Photo C/O Social Distancing Festival

Renaissance London is frequently hailed as a landmark of performance and culture. You may, perhaps, have heard of writers like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe; however, during the years of 1603 and 1613, the theatres of London were closed for 78 months due to the plague. With people trapped in their homes and terrified of becoming sick, it was difficult to share performances. Today we are facing a similar situation, but fortunately there is now a place for us to come together and experience all the theatre the world has to offer us: The Social Distancing Festival.

The Social Distancing Festival was created by Toronto playwright Nick Green. When Green and his co-writer Kevin Wong found out that their musical In Real Life was cancelled, Green reached out to fellow artists and realized that performances everywhere were being halted midway through their rehearsals. The Social Distancing Festival was born out of a desire to save those shows and give them their spotlight.

Theatre from all over the world, in numerous forms, is available to stream and enjoy from the festival website, and the response has been hugely positive, with review articles being written by dozens of news outlets. As much as we all joke about bingeing Netflix and Disney+, there is clearly a desire in all of us to be able to experience live art and theatre.

The Social Distancing Festival is a place where artists can submit their work for viewers to see and enjoy. Clicking on the "Featured" and "Live Streams" tabs will take you to pages that feature everything from spoken word to opera. The Featured page has a more curated selection, whereas the Live Streams page has a calendar option so that you can see what streams are available to you on a given day. Some streams require registration, so if there is something that catches your eye, make sure to double check that there is room available.

The festival only started on Friday March 13, but it has been growing and evolving daily, and as a result Green has needed more people to help him organize it. Matthew Reid, a fourth year student at Sheridan College in the honours bachelor of music and performance program, is one of those helpers. He met Green at a theatre workshop last summer. Like students here at McMaster, Reid found that his final semester of undergrad was suddenly and abruptly cut off. At the fifth rehearsal for their upcoming performance of Guys and Dolls, Reid and the rest of the class were told that the show was cancelled.

“[W]e all went into rehearsal on Friday and were told that our rehearsal process would be stopped and our productions were going to be cancelled. So that was a bit of a shock to the system, especially as fourth year students, because this is our last, final project before leaving school. We realized that all we had left to do was a couple of online meetings and then we were done with our degree, we were done with this whole undergrad experience, and it all happened in the blink of an eye,” said Reid.

World Theatre Day took place March 27, with theatres across the globe sitting empty. The artist community has been hit hard by COVID-19 closures. Many performers rely on theatre in order to pay their bills or, like Reid, in order to finish their degrees. Not only that, performers live and breathe theatre. It’s how they express their talent and creativity, and for many it is their driving passion. In the wake of the closures, Green saw both himself and his friends suddenly left rudderless, with the energy that they invested in their projects seemingly going to waste.

“[Green] wanted to create a platform where artists could share work . . . that had been cancelled or postponed or stopped, as a way for them to continue to create what they were creating, as a way for them to get feedback and to celebrate their work, to connect with other artists internationally. It seems people are very grateful for their work not to be lost. It's always good to have a project, especially in a weird, very unpredictable time like this, [to have] a project to focus on,” said Reid.

Theatre has always had to adapt to funding cuts and shoestring budgets, and artists are nothing if not adaptable. Green’s show In Real Life has been continuing to rehearse remotely despite the barriers put in its way. The show is set in a dystopian future where the students live in cubes and can only communicate with one another online. This hits disconcertingly close to home as we all practice physical distancing, only able to see one another through our screens.

“They are, very fortunately, still managing to meet as a cast and as a team online . . . So it's kind of like they're actually living [the show] right now. They're all doing a 30 person Zoom call and rehearsing their songs and working on scenes, and it all has to be online from the comfort of their own room[s] because that's where we we have to be right now, so it's kind of like they're method acting, experiencing the world of the cube while they're rehearsing for the show,” said Reid.

None of us know how long we’ll need to keep our distance, or when live theatre will be able to start up again. Until then, The Social Distancing Festival is hoping to continually evolve and improve to help both the artists sharing their work, and the people watching from home. As it continues, the festival is working to include not only theatre, but also music, dance, traditional art and spoken word. If you’re an artist, you can submit through their website, and if you’re not, hopefully you can find some joy in the work being shared. And when this is all over, we should all remember that the arts can play a large role in helping to get through difficult times.

