Welcome to the curious world of Ori. The seer and keeper of all fates, Ori tugs on the universal strings that connect us, bringing acute attention to the quickly unraveling story of Lynn and Jim.
Lynn and Jim were happy once, but a manipulative and devising Wolf preys on their happiness, revealing a hard but important lesson for Ori along the way.
Part folktale, part poem, Snout bring elements of contemporary choreography, inclusive set design, projection in the round and a living soundscape to draw the audience into a fully immersive experience. With no separation between audience and stage, theatre-goers can expect a departure from the norm – Ori’s door is open, and he’d like to invite you in for tea and a story.
Azimuth Theatre presents
The 2013 Emerging Company Showcase
featuring Catch the Keys Productions SNOUT
May 2 – 11
PCL Studio Theatre, ATB Financial Arts Barns
Tickets: tickets.fringetheatre.ca
Show times:
May 2 – 4 at 8pm
Pay what you can May 7 at 8pm
May 8 – 11 at 8pm
May 8 & 10 at 11pm
Written by Megan Dart | Directed by Beth Dart
with Ainsley Hillyard | Steve Pirot | Mat Simpson | Ben Stevens
Choreography by Ainsley Hillyard | Set Design by Sydney Gross
Sound Design by Michael Caron| Projection Design by Matt Schuurman
Stage Managed by Julie Ferguson | Photography by Marc J Chalifoux
Catch the Keys is proud to lend artsScene Edmonton a hand as they storm the Breakfast Television Edmonton studio for second annual Trip the Light. An exclusive bash featuring some of Edmonton’s hottest talent, Trip the Light 2 is a who’s who of Edmonton’s young professional business and arts scenes.
artsScene Edmonton & Breakfast Television Edmonton present
Join Startup Edmonton and Catch the Keys Productions as they partner for Intersect, a collision of artists + geeks, 7pm on Friday, April 12, 2013 at the Startup Edmonton space at the Mercer Warehouse (10359 – 104 Street).
A collision of technical and creative minds, Intersect is a new event that puts geeks and artists on-stage to show off projects that merge the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design and other creative fields. An innovative way for the public to support artists and creators, Intersect aims to inspire constructive conversations and interactions around concepts, demos, samples and prototypes being made in Edmonton.
A full line-up of featured creators and projects will be announced on-line one-week prior to the event. Tickets to Intersect are $10 + service fees.
In collaboration with Startup Edmonton, Catch the Keys is proud to curate the collision of artists and geeks at the inaugural Intersect!
Startup Edmonton is a campus, co-workspace and accelerator that kickstarts and activates local startups. Its role in the local startup ecosystem lies at the earliest stages, as ideas evolve into action, where startups form and gain initial traction. With a vision to make Edmonton a hotbed for creativity and entrepreneurship, Startup Edmonton is committed to empowering 500 creative entrepreneurs over the next five years. For more information on Startup Edmonton, visit Startupedmonton.com.
Catch the Keys has joined the Make Something Edmonton movement, and we want you to be a part of it!
A part of our everyday lives, the kitchen sink is privy to some our most hilarious, heartbreaking, heartwarming and honest moments. Started four years ago as a simple experiment to encourage friends and family to share their stories, The Kitchen Sink project has gathered more than 100 personal stories from around the world. The Kitchen Sink Project aims to collect multigenerational, multicultural, real-life stories inspired by the kitchen sink that examine the roles we put on and take off in and out of the home.
Please: tell us your Kitchen Sink story.
Stories collected will be translated into an evolving multidiscplinary performance project that uses theatre, dance, music and interactive art to share our collective history. The first installation will be staged at the 2013 Found Festival, June 27 – 30 in the Old Strathcona neighbourhood.
So, send us an email at mdart@catchthekeys.ca, meet us for coffee, record your grandmother telling her kitchen sink story, release your messenger pigeon – however you do it, we want to hear your story.
Catch the Keys returns to the Expanse Festival with a killer line up of late night parties featuring the hot ‘n’ sexy talents of some of Canada’s best artists. Rock your weekend and roll into the New City Legion for two off the wall events brought to you by the Queens of after dark performance parties.
The Be Moved Cabaret featuring Mark Mills Friday, March 8 at The New City Legion $15 advance | $20 at the door | $10 for festival artists
A rollicking night of raucous performance art, The Be Moved Cabaret brings together local performers of all disciplines for an evening of discovery, dancing and drinking. Combining analog electro dance hooks, fused with sex pop flare, Calgary’s Mark Mills lets the beats loose on Expanse. Let’s Dance! Advance tix available through YEGLive.
C.R. Avery featuring Jeni Thai Saturday, March 9 at The New City Legion $15 in advance | $20 at the door | $10 for festival artists
His incredible live performances have been described as Bob Dylan in the body of Iggy Pop; colliding with Little Walter, the Beastie Boys and Allen Ginsberg. Outlaw Hip-Hop Harmonica Player, Beatbox Poet, Punk Piano Player, Rock & Roll Matador, C.R. Avery is a unique, raw and dynamic performer. He is a one-man band with the rare ability to sing poetic verse while beatboxing simultaneously while pounding the piano and adding harmonica like a plot twist.
“…he’s blowin’ my mind” – Tom Waits
Opening act: Edmonton’s soulful songstress Jenie Thai with her hot keys and electric blues-infused vocals.
CtK is thrilled to co-host Edmonton’s inaugural We Should Know Each Other event with Calgary’s busiest artist and man about town, Mr. Mark Hopkins!
On February 24, Edmontonians will have their first chance to experience a Calgary-based community-building event that has gained national attention: We Should Know Each Other (WSKEO).
The concept is straightforward: Edmonton residents of every age, culture, profession, sexuality, etc. are invited to gather at The Artery… to meet each other. Facilitated with nametags and friendly hosts, attendees from diverse communities will enjoy surprising conversations in a welcoming environment, all for the simple pleasure of meeting someone new.
Mark Hopkins hosted the first WSKEO event in his Calgary apartment on February 24, 2008; its debut in Edmonton will mark the initiative’s five-year anniversary. While the vast majority of WSKEO events have taken place in Hopkins’ apartment, larger-scale versions have occurred in art galleries, warehouses, a C-Train station, a hot dog restaurant, a cohousing complex, a bookstore and Calgary City Hall. Its largest event – WSKEO #100 – took place in the King Edward Arts Hub & Incubator, a 100-year-old, four-storey school building. The two-day event included more than fifty participating groups and attracted more than 2,500 attendees.
Since its founding, WSKEO has been featured in Maclean’s Magazine, CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera, Breakfast Television, Avenue Magazine and more. It was also the topic of a TEDxCalgary talk, and was featured in Erin McManus’ documentary, Crave Calgary, and in the Canada West Foundation’s book, A Place to Call Home: Building Community, Inspiration and Creativity in Western Canada.
WHAT: We Should Know Each Other (a community-building event) FREE – visit www.wskeo.com for details WHEN: Sunday, February 24, 2013 – 7:00-11:00 pm WHERE: The Artery, 9535 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB
naked ladies dance
as the fat king whacks it off
towards the light now
The Tudor Queens, a remount of the Fringe hit by Send in the Girls Burlesque is nothing short of theatre brilliance. Sassy, fun, sexy on the one hand, poignant, polished, and dramatic on the other, Tudor Queens is a great blend of theatre, dance, politics and history. Each character is carefully developed. The story a great blend of history, engaging dialogue and sensual sauciness. The Tudor Queens is a play that should not be missed. It hits every emotional level and leaves you just wanting more.
On a scale of one to the Queen of England Tudor Queens is the Edge of Glory.
**
About Mike:
Mike Hudema is a long time member of the Canadian progressive scene. He was part of a motley band of activists that took to the streets of Quebec City for the FTAA protests, slept on the steps of the legislature to protest rising tuition rates when he was President of the University of Alberta Students’ Union, and occupied Anne McLellan’s office to defeat Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation. In his spare time he used to co-host CJSR’s alternative news program Rise Up: Radio Free Edmonton and co-wrote books like the recently published “An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away.”
Mike worked in San Francisco for 3 years for the Peace and Human Right organization Global Exchange on a corporate campaign with the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network targeting the auto industry. He currently works for Greenpeace as the Climate and Energy Campaigner focusing on stopping the tar sands, the largest industrial project on the face of the planet and bringing about a green job future. He is also a climb trainer with the Ruckus Society.
My intrigue in the name of this performance was only enhanced when I walked in the theatre and saw both performers face-down on the ground, booze in hand. The Supertramp theme music added to the awesome, as did the trombone, guitar, tickle trunk, and disco ball on set. Then the snoring began. But it wasn’t just any snoring, it was synchronized clown snoring.
Little did I know, the simplicity of the set was entirely deceptive. As the show progressed, more and more elements of insanity joined the stage, not to mention the audience.
The form of the show was brilliant. It ended as it began, as they completed the difficult task they set out at the beginning of their journey and then both fell asleep. Their comedy style was intense! Like Shakespeare, their comedy scenes were immediately and cruelly followed by intense emotional moments of reflection, but the shifts were far more pronounced. They were often so immediate and blurred that you found yourself wanting to laugh at a mourning son and his widower father, unsure if you should feel guilty for doing so.
The language heartless buffoons spoke was a brilliant blend of English, Eastern European, I think some Scandinavian, and a little franglais for good measure. They are so good at speaking this gibberish that the audience is even able to learn some of the frequently-used words, and anticipate new words. Brilliant.
In an attempt to avoid the inevitable audience participation of a show run by 2 actors raised in a town of street performers (why isn’t it called busking here, anyway?), I sat back a couple rows and off to the side. It was in vain, because Fozby needed an opponent in the sword fight, and Tonk spotted me. It was a blast!
While I would have been happy to see the show without so much crude humour, it was a riot, and I’m glad I went. These are brilliant performers with lots of career ahead of them. They even announced the sequel, Vice Reversa, which is sure to be a great show. Watch for it at Nextfest and the Fringe. And if you see clowns as passé or irrelevant, you have obviously never seen a show like this. It boldly goes where no clown has gone before.
**
About Jerry:
Jerry Aulenbach has been involved in live theatre from an early age. His mother put him in puppetry workshops at Mermaid Theatre in his hometown of Windsor, Nova Scotia as a young boy, and that led to an immediate love of the arts. He has performed with André Tahon’s troupe of marottes http://youtu.be/ZQX5Z1PvlFgand, in grade 11, played Pharaoh in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” He and his wife Kelly-Dawn have 4 children, and he makes a living selling real estate, but his friends think he is addicted to twitter and restaurant hopping.
Guest festival blogger and local funny man Jon Mick gives Punctuate! Theatre‘s Vice Versa 19 stars! Catch Vice Versa this Wednesday, Jan 30 at 7:30pm and Friday, February 1 at 7:30pm at C103.
