Live Acts Festival | 2024

Colleen Bayati – Hollow Hearth | Theatre

Week 1 | Program A: Proscenium | Tues, March 12, 8:00 PM & Fri, March 15, 8:00 PM

Hollow Hearth is a musical performance about a group of travellers on an unknown mission that sing wondrous tales of adventure around a fire each night. The travellers consist of The Navigator, The Wrangler, The Merchant, The Fortune Teller, The Tinkerer, and The Tourist. Though they don’t all get along on the journey, they each tell a tale by the fire of grandiose people, some building off others’ stories; they play with the reality of the space. The central character is the Playmaker, the activator of the travellers’ stories; they orchestrate the movement and the players of the story through song, art, and puppetry in the background of scenes. It is an epic show about desire, loss, hope, and the human condition at the crossroads of time and space. Through modes of musical-style song, puppetry, and metanarrative dialogue, Hollow Hearth examines themes of loneliness, violence, isolation, and questions the integrity of human agency.

Content Warnings: Violence, death, audience interaction, flashing lights, actors moving through audience

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist / Composer: Colleen Bayati
Performers: Colleen Bayati, Terris J. Tan, Sarah Carter, Georgia Turner, Sara van Gaalen, Marissa Capron, Elijah Sam
Choreographer: Brynne Harper
Musical Director: Aidan Edwards
Production Designer: Evelyn Tong
Assistant Prop Maker: Katie Voth
Assistant Producer: Zack Faulks
Lighting Designer: Zuzanna Liniewski
Stage Manager: Kirsi Jiao
Operators: Marianne Gagnon, Zoë Larson

Artist statement / Bio

Colleen is a filmmaker, performer, and theatrical lighting and projection designer. She enjoys creating work as a lead artist as well as alongside a team of other local artists spanning from indie and community productions to larger commercial productions. She works with traditional and musical theatre processes, found footage, animation, gestural choreography, and devised scripted narrative. Colleen’s work revolves around hope, apathy, existentialism, individualism vs community, and rediscovering childlike wonder. Her goal in her work is to create fantastical worlds as a vehicle of escapism, hope, and wonder, complemented with an underlying commentary about a difficult question that she is facing presently.

Special Thanks: Ryan Tacata, Corbin Saleken, Nasim Bayani, Sanpetch Panjapiyakul, Capstone Class 2023/2024

Zoë Braithwaite – The Mechanics of Intimacy | Theatre

Week 2 | Program L: Proscenium | Thurs, April 4, 9:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 9:00 PM

A devised theatre performance conceived in a household bathroom, with a toothbrush and a man that Zoë loves dearly. Thematically reflexive of neoliberal atomized society, hyper-independent culture, automation, and tender desires to extend beyond oneself– to connect with another. This performance poses the question, where do we find intimacy in an increasingly inanimate world? Performers and audience members are invited to engage in acts of closeness: acts that resemble mundane, domestic habits but are perverted to their surreal capacities. Kitchen appliances dressed in tattered wigs and wet lace panties, humans performing oral care rituals for each other, and spilt milk consuming a once sterile stage are a few of the absurd tactics this performance employs to reimagine and augment how we experience connection. Leveraging the empathetic qualities of cringe, surprise, and humour this piece aims to not just contemplate intimacy, but rather form it between performers and audience. The Mechanics of Intimacy is a loving ode to mess, dysfunction, and vulnerability.  

Content warnings: Organic materials (oat milk and popcorn), sexually suggestive content, loud noises

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Zoë Braithwaite
Performers: Zoë Braithwaite, TJ Tan, Jae Gonzales
Stage Manager: Tamlin Vetter
Set and Lighting Design: Sonja Tan
Technical Director: Theo Ewanchook
Operators: Zoë Larson and Shyam Chand

Artist Statement / Bio

Zoë is an interdisciplinary performance-based artist. She works with traditional and experimental approaches to devised theatre, performance based-installations, and conceptualism. She makes performances as social practice, engaging with themes of femininity, sexuality, automation, consumerism, and neighbourhood. Zoë dedicates her practice to cultivating empathy and community in the environments that she makes and shows work. She creates work that disrupts conventions of the everyday as she believes doing so creates openings for audience and performers alike to empathize in new ways. Likewise, her process is heavily focused on questioning the surreality of her everyday experiences, and utilizing its themes and objects as material for creative intervention. She uses found objects and experiences like brushing her partner’s teeth or counting the time taking the Granville station escalator as her material as she is interested in surreality as it be reflexive of reality, not as an escape to it.