 

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Photo C/O Grace Michael 

The setting is simple: only a staircase, two platforms and a bed made of crystals. The show is an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream written by Trisha Gregorio, directed by Ian McIntosh and performed by the McMaster Thespian Company. I have both seen and performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream multiple times, and this adaptation was one of the best I’ve seen. Several of the roles in the show are cast as another gender, creating more roles for women, and also a number of queer relationships. In doing so, the play is updated to reflect modern life and love, while still paying homage to the source text.

Several of the roles in the show are cast as another gender, creating more roles for women, and also a number of queer relationships. In doing so, the play is updated to reflect modern life and love, while still paying homage to the source text.

Gregorio’s adaptation sparkles, breathing life into this 400-year-old show. Unlike the original, the show begins with a young girl named Robin falling asleep and waking up in the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the fairy Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck. Gregorio replaces the beginning of the original play with an opening scene in the ‘real world’ where Robin’s sister is preparing for her wedding day, immediately setting the scene and giving us a sense of the tone for the play. This is a clever choice, as the original opening of Midsummer tends to drag on. The middle of the play is largely untouched, before the final scene where Robin wakes up just in time for her sister’s wedding. This final scene is especially effective, as it essentially modernizes the final scene of Midsummer, putting the words into a modern context. This does an excellent job of combining the modern parts of the play with the classical.

Many of the male roles have been swapped out in this production, including Theseus, Lysander, and all of the Mechanicals — the comedy relief. This is not only a good way to update the production, it is also an interesting callback to the original play, as in the Renaissance every role would’ve been played by men, with young boys playing the women. This adaptation flips that on its head, claiming most of the roles for women.

The whole cast shines, but in particular Jesse Adams as Bottom/Pyramus and Isis Lunsky as Flute/Peaseblossom/Thisbe stole the show. My voice was hoarse from laughing so hard. Their final scene as Pyramus and Thisbe is a true tour de force, with the two alternating between rolling on the floor, dramatically addressing the audience and being forcibly dragged off the stage, reminiscent of old cartoons when a comedian would get pulled off stage by a hook. I found myself impatiently waiting for their scenes to come, fascinated to see what they would do next.

The show balanced its humour with raw emotion. Kat Sliwowicz as Helena and Jessica Quino as Hermia took my breath away as their friendship fell apart, transitioning from heartfelt expressions of affection to trying to physically tear each other apart. I was unsure how effective this would be, given that Hermia and Helena’s initial scene talking about their friendship was cut from the adaptation, but Sliwowicz and Quino’s emotional deliveries more than made up for that absence.

The biggest flaw I saw with the subplot of the four lovers —  Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius — was that Sliwowicz and Quino had more chemistry with one another than they had with their love interests. It was almost a disappointment that they didn’t end up together. The final reunion of Hermia with Lysander and Helena with Demetrius falls a little flat after the fights between the lovers, making it difficult to root for the couples at the end.

The technical aspects of the show were simple, but effective. The costumes transition easily from one world to another, with bridesmaid gowns becoming Athenian dresses. The setting is also fairly sparse, with only a few set pieces. However, this very cleverly leaves room for the antics of the cast, including Lunsky’s backwards somersault and Quino launching herself across the stage. Each set piece feels intentional and is used effectively.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest deviations from the original play was in changing the genders of several characters. Nearly every character became queer. Rumours have long circulated about Shakespeare’s sexuality, but the fact remains that he wrote 126 sonnets about an attractive young man and a 25 additional sonnets about a woman, both with similarly romantic themes, indicating that he may have been bisexual. In many ways, Gregorio’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens up this debate, inviting audience members to see themselves and their identities represented in the play in ways they couldn’t before.

In many ways, Gregorio’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens up this debate, inviting audience members to see themselves and their identities represented in the play in ways they couldn’t before.

Adaptations of Shakespeare can vary wildly, from stuffy four hour, word-perfect runs, to SparkNotes-style abbreviations that lose the meaning. There is a fine line between monotone delivery and over-exaggerating every line, which this production navigates perfectly. The original iambic pentameter is as easy to understand as modern English, making this show a delight for both Shakespeare enthusiasts and people who suffered through high-school English class. 

