708 – 124 Street
Edmonton, AB

An Evolved Script. Radical new sound technology. An ingenious theatrical feat.

A fast and furious examination of a strange but common life. Award-winner Chris Craddock shares snapshots of his past while confined to an “Electro-Chair” equipped with lights and all-new sound which he controls himself to dramatic effect. Moving at a breakneck pace, he reveals stories of relationships both good and bad – resulting in a hilarious and touching dream-like monologue of unmatched technical precision. Presenting a radical sound design created by phenom Dave Clarke and an evolved script that includes Craddock’s journey since the plays original creation.

Starring: Chris Craddock • Director: Bradley Moss • Sound Designer: Dave Clarke • Stage Manager: Paul Bezaire

“The writing is as electric as the chair, and the performance will make you gasp.” FIVE STARS – The Edmonton Journal

Visit the Roxy Theatre website for more information.

Posted: Wednesday February 15, 2012

Write Here Readers Series - North Island College

Write Here Readers Series

Explore writing from the North Island with NIC’s Write Here Readers Series and discover a region rich in stories and storytellers.

This year, our Readers Series welcomes readers and authors together to think about locality as both specific and universal. We invite you to consider our North Island home as an important and valuable literary stage.

Attend this exciting series of free lectures, launches and intimate literary discussions, where you’ll enjoy writers of national significance and writers from our own back yard. Join us at one or all of the Write Here Readers Series’ upcoming events, and discover stories that celebrate the people and places that make the North Island unique.

Gary Geddes

When: Wednesday, January 11th
Reading at 7:30pm
Where: Stan Hagen Theatre, Comox Valley campus
2300 Ryan Road
Courtenay BC

Lorna Crozier

When: Thursday, January 26th
Reading at 7:30pm
Where: Stan Hagen Theatre, Comox Valley campus
2300 Ryan Road
Courtenay BC

Garry Thomas Morse

When: Wednesday, February 15th
Reading at 7:30pm
Where: Stan Hagen Theatre, Comox Valley campus
2300 Ryan Road
Courtenay BC

When: Thursday, February 16th
Reading at 7:30pm
Where: Café Guido
7135 Market Street
Port Hardy, BC

Visit the NIC website for more information.

Posted: Thursday February 16, 2012

2012 Gabriola Poetry Festival

Gabriola Poetry Festival

2012 Festival FEBRUARY 16-19

Visit the Gabriola Poetry Festival website for more information.

Thursday, February 16, 7:30 p.m. – Evening Mainstage
Batter Up! Baseball stories with Joëlle Anthony and George Bowering
Host: Barbara Adler

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Join two of our favourite heavy hitters on opening night for a double header that’s all about writing and baseball. Your host for the evening will be rock-star accordionist Barbara Adler.
Joëlle Anthony Women in the Line-Up

Through a series of fictional characters, true stories, and a blending of both, writer and performer Joëlle Anthony explores women’s roles in baseball. From true-blue hardcore fans to scorekeepers, Little League moms, baseball wives, and the ladies who run the concession stand, women participate in a sport played by, run by, and announced by men. Why do women love something that excludes them so wholeheartedly from the actual game? And how could baseball function without them? These are some of the themes in Joëlle’s collection, Women in the Line-up.
George Bowering The Diamond Alphabet Book

George Bowering is fond of baseball, and he likes the alphabet. Having written a few baseball books and a few alphabet books over the years, he decided to write a baseball alphabet book. The Diamond Alphabet is made up of 130 between-innings takes, five for each letter. You probably expected “Mays”, but were you ready for “Uzbekistan”? Tall tales, memories, facts, and opinions are interwoven in this delightful collection of short takes on the gentleman’s game that demonstrates the full potential of the relationship between baseball and literature.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. – sharp!

Friday, February 17, 7:30 p.m. – Evening Mainstage
You’re An Animal! Fantastic creatures with Jordan Scott, Cat Kidd and Fang
Host: Drek Daa

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

From a Gabriolan alteration of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, to a rock accordion alphabet suite, to a woman who has transformed herself into a hyena, this evening promises to bring out the beast in you. Your host is Drek Daa, last seen on Gabriola dressed as a fish.