**
Death can be hilarious. It’s hard to believe but it is true. Think about the time you chuckled when you heard about some poor soul getting crushed by 2 tonnes of marshmallows or when an action hero delivers a hilarious line before dispatching one of his many on-screen foes. Even in my own life, when I lost my grandfather as a child, my family and I were spreading his ashes when a large gust of wind picked up and blew his remains right into my face and I went running around screaming “I’VE GOT GRANDPA IN MY EYE, I’VE GOT GRANDPA IN MY EYE!”
Death can be hilarious, it just takes the right people to show you the comedy in it. This is where Tonk and Fozby, the two heroes in the hilarious clown show Vice Versa come in. The play is about this father and son duo are trying to come to terms with the loss of their wife and mother respectively. Throughout the show we are treated to all different sorts of coping mechanisms and ways to deal with finality. Whether it be through drink (a beer bong extravaganza), food (HOT DOGS!), romance (a dinner date with a blow up doll), music (Supertramp!) or sheer feats of strength (Sword fight!) we find Tonk and Fozby navigating all different sorts of emotions and finding many different ways to laugh in the face of death. Death is never easy, not by a long shot, but the people behind this hilarious work show us that at the very least it can be good for a laugh.
19 stars! Great work! Now beer bong me!
**
About Jon:
Jon Mick is a stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He can do these things all at once or one at a time, it’s really up to you. He has performed at various festivals, including NXNE, Sled Island and Improvaganza, and has opened for the likes of Maria Bamford, Neil Hamburger, Tig Notaro and Brody Stevens. Jon has two stand up albums entitled “Who Knew?” and “Beardmilk”. He has written and acted in/for a nationally broadcast sketch show, can be found in puppet form in the Felt Up! webseries and is often putting on over the top extravaganzas at the Garneau Theatre. Really, Jon is just a funny guy who wants you to have fun with him. He also love perogies, The Bob Newhart show and was the Northern Alberta Connect 4 champion circa 1997, 98, 99.
This is the old west
Imagination ketchup
The blood on your hands
Walking into New City one hardly knows what to expect from two theatre artists from England and their play known simply as ‘A Western.’ The audience sits scattered throughout the dankly lit bar. On the stage sits a table and a bottle of ketchup. Next to the bar sits a small mountain bike. And with that the play begins.
The play is composed of a series of well-crafted vignettes. Each one taking the audience through the stereotyped scenes that comprise almost every western ever made. The audience is not immune to this romp but instead is an integral part of it. The play is shaped by their reaction and participation and by the end all shall have blood on their hands.
On a scale of one to John Wayne, A Western is a big YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWWW!
**
About Mike:
Mike Hudema is a long time member of the Canadian progressive scene. He was part of a motley band of activists that took to the streets of Quebec City for the FTAA protests, slept on the steps of the legislature to protest rising tuition rates when he was President of the University of Alberta Students’ Union, and occupied Anne McLellan’s office to defeat Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation. In his spare time he used to co-host CJSR’s alternative news program Rise Up: Radio Free Edmonton and co-wrote books like the recently published “An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away”.
Mike worked in San Francisco for 3 years for the Peace and Human Right organization Global Exchange on a corporate campaign with the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network targeting the auto industry. He currently works for Greenpeace as the Climate and Energy Campaigner focusing on stopping the tar sands, the largest industrial project on the face of the planet and bringing about a green job future. He is also a climb trainer with the Ruckus Society.
Guest festival blogger Mike Hudema shares his thoughts (and Haikus!) on Victoria Melody’s Northern Soul.
**
Pre-Haiku:
Brown box coffee mug
Stage eclectic offerings
I wait for pigeon.
It’s not often that a somewhat random assortment of home movies and childhood tales could make for an engaging piece of theatre, but when mixed with a healthy dose of northern soul and equal parts pigeon that is exactly what you have with Northern Soul.
Northern Soul, (part of the 2013 Canoe Festival from Workshop West) is a journey with UK theatre artist Victoria Melody into her awkward musings and fact finding about two dying culture groups – pigeon fanciers and northern soul dancing. Through random tales, photographs, home movies, and intimate dialogs, Victoria weaves a tale of woe and wonderment.
Walking into the theatre I knew very little about Victoria, pigeons, or northern soul. Coming out I now know that:
• There is a pigeon hall of fame.
• Northern soul dancing is best done with stretchy pants and baby powder.
• Pigeons can play ping-pong and prefer Frank Sinatra.
Those are just the tip of this play’s iceberg.
On a scale of 1 to pigeon, Northern Soul was definitely Frankie Beverly and the Butlers.
After-Haiku:
Awkward journeying
Family, dance, music, life.
Soul to the Pigeon.
**
About Mike:
Mike Hudema is a long time member of the Canadian progressive scene. He was part of a motley band of activists that took to the streets of Quebec City for the FTAA protests, slept on the steps of the legislature to protest rising tuition rates when he was President of the University of Alberta Students’ Union, and occupied Anne McLellan’s office to defeat Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation. In his spare time he used to co-host CJSR’s alternative news program Rise Up: Radio Free Edmonton and co-wrote books like the recently published “An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away”.
Mike worked in San Francisco for 3 years for the Peace and Human Right organization Global Exchange on a corporate campaign with the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network targeting the auto industry. He currently works for Greenpeace as the Climate and Energy Campaigner focusing on stopping the tar sands, the largest industrial project on the face of the planet and bringing about a green job future. He is also a climb trainer with the Ruckus Society.
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit plays again on Friday, February 1 at 9:30pm and Saturday, February 2 at 2pm at C103.
**
Before I start my review, there are a few things I think you should know.Firstly, I would advise those of you who are squeamish or triggered by suicide avoid the show. It is in no means graphic, but it will give you pause. Secondly, the Iranian playwright, Nassim Soleimanpour, has only just recently been issued a passport to leave his country. His words are meant to leave for him, to speak where he cannot. Being such, the audience is encouraged to email Nassim after the show to describe it to him. To tell him about the performance, which he cannot attend. My review is my letter to him.
Dear Nassim Soleimanpour,
You do not know me, but I feel after tonight, I have seen a glimpse into you. I was one of 39 people. No – that number isn’t quite right – 43, plus you, who participated in White Rabbit Red Rabbit on the evening of January 25, 2013. It is the middle of winter here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – however today it was only just hovering below zero degrees Celsius. I didn’t even wear my coat outside when I took an afternoon break from work. The 43 of us – this includes the techs, actress, and audience – took part in the performance at C103, just off Whyte Avenue.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think before I came to the show. All I knew was that the actress would be handed an envelope, and inside would be your words. She would have to perform them in front of us. I had no idea if whether these words of a man unable to travel – from a country so different from our own – would be hostile, educational or perhaps something not to my liking. I never expected what I experienced.
This photo is of Jon Paterson and Beth Dart. Jon is the Stage Manager (he also is an actor and stilt walker) as you see here, he is holding the script, in the sealed envelope, moments before the play would begin. He also holds a vial. I will not spoil the contents of it for those who have not seen the play – but they should be warned that it is life or death.
As we sit, the actress, your voice for the evening – a 30-something year old woman with a British accent, Belinda Cornish, enters. She opens the envelope, and the evening truly begins. Over the next hour, I cannot fully comprehend the emotions she brings to the delivery. She visibly tears up, she laughs, she acts like a cheetah, who acts like an ostrich. She is a storyteller, she is you, she is herself. She is the bear, the white rabbit, the red rabbit. She delivers a performance that I can only imagine is one of the best your script has ever possibly seen. By the end of the evening, I cannot possibly imagine that this incredibly talented woman had never seen the script before. And believe me, I asked.
Brilliant. Moving. Intense. The words Cornish gives life cause us all to reflect. I was told that the actors who perform are not allowed to drive themselves home after the show, and I would completely agree with whomever made that decision.
Your play left me without a solid conclusion. White Rabbit Red Rabbit is not a show that you leave feeling warm and fuzzy with. It is a half hour long discussion on the car ride home. It is pausing in long, contemplative thought.
It is also seeing your friend on stage making a rabbit face.
There were light moments. There are portions of audience participation. But what I found the most brilliant and amazing about your play, was that even those of us who did not participate, did.
And perhaps that’s what you intended. Perhaps your freedom exists in every single audience member taking a bit of you home with them. Your story, your thoughts.
White Rabbit Red Rabbit plays twice more during the Canoe festival. I will strongly be encouraging people to attend the two shows. I honestly feel sad that they will not see Cornish’s performance, as it is one of my favourite performances I have ever seen. However, I hear the next two to perform it, will also do so wonderfully.
Knowing now, after the performance, that you do have your passport, you are able to travel, does not change anything. It does not change your voice from the past speaking to present-day us. It doesn’t change the lack of freedom you felt.
Seeing White Rabbit Red Rabbit is, in itself, a celebration of our freedom. Our freedom to make decisions, to go see plays like it, to speak freely, to let our ears hang out from under our hats – and not to fear crows.
Thank you, Nassim, for sharing this play with us. For writing when you got a chance, for risking your life to follow your passion. White Rabbit Red Rabbit was a memorable experience, a play unlike anything I have ever seen before and doubt I will again.
Humbly and gratefully, I thank you.
Brittney Le Blanc, Audience member 34.
**
About Brittney:
When Brittney isn’t trying to meet 5,000 people in one year, she is working at the Edmonton Journal on Capital Ideas. Formerly a radio journalist, she is used to putting herself out there and meeting lots of people in varied circumstances. When off the clock, she co-organizes Edmonton Girl Geek Dinners, volunteers for the Jerry Forbes Centre, Santas Anonymous, the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation and various other festivals, organizations and events. A proud Edmontonian, she will be the first to invite you to spin the giant baseball bat, loves exploring the city, and is actively pursuing ways to make the city even better. She enjoys doodling dinosaurs during meetings, drinking caffeinated beverages, adventures, pushing out of comfort zones, and is always looking for unicorns. Brittney loves attending shows around town, geeking out, social media, and cat-sits for so many friends that it is pretty much a hobby.
On January 7, 2007, Catch the Keys staged it’s very first production. A multidisciplinary experiment, The (admittedly pretentiously named) Revolution saw the immediate interaction of theatre, improvised music and visual art created on the spot, in front of a live audience. Each of the three mediums were communicated through audio and/or visual technology anchored in different rooms of the University of Alberta‘s Timms Centre (back in the day when *gasp* wifi wasn’t even available).
Six years to that very day, Catch the Keys has moved into it’s new home. One of six pioneering creative entrepreneurs putting down roots in Startup Edmonton‘s Creators Studio, CtK, for the first time in its history, has a place to call home that isn’t, well, actually our house, where we live and eat and sleep.
