My Playwright Sister, written and performed by James Diamond and Johanna Nutter, is a sequel of sorts to Nutter’s earlier work, My Pregnant Brother. My Pregnant Brother sets Nutter’s struggle to assert herself against her instinct to help her pregnant, transgendered brother. While this autobiographical piece is exquisitely well-performed, it
Continue readingTag: Performance
The Scott Ross: Flaherty’s Curtain
Jim Flaherty was unethical, incompetent and he should have been fired. Those aren’t my words, they’re Thomas Mulcair’s, spoken just last year in Question Period. Yet after the former Finance Minister’s death, Mulcair has called him a good man and a great public servant. There’s no doubt that the NDP
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Flaherty’s Curtain
Jim Flaherty was unethical, incompetent and he should have been fired. Those aren’t my words, they’re Thomas Mulcair’s, spoken just last year in Question Period. Yet after the former Finance Minister’s death, Mulcair has called him a good man and a great public servant. There’s no doubt that the NDP
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Flaherty’s Curtain
Jim Flaherty was unethical, incompetent and he should have been fired. Those aren’t my words, they’re Thomas Mulcair’s, spoken just last year in Question Period. Yet after the former Finance Minister’s death, Mulcair has called him a good man and a gre…
Continue readingArt Threat: Pussy Riot to be released from jail, leaked amnesty bill suggests
Rumblings out of Russia point to a possible imminent release of jailed Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. According to Russian media reports, the Kremlin is planning to release 1,300 people from prison as part of an amnesty dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution. A
Continue readingArt Threat: Allegheny, BC: transformative theatre that shirks corporate culture
With six internationally acclaimed albums and a well-received book of poetry to his name, Rodney DeCroo is turning his talents to the theatre. I met with Mr. DeCroo in Vancouver at a Commercial Drive café in late August and talked with him about his current project. Allegheny, BC, directed by
Continue readingArt Threat: Syrian president Bashar al-Assad mocked in satirical finger puppet performance
From The Guardian: Anonymous Syrian art group Masasit Mati launched the online finger-puppet show Top Goon: Diaries of a Little Dictator in 2011 to lampoon Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive rule. Amid escalating violence, in January 2013 the group secretly travelled to the town of Manbij, north of Aleppo to perform episodes
Continue readingArt Threat: Mapping the world’s largest solar farm with Project 929
How large of a solar farm is needed to completely power the United States? The simple answer is that a solar farm 100 miles long and 100 miles wide would be “more than enough to meet the country’s entire energy demand.” The far more interesting answer, however, is that this
Continue readingArt Threat: Temps Libre: an album filled with hope, inspired by the printemps érable
Something happened last spring: a whole generation of Montrealers was mobilized, politicized, made aware that they had a voice. Finally opening their windows onto spring mornings as the snow melted into the grass, people converged outside, en masse, where the air was filled with promise. They filled their lungs with
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender
Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender This weekend I had the privilege of participating in a conference on Disability and Ableism at Ryerson University. Let me just say first that it is an incredible feeling to be among people fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). To see them speak
Continue readingArt Threat: Pussy Riot member denied appeal by Russian court
A Russian court has turned down an appeal by jailed Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, who has requested to serve the remainder of her prison sentence in the future when her 5-year-old son turns 14. She had argued that their separation has damaging his development. Amnesty International criticized the ruling.
Continue readingArt Threat: The Human Library lends people and renews understanding
Are you curious what goes on in the mind of a queer Islamaphobe? Or perhaps you’d rather pick the brain of a polyamorous lover? No, I’m not suggesting you call up your cable provider and subscribe to TLC. Rather, you should step away from the screen and hit up the
Continue readingArt Threat: Shunpo into the new year
I’ve been looking for nice ways to start the new year. Typically, I am diligent about making reviews of past years, goals for upcoming years, a handful of resolutions – but this December the time to do this slipped from my fingers. Shunpo landed in my inbox last week and
Continue readingArt Threat: Carrot loophole saves theatre from tax hike
Austerity measures in Spain have increased taxes on nearly everything. Tax on theatre tickets was bumped from 8 to 21 percent, and in an already challenging economy, theatre companies were naturally worried about whether higher costs would keep the public away. In the town of Bescanó, two hours north of
Continue readingArt Threat: The DNA of a public space: The place, history and activism of a public square – Artists invite Montreals to share 9 day cultural festival
This is an event for everyone intended to give the homeless and other Montrealers the opportunity to get involved as on-site volunteers and participants in “an incomparable atmosphere of mutual aid and social solidarity made possible by support from the artistic and business communities as well as the institutional sector and community-based organizations.”
Continue readingArt Threat: Guernica brings Picasso’s grotesque cubist forms to life through theatre
I am no stranger to war history or art history, having studied both in some depth at university. So the idea of attending a play based on Pablo Picasso’s painted representation of one of the most destructive acts in the period between the world wars, the bombing of the small
Continue readingArt Threat: First Day Back tackles queer teen suicide
Thanks in large part to the hyper-mediated and celebrity-driven character of the contemporary LGBT movement, the issue of queer youth suicide has rightly found its way into the public spotlight. Stories of young queers taking their own lives as an escape from bullying have become tragically commonplace in recent years.
Continue readingArt Threat: She Has a Name leaves you breathless – Play on human trafficking touches without playing the guilt card
Three white cloaked figures move in and out of the set, whispering layers of thought from behind the scared eyes of Number 18 – a 15 year old prostitute being forced to work in Bangkok. The rise of music and emotional of the small 5 member cast of the play
Continue readingArt Threat: Vancouver Fringe brims with political plays
The Troubles (Resounding Scream Theatre) The Vancouver International Fringe Festival is underway in Canada’s westernmost metropolis, with 97 shows on offer during a program that lasts over two weeks. This year there are several plays that tackle political issues, touching on themes like human trafficking, homelessness, teen suicide, bilateral relations,
Continue readingArt Threat: Walking as art to avoid global catastrophe – Review: The Robinson Institute by Patrick Keiller at Tate Britain
Portrait of Patrick Keiller. (Photo: Samuel Drake) It is not always the case that definitive moments in art history can be precisely located. Certainly not the first act of artistic creation, that “strange beginning” of Gombrich’s Story of Art — a 35,000 year-old mammoth ivory carving, perhaps? The American architectural
Continue reading