Special Thanks: Tadeo Ríos Dávila

Raunuk Chand – Creative Bankruptcy | Theatre

Week 1 | Program C: in the Round | Wed, March 13, 8:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 2:00 PM

Creative Bankruptcy is an exploration of creating art. More specifically it explores the idea of what to create when everything has been done already. Creative Bankruptcy uses a devised script, improv, and absurdity, to tell a lighthearted and comedic story of a group of writers struggling to come up with the next great idea. 

Content warnings: Explicit language; violence

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Raunuk Chand
Performers: Stephen Hass, Leon Lee, Proud Channara
Dramaturg: Garvin Chan
Stage Manager: Coco (Wenwei) Zhou
Design Lead: Catelyn Lin
Operators: Chloe Ng, Shyam Chand

Artist statement / Bio

Raunuk is a theatre artist who engages in making live performances using script work and improv. His works tend to have a comedic tone in them as that is the genre he enjoys working with the most. He creates scripts either through his own ideas, or from devising with his casts. Raunuk is inspired by the media that he consumes, whether they be a cozy sitcom, his favourite video game, or whatever rap album he’ll have been listening to on repeat that week. His works sees him tackle themes of personal experiences, such as his life as a student, his love life, or any other odd experiences he has encountered. Raunuk enjoys storytelling and finds that he knows himself better than anything else. Therefore the basis of his stories are of his own thoughts and experiences. He shares these parts of himself to build a more personal relationship with his audience. Raunuk believes that if the audience can relate to what they’re seeing or who is performing, it creates a more genuine and memorable experience for them. He believes that if even one person can relate to what he’s saying, then the story was worth telling.

Lauren Han – Vitreous Bodies | Theatre

Week 2 | Program G: Proscenium | Tues, April 2, 8:00 PM & Fri, April 5, 8:00 PM

Vitreous Bodies grew through a process weaving between filmmaking and devised theatre, with each informing the other along the way, and emerged as an ethereal, goopy experiment in expanded cinema - a performance built around fragments of a cult horror film. It considers screens as sites for fluid states of being, asking how the images we see change us, the way we see ourselves, and the way we relate to the people around us. What does it mean to see yourself in a work of art? To remake yourself in its image? Vitreous Bodies attempts to negotiate between the simultaneous desires to embrace and transcend the material; to be seen and to disappear. Through re-enactment, replay, and ritual, three devotees of a queer cult classic find and lose themselves as the worlds of the real and fictional bleed into each other. Bodies on stage mirror bodies on screen. Slime drips under candy-coloured light. 

This work is entangled with the work of other artists and thinkers, and indebted to too many people to comprehensively name. Here is an abbreviated, inadequate list of guiding lights: the films of Cheryl Dunye, Gregg Araki, Jane Schoenbrun, David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and Mike Mills; the writings of Eliza Steinbock, Hazel Jane Plante, Jericho Brown, and Anne Carson; and the video-based work of Jeremy Shaw.

Content warnings: Horror violence

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Lauren Han
Performers: Sara van Gaalen, Indah Del Bianco, Saskia "Skye" Cseh
Stage Manager: Claire Jia
Lighting Design & Techinal Director: Siqi Xu
Operators: Xinyi Wang, Mars Menezes
Film Cast: Bronwyn Rees (Iris), Jodie Soo (Suzy), Squidthread (Butcher)
Film Crew: Jasmine Bedingfield (DP), Lauren Toporowski (Camera Operator), Angie Yu (Sound Tech), Bernice Paet (Gaffer/Clapper), Aisha Wewala (AD), Marita Michaelis (Production Design) and Rosemary Morrison (Wardrobe)
Sound: ​​?NUMB?DAME?, Indah Del Bianco

Artist Statement / Bio

Lauren’s home base is devising and performing for theatre, but they work in whatever medium they can get their hands on (so far, this has included stop-motion and live-action filmmaking, butoh, songwriting, and poetry). They are text-obsessed writer/reader/talker, and much of their practice stems from attempts to find the words for things. However, they also keep one foot in the material, the messy, the hands-on, and the arts-and-craftsy; they work with physical materials like slime, paper, and bread as research partners and sources for image- and meaning-making. They are interested in personal and local histories; gender; the body; crosses between fiction, documentary, memoir, and critique; and the relationships between people and the art and images they consume. 

Lauren frequently uses art as an excuse to do other things, like hanging out with people they love, watching a lot of movies, walking around the mall for hours, or taking amateurish leaps into new disciplines. Their practice in research and creation opens up the world for her – and hopefully others – by allowing Lauren to learn and share knowledge. Their methods include staying up late, asking for favours, copying those they admire, throwing spaghetti at the wall, and going down rabbit holes.