Overall, McMaster Thespian Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a delightful romp through the land of the fairies well worth the price of admission. Settle in, sit back and get ready for an evening full of tears, laughter and magic. 

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs from Jan. 24 to Feb. 1 at the Robinson Memorial Theatre in Chester New Hall. You can visit their event page on Facebook for more information and show times. Tickets are $14 for students and $17 for general admission.

 

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Photo C/O Kaz Ehara/Verity Creative Inc.

Four days, seven shows and one location. For the past five years, the Frost Bites theatre festival has created a space for non-traditional theatre in Hamilton. Frost Bites focuses on site-specific theatre, which means that the shows are created for a particular venue. Therefore, shows can only be performed in one space and at one time. 

This year the festival is taking place in and drawing inspiration from the Hamilton Waterfront Trust. Claire Calnan, the Executive Director of Hamilton Fringe, explains that before they begin writing, artists are taken on a tour of this venue and asked to write shows inspired by the space, challenging the typical process of writing the script first and finding the venue second. The festival is run by Hamilton Fringe and was created to add a dash of fun, bite-sized theatre to the cold winter months, and to challenge local artists to create something that transforms a space.

“Site-specific work is really interesting for me because it can transform a location for you, so that whenever you go by that location in the future you will think about it differently, because you’ve seen something happen there, or you’ve thought about it in a different way. It kind of transforms a landscape, and it can transform the landscape of a city,” said Calnan.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfUCjvIAxl8/

The festival also works with the Artistic Leadership and Entrepreneurial Training Program, a program run by Hamilton Fringe to develop new artistic leaders in the city. The youth that participate in the program assist with running Frost Bites, whether that be by helping to design the space or running the box office. In this way, Frost Bites not only fosters new theatre in the community, but paves the way for the future of the artistic community in the city.

One of the companies performing is DeVision, a collective of six McMaster Film and Theatre alumni: Adeline Okoyo, Maddie Krusto, Claudia Spadafora, Jamie Milay Kasiama, Brianna Seferiades and Yvonne Lu. Their show, Key Words Include, explores the complicated concept of femme bodies as marginalized and marginalizing. Krusto, now a Master of Arts student at McMaster in the gender studies and feminist program, says that the site-specific nature of the festival creates a unique opportunity to exercise their creativity.

“As an artist, it’s really interesting to not only have this mandate of ‘Make a show,’ but to be able to come in and be inspired by things in the room. For example, when we came in for the venue tour and came into the room, there’s a big glass case, and we walked in and we immediately were like, ‘We could put people in there!’ and, ‘What can we put in there?’ and we were climbing into it, and it’s just really fun to explore what that space offers . . . in some ways it’s very liberating to get to explore first, and to play in this space, and think about what we can do,” said Krusto.

“As an artist, it’s really interesting to not only have this mandate of ‘Make a show,’ but to be able to come in and be inspired by things in the room. For example, when we came in for the venue tour and came into the room, there’s a big glass case, and we walked in and we immediately were like, ‘We could put people in there!’ and, ‘What can we put in there?’ and we were climbing into it, and it’s just really fun to explore what that space offers . . . in some ways it’s very liberating to get to explore first, and to play in this space, and think about what we can do,” said Krusto.

Each group brings their own unique focus and ideas to their performances. DeVision knew that they wanted their work to examine ideas of subjection and consumption, but working in the building helped to mold and shape their ideas, evolving to fit the space that they are performing in.

“We already knew we wanted to do a show that was something about the consumption of femme bodies, and the way that we’re being consumed, and so now the show has evolved into what is our relationship to the land, both when us as subjects and bodies being consumed, but we’re also settlers and consuming the land and contributing to settler colonialism. So what is that relationship when you’re both marginalized, but also marginalizing,” said Krusto. 

Photo C/O Kaz Ehara/Verity Creative Inc.

Every show in the festival is performed in or around the same building, the Hamilton Waterfront Trust. But each show is dramatically different, offering different perspectives on the same building. Another performer is Annalee Flint, the creator of Flint and Steel Productions. She says that her show was entirely inspired by the venue.