Jordan Scott DE COMP

In 2010 Jordan Scott and his collaborator Stephen Collis traveled to five distinct BC ecosystems: the Coastal Rainforest, the Fraser River Delta/Vancouver, the Carribou/Chilcotin, the Rocky Mountains, and the North. In each ecosystem a copy of Charles Darwin’s On The The Origin of Species was placed in an outdoor location and left there for one year. The Coastal Rainforest location was Gabriola Island. Jordan will perform excerpts from Darwin’s text that the environment of Gabriola ‘selected’. Commissioned by Poetry Gabriola through the BC Arts Council.

Cat Kidd Hyena Subpoena

Excerpts from highly acclaimed Montreal writer and spoken-word artist, Cat Kidd’s new solo multimedia creation, Hyena Subpoena. Set in a campsite in South Africa’s famed Kruger Park, the show is a series of stories told by activist and poet Mona Morse, who has fled civilization for the bushveld. Postcards home claim she’s transformed herself into a hyena.

Fang Beast Pieces

Barbara Adler has created a new performance piece about animals for every letter of the alphabet. Did you know that swans have teeth? Neither did Barbara, until she started on this project. Beast Pieces is a word-and-accordion mash-up created for and performed by Fang, Vancouver’s most famous (and only) accordion rock band.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. – sharp!

Saturday, February 18th – Daytime Events

11:00 a.m – 12:00 noon
Under The Influence- A Whirling Workshop with Tanya Evanson

This workshop will explore the intoxication that comes from drinking the wine of a different tavern. It is an introduction to Sema, the ‘dance’ of the Whirling Dervishes, whose inspiration comes from Persian mystic philosopher and poet Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. It will focus on whirling as active meditation and include history, Sufi poetry and music, unique exercises and instruction. Requirements: passion, patience, relaxed clothing and good socks. Bring a mat or cushion for sitting meditation. Warning: some people may leave slightly intoxicated.

In the Main Theatre. $15 at the door.

12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Knock-Knock, Who’s There?

Knock-Knock, Who’s There? is a free, site-specific, multi-artist installation designed to take place in the 11 tiny sleeping cabins on the gorgeous, oceanside grounds of the Dragon’s Lodge. From 12:30pm until 2:00pm on Saturday, February 18 and Sunday February 19, the audience is invited to fan out into the forest and start knocking on cabin doors. Each of the 11 cabins will be occupied by one or more artists ready to have a close encounter. Poets, spoken word and performance artists, musicians, and even an occasional juggler collaborate to bring you Gabriola’s most complex knock-knock joke. This FREE family-friendly event was a huge hit last year, featuring amazing performances that were poignant, funny, and surprising. To participate, meet at the foyer of the Dragon’s Lodge on Saturday and Sunday at 1:00pm.

On the Grounds of the Dragon’s Lodge. FREE event.

3:00 p.m.
Salon #1: Character Study with TL Cowan and Cat Kidd

Cat Kidd and TL Cowan have a lot in common: they are both spoken-word artists, writers, performers and directors. They have each created several original feature-length works and toured them extensively. They both have plenty of experience and great track records, and each of these artists has honed a unique performance style that incorporates specific personae. Salon #1 is an informal discussion about the use of character and other techniques that facilitate expression.

Dragon’s Lodge Salon Room, $10 at the door.

Saturday, February 18 at 7:30 p.m. – Evening Mainstage
How Can I Say This? Distinct articulations with TL Cowan, Adeena Karasick, Tanya Evanson and CR Avery.
Host: TBA

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Innovative ideas demand ingenious strategies. How Can I Say This? showcases four aesthetically diverse artists, each completely committed to developing a unique voice in the search for artistic expression.

Writer, performer, cabaret artist, political activist, and feminista TL Cowan travels with a panoply of extra personalities. Tonight she invites her audience out on a date with one of her favourite alter-egos.

Adeena Karasick’s writing has been described as “electricity in language”. Her gritty, beautiful aesthetic and complex wordplay fully engage with the art of turbulent thinking – creating linguistic havoc wherever she goes.

Multilingual poet, spoken-word artist, vocalist, arts advocate and classically trained whirling dervish, Tanya Evanson transcends ordinary ideas of poetry in performance, lifting the spirit and invigorating the word.

Every C.R. Avery set is an all-or-nothing affair, and we’re thrilled to have him back on Gabriola as one of our commissioned artists. What better way to close out Saturday night than fearlessly, with great music, provocative words, and whatever else he might get up to…

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. – sharp!