True to our roots, the Creators Studio is home to creatives of all walks: graphic designers, industrial designers, fashion designers, production designers, writers, playwrights, illustrators, filmmakers, musicians, video game developers, photographers, storytellers, producers, and publishers. A reflection of the mandate we’ve carefully cultivated since that fateful night in January, this new home will allow us to interact with and be inspired by the multidisciplines, everyday. This, friends, is a manifestation of the revolution we attempted to kickstart six short years ago.
This milestone, like any of the milestones we’ve met thus far, is due to the unbelievable support we receive from our community. Though the list is long and growing, please know we couldn’t do it without y’all – we thank and appreciate you more than you know.
Catch the Keys is proud to work with two exciting productions taking over E-Town this December.
Convergence: Where Contemporary Dance and Interactive Technology Meet
Voted Edmonton’s best dance company in Vue Weekly’s 2012 Best Of, the Good Women Dance Collective returns with its second annual Convergence – an evening of inspired contemporary dance performance coupled with experimental interactive technology, December 6 through 8 at L’Uni Theatre.
Exploring themes of modern technology and our constructed versions of reality, the ability to be two places at once, and the juxtaposition of the modern world versus the natural world around us, Convergence begs the question: is being too accessible damaging honest human connection?
A double bill featuring an extended version of Ainsley Hillyard’s Face Time, Convergence also employs the design talents of visual artist Kevin Green, and the use of five projectors, in the new collaborative work (de)Compose, which will see live interaction between movement artists and Green, creating a responsive landscape where Green is as much a performer as the dancers.
Convergence December 6 – 8, 8pm L’Uni Theatre, 8627 91 Street $20 Regular | $15 Students, Seniors, Members Tickets available through Tix on the Square
The Snow Globe Festival of Children’s Theatre
An electric five day festival featuring fun for the whole family, Snow Globe Festival of Children’s Theatre takes over C103 (formerly the Catalyst Theatre) December 18-22, 2012. Producing educational and entertaining theatre for young audiences, Snow Globe offers affordable tickets for families, and runs both student matinees and public performances of four plays: Babes in Toyland, Robin Hood,Birdie on the Wrong Bus, and The Holiday Half Time Show.
Last year’s festival was a huge success with more than one thousand kids attending our school matinees of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Fairy Catcher’s Companion, and Miss Electricity.
Snow Globe Festival of Children’s Theatre December 18-22, 2012 C103 (formerly Catalyst Theatre) Tickets available through Tix on the Square
An exciting new initiative has rolled into town, and Catch the Keys is proud to be swept up in the excitement.
A grassroots initiative designed to bring together the Edmonton theatre industry, The Theatre Edmonton Project is dedicated to accelerating and advancing creative and artistic innovation across Edmonton’s theatre community.
It is with a heavy heart we share the news of our dear friend Stuart Hoye, who was injured in an accident this past weekend. Stu has been an artistic associate of Catch the Keys and the central narrator of Dead Centre of Town for the past five years. Stu is on the long road to recovery, and is being extremely well cared for at the University of Alberta’s intensive care unit. He is surrounded by the love of his friends and family.
Ours is a tight knit family of creators, and Stu’s positive energy and creative input is integral to the production of Dead Centre of Town. We have decided to put Dead Centre of Town on a one year hiatus as we focus our energy on helping Stu heal. This was not an easy decision to make, for we know Stu would undoubtedly tell us “the show must go on!”
Our sincerest thanks to those who have supported Dead Centre of Town for the last five years – we will be back better than ever next year, and look forward to giving you a proper fright!
We send our love and healing energy to Stu and his family as he recovers. There is an army of people who love you, Stu – get well soon!
Take care of one another.
xo
Megan & Beth Dart
Artistic Producers, Catch the Keys Productions
In celebration of Alberta Culture Days, the Edmonton Theatre industry is coming together to crash the Citadel in style. Drink up, then talk up the state of industry on September 29th and 30th.
Crash the Citadel in downtown Edmonton’s hottest new late night performance venue, The Club. Dance your feet off to the spunky jazz infusions of Edmonton’s own Audrey Ochoa and the Crashers and the sweet spinning stylings of Urban Monks (DJs Thomas Scott & Marc Carnes). A chance for Edmonton’s theatre industry to come together and celebrate Alberta Culture Days over drinks, Crash the Citadel is our chance to storm the Citadel in style.
Come early, stay late, drink up, party hard.
Crash the Citadel Saturday, September 29 | Doors at 10pm The Club at The Citadel FREE ADMISSION
It’s no secret we all bitch about the many problems facing our industry. Now’s your chance to say your piece. A who’s who in Edmonton Theatre, Meet Up or Shut Up will put Edmonton’s greatest theatre minds together in the same room.
Get to know your fellow Artistic Directors, Actors, Producers, Stage Managers, Designers, Technicians, General Managers, Administrators and audience. Find out what’s new this season. Start a conversation about real solutions to pending problems. The first in a series of ongoing events to bring our industry together, Meet Up or Shut Up will also mark the launch of an exciting new grass roots initiative designed to strengthen and celebrate our industry. So, either meet up or shut up.
Now is the time to start the discussion.
Meet Up or Shut Up Sunday, September 30 | 2pm – 4pm The Club at The Citadel Hosted by Amy Shostak with Rapid Fire Theatre FREE ADMISSION
Catch the Keys enjoyed a busy summer. So busy, in fact, we didn’t have time to update our website! We’d like to extend our thanks to a few key organizations for making our summer spectacular.
A great big thanks to Race Week Edmonton for bringing us in to manage their Ford Family Fun Zone. We enjoyed entertaining the more than 10,000 families who, rain or shine, came out to enjoy the Ford Activation Zone, bouncy castles, pedal cars, United Cycle Kick Tents and more.
Special thanks to the Edmonton International Fringe Festival and Rapid Fire Theatre for joining forces with us to bring you The Late Night Cabaret for the third year running. This late night variety show saw some of Fringe’s best and brightest grace the LNC stage, and even challenged a few with a series of hilarious dares. We’ll be back again next year with more laughs and late night debauchery!
Catch the Keys was proud to provide publicity support to StageLab, the University of Alberta Department of Drama’s innovative theatre festival which saw faculty research brought to life. In its second year, this four day festival enjoyed packed houses and added performances. A huge thanks to Edmonton audiences for their insatiable hunger for fresh theatre!
Catch the Keys is proud to return to the Big Rock Eddies for the fourth year running. Providing a preposterous posse of posturing paparazzi, CtK takes over the red carpet in style! Big thanks to our over-the-top media personalities Lindsey Walker, Joleen Ballendine, Joey Lucius and Jonny Paterson. Catch the Eddies June 25 at The TransAlta Arts Barns!
Catch the Keys’ Beth Dart took part in Magnetic North Theatre Festival‘s intriguing panel discussion The Business Side of Theatre on June 20. An in-depth and practical conversation about the realities of starting and running your own theatre company in today’s economic and theatrical climate. How do we begin? Should we even begin given the companies and theatre programs which are closing their doors across the country? How do we survive? How do we measure success? How does our art stay relevant?
NuMusic at Nextfest proudly presents brave new works by emerging composers, musicians, sound and noise artists, and anyone interested in exploring the world of new music. Submissions are open until May 1. Questions? Email mdart@catchthekeys.ca for details.
The Nextfest Nite Clubs are a series of late night multidisciplinary performance parties showcasing emerging artists in all disciplines including theatre, dance, film, performance art, music, visual art and more. Please note: artists must be at least 18 years of age to participate in the Nite Clubs. Submissions are open until all three nights are filled. Questions? Email bdart@catchthekeys.ca for details.
Join Edmonton’s arts & culture community for a one-night cabaret where arts and politics collide! Wrecking Ball Alberta is an opportunity for you to witness first class Albertan performance, and join patrons, artists and politicians in a lively discussion about our shared vision for Alberta.
Candidates from all parties are invited. Interested candidates will be provided the opportunity to address the audience for two minutes each, after which candidates are invited to participate in a brief moderated forum. We will take approximately five questions at random from the audience. Following the performances and forum, all Wrecking Ball Alberta guests are invited to tip a glass and continue the conversation!
Wrecking Ball Alberta Monday, April 16 at 7:30pm
The ARTery (9535 Jasper Avenue)
Admission by donation
All donations will be split among the performing artists
CONFIRMED CANDIDATES:
Though candidate confirmations continue to file in, as of 9am Monday, April 16 the following candidates are confirmed for Wrecking Ball Alberta:
Trey Capnerhurst, Evergreen (Beverly-Clareview)
Brian Labelle, NDP (Castle Downs)
Nadine Bailey, NDP (Edmonton Centre)
Dennis O’Neill, Alberta Party (Gold Bar)
David Parker, Evergreen (Gold Bar)
Cameron McCormick, Alberta Party (Highlands-Norwood)
Dari Lynn, Evergreen (Highlands-Norwood)
Cris Basualdo, Progressive Conservative (Highlands-Norwood)
Judy Wilson, Alberta Party (Mill Creek)
Joann Autio, Wild Rose (Mill Woods)
Timothy Wong, Alberta Party (Riverview)
David Tonner, Evergreen (Rutherford)
Join Edmonton’s arts & culture community for a one-night cabaret where arts and politics collide! Wrecking Ball Alberta is an opportunity for you to share your thoughts, ideas, passions and art with audience and politicians alike in advance of the upcoming provincial election.
Wrecking Ball Alberta will be held on Monday, April 16 at The ARTery. Politicians from all parties will be invited.
We are looking for artists of all disciplines interested in performing a 2-8 minute set. Performances must be Alberta-centric.
If you are interested in participating in Wrecking Ball Alberta or would like more information, please contact Megan (mdart@catchthekeys.ca) or Beth (bdart@catchthekeys.ca) by Friday, April 13.
ABOUT THE WRECKING BALL
The Wrecking Ball was founded in Toronto in November 2004 to address a nagging imbalance: too much theatre in our politics, not enough politics in our theatre. There have been eleven Wrecking Ball cabarets in Toronto, including a national event that saw Wrecking Balls staged semi-simultaneously in 10 cities across the country in 2008 and 2011, in advance of the federal election.
Catch the Keys is proud to present scenes from its upcoming full length physical theatre production Snout at The Realtors Expanse Movement Arts Festival on Saturday March 10 at 7pm at The TransAlta Arts Barns. Part of the Festival’s Studio Showings, Snout is presented alongside other works-in-progress by some of Edmonton’s most promising emerging artists.
Snout at The Realtors Expanse Movement Arts Festival
Saturday, March 10 at 7pm
The Westbury Theatre, TransAlta Arts Barns
In the dark, I hear the wolf. He is digging his snout into the belly of the sun. He tears through her rays and feasts on her kindness and generosity. He nibbles on her love and he eats her light. She doesn’t scream. She’s been waiting for this. In my dream, I know: she’s been waiting for this. The wolf, he tells her he protects his loved ones, but really, the wolf betrays her secrets, spills them out onto the street for everyone to see.