“I specifically didn’t want to have anything in mind already, I really wanted to take advantage of the site-specific nature of it. So once I found out what the venue was I had kind of a little lightbulb about something that inspired me, and then once I actually got into the space I had that go further . . .  So it really has been created solely with Frost Bites in mind and solely with this particular venue in mind,” said Flint.

Flint’s show is entitled amo, amas, amat, and it examines the meaning of love. 

“It’s kind of an exploration of love, but using words and language, and maybe almost looking at what happens when you can have all of these beautiful, poetic words and declarations or statements about love, but you maybe can’t actually feel it or realize it for yourself . . . You spend your time focused on the beauty of language and the beauty of how love has been expressed by other people, but then you sort of neglect to figure out how to express it in your own world,” said Flint.

In order to fit multiple pieces into the same evening, shows are capped at 20 minutes, and are performed several times over the course of the evening. Amo, amas, amat has a run time of just 12 minutes. The multi-layered, complex meanings of the show are condensed down into bite-sized pieces, leaving the audience to construct interpretations of their own.

“[The show is] going to have all of [the meaning] behind it, but what actually is presented to the audience I think is something that everybody is going to take away a different meaning, or a different bit of wisdom, or a different emotion,” said Flint.

Frost Bites focuses on fostering relationships between different artists, encouraging artists to collaborate. Each night, audience members will be led into the main space, where there will be a special performance by Indigenous artist Rod Nettagog. On Saturday Feb. 1, choreographer Kyra Jean Green will be doing a dance collaboration with Nettagog. Audience members will not be the only ones seeing this for the first time, however; neither performer has ever met or worked with the other before — it will be an entirely unique and one-of-a-kind performance.

“It’s hard enough to create traditional theatre in the city and make it be successful, so then if you decide to create something a little bit off the beaten track, or a little bit unusual, or you want to put things in unusual places, it gets really hard to find an audience for that. I think that what I like about Frost Bites is that’s exactly what everybody that’s going to Frost Bites wants. They want something that’s a little bit different, a little bit weird perhaps, a little bit non-traditional; they know that that’s what the festival is about,” said Flint.

The Frost Bites festival happens in a new building every year, meaning that each performance is specific to its environment. The unique nature of the festival means that the artists have the opportunity to experiment and explore with different forms of theatre. Like the Hamilton Fringe Festival, artists that participate in Frost Bites are paid for their work. In this way, artists are able to hone their craft while still being supported by the community. 

Frost Bites runs from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 at the Hamilton Waterfront Trust (57 Discovery Drive). Adult tickets are $25 and grant you admission to as many shows as you can manage in one night. If that does not work with your budget, it is possible to see a 1-3 of the shows on Jan. 29 as part of the preview, for free. For more information or to pre-book, email info@hamiltonfringe.ca with “preview night RSVP” in the subject line.

 

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By: Lauren O'Donnell

‘A Two Piece’ consists of two separate and distinct dance pieces choreographed, respectively, by Georgi DiRocco and Jake Poloz. It is a part of the Hamilton Fringe Festival, and it runs until Sunday, July 28th. ‘A Two Piece’ is being put on at The Westdale Cinema, recently renovated and looking snazzier than ever. 

As the audience filters into the theatre, the dancers are warming up. There are brief flashes of the performance that is to come, interspersed with stretches and laughter. With dance performances it can be easy to feel out of place and confused, but that was not the case with this show. Every movement spoke directly to the heart of summer romance, however fleeting. The performers channelled every emotion from lovesick, to happy, to heartbroken, to disinterested in every boy on every dating app. Truly, the most relatable content.

The stage remained bare except for a small bin of props. The focus remains permanently on the performers. They command the stage. There are brief moments of slam poetry interwoven within the choreography, connecting the movements to the words in another kind of duet. The poetry is good, but the true strength of the performance lies in the dance. 

Each of the two pieces carries a different tone, as well as dramatically different music choices. In other words, if one of the pieces is not your other thing, the other one probably will be. Different as they may be, however, there is a cohesion and unity to the show that makes it feel whole and fulfilling. 

I give this show a solid 2/2 pieces. When you’re compiling your list of Fringe plays to go see, make sure to add this one in. And then go ahead and add in every other Fringe show.