Special Thanks: RJ and Nico at Video Cat, Corbin Saleken, Avery Chapman, Clare Noble, Justin Perdomo, Nadia Shihab, Erika Latta, Ryan Tacata, Caroline Liffman, Capstone Class 2023/24

Jaime Johnson – F word | Dance

Week 2 | Program L: Proscenium | Thurs, April 4, 9:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 9:00 PM

Femininity. But what is femininity? Is femininity the same as being ladylike? What is unfeminine? Can it be expressed only by cis-gendered females? Can people be feminine and masculine at the same time? Can femininity exist without the male gaze? Is authenticity feminine? Can it be rid of its patriarchal values? I cannot answer this for you. Instead, I demonstrate these five dancers performing in their femininity, and let you decide.

Cast & Crew

Project Lead: Jaime Johnson
Dancers / Cast: Ashley Sankaran-Wee, Elizabeth Kiss, Hannah Latta, Jeya Thiessen, Lauren Butterfield
Stage Manager: Tamlin Vetter
Lighting Designer: Sonja Tan
Technical Director: Theo Ewanchook
Operators: Shyam Chand and Zoë Larson
Sound: Karen 3 by Smaland and The Big Ship by Brian Eno

Artist Statement / Bio

Jaime Johnson (she/her) is a dance artist raised on the traditional meeting grounds and homelands of the Cree, Saulteaux, Niisitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, Dene, and Nakota Sioux (Edmonton). In her 4th year of the SFU dance program, Jaime is currently focused on streamlining her acquired skills into a choreographic/teaching practice.

Special Thanks: Lisa Gelley and Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg

Olivia Johnson – Pavement, Couch | Dance

Week 2 | Program K: Alley | Thurs, April 4, 8:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 8:00 PM

Pavement, Couch exists from noticing and altering moments of familiar scenes at night - paying attention to living rooms and empty streets. This piece holds choices of what to do in near solitude and movement from lived experience. Getting stuck to the couch, stuck in a loop…despite the strong desire to move. I want to dance in the street, but I’m stuck to the couch. Can I go dance in the street?

Cast & Crew

Artistic Lead: Olivia Johnson
Performers: Abby Blanchard, Katie Schauerte
Production Designer: Jammi Sze
Stage Manager: Yuxiao Zhou (Eva)
Operator 1: Xinyi Wang 
Operator 2: Chloe Ng
Sound: Sound design by Olivia Johnson, using If You Don’t Want My Love by Jalen Ngonda and Oh Man by Dr. Dog

Artist Statement / Bio

Olivia Johnson is an emerging dance artist living and studying in the homelands of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, known as Vancouver. After graduating this spring with a BFA dance honours degree, she hopes to continue performing and learning with embodied curiosity.

Special Thanks: Emma Miebach and Isabella Onorato for their contribution to her creative process.

Jessica Langelier – Förvandla | Dance

Week 1 | Program D: Alley | Wed, March 13, 9:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 2:00 PM

By observing how our bodies' senses react to changes in temperature, textures, and light, Förvandla examines how emotional and physical changes in seasons and weather affect the body. A story of transformation and discovery, Förvandla tells a tale of spring's blooming flowers to winter's cold, brisk nights, ultimately indulging in the positive and negative effects of the seasons.

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Performer / Producer: Jessica Langelier
Stage Manager: Hannah Azam
Lighting Designer: Jenny Min
Operator 1: Chloe Ng
Operator 2: Shyam Chand
Sound: Jessica Langelier (with Autumn 3 and Spring 3 by Max Richter, Arctic Breathe by Derek and Brandon Fiechter, and These Are Just Places To Me Now by Folamour)

Artist statement / Bio

Jessica Jordyn Langelier is a dancer/choreographer from Nanaimo. Jessica is a fourth-year dance student at SFU and is excited to graduate and share knowledge with passionate dancers across Vancouver Island. Jessica enjoys bridging commercial and contemporary dance, forming a hybrid movement style and encouraging exploration without boundaries.

Special Thanks: Förvandla could not have happened without the support of my parents, Christina & Randy, and my partner and best friend, Owen. You are my rock and support. To Lisa, who mentored and gave the perfect amount of support and critique.

Kaitlyn La Vigne – Sifting Perspectives | Dance

Week 1 | Program B: Alley | Tues, March 12, 9:00 PM & Fri, March 15, 9:00 PM

How to be a cubist. It is a point of view. This research stems from a curiosity in the visual art lens and technique of cubism. Driven by its approach to fragment and abstract reality by reducing anything and everything into geometric outlines and cubes. Performers developed a language to take a multidimensional body and space and reconstruct itself into a two-dimensional form. Through an exploration of symmetry, relationships, spatial patterning this work begins to expand and challenge what we see as our reality. What do we choose to see, show, and share.