Sunday, February 19 – Daytime Events

11:00 a.m.
Salon #2: What Comes to Mind with Susan Musgrave and Gregory Scofield

Gregory Scofield is one of Canada’s leading Aboriginal writers, known for a unique reading style that blends oral storytelling, song, spoken word and the Cree language. In the April 2003 edition of Playboy, Susan Musgrave is referred to as “one of the most beautiful and interesting women on the planet”. Join two of Canada’s most perceptive poets in this free-range conversation.

12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Knock-Knock, Who’s There?

Knock-Knock, Who’s There? is a free, site-specific, multi-artist installation designed to take place in the 11 tiny sleeping cabins on the gorgeous, oceanside grounds of the Dragon’s Lodge. From 12:30pm until 2:00pm on Saturday, February 18 and Sunday February 19, the audience is invited to fan out into the forest and start knocking on cabin doors. Each of the 11 cabins will be occupied by one or more artists ready to have a close encounter. Poets, spoken word and performance artists, musicians, and even an occasional juggler collaborate to bring you Gabriola’s most complex knock-knock joke. This FREE family-friendly event was a huge hit last year, featuring amazing performances that were poignant, funny, and surprising. To participate, meet at the foyer of the Dragon’s Lodge on Saturday and Sunday at 1:00pm.

On the Grounds of the Dragon’s Lodge. FREE event.

3:00 p.m.
Salon #3: Enter the Laboratory with Adeena Karasick and Jordan Scott

Adeena Karasick and Jordan Scott are both powerful poets who have spent their careers deeply involved with the tactility of language. Adeena’s linguistically provocative, philosophically complex wordplay is a testament to the creative and regenerative power of language and its infinite possibilities for pushing meaning to the limits of its semantic boundaries. Jordan is the author of Silt (2005) and Blert (2008), the latter of which explores the poetics of stuttering. His areas of poetic inquiry are speech disfluencies, interrogation, found archives, and decompositions. Join Adeena and Jordan in the Poetry Gabriola Laboratory for a discussion of experimental language.

Dragon’s Lodge Salon Room, $10 at the door.

Sunday, February 19 at 7:30 p.m. – Evening Mainstage
Take Me To This Place
with Tim Lander, Susan Musgrave, Gregory Scofield, and Tanya Davis
Host:TBA

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Take Me To This Place is the final night of the festival, an evening that celebrates poetry of place, of passages, of lives lived, and of new beginnings. This is poetry that takes us down intimate paths, recognizing landmarks, through maps devised by the hands and minds of artists.

Nanaimo poet Tim Lander takes us on a dark trespass where

The future is a hard dusty road

through shabby streets

and worn out

strip development

on the edge of the city…

Susan Musgrave is our guide on a tour of Questions You Might Ask, offering invaluable advice towards the negotiation of tricky encounters with retail clerks, border patrol guards, automated message services, and overzealous fans.

Gregory Scofield’s ancestry can be traced back to the fur trade and to the Metis community of Kinosota, Manitoba, established in 1828 by the Hudson’s Bay Company. His moving, beautiful language moves backwards and forwards in time, taking his audience with him, into the present.

Closing the evening and the festival is the poet who has traveled the farthest, Tanya Davis, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. This accomplished artist’s career is taking off, as indicated by her hit videopoem How To Be Alone – which has had more than 3.5 million YouTube hits since it went viral one year ago.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.- sharp!

Posted: Friday February 17, 2012

House - Daniel MacIvor - The ARTS Project Theatre

HOUSE
Written by Daniel MacIvor

Performed by Justin Quesnelle
Directed by Eva Blahut
Stage Managed by Damon Muma

February 17-18; 22-25 at 8pm and 18 & 25 at 2pm
PWYC Preview on February 16 at 8pm

Launching their 5th season of award winning theatre in London, the Passionfool Theatre, resident company of The ARTS Project, is proud to present Daniel MacIvor’s one man masterpiece – House.

Following their recent success with MacIvor’s work, Never Swim Alone (Best Production Brickenden Award, Best Show of the Fringe 2009) and Monster (Best Solo Production Brickenden Award, Best Solo Show of the Fringe 2010), Passionfool presents one of the playwrights’ most fascinating and critically acclaimed works.

Billed as a stand-up-sit-down-one-man-comedy-nightmare, House is the twisted story of Victor. His mother is possessed by the devil, his sister loves a dog, he’s married to his cousin who doesn’t love him, and his father is the saddest man in the world. But instead of accepting his seemingly obvious role as the world’s biggest loser, Victor bursts through theatrical conventions in search of acceptance from his audiences.