For more information, visit http://hamiltonfringe.ca/shows/a-two-piece/

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Photo courtesy of Animal Show

By: Lauren O'Donnell

Animal Show is playing as part of the Hamilton Fringe Festival, and is in the Staircase Theatre in the Bright Room. It runs until Sunday, July 28th

Over the course of its 55 minutes showtime, Katie Hood’s one-woman play takes you through the daring rescues and harrowing tales of her time as an animal rescuer on the West coast. It is a roller coaster of emotions; by turns hilarious, gut-wrenching, and uplifting. I laughed so hard that I cried, and then I just plain old cried.

Hood breathes life into every character and every situation. We’re right there with her as she saves bald eagles, seagulls, and cats alike.* We are taken through several different rescues, interspersed with Hood’s stories and dialogues with others. Each character is memorable and interesting, with unique and funny personalities and quirks. It’s hard to say what is more compelling: the daring rescue of a bald eagle stranded at sea, or speed dating gone disastrously wrong. 

This show is a masterclass in storytelling, chock full of memorable tails and delightfully funny jokes. Provided free of context, my favourite line from the show is: “Cat urine is like the British Empire; nothing is gonna stand in its way.”

You should see this show if you like laughing uproariously, hearing stories about animals, and questioning your existence.

10/10, would cackle maniacally again. 

For more information, visit  http://hamiltonfringe.ca/shows/animal-show/

 

 

 

*And, of course, she’s never held a cat before.

 

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Photo courtesy of HCA Teen Creative Collective

By: Lauren O'Donnell

“The voices of the youth should be heard.” 

The Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts is a beautiful building chock full of art and history which is itself worth the price of admission. “HCA Teen Creation Collective: Connection” is playing there until Saturday, July 27th.

As we entered the space, we were told that the designer of the building was a very short man whose girlfriend left him for someone much taller, and as vengeance he created the space so that all tall people were forced to bang their heads. Regretfully, this turned out to be false. As we trekked up several flights of stairs we were regaled with further tales of how the building was initially meant to be a stair factory, but when it fell through they decided to shove as many stairs into the building as possible. This too turned out to be false, much to my disappointment. 

As we got to the top of the stairs, we were treated to a series of sketches performed in alternating spaces. The scenes were funny, well written, and excellently performed. They were spaced out throughout the different time periods of the HCA, from music conservatory, to youth home, to derelict building, to the art conservatory that it is today. Through each scene you can truly tell how much the group cares about the building they are in. There are many jokes made about the number of stairs. Deprived of context, my favourite quote was, “cats are cool”. 

Each of the time periods blends seamlessly together to form narratives of connection across different social groups, and even across different decades. Indeed, the strongest impression that I got from this play was an overwhelming sense of community. The show was created through devised theatre, which is a form of collaborative and organic creation. As a result, the show was and is shaped by the experiences of the performers, both as individuals and a group. It was truly a delight to see these young artists shaping and creating their own show for the Fringe Festival, and I look forward to seeing what they do next. 

Rating: 5/5 Sta(i)rs.

 

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Photos by Kyle West

From April 6 to April 17, the Studio Art program’s 2019 graduates will present the annual SUMMA exhibition. Entitled Counterpoint, the show will be curated by Hamilton textile artist Hitoko Okada. For the first time in over 30 years, the McMaster Museum of Art will not house the show due to its ongoing updates. The exhibition will instead take place at the Cotton Factory.

McMaster Studio Arts is a small program, with the fourth year class consisting of only 19 artists. With instruction on a range of media and a focus on environmentally responsible practices, the program has produced diverse artists who care about the world around them. Counterpoint means “to combine elements” and is fitting considering the amalgamation of their various styles and the balance they try to strike within their individual works.

The graduates organized the exhibition themselves. While it gave them a chance to learn more about the lives of professional artists, it also taught them to work together. Coordinating among 19 people was not easy and after some bumps in the road to find the perfect venue, they are all relieved to see the show finally coming together.

 

Deeshani Fernando

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Fernando spends a fair amount of time in nature, drawing and photographing the landscape around her. Back in the studio, she takes the colours, textures and lines from the environment to create the emotional and abstract landscape paintings that she’ll be displaying at Counterpoint.

“For me, [Counterpoint is] about… this the balance between the organic and the artificialness in my work… [I]t's taking… different colors… , textures and mark making and creating harmony and balance between all those different things within one image and creating a sort of peacefulness in that work,” Fernando explained.