Cast & Crew

Choreographer: Kaitlyn La Vigne (she/her)
Sound Composer / Performer: Leif Hatzi-Blaak (he/him)
Movement Generators / Performers: Mekaela Reyes (she/her), Krystal Tsai (she/they), Abby Blanchard (she/her), Olivia Johnson (she/her), Lillian Wallman (she/her)
Stage Manager: Jae Gonzales (He/They)
Lighting Designer: Vicky Kwok (she/her)
Operator 1: Marianne Gagnon (She/her)
Operator 2: Zoë Larson (they/them)
Sound: Composed by Leif Hatzi-Blaak

Artist statement / Bio

Kaitlyn is an emerging contemporary dance artist who continues to create, learn, and reside on the lands of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Qayqayt and Tsawwassen First Nations, so called Vancouver. She will be graduating this spring from SFU with a BFA honours in dance and minor in gerontology.

Special Thanks: Thank you to guest artist Josh Martin, Lisa Gelley, Josh Hite, Daisy Thompson, and Arne Eigenfeldt for guidance and support throughout the process of movement and sound creation.

Samantha Li – The Walk of Shame | Theatre

Week 2 | Program I: in the Round | Wed, April 3, 8:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 2:00 PM

The Walk of Shame is a physical exploration that weaves in between the artist's pursuit of sex positivity and her guilt of rebelling God. Samantha uses physical labour, self-inflicted pain, confessional, a bed of Legos, fortune cookies, and apples to both literally and symbolically work through her deep-seeded guilt with sexuality. It's a cycle of punishment and indulging in hedonistic pleasures, but she eventually finds a sense of belonging amongst these absurd and misogynistic religious standards that uphold in modern society.

Content Warnings: Self-inflicted pain, profane language, explicit content, food products.

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Samantha Li
Performers: Samantha Li, Stephen Hass
Technical Director: Theo Ewanchook
Lighting Designer: Georgia Turner
Stage Manager: Eve Couldrey
Operator 1: Marianne Gagnon
Operator 2: Dean Thivierge

Artist Statement / Bio

Samantha Li is a performance maker, dancer, aspiring choreographer born in Hong Kong, based in so-called Vancouver. Her work investigates the complexity of social identities through movement-based practices that experience both pleasure and pain. She enjoys working in collaborative studio-based processes that rely on personal relationships with one another, where performance making starts or ends in good friendships. Samantha’s performances indulges in comedy, eroticism, breaking the rules, and embraces the self that is often hidden from the public eye.

Special Thanks: Garvin Chan.

Marita Michaelis – Hot and Normal | Theatre

Week 1 | Program D: Alley | Wed, March 13, 9:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 8:00 PM

A performance of self-care, self-obsession and phoney vulnerability, Hot and Normal features a real live girl who swears that she has been working on herself. A side-eyed, tongue in cheek journey of vapid self discovery, replete with vocal fry, fake nudity, and a live punk rock band

Content warnings: Fake nudity, loud music, war sounds

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Marita Michaelis
Performers: Zac Daniels, Justin Perdomo, Liam Wilkins
Stage Manager: Hannah Azam
Lighting Designer: Jenny Min
Operator 1: Chloe Ng
Operator 2: Shyam Chand

Artist statement / Bio

Marita Michaelis is a library worker and interdisciplinary artist. She has worked in collaborative music projects, illustration, and textile arts. Her primary medium is performance. Her work often takes shape as lo-fi camp antagonism: joyful violations with an arts-and-crafts aesthetic. She is interested in the art of the gimmick, troubling her own relationship to wage labour, and fabricating new possibilities of space and time.

Special Thanks: Brynne Harper, Alexandra McDougall

Rosemary Morrison – Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? | Theatre

Week 1 | Program B: Alley | Tues, March 12, 9:00 PM & Fri, March 15, 9:00 PM

Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking? is an improvised game of negotiating interpersonal tensions. This 20-minute performance is a microcosmic drama unravelled by a team of 6 varsity players. A starting dice roll determines the 2 centre players while the other 4 split into two teams. As if trying to tell a friend every little thing that you can remember when they ask you about someone in your life, the 4 players devise the context for the relationship between the centre players. By the end, only the 2 centre players are left to finish the game in one of two ways and answer the question, Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?

Content Warnings: Improvised content, staged physical contact, staged intimacy

Cast & Crew

Artistic Lead: Rosemary Morrison
Performers: Samantha Li, Zoë Braithwaite, Lachlan Harris-Fiesel, Katie Gherasim, Stephen HassStage Manager: Jae Gonzales
Costume Designer: Shaeah Kim
Documentation Lead: Clementine Lesley
Lighting Designer: Vicky Kwok
Operator 1: Marianne Gagnon
Operator 2: Zoë Larson
Intimacy Director: Phay Moores

Artist Statement / Bio

Rosemary is a performance artist, working primarily in improvisational, devised and text-based performances. Her practice is informed by feminist studies, theories and expressions of sexuality and queerness, interpersonal relations and tensions, and sports culture.