The ARTS Project Theatre
203 Dundas St
London, Ontario

Tickets: $20
Available through The ARTS Project – 519.642.2767

Visit the Passionfool website for more information.

Posted: Saturday February 18, 2012

HOME FRONT, a reading series - Sharon Thesen

HOME FRONT, a reading series

February 18th, 2012

Sharon Thesen
reading from The Serial Poems

3966 Ontario St.
Vancouver, BC

$5.00/pay what you can
8:00pm., doors open 7:30
604 879-5200

Posted: Thursday February 23, 2012

Talking Stick Festival presents In a World Created by a Drunken God

Talking Stick Festival presents In a World Created by a Drunken God

February 23 – 25, 2012 at 8PM
Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre
181 Roundhouse Mews
Vancouver, BC

Jason Pierce, a Canadian half-Native man, is packing up his urban apartment to leave it all behind for his romanticized vision of a return to life on the reserve where he grew up. As he’s leaving, he is paid an unexpected visit by Harry, an American who awkwardly introduces himself as Jason’s half-brother. Harry wants Jason be compatibility-tested for a possible kidney donation to their dying non-Native father – a man Jason has no memory of ever meeting.

A powerful drama by one of Canada’s leading First Nations playwrights, In A World Created By A Drunken God raises questions that transcend issues of culture, morality and history, cutting to the heart of what it means to be human in a world stripped of convenient labels and identity politics. In A World Created By A Drunken God was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.

Plus – Artist Talkback (Friday Feb 24)

Click here for more information about this event.

Posted: Friday February 24, 2012

Galiano Literary Festival - 2012

Galiano Literary Festival

Here is the 2012 lineup for the February 24 – 26 Galiano Literary Festival :

George Bowering
Marie Clements
Claudia Cornwall
Charles Demers
Ann Eriksson
Patrick Friesen
Zsuzsi Gartner
Gary Geddes
Kim Goldberg
Genni Gunn
Eve Joseph
Susan Juby
Grant Lawrence
Susan McCaslin
Kit Pearson
Pamela Porter
Bob Robertson
Sheryl Salloum
Timothy Taylor
Audrey Thomas
Rhea Tregebov
Robert J. Wiersema
Mark Zuehlke

Visit the Galiano Literary Festival page for more information.

Posted: Saturday February 25, 2012

red diva projects - Marie Clements, Michelle St. John, Women from DTES Centre

red diva projects

February 25, 2012 | 7PM
FREE

Audain Gallery

As part of the exhibition Mapping the Everyday: Neighbourhood Claims for the Future and in partnership with The Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer in Residence Program at Simon Fraser University’s English Department, the Audain Gallery is pleased to announce a series of events in the gallery featuring the work of red diva projects and their collaborators.

red diva projects

Performance by Marie Clements, Michelle St. John, and women from the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.

Drawing on Clements’ previous experience working with the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, red diva projects will guide women from the Centre through a series of workshops that will explore the use of written words and vocables (non-lexical sound-words) to address the themes of isolation and incarceration and to explore the critical potential of fiction to express truth. The outcome of these workshops will be an experimental theatrical musical performance in the gallery by red diva projects and the women of the Centre.

red diva projects is a collaborative project between veteran artists Michelle St. John and Marie Clements. They are committed to deepening the vocabulary and aesthetic style of integrative Indigenous performance and creating and producing new innovative work. Their films include Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, The Road Forward, and Jesus Indian.

Working in theatre, performance, film, multi-media, radio, and television, Marie Clements is a prolific and award-winning performer, playwright, screenwriter, director, and producer. She is also the founding artistic director of Urban Ink Productions and Fathom Labs Highway, the co-founder and producing partner of Frog Girl Films, and the Artistic Director of red diva projects. Clements is currently The Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer in Residence at Simon Fraser University English Department.

Michelle St. John is a Dora nominated and two-time Gemini Award winning actor with more than 30 years of experience in film, television, theatre, voice, and music. Co-Founder of Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble, a Native women’s theatre company based in Toronto, St. John is currently a producing partner with Evan Adams and Marie Clements in Frog Girl Films and the Artistic Producer of red diva projects.

Audain Gallery
General level, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
149 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

Visit this website for more information.

Posted: Tuesday February 28, 2012

The Leisure Society - Trafalgar Studios - UK

A Trafalgar Studios 2 Production.