Throughout the process of organizing the SUMMA show, Fernando learned how to survive as an artist. She feels that she now has an art practice of her own and regards her peers as professional contacts. As she leaves McMaster to pursue teaching, she will take those skills and contacts with her.

 

Caroline (Eun-ae) Lee

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For Lee, Counterpoint refers to the way her class’s wildly different works complement each other. Having spent four years critiquing and supporting one another’s practice, the exhibition represents the harmony between their different themes and materials.

The Korean-Canadian artist explores traditional Korean materials in her work. She portrays these traditional materials in a modern, digital format and then incorporates threading to unite the two ideas.

“I always get confused between Canadian and Korean aspects of myself… [T]his sense of detachment, trying to attach to something or being porous, kind of like a sponge, absorbing a lot of different cultures in order to make up my singular identity. And just like maintenance of this traditional and modern form of art,” Lee said.

Currently aiming to go into interactive design, Lee feels she learned the reality of being an artist. She has been exposed to the business side of the art world by learning to solve problems creatively and produce even without inspiration. The program’s push toward using materials to convey subtle themes has evolved Lee’s art practice.

Sean Cooper

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Cooper didn’t have a lot of purpose behind his art when he entered the studio arts program. Four years later, he feels he is a more deliberate artist and currently explores ideas around memory and coming of age. At Counterpoint, he will be presenting acrylic paintings of Westdale, where he grew up.

“[W]ith my work, I just try and talk about what that experience was like… [D]ifferent places… might not necessarily be important to other people but I guess I have certain memories there,” Cooper said.

The fact that this is the last art gathering of his university career saddens Cooper, but he knows the entire class is proud of the show. Despite the challenges they faced, they demonstrated that they could accomplish anything with collaboration. The different backgrounds and art practices of the class would not seem to mesh, but Cooper feels a nameless common thread unites their work.

 

Delaney McVeigh

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McVeigh believes process and environmentalism brings together her diverse class’ work. A self-identified environmental artist, she explores interactions between living things with one another and with inanimate objects. Having grown up in a small town near Point Pelee National Park, she spent a lot of time in nature growing up.

McVeigh’s work for Counterpoint is a series of photolithographic prints. This long and old process of creating images is meaningful to her. She tries to present her dystopian and nonsensical images in an aesthetically pleasing way with vintage elements.

“I use a lot of vintage imagery in my work… [A]fter World War II… there was the baby boom and they created a very unstable environment where it was a throwaway society. Nothing was fixed, it's all just thrown away… And then it wasn't until the ‘90s when the environment became a very serious topic,” McVeigh explained.

Her work is personal, but the program has made her more comfortable with speaking about her art. By sharing these narratives with her classmates and professors, they all grew close. She anticipates that this graduation show will be bittersweet, but there is a lot from her time at McMaster that she will be taking with her. She learned to critique her own work and reach out for help, which will help her as she pursues a career in sustainable architecture.

 

Jayda Conti

After graduating with her Bachelor of Fine Arts with minors in theatre and film studies and music, Conti will be going into teaching. Her teaching program will focus on educational art programming in the community, something that Conti is an advocate for. She is excited about the fact that Counterpoint will bring her program’s work off campus and into the Hamilton community.

Conti will be showing a five-piece installation consisting of floating boxes with deconstructed paintings in them. Her work revolves around her experiences with depression and anxiety to open a dialogue about mental health.

“[S]o for this body of work, there's five different stories to which I'm telling, one of which is the story about my mother's cancer. Normally… they're more negative experiences that I'm trying to understand in a more positive way. So my strokes are colors that are brighter in trying to… accept these experiences and… learn from them but also move forward,” Conti explained.

With her theatrical background, Conti sometimes feels as if she is performing herself. There is vulnerability in her portrayal of her life and she explores privacy versus vulnerability in her work. However, her time at McMaster gave her the confidence to tell her story through theatre, music and art.

 

The graduation show will open with a reception at the Cotton Factory from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on April 6. The graduating class looks forward to sharing their work with the Hamilton community.

