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Supporting Canadian artists in a time of crisis
January 22, 2021Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly changed the way we live and work, and we have all been called to see and imagine the world in different ways. The performing arts sector was hit particularly hard, and with many artists facing an uncertain future, the National Arts…
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NAC Indigenous Theatre: Unikkaaqtuat brings Inuit stories to a wider world
January 6, 2020Guillaume Ittukssarjuat Saladin has a suggestion for audiences attending the upcoming world premiere of Unikkaaqtuat (meaning to tell stories), an all-ages show which opens the second half of NAC Indigenous Theatre’s inaugural season. The cross-cultural production fuses circus, theatre,…
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Illuminating Thoughts: Nicole Brooks on Obeah Opera
June 5, 2019Ten years ago she was told it could never be done — it was too big, too unconventional, too diverse, too much about women — now, artist Nicole Brooks is reveling in the success of her creation, Obeah Opera. Revolutionary creator Nicole Brooks shares her inspiration for Obeah Opera, the…
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Reinventing the wondrous world of Marie-Claire Blais in SOIFS Matériaux
June 3, 2019INTERVIEW Over the years UBU has often created plays based on works not written for the stage. How does this novel by Marie-Claire Blais fit into that approach? Denis Marleau – What was appealing about Soifs was its vigorous writing, its larger-than-life scope, its embrace of a…
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Live in the Studio: Visiting the Old Trout Puppet Workshop
April 29, 2019To reach Calgary’s Old Trout Puppet Workshop, you knock on the door of an unprepossessing Quonset hut, squeeze through the lean-to they use for an office, then finally set foot inside the studio, where an otherworldly vibe possesses you. Puppets gaze down from every corner, ghosts from the…
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Stress and Happiness, 24 Hours a Day - Vanessa Porteous Talks to...
March 6, 2019“It was easy and hard at the same time,” says Marichka Marczyk about the reboot of Counting Sheep: Staging A Revolution, a music theatre hybrid that plunges its audience into the 2014 ‘Revolution of Dignity’ in Kyiv, Ukraine. Co-creator Mark Marczyk, Marichka’s partner in life and work,…
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Peggy Baker Workshop at National Ballet School
September 11, 2018Peggy Baker has been working on who we are in the dark, her most ambitious work to date, for nearly two years now. At the end of August, she again brought together her team of dancers and musicians Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara from Arcade Fire for a week of workshops at the National…
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Upcoming Eve 2050 Installation + Performance
September 11, 2018Following the successful launch of the web series earlier this year, Isabelle van Grimde’s epic triptych Eve 2050 continues with the premiere of part two, an installation and performance that invites each visitor to become one of the many faces of Eve 2050. Using infrared cameras and…
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Le reste vous le connaissez par le cinéma opening at ESPACE GO
September 11, 2018ESPACE GO in Montreal was packed on September 12 for the premiere of Le reste vous le connaissez par le cinéma, a compelling new production by writer and director Christian Lapointe. With an elaborate set inspired by the conventions of a traditional classroom, and a chorus of young women…