Written by Megan Dart
Directed by Beth Dart
Choreographed by Ainsley Hillyard
Starring Nikolai Witschl, Richard Lee, Cole Humeny & Amber Bissonnette
A study of the roles women put on and take off in and out of the home, The Kitchen Sink Project spans the decades and brings together a collection of deeply moving, hysterical, bizarre and heartbreaking (her)stories inspired by the kitchen sink.
To date, more than 75 stories have been gathered from around the world. Catch the Keys is inviting women of all walks of life to share their stories and join the conversation. Stories collected will be transformed into a multidiscplinary stage work in Catch the Keys’ 2013 season. Featuring readings by Morgan Smith and Mary Hulbert.
The Kitchen Sink Project
Saturday, January 21 @ 4:00pm-5:45pm
Basement, Hudson’s On Campus Pub (11113 87 Avenue)
Dancers in a freight elevator? Acrobats in the boiler room? Actors on a rooftop?!
Welcome to the Site-Specific Spectacular, a mini-festival featuring performances in the most bizarre locations imaginable. In four distinct tours, more than 50 artists will climb the heights of the Calgary Tower and explore the depths of the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts.
Catch the Keys takes on the Calgary Tower in the first of four tours, featuring a performance by Ainsley Hillyard of Good Women Dance Society and Colin Matty, actor and member of Breath in Poetry‘s Team Edmonton, the 2011 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word Champions.
TOUR #1: Needle in the Sky January 12-14, Calgary Tower Thursday-Saturday: 7:30, 8:30 & 9:30 pm Saturday: 1:00 pm
Tour Guides: Mark Ikeda & Richard Lee
Featuring: Catch the Keys Productions Kaely Dekker Kristin Eveleigh Elaine Weryshko Patrick Quinn Humble Wonder Theatre Jennifer Roberts
Edmonton’s only traveling historical horror show Dead Centre of Town is back for another night of gory good fun. Based on the interesting and sometimes sordid history of our fair city, the fifth annual Dead Centre of Town digs up and dances with the dusty bones of the sadly forgotten haunted history of Edmonton while giving you a good fright.
Catch the Keys Productions presents the fifth annual Dead Centre of Town: Twisted
Avenue Theatre (9030 118 Avenue)
Thursday, October 27 at 9pm
Tickets $12, available at the door
Starring: Stuart Hoye, Adam Keefe, Christine Lesiak, Vincent Forcier, Colin Matty,
Steve Pirot, Zvonimir Rac, Morgan Smith & Nikolai Witschl
Dead Centre of Town is Catch the Keys’ annual interactive historical Halloween theatre experience. Dead Centre of Town has taken place in such haunted locations as The Globe Bar and Tap House (2007), which was once a mortuary, The ARTery (2008) which lives on the only complete and unaltered pre-World War One streetscape in Edmonton, The Iron Horse, which was the first train station on the south side of the river (2009), and New City Suburbs, which was once a Vaudeville theatre before becoming one of Edmonton’s first moving picture houses (2010).
BEWARE: Dead Centre of Town ain’t for the faint of heart, kittens. Performances contain extreme violence, ghastly gore and unsettling themes, and are intended for an 18+ audience only.
Catch the Keys is proud to provide stage management and publicity support to Edmonton’s public reading of controversial play Homegrown by Catherine Frid.
Join the discussion Friday, July 15 at 8pm at the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts (11731 93 Street). Featuring Michele Brown, Michael Peng, Jamie Cavanaugh, Jason Chinn and Scott Schpley. Directed by Garett Spelliscy.
Public Reading of Controversial Play Provides Canadians Opportunity to Make up their Own Minds
(Edmonton: July 11, 2011) – Leading theatre artists from across Canada are banding together to respond to a national controversy by staging simultaneous public readings of Catherine Frid’s Homegrown, a story of a Toronto lawyer/writer who meets and befriends a prisoner accused of homegrown terrorism – one of the so-called “Toronto 18.”
During its first production at the 2010 Summerworks Theatre Festival, Homegrown was the centre of political attention; Andrew MacDougal, spokesperson for the Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Office, was reported saying “we are extremely disappointed public money is going towards funding plays that glorify terrorism.” While critics strongly disagreed, citing the play an intelligent examination which neither supports nor romanticizes terrorism, but rather raises important questions about the government’s involvement, Summerworks Theatre Festival lost its federal funding for the 2011 season. Negative sentiments for both the festival and the play on behalf of the government were further compounded by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s recent remarks, saying “we actually don’t believe in festivals and cultural institutions assuming that year after year after year, they’ll receive government funding from the Government of Canada.”
In the vein of The Wrecking Ball – a grassroots political arts awareness campaign simultaneously held across the country during the 2008 and 2011 elections – theatre companies from more than five provinces will stage simultaneous public readings of Homegrown in an effort to provide audiences an opportunity to become informed and answer the question “What’s all the controversy about?”
Edmonton’s theatre community will respond with the expected passion and commitment. The reading, being held at the Stollery Gallery at The Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts on Friday, July 15 at 8pm, will see local actors Michele Brown, Michael Peng, Jamie Cavanagh and Jason Chinn as directed by Garett Spelliscy take on the controversial script.
“The professional community in Edmonton has been very supportive of this project,” says director Garett Spelliscy, “I’m an indie guy and I have no real resources of my own, but senior industry professionals like Michael Clark, Keltie Brown, Eva Cairns, Elizabeth Ludwig, Kim McCaw and Caroline Howarth have all come forward with personal endorsements, support and advice. They encouraged me to approach this with curiosity, rather than judgment and accusations. I think the result is an evening that reflects Alberta’s independent spirit; a discussion rather than a rally, an artistic inquiry, not a protest.”
A demonstration to show support for fellow Canadian artists, and foster informed dialogue about the issues surrounding this controversy, the reading will initiate discussion with Edmonton theatre-goers.
“We want to start a conversation among artists and audiences about issues this controversy has raised,” continues Spelliscy. “These issues seem to concern the stability of funding for the arts, attitudes towards public funding, freedom of expression, and the role of the arts in Canadian society. This is a national debate, and one we hope Edmontonians are eager to participate in.”
A public reading of Homegrown by Catherine Frid Stollery Gallery, Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts (11731 93 Street) Friday, July 15, 2011 at 8pm Michele Brown, Michael Peng, Jamie Cavanaugh & Jason Chinn Directed by Garett Spelliscy FREE admission*
*Audiences are encouraged to donate to The Summerworks Theatre Festival, or two shows at Summerworks involving Albertan artists
Marking the arrival of summer, Nextfest is the chance to revel in a sense of community truer than at any other festival in #yeg, truer than at any other time in the year; a moment when more than 400 artists come together in a raucous, rambunctious celebration of the voice of the next generation. It’s an explosive eleven-days of non-stop creative energy. It’s a party – and you’re invited.
This year, Catch the Keys is proud to bring you 9 – count ‘em! – 9 Nextfest events. We bring the kind of rowdy good times you can only find in Edmonton in the spring…
Curated by Uber Mistress Beth Dart with Catch the Keys Productions, the Nextfest NiteClubs are a series of late-night, multi-disciplinary performance parties. Each NiteClub has a completely distinct flavour so you’ll never experience the same thing twice. This year the NiteClubs take place at Edmonton’s newest, sexiest location, The Old Cycle Building (9141 118 Avenue), where you’ll be entertained and entertaining as you mix, mingle and absorb the atmosphere and art. Join your chaperones, Ted Sloan and Caley Suliak, for three nights of wild fun.
Method of Madness
Friday, June 3
Doors at 9:00 pm
“A rock through a window never comes with a kiss. Rhyme and a reason never argue with a fist. There’s a time for discussion and a time for a fight. It’s the time in the season for a maniac at night. There’s a lot to be said for a blow to the head. So come on! Make a show! Turn it on! Let it go! Put some madness to the method! We need madness to the method! We want madness to the method! We need madness to the method! We don’t care as long as there’s some madness!” ~ Madness to the Method, Blue Oyster Cult
Beat the devil ’round the stump, an’ bend an elbow with the big bugs, flannel mouths and deadbeats at the ol’ Smut Saloon. Get a wiggle on, give it a lick an’ a promise, and get full as a tick – no thing in this fine world will hold a candle to what you’re ’bout to witness. Send in the Girls will play out your wildest fantasies directly, while the crooning Prairie Nights will swing the swill till you’re right soaked. Cris Derksen‘ll have you swooning, while Sister Gray will bring home the moon with an ace-high performance of boot stomping good tunes. Dress to impress at the Smut Saloon!
Rise up!
Saturday, June 11
Doors at 9:00 pm
Your revolution – it’s the what-if, the could-be, the should-be, the will-be. Your revolution – it’s politics and semantics, artistics and music. So gather up the beatnicks, the critics, the cynics, the mystics, the mavericks, the convicts: blow up the gimmicks, pick-apart the slick-ricks, dismantle the predicate. Your revolution – it starts now. Your revolution – it’s a rocket-fuelled multi-disciplinary performance party. Featuring MitchMatic & KazMega and Politic Live.
Curated by Megan Dart with Catch the Keys Productions, NuMusic@Nextfest proudly presents brave new works by emerging composers, musicians, DJ’s, and experimental artists from Edmonton and beyond. A mash up of styles and genres, NuMusic is experimental music at its best. Play in our Found Object Orchestra, dance your feet off at Pop Goes Electro, learn what the #*&% NuMusic is anyway, and hear the Sound of Noise, all at the Old Cycle Building.
The Found Object Orchestra
The Old Cycle Building 9141 118 AVE | Tuesday, June 7 7:00pm
Ever want to play in an orchestra, but don’t know how to play an instrument? Fulfill your wildest dreams without learning to read music! Bring whatever you can drag, push, pull or carry to the Nextfest Found Object Orchestra, where we’ll make sweet music on anything and everything we can. Got keys in your pocket? Shake ‘em. Found a rogue garbage can lid on your walk over? Grab a stick and get drumming. Don’t have a thing to your name? Bring your voice and your body and shake what yo’ momma gave you. Let’s get together in an electric moment of spontaneous music. Led by Music as a Weapon drum circle.
Pop Goes Electro
The Old Cycle Building 9141 118 AVE | Tuesday, June 7 9:00pm
Catchy hooks, danceable beats, synth heavy rock step – your NuMusicians shake the floor with an impossible mashup of musical magic. From the sometimes funny and sometimes gross musical stylings of The Sunshines, to the smooth licks of Cam Boyce, to the psychedelic prog-rock of Peribothra, to the you-just-can’t-stop-the-dancebeats of Cymatic Phase, it’s a night of people-powered party. Dance your feet off!