 

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Photos C/O Yvonne Lu, James Ramlal

By: Andrew Mrozowski

Stop. Take a second and look up from this article. You’ll most likely see everyone around you on some form of technology, be it on their phones, tablets or computers. We now live in a world where we are so heavily dependent on technology. According to Yvonne Lu, people should be more conscious about how technology affects their identity.

Originally starting off her undergraduate career in commerce, Lu realized her passion laid in a different faculty. Lu began working in marketing and communications but felt like something was missing. She decided to take on a double major between multimedia and theatre and film.

Now in her final year at McMaster, Lu decided to combine her two disciplines into one overall thesis, taking the form of an interactive multimedia installation and a physical performance called interFACE, as part of the School of the Arts Honours Performance Series.

https://www.facebook.com/yvonne.lu.trinh/posts/10157497355097216

 

The concept for interFACE came to Lu over this past summer when she was employed by a music video company to be their social media coordinator. Although typically not very active on social media in her own life, Lu found herself getting jealous from the various platforms that she managed as there was an overall feeling that everyone was doing better than her.

“Although there definitely were positive and negative experiences, always being on social media and seeing that people younger than me were doing cooler things than I was, working with huge producers, big companies and getting more responsibility than I was… a lot of the times I felt jealous. It’s why I felt I was a step back, I understood why others were successful and a lot of it was trying to catch up with people,” explained Lu.

interFACE examines how young women interact with technology and how this oversaturation impacts their identity as they grow up. Stemming from a vignette of experiences, the multi-disciplinary art experience allows attendees to delve into the development of identity to look at similarities and differences between how we portray ourselves online versus in person.

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“The question to consider is whether or not social media and digital technology enables us to do more things, or if it consumes us and we are at the whim of the mass media,” explained Lu.

This form of installation is experimental as it features two parts. Viewers will first embark through an audio-visual capsule, which is an audio-sensory experience that saturates the audience in a world that Lu and her team have designed to convey the importance of why we should pay more attention to our own identities. Next viewers will be seated to enjoy the physical portion which expands on what they have observed in the audio-visual capsule.

“This is not something that you would see in traditional theatre. It’s not a narrative or linear piece. We are creating a visceral experience for both our collaborators and audience. We want them to feel that they are in the belly of the beast,” said Lu.

For the thesis student, what the audience takes away from the experience is the primary objective of this piece.

“There isn’t a specific message I want people to walk away with. It’s live theatre and it’s all about interpretation. For us, that’s kind of what I want audiences to walk away with. Questions of what they felt. It’s an emotional journey rather than a narrative,” said Lu.

Show times for interFACE will run on March 28 at 12:30 and 8 p.m. and on March 29 and March 30 at 12:30 and 7 p.m. at the Black Box Theatre in L.R. Wilson Hall. Admission is free.

 

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Photos C/O Trevor Copp

By: Jackie McNeill

Tottering Biped Theatre, a Hamilton-based theatre company founded by Trevor Copp, has reached over 600,000 views on a TED Talk about ‘liquid lead dancing,’ a gender neutral form of partner dancing.

Several McMaster alumni are involved in the theatre company, particularly with their summer Shakespeare work held at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

The theatre is social justice-focused, devising works that have addressed issues like poverty, same sex marriage and mental health and different interpretations of Shakespeare.

However, as prominent as the theatre’s work is, it is not what Copp is arguably best known for.

In 2015, he and his colleague Jeff Fox delivered a TED Talk in Montreal on a dance concept they developed called ‘liquid lead dancing.’

Liquid lead dancing, a form of gender neutral partner dance, was born out of Copp’s discomfort with the systems and rules he was perpetuating as a ballroom dance teacher.

As explained in their TED Talk, the strictly gendered partner dancing promotes a relationship shaped by dictation, where the man leads and the woman follows.

He and Fox developed liquid lead dancing to turn this dictation into a negotiation.

It proposes a system where lead and follow are exchanged throughout the course of the dance regardless of gender,” Copp explained.

This change of form will hopefully become normalized as a dance and help to normalize healthy relationships outside of partner dance as well.

The liquid lead dance between Copp and Fox morphed into a play about creating the first dance for a same sex wedding.

After a successful run of the play, a former student contacted Copp about presenting their dance form as a TED talk.