The Leisure Society by François Archambault.

Starring Ed Stoppard, Agyness Deyn and Melanie Gray.

The play centres on a self-obsessed ‘yuppie’ couple who find their lives spiralling out of control when they invite a fast-living friend and his promiscuous young lover (played by Deyn) round for dinner.

“Dinner nosedives spectacularly into a drunken swamp of debauchery. Ever secretly slapped your best friend’s infant? Or actually had that threesome you’ve always longed for? Ever wondered what would happen if you gave your pain-in-the-ass conscience the night off? In an age where getting everything can mean having nothing.”

The Leisure Society, which is directed by Harry Burton, is being produced by Hillscape Productions. Press Night is on 1st March.

Visit the Trafalgar Studios 2 website for more information.

Posted: Thursday March 1, 2012

Fred Wah - Versefest in Ottawa

Versefest in Ottawa

Thursday, Mar 1, 2012

7pm
Arts Court Theatre
2 Daly Ave
Ottawa, Ontario

Fred Wah studied music and English literature at the University of British Columbia in the early 1960′s where he was one of the founding editors of the poetry newsletter TISH. After graduate work in literature and linguistics in the U.S., he returned to the Kootenays in the late 1960′s and taught at Selkirk College and David Thompson University Centre, and then at the University of Calgary during the 90’s. He has been editorially involved with a number of literary magazines over the years, such as Open Letter and West Coast Line. Two prose books are Diamond Grill, a biofiction about growing up in a small-town Chinese-Canadian cafe (1996), Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity, a collection of essays (2000). He has published many books of poetry including, recently, two collections of poetry, Sentenced to Light and is a door plus a selected edited by Louis Cabri titled The False Laws of Narrative.

Fred Wah has recently been appointed as Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate.

For more information about the entire schedule and list of readers, visit the Versefest website.

Posted: Thursday March 1, 2012

Gordon - Morris Panych - Revue Stage

Gordon
By Morris Panych

March 1 – March 24, 2012
Revue Stage
1601 Johnston Street (box office located at the Granville Island Stage)
Vancouver, BC

Following their latest crime spree, Gordon and his sidekick, Carl, take refuge in a rundown house in an abandoned part of town. What unsuspecting Carl thinks is a B&E turns out to be a reunion—of sorts. Young Gordon has come home, and Old Gord couldn’t be happier—until, that is, he discovers the true nature of his son’s “business” ambitions.

Visit the Arts Club website for more information.

Posted: Thursday March 1, 2012

Where the Blood Mixes - Kevin Loring - Remai Arts Centre

Where the Blood Mixes
by Kevin Loring

March 1 to 11, 2012

Backstage Stage Remai Arts Centre
100 Spadina Crescent East
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

SNTC is proud to present this 2009 Governor General Award Winning Play. This poignant work is a humorous, moving portrayal of three middle aged residential school survivors dealing with loss and the return of a long estranged daughter. The play demonstrates the healing power of stories in a reserve community, and puts faith in the youth for hope for the future.

Visit the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company website for more information.

Posted: Friday March 9, 2012

Ms Thing - Vancouver Women in Film Festival - Embracing the Darkness

Ms Thing, the short film directed by Karen X. Tulchinsky, has been chosen to be screened at Vancouver Women in Film Festival Short Film Program: Embracing the Darkness

Friday March 9, 2012 at 7 PM

Vancity Theatre
1181 Seymour Street
Vancouver, BC

Ms. Thing
Directed by Karen X. Tulchinsky

Starring Melanie Bray, Sid Holman, Buster Cherry, Andrea Hector, Kim Barsanti, Holly Rolfe, Quynh Mi, Holly Rolfe, Tanya Fruehauf, Valerie McNicol and Rika Moorhouse as Ms. Thing.

Written by Mette Bach, Music by Andrea Hector, DOP Dianne Whelan, Producer Claire Queree, Art Director Ken Boesem, Editor Jenypher Fisher, 1st AD Sandra Mayo, Sound Design Gael McLean, Makeup and Hair, Saana Martinez, Casting Angela Short, Lighting Design Christina Lenic, Property Master Jamie Allen, Production Co-ordinator, Victoria Bennett, Gaffer Robin West, Script Supervisor Melva McLean

For more information and to buy tickets, visit the Women in Film website.