What the #*&% is NuMusic Anyway?
The Old Cycle Building 9141 118 AVE | Thursday, June 9 5:30pm
Join local composers and new musicians from the music, theatre, video game and film industries for a heated debate about the role of new music in Nextfest, the Edmonton Arts Community and beyond. Moderated by Popular Music Instructor and Musicologist Michael MacDonald.
The Sound of Noise
The Old Cycle Building 9141 118 AVE | Thursday, June 9 9:00pm
Collaborating. Composing. Battling. Circuit bending. Noise making. Witness it all at The Sound of Noise – a night of investigational, off the wall, noise experimentation featuring a saxophone showcase by local composers, and performances by The Mind Hive Collective, Motherboy, MUGBAIT vs. wijit and more. Shake out the noise!
A play development reading, presented by The OCB Sessions at Nextfest
The Old Cycle Building
9141 118 AVE
June 10, 7:00 pm
By Megan Dart
In the dark, I hear the wolf. He is digging his snout into the belly of the sun. He tears through her rays and feasts on her kindness and generosity. He nibbles on her love and he eats her light. She doesn’t scream. She’s been waiting for this. In my dream, I know: she’s been waiting for this. The wolf, he tells her he protects his loved ones, but really, the wolf betrays her secrets, spills them out onto the street for everyone to see. Director: Beth Dart Cast: Nikolai Witschl, Richard Lee, Cole Humeny, Amber Bissonnette
The Old Cycle Building
9141 118 AVE
June 7, 6:00pm
June 8, 8:00pm
June 9, 7:00pm
June 10, 8:00pm
A grandfather plans his own death. A girl experiences the worst birthday party ever. A first date ends in feline tragedy. Jessie Mcphee and Joleen Ballendine of Dot Dot Dot, whose unbridled improv-assault drummed up 4-star acclaim at the 2010 Winnipeg Fringe, proudly present their scripted debut Subterranean – a multi-character, infinite-laugh exploration of how love can blossom, bloom, and wither away before you even knew you had it. Dot Dot Dot are regulars in Rapid Fire Theatre’s long-form improv show Chimprov. Cast: Jessie McPhee, Joleen Ballendine
Loosely based on the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris, in which Osiris is killed by his brother in a jealous fit of rage over Osiris’ place as king, Snout is a myth undone – a strange retelling of a spoiled love and bloody murder.
It’s halfway to Halloween and the dead are restless…
Join Catch the Keys as we celebrate Theatre Garage‘s first year of business! A night of fun, excitement, refreshments and fright, Halfway to Halloween recognizes the members of the community who helped make Theate Garage’s success possible! Remember, this is a Halloween party, lovelies – full costumes are expected. A panel of celebrity judges will be awarding a ton of prizes for the best and most outrageous costumes.
Politics and art collide Monday, April 25, 2011 when Edmonton’s local art scene takes to the stage to share views on the current political landscape.
Wrecking Ball 2011 is a one-night cabaret which allows local politicians to connect with young, arts minded voters. Similar events are being scheduled on the same night across the country, swinging into the electoral debate from coast to coast, with events in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and Victoria.
The Edmonton arts community has answered the call of the Wrecking Ball loud and clear. Featuring a cross section of the best performance our city has to offer, Wrecking Ball 2011 will feature:
In Treatment a new work by actor and playwright Marcus Youssef(Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil) starring Jamie Cavanagh, Chris Cook, Jesse Gervais & Caley Suliak, directed by Taylor Chadwick.
The Other Other C Word by Marty Chan, starring Garrett Spelliscy, Arlen Konopaki & Tatyana Rac, directed by John Hudson
YEG, a new work by Canadian playwright sensation Sean Dixon (The Girls Who Saw Everything) starring Ian Leung & Nancy McAlear, directed by John Hudson.
An electrically charged performance by award winning hip-hop phenomenon Politic Live
Songs of politic importance by singer/songwriter Dale Ladouceur
The Wrecking Ball was founded in Toronto in November 2004 to address a nagging imbalance: too much theatre in our politics, not enough politics in our theatre. There have been eleven Wrecking Ball cabarets in Toronto, including a national event that saw Wrecking Balls staged semi-simultaneously in 10 cities across the country in 2008, in advance of the federal election.
The Wrecking Ball 2011
Monday, April 25, 8pm The Avenue Theatre (9030 118 Avenue)
Pay what you can at the door All proceeds go to benefit the Canadian Actors Fund
Catch the Keys is proud to be involved in this year’s presentation of the Expanse Movement Arts Festival. Brought to you by the genius duo over at Azimuth Theatre, Expanse Movement Arts Festival is a boundary-pushing three day festival dedicated to showcasing the inspired investigation of the innovative spirit of the body-in-motion. This high-velocity event celebrates body-based performance in all forms: dance, movement theatre, aerial and circus arts, mime, slap-stick comedy, performance art, dance for film and more.
Discover the poetry of the body, discover art in motion, discover Expanse Movement Arts Festival. Move and be moved!
Expanse Movement Arts Festival. March 3 – 6 at the Roxy Theatre.
Hello, kittens. Game for another night of fright, are you?
Back for two nights of gory good fun, the fourth annual Dead Centre of Town grips the heart of old downtown by celebrating one of Edmonton’s finest, oldest theatre venues, the New City Compound. Read what the press is saying:
BEWARE: Dead Centre of Town ain’t for the faint of heart. Performances contain extreme violence, ghastly gore and unsettling themes, and are intended for an 18+ audience only.
Dead Centre of Town: Dance with the Dead
Wednesday, October 27
Doors at 8pm
Shake out those bones after the show at the annual DCoT Dance till you’re Dead Party!
Thursday, October 28
Doors at 7pm
Tickets $15
Tickets now available at the door ONLY the night of each performance.
Dead Centre of Town is an annual interactive Halloween experience that digs up and dances with the dusty bones of the sadly forgotten history of Edmonton. Based on the interesting and sometimes sordid history of our fair city, Dead Centre of Town has taken place in locations like The Globe Bar and Tap House (2007), which was once a mortuary, The ARTery (2008) which lives on the only complete and unaltered pre-World War One streetscape in Edmonton, and The Iron Horse, which was the first train station on the south side of the river (2009).
Photo by Sandy Phimester of Midnight Portraits. From Left to right: Stuart Hoye as Trocar, Adam Keefe and Christine Lesiak as The Henchmen.
Catch the Keys had the distinct pleasure of curating five nights of festing fun this past June. If you were there, you know just how much fun we had.
At a back yard party just a week before Nextfest opened, we had the distinct pleasure of meeting the undeniably talented, powerfully passionate and downright freaking brilliant Pixelknife, Midnight Portraits and AO FOTO. We got to talking, as we usually do over a few beers, and before we knew it, we’d struck up what would prove to be the enlightening beginning of a beautiful relationship.
For each and every Catch the Keys Nextfest event, Pixelknife, Midnight Portraits & AO FOTO came ‘a’ packing: packing an impressive assortment of high def gear, that is.
Always early to each event, they painstakingly considered each and every angle before the doors opened to bring on the flood of artists and guests each night.
Over the course of the 10 days of the festival, the videography team not only captured the electric energy of each event, but also the behind the scenes details. Thorough in every sense of the word, these guys know what they’re doing. And they’re JUST on their way up, folks. Catch ‘em while you can.
We can’t thank these guys enough – take a look for yourself to see what we mean!
CtK is proud to provide a preposterous posse of paparazzi for the Big Rock Edmonton Eddies Monday, June 21 2010 at the Transalta Arts Barns for the second consecutive year!
Special thanks to Jamie Cavanagh, Mary Hulbert, Vincent Forcier and Darren Paul for their reporting talents!
This time of year always gets us CtK gals buzzing with energy: the energy of feeling the sun after a long, cold winter; the energy of backyard bonfires and late night chats with great friends; and, of course, the energy of another year with our long-time love affair, NextFest. Oh, NextFest. How we heart you.
We’re back this year with more performance fun than ever before. With five events over ten days, Catch the Keys is proud to bring you the kind of rowdy good times you can only find in Edmonton in spring…
Mark your calendars, friends. This gonna be crazy.
The NextFest NiteClubs
The NextFest NiteClubs are a series of late-night, transdisciplinary performance parties. Each NiteClub has a completely distinct flavour so you’ll never experience the same thing twice. Be entertained and be entertaining as you mix, mingle and get lost in the artistic atmosphere. All doors at 9:30pm.
Rise up!
Friday, June 4 The ARTery (9535 Jasper Ave)
Your revolution – it’s the what-if, the could-be, the should-be, the will-be. Your revolution – it’s politics and semantics, artistics and music. So gather up the beatnicks, the critics, the cynics, the mystics, the mavericks, the convicts: blow up the gimmicks, pick-apart the slick-ricks, dismantle the predicate. Your revolution – it starts now. Your revolution – it’s rocket-fuelled multi-disciplinary performance throughout the evening and around the venue.
Technation
Friday, June 11 (9535 Jasper Ave) The ARTery
Get your wires crossed and plug into the intermedia of artechnology. It’s a brave new world: enter into the collective intelligence, allow the machine technology to enable the new artistic landscape where lines between performer and computer blur, where we’re left wondering if art imitates life or if life imitates art. Featuring the mind blowing musical talents of Mass Choir.
The SMUT Cabaret
Saturday, June 12 The Roxy (10708 124 St)
The bitch is back! Smut takes a tawdry turn for the naughty best: get a face full of film-inspired indulgence when sexy Smut runs her silver tongue over the big screen. A late night performance party inspired by the celebrity, scandal, sex and success of Hollywood, the Smut Cabaret will strip Tinseltown bare. Feel up Edmonton’s bawdy boundary-pushing art displays, satisfy your aural fixations and fit your lips around the wordolatry of Edmonton’s saucy spoken word and tasty theatrical community, gratify your acousticophilia with Edmonton’s naughtiest emerging musical acts. Challenge the norms of experiment and excess on June 12 at the NextFest NiteClub SMUT Cabaret.
NuMusic@NextFest
New to the festival just this year, NuMusic@Nextfest proudly presents brave new works by nine emerging composers from across Canada. Played by a fresh five piece music ensemble, this interactive listening experience is your only chance to discover how the world really ends. Join us at the Azimuth Theatre to be saved or sacrificed.
Part One: Virion Tuesday, June 8 (Performance time to be announced. Stay tuned!) Azimuth Theatre (11315 106 Ave) The introduction of technology works like a virus: converting ideas into monstrous entities, viral cells attack and mutate everything in its path until a point is reached where everything changes. Like the point where water becomes ice or vapour, there is a change.