Special Thanks: Avery Chapman, Aisha Wewala, Lauren Han, Ryan Tacata, Caroline Liffmann, Erika Latta, Justine Chambers, Capstone Class 2023/24

Skweltapis Ned – Drum vs. The Feathers | Dance

Week 2 | Program G: Proscenium | Tues, April 2, 8:00 PM & Fri, April 5, 8:00 PM

The strength you may have to endure various obstacles in life is bound to dissipate. Putting on a fake persona of being joyous and gleeful only leaves you sad when alone. leaving you bitter, angry, and resentful. Though you may not truly feel that way? Or maybe you do? Are you afraid to stop? Are you afraid to think about what could have been? We get so caught up in our own heads we forget to acknowledge the little things about life. Stare into the fire long enough you can see the whole world pass by. This performance is about you.

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Dancer: Skweltapis Ned
Stage Manager: Claire Jia
Lighting Designer: Siqi Xu
Operators: Xinyi Wang, Mars Menezes
Sound: Wild Rose, Motown

Artist Statement / Bio

Skweltapis Ned is a renowned Northern Fancy Dancer from Lillooet, British Columbia and a member of the Statimc Nation. He has travelled all across North America to attend various dance competitions and singing with his drum group Northern Tribez. In his fourth year at SFU, he hopes to integrate powwow dancing storytelling with a contemporary understanding.

Special Thanks: Thank you to my Skicza7 (Mom), my girlfriend Aurelia, my father, and my brothers for always supporting me.

Erich Neitz – Spot | Dance

Week 2 | Program J: Proscenium | Wed, April 3, 9:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 3:00 PM

What is it in life that stands out to you? That particular something that keeps brightening your day, any time it suddenly pops back into your brain. The soul spoken thing that always draws you to some metaphorical light. Where do you encounter it? Your head can become such a confusing place to navigate, hard to travel through the city of thoughts, but feeling it inspires you. When is it that you find this joy? Our daily routine tends to lead us down the same old roads. However, those moments of serenity just hit the spot, on the spot.

Cast & Crew

Director: Erich Neitz
Cast: Naz Ozlu
Videographer: Vishal Rana
Lighting Designer: Hailey Gil
Stage Manager: Edison Ho Chit Cheung
Operators: Mars De Menezes and Dean Thivierge
Sound: Spencer Dyer and Kalib Furlong
Music: Leif Hatzi-Blaak (Pianist) and Erich Neitz (with A Walk by Tycho, What They Do by The Roots, and Two Thousand and Seventeen by Four Tet)

Artist Statement / Bio

Erich’s work stems from his soul. Dance is the embodied expression of language that flows from his essence at a constant rate, granting him the ability to physically verbalize his thoughts, emotions, and overall state of being. Dance is his soul music, remaining synchronized with every beat of his heart.

Clare Noble – Tommy! | Theatre

Week 2 | Program H: in the Round | Tues, April 2, 9:00 PM & Fri, April 5, 9:00 PM

Tommy! is a horror-inspired thriller where two women wake from the dead. It is an exploration into the purgatorial state the victims in slasher movies exist in; the time after they’ve been killed and before they’ve been found. Tommy! focuses on two best friends who wake up dead and have the final moments together that they never should’ve gotten. It is an exploration into friendship, love, ex-boyfriends, life, and death; it is an exploration into what people would say if they got just a few more minutes with one of their loved ones before they died. Working with Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws as a primary source, Noble works to help these women take back their power and de-centralize their killer as the main character.

Content warning: Fake blood, profane language

Cast & Crew

Artistic Lead: Clare Noble
Performers: Ruby Maher, Inkar Julmagambetova
Stage Manager: Czarina Augustines
Lighting Designer / Technical Director: Chenghong
Operators 1 & 2: Xinyi Wang, Mars Menezes 

Artist Statement / Bio

Clare Noble is an actor, writer, and all-around artist who grew up in the suburbs just outside of so-called Vancouver. Her work often frames the familiar through a lens of uncertainty, allowing for the mundane to be unsettling or startling. Having been obsessed with all things strange since being a young child, Noble naturally gravitates towards the genres of horror and comedy. Her love of horror in particular runs deep: Noble has always loved how profound even the campiest and most comedic horror movies could be, especially those from the slasher subgenre. In addition, Clare has always been interested in the visual elements of storytelling. Growing up in the era of the beauty influencer, Clare quickly gravitated towards how certain makeup and styling choices could work to push various narratives forward. Her preferred aesthetics evoke a sense of nostalgia; often emulating the moody and dark colour palettes found in vintage horror.