Posted: Saturday March 10, 2012

How To Write A Poem For The Queen: a workshop with the Parliamentary Poet Laureate

How To Write A Poem For The Queen: a workshop with the Parliamentary Poet Laureate

(10 March 2012)

Instructor: Fred Wah

When: 10 March 2012, 1:30 – 5:00 PM

Location: Of Swallows, 283 College Street, Upper Seminar Room
Toronto, Ontario

Would you
Should you
If yr asked
Use up a poem
To do this task?

This is a workshop on the Occasional Poem. Much maligned and frequently scorned by poet laureates, the poetics of the occasional poem invite an intriguing spectrum of considerations. Can a “poem in honour of” engage a similar discourse to the poem simply written “For”? And what sorts of intention function to generate the immense range of occasional poetry (W.H. Auden’s “Under Which Lyre: A Reactionary Tract for the Times,” Robert Creeley’s “So There,” bpNichol’s “Sketch For A Botanical Drawing For Thomas A. Clark,” Roy Miki’s “Nagasaki Day for Baco O,” or current British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Rings” for the royal wedding last spring).

Each participant is asked to bring along one of their own short poems occasioned by love, death, birth, anger, politics, admiration, and so forth.

This workshop is limited to 12 participants.

Visit the Toronto School of Writing website for more information.

Posted: Wednesday March 21, 2012

BellaLuna's Fresco - Lucia Frangione - Shadbolt Centre and Cultch

A BellaLuna Original Play
FRESCO – Vancouver’s Italian Canadians in World War II

BellaLuna’s Fresco – A new play by Lucia Frangione
conceived and developed with the BellaLuna Ensemble:
Susan Bertoia, Aaron Freschi, Stefano Giulianetti and Marco Soriano

March 21-24, 2012
-James Cowan Theatre at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby

March 28-31, 2012
-Vancouver’s Historic Cultch Theatre in Vancouver

June 10, 1940: Mussolini joins forces with Germany making Italy an enemy to Canada. In Vancouver 44 Italian Canadians are sent to internment camps without trial, and hundreds more are branded ‘Enemy Aliens.’

The creators of ‘Futuristi’, and ‘The Best Italian Variety Show – Ever!’ breathe life into this little known event that helped shape the Italian Canadian landscape in Western Canada.

FRESCO tells the story of the WWII Italian-Canadian Internment through the eyes of a present-day woman who finds herself looking into the keyhole of her past. Told through the voices of her ancestors, her family history is unfurled, painting a picture of Vancouver ‘s cultural landscape in the 1940’s.

Visit the BellaLuna website for more information.

Posted: Friday March 23, 2012

Words on the Water - Campbell River Writer's Festival 2012

Words on the Water 2012
Campbell River’s Annual Festival of Writers for Readers

When: March 23 – March 24 2012
Where: Maritime Heritage Centre
Tickets: Tidemark Theatre (starting February 1)

2012 Authors

Gurjinder Basran
Trevor Herriot (Haig Brown Resident)
Susan Juby
Robert J. Wiersema
Zsuzsi Gartner
Daphne Marlatt
Garry Thomas Morse

More authors TO BE ANNOUNCED soon.

For more information, visit the Words on the Water festival website.

Posted: Friday April 13, 2012

Bordertown Cafe - Kelly Rebar - Toledo Repertoire Theatre

Bordertown Cafe
by Kelly Rebar

April 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 2012

“…an honest look at what it means to be a family.” — Robyn Godfrey

Set in a Canadian café, 17 year-old Jimmy and his family carry on a loud and hilarious commentary on our cultural differences as Jimmy and his mother Marlene navigate the difficult waters of teen/parent relations. Wise words from Grandpa and wisecracks from Grandma help Jimmy make the toughest decision he has faced in his short life.

The Toledo Repertoire Theatre
16 10th St. | Toledo, OH 43604
419-243-9277

For more information, visit the Toledo Repertoire Theatre website.

Posted: Thursday April 19, 2012

Down Dangerous Passes Road - Michel Marc Bouchard - Encore Theatre

Down Dangerous Passes Road
by Michel Marc Bouchard

Encore Theatre
Ernie Checkeris Theatre stage at Thorneloe University
2-42 Riverside Drive
Sudbury, ON

PERFORMANCE DATES

Opening POSTPONED until April 19, 2012

Three brothers drive out to a forgotten childhood memory: an old fishing spot on the river down Dangerous Passes Road.