Featuring new works by:
Ruth Guechtal, Tomas Bouda, Tom Merklinger, Sally Norris. Audience Interludes by Dan Brophy.
Part Two: The Eradication of the Unnecessary Chance Thursday, June 10 (Performance time to be announced. Stay tuned!) Azimuth Theatre (11315 106 Ave)
After the change, a new reality exists where remnants of the old way are hunted down and converted. Now is the time to regain some of what we lost. Now it is time to tell the real story.
Featuring new works by:
Nancy Tam, Raimundo Gonzalez, Glenn James, Colin Labadie. Audience Interludes by Dan Brophy.
Both nights played by musicians:
Robyn Reekie, Bass
Twila Bakker, Flute
Alison Balcetis, Saxophone
Reg Kachanoski, Percussion
James Law, Violin
Survivors and Futurists:
Stuart Hoye, Darren Paul, Emily Bachynski, Kyla Shinkewski
Tickets, festival passes, information and dating advice available through Roxy Theatre (780.451.2440).
Catch the Keys has always had a serious crush on NextFest. We admit we’re even more giddy than usual over the chance to deepen our obsession this year.
Catch the Keys proudly announces NuMusic@NextFest. New to NextFest, this two-part music performance features brave new works by nine emerging composers from across Canada. Played by a fresh five piece music ensemble, this interactive listening experience is your only chance to discover how the world really ends. Join us at the Azimuth Theatre to be saved or sacrificed.
Please, meet your composers and creative team:
Part one: Virion Tuesday, June 8
Azimuth Theatre
The introduction of technology works like a virus: converting ideas into monstrous entities, viral cells attack and mutate everything in its path until a point is reached where everything changes. Like the point where water becomes ice or vapour, there is a change.
Ruth Guechtal Ruth Guechtal is a composer and performer who enjoys writing noise for acoustic instruments. Her interests lie in researching ways to emulate electronically produced sounds with acoustic instruments.In her most recent work Le Sable Mouvant l’Insanité she employs a large chamber ensemble to ‘acoustically’ process a woman’s voice. Ruth has recently completed a Master’s degree in composition at the University of Victoria where she studied with Dr. Dániel Péter Biró. She currently resides in Edmonton where she will be completing a Doctorate degree in composition at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Scott Smallwood. She received her Bachelor degree from Wilfrid Laurier University where she studied with Linda Catlin Smith.
Tomas Bouda As a dedicated interactive musician, Tomas is firmly directed by an urge to contribute compositionally to any situation that he should encounter – musical and otherwise.In addition to being a performer, he is also among one of the first graduates to complete the newly minted Contemporary Music: Composition Improvisation stream from Wilfrid Laurier University.As a composer, Tomas explores the limitations and boundaries of pre-ordained set rules, as well as the ways to bend and avoid the rules altogether – preferring to combine graphic notation with digital clocks.It is not uncommon to notice the positive influence of machinery, animals, and exotic localities in combination with contemporary/extemporary music that is from beyond the normal range of human hearing.
Tom Merkingler Tom Merklinger was born in Camrose, Alberta, some time before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He comes from a long line of obscure references. He enjoys racing motorcars and painting white picket fences.
Sally Norris Composer and Pianist Sally Norris received her Master of Arts degree in Composition from Wesleyan University (Middletown CT, USA 2009). There, her thesis project, Clara: A Music Box Opera,and the written analysis, (un)Telling Clara: trust me, I’m telling you stories was advised by Anthony Braxton and aided by Alvin Lucier, Ron Kuivila, Katherine Young, Brian Parks and Rod O’Connor. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo ON, Canada 2006) where she studied primarily with Linda C. Smith and Terence Kroetsch. Sally is fascinated by notions of translation, re-interpretation and transmission of words, symbols, musics and narrative structures as they are embodied in performance. Through score design and notation she explores a musical geography of models and prototypes. Currently, I am based in Montreal QC, Canada and am preoccupied with issues of geography and tangibility. Sally spends time playing the accordion and knitting.
Part Two: The Eradication of the Unnecessary Chance Thursday, June 10
Azimuth Theatre
After the change, a new reality exists where remnants of the old way are hunted down and converted. Now is the time to regain some of what we lost. Now it is time to tell the real story.
Nancy Tam Nancy Tam is interested in sharing thoughts, sound and time with her listeners and does so through musical performances, compositions and improvisations. When she is not practicing, playing, composing or teaching music, Nancy makes guitars and hones her woodworking skills. Her influences range from Samuel Beckett, fluxus, Frank Zappa, Bjork, Louis Andreissen, Steve Reich and Arvo Part.Nancy studied with Elaine Lau, Peter Hatch, Linda Catlin Smith, and Boyd McDonald at Wilfrid Laurier University where she received her BMus in compositionand improvisation.She is an active board member of NUMUS and composes with the Toronto based collective, The Toy Piano Composers.
Raimundo Gonzalez Raimundo began his musical training in his birth city of Santiago, Chile. He began singing at the age of twelve, took piano lessons at fourteen, all the while teaching himself the electric guitar. In 2003, Raimundo entered the Composition & Arrangement program at the Instituto Escuela Moderna de Musica, where he studied jazz piano and guitar performance. In 2007, Raimundo made his compositional debut with two string quartets. A year later, he premiered Huaynopo - piece for wind quintet and traditional Chilean percussion. His most recent premiere took place in 2009 with Circus – musical narrative for seven musicians, three dancers and one actor. Circus was written, composed, conducted and produced by Raimundo alone. Raimundo will begin his Master of Music in Composition at the University of Alberta this upcoming fall.
Glenn James
Glenn is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Toronto where he studied composition with composers: Glenn Buhr, Linda Catlin-Smith, Christos Hatzis and Gary Kulesha. Glenn’s music has been performed and recorded with Tapestry New Opera, Scarborough Players, Rosedale United Church, Digital Prowess and The Toy Piano Composers.
Colin Labadie Colin Labadie is a composer and guitarist based in Edmonton, Alberta. He holds a BMus from Wilfrid Laurier University where studied with Linda Catlin Smith and Peter Hatch, and an MMus from the University of Alberta where he studied with Howard Bashaw, Mark Hannesson, and Scott Smallwood. His compositions explore complex rhythm, patterns, repetition, and subtle change, often juxtaposed against spastic improvisation and timbral extremeties. As a guitarist and improviser, his recent interests involve augmenting the electric guitar through the application of emerging technology. He is currently developing an electric guitar prototype that combines sensor technology with computer software to utilize his playing technique and body movements as a means of control over the sound of the guitar.
Audience Interludes
Daniel James Brophy Daniel Brophy is a composer, performer and improviser. He composes music for various styles and instrumentations ranging from orchestral and chamber music to electronics and heavy metal. He is also part of the experimental guitar duo MUGBAIT who use a combination of guitars, Max/MSP and circuit bending to explore the nature of sound and noise. Daniel presents music that combines traditionally opposing elements such as texture, melody and harmony, darkness and spirituality, heavy metal and art music to explore the human condition and the nature of balance. Daniel currently resides in Edmonton where he is pursuing a Doctor of Music under the supervision of Scott Smallwood at the University of Alberta. Prior to this, he graduated from The University of Toronto with a Masters of Music under the tutelage of Gary Kulesha and received his Bachelors of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University where he studied with Linda Catlin-Smith.
Videography
Michael B. MacDonald, PhD Michael B. MacDonald is an Ethnomusicologist at the University of Alberta where he teaches courses on popular music. He is currently working on a postdoctoral research project on Canadian Folk Music. His areas of research include folk festivals, social movements, and popular music with emphasis on the relationship between art, community, and the cultural industries. He has published articles and given public lectures on the politics of folk music, cultural sustainability, and the aesthetics of cultural and social ecology. Michael continues to produce albums, ethnographic video, and has toured widely as a musician.
According to the great oracle (Wiki), “dissonance has several meanings, all related to conflict or incongruity”
What does dissonance mean for an artist? Does social dissonance map onto musical dissonance? Does the sound of industry birth the sound of industrial music? Is dissonance noise? Is dissonance modern art? Is dissonance the extreme of sensory thresholds, or is it just the machine?
Explore the artistic meaning and relationship among music, sound and dissonance and Ncounter dissonance Friday, March 26 at 8pm at Dewey’s Pub on Campus.
This open stage concept invites visual artists, photographers, composers, performers, scholars and anyone interested in exploration and experimentation to explore colour in all art forms. Join the Graduate Music Students’ Association Friday March 26 at 8pm at Dewey’s Pub on Campus for a night dedicated to music and dissonance.
Interested in creating a place where diverse people with many interests can gather once a month and share thoughts on a selected theme, Ncounters is a trans-disciplinary gathering open to anyone and everything.
Come armed with your performance idea, your short paper presentation of 10 minutes or less, a video, a musical performance, a new composition, an interpretive dance, a painting or your opinion and share it with the group.
We will be prepared with a projector, a laptop, a mic and some speakers. Visual artists interested in creating during the evening are invited to bring supplies and drop cloths. Space will be provided.
Ncounters: Living in a World of Sound and Noise is a student led transdisciplinary conference held March 5 – 7 which invites you to explore new approaches to the exploration of sound.
Join the Graduate Music Students Association and the History and Classics Graduate Association at Dewey’s Pub on Campus at 8pm on Friday March 5 for the opening event of the Ncounters conference.
Hosted by comedic genuis duo Matt Schuurman & Stuart Hoye
Performances by:
Michael MacDonald, filmic analysis
Ryan Kafara, paper presentation “Punk and Protest: Direct Action and the Role of Music in the Counterculture of the 1980s” MUGBAIT, experimental guitar duo Wool on Wolves
Presented by the University of Alberta Graduate Music Students Association, Ncounters involves a collaborative series of lectures, performances, sound experiments and demonstrations. Ncounters is a place to experiment, to share, and most importantly, to explore the possible modes of communicating research to fellow graduate students.
Can you paint sound? Can you feel music? Can you separate sound from colour?
Explore the artistic meaning and relationship among music, sound and colour. Ncounter colour and music Friday, February 26 at 7pm at Dewey’s Pub on Campus.
This open stage concept invites visual artists, photographers, composers, performers, scholars and anyone interested in exploration and experimentation to explore colour in all art forms. Join the Graduate Music Students’ Association Friday February 26 at 7pm at Dewey’s Pub on Campus for a night dedicated to music and colour.
Interested in creating a place where diverse people with many interests can gather once a month and share thoughts on a selected theme, Ncounters is a trans-disciplinary gathering open to anyone and everything. Come armed with your performance idea, your short paper presentation of 10 minutes or less, a video, a musical performance, a new composition, an interpretive dance, a painting or your opinion and share it with the group.
Ncounters is for everyone.
We will be prepared with a projector, a laptop, a mic and some speakers. Visual artists interested in creating during the evening are invited to bring supplies and drop cloths. Space will be provided.