Polina Olshevska – It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to | Dance

Week 1 | Program E: Proscenium | Thurs, March 14, 8:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 8:00 PM

While attempting to figure out how I want to exist, this piece defines, contradicts, challenges and reveals all the permutations of myself. Speaking two languages feels like living two separate lives. In one life I can hardly explain myself, in the other explaining myself is all I do. The languages sit differently in my body. And sometimes they bleed together and neither of them sit well. Except that I’m just a person who loves to dance in both realities.

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Dancer: Polina Olshevska
Voice / Spoken text: Polina Olshevska
Stage Manager: Jessica Kwon
Lighting Designer & Technician: Jiayi Yan (Jasmine)
Lighting & Sound Operator: Dean Thivierge
Sound: The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! (soundtrack) by Mikael Tariverdiev

Artist Statement / Bio

Polina Olshevska is a contemporary artist and dancer, from Ukrainian and Russian descent. In her fifth year at SFU, she is currently focusing on developing her own artistry and is interested in the relationship between movement and text.

Special Thanks: Thank you to my Dad, Mack, Claire, Anna, Elyza, Emma, Lisa, Josh, Tara, and Daisy for helping me through this process.

Bernice Paet – i like her | Theatre

Week 2 | Program J: Proscenium | Wed, April 3, 9:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 3:00 PM

i like her is an autobiographical solo performance about the joy and grief that comes with realizing one’s identity. Found objects are integrated with light and digital media to create new interpretations of diary entries. Throughout the show, audiences watch as Isa goes through a same-sex crush, a questioning, a betrayal, a confrontation, and an effort of accepting it all. Smushed playdough, built structures, recorded diary entries and spoken monologues are combined to tell this story. This performance is the outcome of an uneasy and vulnerable process in facing and sharing the truth and recognizing its importance for growing and moving on.

Content warnings: Mentions of homophobia, Playdough

Cast & Crew

Artistic Lead / Performer: Bernice Paet
Outside Eye / Collaborator: Jae Gonzales
Movement Director: Elyza Samson
Sound / Projection Design: June Hsu
Set Design: Kezi Jacob
Lighting Designer: Hailey Gil
Stage Manager: Edison Ho Chit Cheung
Operators: Mars De Menezes, Dean Thivierge

Artist Statement / Bio

Bernice is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works that engage with collage, light, and video projection. She finds excitement in the process of connecting with people and objects on a deeper level and the relationship that is built from them. Her artistic practice emphasizes the importance of being seen.

Special Thanks: Alexandra Caprara, Brianna Bernard, Ryan Tacata, and the Capstone cohort  

Justin Perdomo – Scumbag Yoga | Theatre

Week 1 | Program E: Proscenium | Thurs, March 14, 8:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 8:00 PM

Scumbag Yoga utilizes gesture, possessions, and noise music to explore late night karaoke and the blur between alcoholism and hedonistic enjoyment. The performance includes the use of a beer soaked rag to apply temporary “WOLF” tattoos, the smell of alcohol in a room, picking things up and dropping them, taking shots from a tiny glass, drinking alone, distorted microphones and sound objects. Scumbag Yoga pulls themes and environment from rock and roll stereotypes and DIY music culture. Scumbag Yoga experiments with the “rock n roll dirtbag” persona in an attempt to better understand and critique him. Why is self destruction so prevalent in punk mythologies?

Content Warnings: Alcohol, loud noises, addiction

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Justin Perdomo
Projection Operator: Marita Michaelis
Stage Manager: Jessica Kwon
Lighting Designer: Jiayi Yan (Jasmine)
Operator: Dean Thivierge

Artist Statement / Bio

Justin is a performer and composer, with a practice based in the exploration of vocals, electronics, and everyday movements. Through improvised sonic layers, he explores themes of substance use, boredom, and the cliche experience of male self-destruction that is entrenched in alternative music culture. 

Special Thanks: Marita Michaelis

Mekaela Reyes – Alienationem | Dance

Week 2 | Program H: in the Round | Tues, April 2, 9:00 PM & Fri, April 5, 9:00 PM

Five women navigate each other’s relationship through bodily conversation. Equipped with free will, these women express their choices by conforming or alienating. Their eyes study to mould into another body. Their bodies charge and buckle into structures of comfort. Their hairs distinguish loneliness and trigger alienation that travels every inch of their entire body. The women are bombarded with personal conflict on top of elements outside of their own control. Individualism and togetherness highlight their bodies in relationship with each other and could lead us to believe that they may simply be aliens.