Copp and Fox’s TED talk was picked up by TED.com, and has over 600,00 views to date.

Despite the success of the TED talk, Copp admits that it has not been all smooth sailing promoting liquid lead dancing.

“Most people are comfortable with their given role, and, even though they aren't particularly traditional in their thinking, allow it to decide their roles as dancers. There's comfort in the familiar. I don't begrudge it at all. I just think that if you're going to recreate a culturally outdated form you should be conscious of it by making a choice to do so as opposed to sleepwalking your way through the dance form.”

Acknowledging that the work he had done with liquid lead dance is not that well-known in Hamilton, Copp is aiming to work harder at spreading the dance form in the future.

As explained in the TED Talk, liquid lead dancing is not about dance alone.

By addressing the strict roles perpetuated in partner dancing, Copp and Fox have begun to address the erasure of non-binary people and same-sex couples in dance, in addition to the exclusion of Black, Asian and other non-white bodies.

By bringing these issues that are prevalent within ballroom and partner dance to a wider audience with the TED Talk and Copp’s theatre company, the same issues that are prevalent in everyday life stand a better chance at being addressed.

Copp has performed liquid lead dance at conferences throughout Ontario, New York and Ireland and is looking forward to next presenting at a conference on consent and sexuality with Planned Parenthood in Virginia.

 

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Photo by Kyle West

By: Natalie Clark

When the quaint and beloved Westdale Theatre closed down in early 2017, residents of the Westdale community and many McMaster students were especially upset. Although fairly run down, the Westdale had been the community’s hot spot for Friday night dates, Hollywood’s must-see films and the best popcorn in town for as long as anyone could remember.

On Feb. 14, the Westdale community celebrated the long-awaited re-opening of the Westdale Theatre. Guests were told to dress in period attire for a special event accompanied by cocktails and a screening of the 1942 classic, Casablanca. The event also featured a silent auction, where guests could explore the new and improved venue while admiring local Hamilton art.

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With searchlights lighting up the night sky and a red carpet gracing the floor of the doors of the theatre, the Westdale certainly dressed to impress for their grand re-opening. The 350 ticket event sold out in two weeks.

For the past 30 years, the Westdale was owned by an elderly man in Toronto. It wasn’t until he passed away that his family put the theatre up for sale, allowing new owners to claim the theatre, known as the Westdale Cinema Group.

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“An enormous amount of changes were made… the theatre was in terrible condition, we spent 2.5 million dollars restoring it,” mentioned Fred Fuchs, chairperson of the Westdale Cinema Group.

“Besides equipping it with state-of-the-art projection, screens, new seats, new sound, new acoustic panelling, we also had to completely redo the air conditioning and the heating, the electrical system, the roof, the bathrooms — it was a complete overhaul of the entire theatre,” said Fuchs.

About two years later, the Westdale Theatre is back open for business, and the community is thrilled. Westdale resident and Silhouette alumnus, David Simpson, had one word to describe the re-opening event, “fabulous”.

“I think that the re-opening will be great for Westdale and for McMaster too, creating a hub for the community,” said Simpson.

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Members of the Westdale community are thrilled about the re-opening of the theatre but are also admiring the other advantages that the theatre welcomes to the community.

“It’s wonderful to see it revitalized, and to see hundreds of people in the theatre is great,” said Vivian Lewis, a member of the Westdale community.

“I think that the theatre is going to bring a diversity of films to the community,” mentioned Lewis. “Right now in Hamilton we just have lots of box theatres that are showing the same thing on every screen, and so this theatre will be our chance to see more art films and more alternative films that aren’t currently available in Hamilton.”

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Aside from standard film movies, the Westdale Theatre will also be hosting frequent live music shows, talks, performances and other special events.

“I’m excited about the idea that it’s not just a movie theatre anymore and that it’s also performance based,” said Sue Trerise-Adamson, another Westdale resident.

“I think that is a really good idea, and it expands all the possibilities of the theatre… I think it’s a real anchor for the whole community of Westdale,” mentioned Trerise-Adamson.

Westdale locals have already begun visiting the theatre for their regular screenings and are grateful to have the theatre back in the community.

Experience the new and improved Westdale Theatre on your own and check out all available screenings and shows on their website: https://www.thewestdale.ca/now-playing/

 

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