Ncounter sound. Ncounter visual art. Ncounter acting. Ncounter music, theory, composition, history, sociology and more at Ncounters: a monthly collaborative meeting of the minds presented by the Grad Music Students’ Association.
Hosted at Dewey’s Pub on the University of Alberta Campus, Ncounters invites collaboration from sound artists, visual artists, actors, musicians, composers, theorists, musicologists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and anyone interested in exploration and experimentation. This open stage concept allows anyone and everyone to be a part of the discussion.
Join us Friday January 29 at 7pm for discussion and performance on Improvisation: What can the act of improvisation tell us about how we engage in our world as creative people? Is improvisation as a form of creativity fundamentally different from other forms? Or is it just faster and more wild? Are we all fundamentally improvisers or is it a learned skill?
$5 at the door, free for those who present/perform. Oh, and there will be cheap beer. Who doesn’t love intelligent conversation and cheap beer?
View a slideshow of images from the performance, care of Andrew Paul with See Magazine!
Two adorable kids are putting on a Christmas pageant when the director dies suddenly. In order to save Christmas, twelve baby Jesus’ have to perform twelve Christmas miracles in only twelve days. Only one thing is certain: after Nik & Stu’s Sh*ttiest Christmas Ever, Christmas will never be the same again.
The raucous sequel to the boys’ Fringe smash hit Counting Leaves, Nik & Stu’s Sh*ttiest Christmas ever promises a night of gut-busting, sketch-comedy hilarity. Join musical guest the dark sand, a rolling guest list of “surprise” entertainers and a giant vagina (fo’ realz!) for a night you won’t soon forget.
One night only!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Avenue Theatre
Doors @ 9pm
$12 at the door
The indie5 09/10 season opener U: The Comedy of Global Warming is a unique, independently produced, locally created multi-media play about Alberta and Climate Change.
U: The Comedy of Global Warming is a ribald, funny and engaging mixture of information, entertainment, criticism and hope that blends fiction and fact in search of truth and answers. The story of an oil tycoon and a climate change refugee entangled in a dangerously funny love triangle interweaves with video recorded interviews featuring real-life scientists from the University of Alberta, politicians from the federal, provincial and city legislatures, environmental activists and regular citizens – all talking about climate change. As the story hurtles toward a disastrous consequence, the documentary material grapples to resolve the defining issue of our age and save the day for everyone.
Written and Directed by Ian Leung.
Starring: Clinton Carew, Tim Hamaguchi, Garett Spelliscy, Cole Humeny, Melissa Thingelstad and a chorus of honest to goodness scientific and political experts and activists.
Stage Manager: Anna Davidson | Set & Lights: Guido Tondino & Victoria Zimski | Costumes: Tata Tuviera | Sound and Music: Matt Skopyk | Video: Mel Geary, Joel Higham, Mike McLaughlin, Aaron munson, John Osborne | Fights: Patrick Howarth
December 11 – 20, 2009
Media Room of the Fine Arts Building at the University of Alberta
Tuesdays-Sundays, 8pm | Sundays 2pm matinee
Tickets are available at the door or through Tix on the Square (780.424.1757).
Stay tuned to www.albertaville.ca for extended versions of the twenty-two interviews conducted for the play, including conversations with University of Alberta scientists David Schindler, Andrew Derocher, Colleen Cassady St. Clair, Suzanne Bayley, Martin Sharp and Arturo Sanchez, activists from Greenpeace, the Pembina and Parkland Institutes and public legislators MP Linda Duncan, MLAs Laurie Blakeman, Kevin Taft and Rachel Notley and City Councillors Ben Henderson and Don Iveson.
Generously funded by the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and supported by the University of Alberta Department of Drama and Faculty of Education.
For more information on U: The Comedy of Global Warming please visit www.albertaville.ca.
View a slideshow of photos from the event, care of See Magazine.
Local visual artist Kevin Green likes women; he also likes animals; he doesn’t, however, like cilantro. Kevin thinks cilantro is the most pretentious of all herbs.
But that doesn’t mean Kevin doesn’t occasionally enjoy being pretentious about art.
Join Kevin Green, Michelle Domsky & Erik Bailey at External Art Affair Thursday, December 3 at 10pm at Prism (10524 101 St, entrance in back alley). Celebrate art. Celebrate Kevin’s new collection of canvases inspired by women and animals. Have a drink (there will be drink specials, after all). Be pretentious. Kick off the holiday season, Thursday style!
Your favorite puppet jerk is back for another night of gut busting hilarity Saturday October 31. Catch the Keys is proud to present Gabbo’s triumphant return – see Gabbo for one night only at the House on the Haunted Hilltop (8220 106 Ave) for a night of creepy good fun, drink specials, a costume contest judged by the lovely ladies of The Theatre Garage and the musical stylings of Sally’s Krackers & the dark sand. Doors at 9pm, $5 at the door.
Dead Centre of Town: Ghost Train
Thursday, October 29 The Iron Horse (8101 Gateway Blvd)
Doors at 9pm
More than one hundred years ago, this building here used to be a train station, did you know that? Back for another night of gory good times, Catch the Keys is proud to present the third annual Dead Centre of Town: Ghost Train. Set in the city’s first train station on the south side of the river, Dead Centre of Town is an interactive Halloween experience that digs up and dances with the dirty, dusty, sometimes still bloody bones of the sadly forgotten history of Edmonton.
Featuring the wicked talents of: Stuart Hoye, Adam Keefe, Christine Lesiak, Ryland Alexander, Vincent Forcier, Clarice Eckford, Kathryn Evans, John Evans, Perry Gratton, Paul Bezaire, Sheena Haug, Michael Caron, Matt Schuurman, Gabrielle Fitzgerald & the Dart Sisters.
Tickets $10 in advance at the Theatre Garage or available at the door.
Stay late for an all night elect-rockout dance party mash-up between Continuum Flux & the electric arc.
See Dead Centre of Town AND Gabbo on October 31 at the Hilltop Pub for a variety night of laughing good fun for a grand total of $12. Spend your Hallowe’en with us, won’t you?
Special thanks to: Theatre Garage, Gabbo, 12Strong, SurrealSoReal, October People Productions and Small Productions.
Please Note: Dead Centre of Town ain’t for the faint of heart. Performances contain extreme violence, ghastly gore and unsettling themes, and are intended for an 18+ audience only.
Wigs, make up, hats, accessories, costume sales and rentals – get it all at The Theatre Garage!
Proud to support local entrepreuners dedicated to providing the theatre community with props and costumes galore, Catch the Keys invites you to celebrate the opening of The Theatre Garage with us on Monday, September 28.
Catch the Keys was proud to jazz up the opening of the new United Cycle with a little clown love, a whole lotta face paint and some serious performance talent.
Special thanks to: Amy Keating, Tata Tuviera, Joel Crichton, Vincent Forcier, Daniela Maselli, Lianna Makuch, Evan Hall, Olivia and Cat Amyotte.
Kick off August with The System Theatre at the hottest party of the summer!
Join us Saturday, August 1 at theARTery for a fundraising extravaganza full of drinks, food, visual art, Fringe previews – including a taste of The System Theatre’s brand new work Jack & Jill – a silent auction and an exclusive live performance by The James Murdoch Band.
Fresh off their Western Canadian tour, The James Murdoch Band is promoting their unbelievable new CD Wondering Where the Rush Has Gone.
The System Theatre’s Hot Summer Party with The James Murdoch Band
Doors: 8:00 PM
Tickets: $20.00 in advance from Jack & Jill cast and crew or at the door
Cast and crew :
Ryland Alexander
Amber Bissonnette
Brian Bergum
Ava Jane Markus
Eric Nyland
Beth Dart
Stephen Rogers
Becky Halliday
Visual art curated by Catch the Keys Productions. Jack & Jill stage managed by Beth Dart.
Quoted from the Wednesday, July 8, 2009 University of Alberta Department of Drama Alumni News:
“Beth Dart’s (BFA Tech Theatre Stage Management ’07) Catch the Keys collective continues to be use other art forms (photographs, music) as the impulse for their theatre-making experiments. Dart’s early ideas to engage other artists such as painters or musicians to create works inspired by each other’s media was first developed in 2007 as a DR 507 project in her final year as a stage management student. A further developed Art on Art project debuted at NextFest in 2008, as a result of a creative chain that began with a Vancouver-based photographer’s 20 pictures inspiring a musician whose score was the impulse for a script.
The intriguing multi-disciplinary Art on Art was remounted again this past May in Edmonton under the Indie 5 banner featuring Nikolai Witschl (BFA Acting ’10) and Nicole Schafenacker (BA Drama Honors ’09) as the cast. Catch the Keys was also involved at the feats Festival of Dance this July, with Beth and her sister Megan curating the Wideyed Cabaret – pairing dance, music and theatre artists with other professionals such a hairstylist and a chef to create new performances for the stage.”
“Perhaps people are wanting more bang for their buck these days, or maybe everyone’s getting tired of the one-trick-pony acts out there. Either way, the variety show is one vintage concept that’s been taken out of the tickle trunk and shined anew. That’s what the organizers of the upcoming Gabbo Show believe, anyway.”
Continue reading this week’s pre-Vue of The Gabbo Show in Vue Magazine.
The Gabbo Show
Saturday, July 18
The Avenue Theatre
9030 118 Avenue
$15 in Advance/$20 at the Door
Full bar
Injected with the raw comedy of Rapid Fire Theatre’s The Chimney Sweepstakes, the tantalizing burlesque talents of The Keyhole Kittens, and mind-bending black-light puppetry, The Gabbo Show is a variety party featuring the musical talents of Sally’s Krackers, The Dark Sand and Dr. Owlfin Scalpul.
Throwing show format out the window, The Gabbo Show will have musical guests alternating performances throughout the evening. No defined set means even if you come late, you’ll still get a face full of show.
A wacky take on the creepy yet loveable ventriloquist character, the evening will be hosted by life size puppet Gabbo. You have to see it to believe it.
Tickets available:
Megatunes on Whyte – 10355 Whyte Ave
Freecloud Records – 10764 101 Street
Or online.
feats – Festival of Dance and the TransAlta Arts Barns invite you to explore your wide-eyed curiosity and witness the unexpected at the Wideyed Cabaret!
Wideyed Cabaret
July 4
10:00 p.m.
Westbury Theatre @ TransAlta Arts Barns
10330 84 Ave.
Tickets: $10
TIX on the Square: (780) 420-1757.
Curated by Catch the Keys Productions, the Wideyed Cabaret is an under-the-gun approach to raw creation, showcasing the spontaneous celebration of dance, music, art, theatre, life and fun! Stay late into the night for drinks and an experimental performance party designed to bring together passionate professionals and daring performance artists. Witness the awesome, the bizarre, the entertaining and the beautiful together in one explosive multi-disciplinary encounter.