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Music Designer: Mekaela Reyes
Performers: Beatrice Keller, Yarra Tsiakos, Christina Evans, Grace Byman, Mekaela Reyes
Stage Manager: Czarina Agustines
Lighting Designer / Technical Director: Chenghong
Operators 1 & 2: Xinyi Wang, Mars Menezes 
Music: At Last by Etta James, Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley, Stand By Me by Ben E. King, Come Together by The Beatles

Artist Statement / Bio

Mekaela Reyes is an emerging artist and dancer learning on the traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Graduating from SFU with a BFA degree in dance, her indulgence in all forms of dance fuel her never ending interest to grow and inspire her future.

Charlotte Samuel – In my garden: Branches are Parallel | Dance

Week 1 | Program A: Proscenium | Tues, March 12, 8:00 PM & Fri, March 15, 8:00 PM

I checked in and paid visits to my garden during the night hours, I saw how the shadows of the plants changed as they grew. I experienced nostalgia that didn't have memories attached to it. Now, Avery and I explore our shared experiences of noticing and reacting, growing into the patterns, growing out of them and into our own. Watch us as our bodies absorb and scatter light; inside and between it, we are unfurling and imprinting in front of you.

Cast & Crew

Project Lead / Choreographer / Dancer: Charlotte Samuel
Dancer / Collaborator: Avery Eli Church Ebenal
Stage Manager: Kirsi Jiao
Lighting Designer: Zuzanna Liniewski, Chenli Zhong
Operators: Marianne Gagnon, Zoë Larson
Sound: Sound score arranged by Charlotte Samuel with excerpts from Driving Alone Past Roadwork at Night by Ricky Eat Acid

Artist statement / Bio

Charlotte Samuel is a dance artist and uninvited guest on the unceded, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. They’re engaged in processing and channelling visual landscapes in their mundanity and interconnectedness through movement; deeply invested in fostering attentiveness to the body’s reactions to the world, its endless and exciting arrangements.

Special Thanks: Alexandra Caprara, Lisa Gelley, NiNi Dongnier, Daisy Thompson, Josh Hite, Josh Martin, Deanna Peters, Matthew Tomkinson

Krystal Tsai – Reminiscent | Dance

Week 1 | Program C: in the Round | Wed, March 13, 8:00 PM & Sat, March 16, 2:00 PM

The action of incense liting in Buddhism represents an interchanging relation. Offering incense during a prayer or worship to seek for an answer; a favour; a peace of mind or a need for groundedness. Reminiscent transforms my memory with this cultural and religious practice onto the stage, driven by those who left home at a young age wanting to find stability and a sense of belonging. I invite you to peek, looping yourself into my world; the smell; the movements; the pathway. What I’m seeking? Of all the places on Earth, where do I belong?

Content Warnings: Sandalwood incense

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Performer / Sound: Krystal Tsai
Stage Manager: Coco Zhou
Lighting Designer: Catelyn Lin
Operator 1: Chloe Ng
Operator 2: Shyam Chand

Artist statement / Bio

Krystal Tsai is a Vancouver-based Taiwanese emerging artist. Krystal is engaged in world-building, multi-media and interactive artworks; she navigates her movement language through bodily sensation and explores both physical and emotional connections with herself and others. After graduation, Krystal hopes to continue her research and tap into production administrative work.

Special Thanks: Thank you to those who have seen the process from the start, and those who are witnessing this work at this moment.

Olympia Tomasta – We The Forest People | Theatre

Offsite Location (Queen Elizabeth Park) | March 17 & March 24, 7:00 PM | RSVP

Drawing from the aesthetics of Alphonse Mucha, 19th century Romanticism and Czech and Slovak folklore, We The Forest People is a kenspeckled world brushing up against our own, inspired by the rich intricacies of nature and self. People dance spiraling around each other in an open field. A lantern flickers brightly in the cool night air. A soft and lilting melody drifts on the crisp clear breeze. A man of moss leads the way, and a woman cloaked in white becomes frozen in time. Whimsical beings awaken and the forest stirs, rushing forth to encompass the walking dreamer. Like the paintings of the Romantics, We the Forest People is a look into the emotions of nature, the adventures of the individual and the stories of heroes of old. It seeks answers to the questions: Why do we tell stories? Why must we tell stories? And what happens when a story is lost? Is it ever truly gone?

Through flowing costumes and dancing in grass, durational stillness and durational endurance We The Forest People paints a world full of life, love and burning fire. Like wisps of memories of times long forgotten, paintings both ancient and new come to life in this thrilling adventure through another time and space.

Content Warnings: Not wheelchair accessible, outdoor venue. This show will take place rain or shine.

