Speak Beyond Language
Connecting across Distance, Language, and Culture.
News & Projects
Rural Arts: Ignite the Arts Festival (Interior BC)
Summerland’s Ryga Arts Festival & Bouche Theatre Collective present
A Staged Reading of
FACELIFT
By Nathalie Boisvert | Translated to English by Johanna Nutter
Featuring Kate Twa
Sunday, March 29 | 2 PM.
Tempest Theatre
125 Eckhardt Ave E, Penticton BC V2A 1Z5
Arts Across Canada & Abroad: Emerging Translator Commission 2026
뮤지컬 R;LINK The Musical
Written and directed by김가람 Kim Ga-ram
Co-written with Tyrone Perreault (Cowessess First Nation)
Composed by김준호 Kim Jun-ho
Translated to French by Sandrine Boudrias
Arts Across Canada: New Translation Commission 2026
Deafy
By Chris Dodd
Translated to French by Martin Bellemare
New Translation Development – Italy
SILENZIO
By Trina Davies
Translated to Italien by Carolina Migli
Translated from Silence: Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell (Canada)
Teatro di Grazzano Visconti
Workshop Oct. 13 – 25, 2025
Teatro di Grazzano Visconti
Oct. 13 – 25, 2025
“Elegent, essential and poetic…”
– The Vancouver Sun (Canada)
Founded in 2012 by France Perras and Jack Paterson, Bouche is a Vancouver based artistic theatrical collective made up of working theatre professionals.
We are dedicated to the development, production and presentation of multi language works, cross disciplinary arts and works in translation. In Vancouver, Bouche bringing together inter-provincial pan Canadian Francophone and Anglophone Canadian artists. Internationally, Bouche focuses on cross pollination between International and Canadian artists of both offical langauges and beyond. Showcasing daring contemporary international and national practices by bringing together creators separated by distance, language and culture.
Bouche is a founding member of Global Hive Labs., an international network of independent creators and organisations and pioneers of Active Access Design – the integration of cross sensory translation into the generative process, and an Overseas Partner of PEPADI: The Indonesian Association of Puppetry Bali.
Climat Change Theatre Action Chicago with Global Hive Labs. (Chicago USA, 2017)
Come get
Bouche
WHACKED!
PALAZZO DEL MONDO with Signdance Collective & TeatroTrieste34 (Piacenza IT, 2022)
Jiajing Zhang creating “Translation through dance” in 再见 GOODBYE (London UK, 2015)
Creation.
Development.
Production.
“…smashing nationality and
accessibility borders
in a Total theatre…”
– IMA Magazine (Italy)
As Vancouver’s only theatre group dedicated to Theatrical Diplomacy, Bouche’s activities have taken place across Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, the United Kingdom and the USA.
Productions, creations, workshops, and labs. have ranged from contemporary multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and multi-lingual devised experiences to main stage translations of new Canadian works.
As a founding member of the international network Global Hive Labs., Bouche has been a leading instigator in developing Active Access Design, the integration of Accessibility into the generative process of making theatre.
Translation for Theatre is classed as “Creative Translation.” It is a uniquely cross-cultural and collaborative art; one where the collaborators are the cultures and languages of the original and target population as embodied by the artists involved.
Bouche is an active catalyst producing development workshops, furthering work already in progress and commissioning new translations. Bouche has facilitated the translation of multiple new Canadian works to English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
These activities have directly resulted in local, national, and international premieres of multiple translations of Canadian works, introduced Canadian artists to the local, national, and international communities.
5 Faces of Camille Brunelle with Canada F(EH!)stival Staged Reading Series (London UK, 2017)
New
Translation
HAVEN with United Players (Vancouver CA, 2022)
BARBED WIRE Translation Workshop with British Equity London Branch (Montreal CA & London UK, 2019)
Press & Notables
“…ambitious and beautifully realized…
heartbreaking.”
THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT (CANADA)
“…a fusion of epic and contemporary, myth and poetry,
in a fascinating total and inclusive theatre…”
LA LIBERTA (Italy)
“…explores with great insight thematic territory
I’ve never seen covered before…
the execution is poetic and the insight genuine…”
ColinThomas.ca (Canada)
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
BTC’s activities take place on or are launched from the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish People: the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We recognize and honour the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation commission and acknowledge the importance of Indigenous sovereignty on this unceded territory.
*A territorial or land acknowledgement is an act of reconciliation that involves making a statement recognizing the traditional territory of the Indigenous people who called the land home before the arrival of settlers, and in many cases still do call it home.
For more information on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada click here.