Performances by:
Amber Borotsik
Joel Crichton
Kevin Green
Mary Hulbert
Adam Keefe
Eric Nyland
Vincent Forcier & John Lachlan Stewart of Surreal So Real Theatre
and the Str8 Up Gypsies
Make it a night for the arts and come to the 8pm performance of Tara Cheyenne’s “Nick & Juanita – Livin’ in my dreams” and then stay for the Cabaret.
Effortlessly leaping from one character to the next, Nick & Juanita demonstrates what Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg does best: social satire strongly rooted in character-driven work. A classic comic tragedy in a highly entertaining dance/theatre journey of the heart, you won’t know whether you should laugh or cry at these two hapless personalities. Tickets $20 available at the door or TIX on the Square (780) 420-1757 or www.tixonthesquare.ca.
Special thanks to the more than 150 performers and everyone who attended this year’s NextFest Nite Clubs. An awesome, amazing, mind-blowing, (insert over-the-top adjective here) four days of performance party fun, this year’s Nite Clubs offered the best turnout and line up yet.
Your revolution – it’s the what-if, the could-be, the should-be, the will-be. Your revolution – it’s politics and semantics, artistics and music. So gather the beatnicks, the critics, the cynics, the mystics, the mavericks, the convicts: blow up the gimmicks, pick-apart the slick-ricks, dismantle the predicate.
Your revolution – it starts Saturday!
Climb atop your soap box and join us for a heated debate about arts and funding this Saturday, June 13 at 7pm at The ARTery (9535 Jasper Ave). Your friends at NextFest and Catch the Keys Productions have rounded up a panel full of fiery passion:
Bobbi Westman, Executive Director, Alberta Dance Alliance
Bradley Moss, Artistic Director, Theatre Network
Laurie Stalker, Grants and Research Director, Edmonton Arts Council
Linda Duncan, MP, Edmonton‐Strathcona
Representative, Alberta Music (TBA)
Representative, Enbridge (TBA)
Stephanie Jonsson, Visual Artist
Polish up your rhetoric and come armed with questions!
Stay the night and stir it up at the politically-fueled Rise Up! performance party! New to the night’s performance line up: Corvid Lorax. Check out the event page for more details.
See you Saturday!
The Darts
Catch the Keys Productions
www.catchthekeys.ca
Catch the Keys was proud to provide a gaggle of preposterous paparazzi for the Big Rock Eddies in Edmonton on June 8. “Are the rumours true? Who are you wearing tonight? OMG – it’s him!”
Curated by Catch the Keys Productions, the NextFest NiteClubs are a series of late-night, multi-disciplinary performance parties. Each NiteClub has a completely distinct flavour so you’ll never experience the same thing twice. This year the NiteClubs take place at Edmonton’s sexiest downtown location, theARTery (9535 Jasper Avenue), where you’ll be entertained and entertaining as you mix, mingle and absorb the atmosphere and art.
Friday, June 12 2009
The NextFest NiteClub Dress Up in Dream Floor Show
The mysterious, the inexplicable, the unsolved, the forbidden: reveal your deepest unconscious secrets and explore your dreamscape on June 13 at the NextFest NiteClub Dress Up in Dream Floor Show. Be led through the lucid corners of artists’ deepest mind-caverns: experience the scary, the sexy, the sordid, the showy. Sacrifice your reservations and give in to the darkest temptations of your imagination. CBC Music Series Artist: Ghostkeeper. Also featuring the musical stylings of Edmonton’s Sally’s Krackersand the electric arc
Saturday, June 13 2009
The NextFest NiteClub: Rise Up!
Your revolution – it’s the what-if, the could-be, the should-be, the will-be. Your revolution – it’s politics and semantics, artistics and music. So gather the beatnicks, the critics, the cynics, the mystics, the mavericks, the convicts: blow up the gimmicks, pick-apart the slick-ricks, dismantle the predicate. Your revolution – it starts now.
Join panellists at 7:00pm on June 13 for an encouraged heated debate on where funding for the arts has gone, is going, and will be; stay for revolutionarily rocket-fuelled multi-disciplinary performances throughout the evening and around the venue. CBC Music Series Artist: Colleen Brown.
Friday, June 19 2009
The NextFest NiteClub: The Hurly-Burly Time-Traveling Vaudevillian Serial Comedy Show!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gather round for a death-defying, awe-inspiring, side-splitting, laughter-stirring, non-stop vaudevillian extravaganza! Stay for the ragtime pantaloons; throw your darts and bouquets at the topical monologists; rev your engines for the eccentric dancers; warble with the barrel-house songbirds; give way for the magicians, the tumblers, the jugglers, the freaks! Travel back in time to the dusty beginnings of vaudevillian comedy and soak up a time-honoured nine part act; laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh at the NextFest NiteClub Hurly-Burly Time-Traveling Vaudevillian Serial Comedy Show on June 19. Stay and cut up the rug with Edmonton’s own The Be Arthurs.
Saturday, June 20 2009
NextFest NiteClub: The SMUT Cabaret
Didn’t get your fetish fill the first time? Satisfy your aural fixations and soak up the wordolatry of Edmonton’s saucy spoken word and tawdry theatrical community. Gratify your acousticophilia with Edmonton’s most pleasurable emerging musical acts. Get a face full of artistic indulgence and feel up Edmonton’s boundary-pushing art displays. Challenge the norms of experiment and excess on June 20 at the NextFest NiteClub SMUT Cabaret. CBC Music Series Artist: Devin Hart Trio. Also featuring the musical stylings of Christian Hansen and the Autistics.
In our every day, women play a variety of different roles: we are sister, mother, daughter, grandmother, career woman, caregiver, lover, wife, friend, enemy; the expectations tied to each role define us, make us stronger, build us up, tear us down, bring us home.
In response to kitchen sink realism – a cultural movement born of the 1960’s depicting social realism often focusing on working class men – The Kitchen Sink Project will be a collection of stories inspired by real women.
Think of the kitchen sink – what comes to mind? Perhaps completing unwanted chores as a child; perhaps washing your newborn for the first time; no matter how small or grand the memory, those experiences tied to the kitchen sink have moulded us, helped make us who we are today. The Kitchen Sink Project is a study of the roles women put on, take off and mutate in and out of the home.
A series of stories intended to be transformed into theatrical monologues, The Kitchen Sink Project will span the decades and will, hopefully, bring together a collection of deeply moving, hysterical, touching and heartbreaking (her)stories.
I invite to you to please join The Kitchen Sink Project. Take a moment and recall a memory provoked by your kitchen sink. Perhaps the memory is tied to the sink in your home now; perhaps it of a long-ago time in your life. Regardless, what does the kitchen sink remind you of? No need to write a long response – in fact, only a few sentences are enough creative fodder.
I kindly ask all submissions please be submitted by Monday, July 20.
Please send all responses to: mdart@catchthekeys.ca.
Thank you for your time, consideration and beautiful memories.
Sincerely,
Megan Dart
Resident Playwright
Catch the Keys Productions
mdart@catchthekeys.ca
Read Liz Nicholl’s preview of Art on Art, a multi media project fusing many different mediums.
Ed note: Liz got a little confused during the interview. Megan gave the interview, and Beth is actually the director, not the playwright which makes for a somewhat confusing article. But press is press! Thanks, Liz!
Check out the prevue of Art on Art in Vue Magazine.
Don’t forget: Art on Art opens on Thursday, May 7 at the PCL Studio Theatre at the Arts Barns. Come to the Saturday, May 9 performance and stay for the after party. Drinks, dancing and electrock by the electric arc.
The System Theatre presents Art on Art
by Catch the Keys Productions
May 7 – 9 and 14 – 16, 2009
PCL Studio Theatre, TransAlta Arts Barns (indie5)
Performances nightly at 8:00 and 9:30 PM
PLEASE NOTE: 8:00 PM only on Saturday, May 9, followed by an after-party; ticket-holders guaranteed admission to the after-party.
As part of the 2008-09 indie5 season, The System Theatre is proud to present the remount of Art on Art, an innovative, multidisciplinary performance created by Catch the Keys Productions.
An image captures the beauty of dark and light and a song leaps from canvas to lips. Invoking an electrometric backslide of bursting notes, trance beats are translated into linguistic feats. Image begets inspiration, inspiration begets music, music begets story, story begets movement – and so continues the revolution of creative process. This is an experiment. A series of commissioned thematic photos taken by Vancouver’s Sheena Caddick were provided to musician Andrew Smith of the electric arc, who created a musical score inspired by the story of the photos. The music was then given to Catch the Keys Productions Resident Playwright Megan Dart. Having not seen the photos, Megan wrote a script. The script, as directed by Artistic Director Beth Dart and brought to life by the collaborative acting talents of Stuart Hoye, Nicole Marie Schafenacker, and Nikolai Witschl yields a beautifully lyrical movement piece which explores the improbable logic of romantic love.
Tickets are $18 regular or $15 for students, seniors and Equity members in advance or at the door. To order, phone 780.409.1910 or visit Fringe Theatre Adventures. The May 9 performance will be followed by an after-party featuring the electrock musical talents of the electric arc. Ticket-holders guaranteed admission.
David Jeffrey Buchanan, host and producer of Edmonton-based documentary and talk show Sound of My Own Voice (SOMOV), caught up with Catch the Keys at the Fringe Theatre Adventures 2009 fundraiser, Spark a Revolution. Watch the documentary.
Special thanks to all the artists who donated their time and undeniable talent to make this event a great success!
Hello, kittens. Game for another night of fright, are you? 
Technation
According to the great oracle (Wiki), “dissonance has several meanings, all related to conflict or incongruity”
Ncounter sound. Ncounter visual art. Ncounter acting. Ncounter music, theory, composition, history, sociology and more at Ncounters: a monthly collaborative meeting of the minds presented by the Grad Music Students’ Association.
The indie5 09/10 season opener U: The Comedy of Global Warming is a unique, independently produced, locally created multi-media play about Alberta and Climate Change.
Friday, June 12 2009
Saturday, June 13 2009
Friday, June 19 2009
Saturday, June 20 2009
Think of the kitchen sink – what comes to mind? Perhaps completing unwanted chores as a child; perhaps washing your newborn for the first time; no matter how small or grand the memory, those experiences tied to the kitchen sink have moulded us, helped make us who we are today. The Kitchen Sink Project is a study of the roles women put on, take off and mutate in and out of the home.
A series of commissioned thematic photos taken by Vancouver’s Sheena Caddick were provided to musician Andrew Smith of the electric arc, who created a musical score inspired by the story of the photos. The music was then given to Catch the Keys Productions Resident Playwright Megan Dart. Having not seen the p