Cast & Crew

Creator and Director: Olympia Tomasta
Performers: Ariana Zumaran Castillo, Marissa Capron, Daisy de Kroon, Raha Fani Pakdel, Chelsea Skilliter, Olympia Tomasta, Ryan Walsh and Dawn
Harmonies: Lauren Han

Artist Statement / Bio

Olympia is a Czechoslovakian-Scottish-Canadian actor, director and creator. Her work is heavily interdisciplinary with a focus on theatre, projection, Czech and Slovak folklore, storytelling, fibre arts, singing and duration. All her methods intertwine to create complex and intriguing narratives. Centering around traditions and folklore, her work weaves together whimsical and thrilling worlds. Spending time in nature rejuvenates her soul and inspires her to make mysterious, mystical and wonderful things. From Olympia’s time hiking, camping, exploring mountains and wandering through forests, she derives inspiration and invigoration. Her work incorporates natural elements often directly taken from the landscapes she explores. Images from the natural world weave their way into her work. The costumes and clothing in her work are sewn by herself, carefully crafted through meticulous attention to detail and design. Every stitch tells a story and every story becomes an impression in time. Olympia’s work is inspired by her heritage as well as the Romantic movement and aesthetic paintings. She finds joy in painting with the stage, bringing to life brush strokes of human essence. Through the simmering of story and the resplendence of nature, she creates fantastic worlds full of beauty and awe.

Special Thanks: Lorraine Lynn

Lillian Wallman – Bass Humm | Dance

Week 2 | Program I: in the Round | Wed, April 3, 8:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 2:00 PM

Driving through my small town in my dads work truck, too small to trigger the airbag, singing to grungy rock music in the passenger seat. This memory only exists because this situation was repetitive. Things that I remember clearly: the smell, the bumpy ride, the feeling of towering over other vehicles, the dirty truck, my dad. Things that are distant: the music. What is a nostalgic murmur to some is just a murmur to others. Either way we rebuild or replace the missing pieces.

Content Warnings: Loud music

Cast & Crew

Choreographer / Music Designer (with stems from All Apologies by Nirvana and Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam): Lillian Wallman
Dancers: Jeya Thiessen, Hannah Latta, Sonja Kwantes, Ashley Sankaran-Wee, Amaru Seki, Lauren Butterfield, Elyza Samson
Lighting Design: Georgia Turner
Stage Manager: Eve Couldrey
Operator 1: Marianne Gagnon
Operator 2: Dean Thivierge

Artist Statement / Bio

Lillian Wallman is an artist from Metis and mixed settler descent. She is from Port Alberni which lies within the traditional territories of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations. Lillian graduates from SFU this spring holding BFA honours degree in dance and will begin her career in so-called “Vancouver”.

Special Thanks: Thank you to Emily Lee, Larkin Schering, and Penelope Patterson for being an essential part of this piece's development.

Aisha Wewala – Grow Up | Theatre

Week 2 | Program K: Alley | Thurs, April 4, 8:00 PM & Sat, April 6, 8:00 PM

What does it mean to grow up? When is childhood truly over, and do you have to sacrifice childish mindsets to fully grow up? Grow Up takes you into a world that explores the in-between realm of childhood and adulthood dreams. It can be hard to be imaginative; to find wonder and magic in the everyday. In Grow Up, the audience is taken into a living room where the artist learns about growing up with the help of her 10 year old cousin. They play out their dreams, sing songs, and connect with the artist’s past-self through storytelling and re-imagining scenarios. Working with found text, video, and images written by the director,this performance creates a display of archived memories and the collaboration with a former version of herself.

Content Warning: Blueberries

Cast & Crew

Lead Artist: Aisha Wewala
Performers: Aisha Wewala and Taalia Shivji
Lighting Designer: Jammi Sze
Stage Manager: Eva Zhou
Operator 1: Xinyi Wang
Operator 2: Chloe Ng
Costume Creation: Nadia Mahamoor

Artist Statement / Bio

Aisha is an interdisciplinary artist with extensive training in theatre, dance, and music. Her work is collaborative and non-hierarchical, devising with different types of people from her closest friends, the oldest members of her family, to children. An essential part of her performance-making is to enjoy the process and have fun. She works with the concepts of world-building, exaggerating the everyday, and dream logic. If the concept and moment of creating is enjoyable, it’s worth exploring. Aisha wants her performances to create a memorable experience for the audience; something they can leave with and not leave behind.

Special Thanks: All of my family but especially my mom, dad, Hakeem, Hishaam, Rushnah, Rayan, Iman, Noor, Larah, Rownin, and Emirah, and Taalia. Thank you as well to Rosemary Morrison, Ryan Tacata, Alexandra Caprara, Caroline Liffman, David McEvoy, and the Capstone Class 2023/24.