Each sibling is facing a crucial rite of passage: Carl, the youngest, is to be married later in the day, and it is this occasion that has brought the three of them together. Ambrose is losing his lover to AIDS. Victor, the eldest, has just left his second failed marriage.

They have never really spoken with each other because they all have their own individual secrets to hide, and because they share an ambivalence about the death of their father. Are they ready, finally, to reveal themselves to each other and move on with their lives?

In voices that interweave, alternate and play off one another with the exquisite lyricism of chamber music, the brothers reveal themselves as trapped by their father’s inability to let his boys grow up, and their own inability to accept him as an adult.

Visit the Encore Theatre website for more information.

Posted: Tuesday April 24, 2012

The Real World? - Michel Tremblay -Tarragon Theatre

The Real World?
by Michel Tremblay

translated by John Van Burek and Bill Glassco
directed by Richard Rose

April 24-June 3, 2012

Tarragon Theatre
30 Bridgman Avenue
Toronto, Ontario

Revival

Should or can playwrights truly “write what they know”? If they use their family members as characters in a play, whose play is it? Whose truth is it? And what happens when those family members stand up to their artist son and object to their theatrical selves? The Real World? remains a groundbreaking play about art, autobiography and authority.

Michel Tremblay has been a dominant figure in Québec theatre since the late 1960s; his plays have been performed around the world. Tarragon was the home for many of his English-language premieres, including Hosanna, Les Belles-Soeurs and Albertine in Five Times, and has produced 13 of his plays. Tarragon is reviving this Canadian classic nearly 25 years after it premiered in English on our stage.

For more information, visit the Tarragon Theatre website.

Posted: Monday April 30, 2012

M.A.C. Farrant at Banff Centre in 2012

M.A.C. Farrant will be teaching at Banff Centre from April 29-May 13th, 2012.

Writing Studio

Program dates: April 30, 2012 – June 2, 2012

Application deadline: November 15, 2011

Writing genres offered: Fiction and other narrative prose, and Poetry.

Director: Greg Hollingshead

Associate Directors: Daphne Marlatt – Fiction and other narrative prose, Karen Solie – Poetry

Faculty: Colin Bernhardt – Voice and relaxation, Larissa Lai – Fiction and other narrative prose, M.A.C. Farrant – Fiction and other narrative prose, Tim Bowling – Poetry, Shyam Selvadurai – Fiction and other narrative prose, Nino Ricci – Fiction and other narrative prose, Fanny Howe – Poetry

Visit the Banff Centre website for more information.

Thursday February 2, 2012 in Meta-Talon

How to Bank Your Life on Speculative "Futures"

Jonathan Ball interviews Garry Thomas Morse about various speculative “futures”:

In two volumes of The Chaos! Quincunx, I use what William S. Burroughs called the “fold-in” method, which feels rather like battering some batter in a bowl. This process is exciting, because of its sense of immediacy. I’m never quite sure what the characters are going to do next!

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Thursday January 26, 2012 in Meta-Talon

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again Comes to Kamloops

Michel Tremblay’s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again comes to Kamloops:

They may seem like everyday moments — and in many ways they are — but, with Lorne Cardinal and Margo Kane playing the only two characters, the play becomes “an homage to his mother,” Leyshon said.

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Monday January 23, 2012 in Meta-Talon

Anis Shivani Interviews Michael McClure

Anis Shivani interviewed Beat Poet Michael McClure On Jim Morrison, The Doors, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac for The Huffington Post on March 03, 2011:

Shivani: Is Olson the major figure in American poetry after Pound?

McClure: I do not like seeing poetry as literature rather than art and I’m not happy with the separation of Poetry and the sister arts, I prefer to see Art as Art. I perceive that a major figure after Pound would be Jackson Pollock, and instead of looking at “American” Poetry as William Carlos Williams exhorted all to do, I would look worldwide at the poetry of D.H. Lawrence, Federico Garcia Lorca, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and of course Charles Olson, and all.

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Thursday January 12, 2012 in Meta-Talon

Direct Harkening: A Review of On the Material

Andrew Vaisius reviews 2011 BC Book Prize Winner On the Material:

This poetry burns straight into your thoughts with a third degree of truth. Words matter. They aren’t frilly or sentimental, hoity-toity or academic. Collis writes in a language unencumbered by tired cliché or overwrought descriptions. His is a direct harkening, devoid of affectation, expressing the gut endurance of each sparking woman/man capable of the “natural brilliance of the human spirit.”

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