Cross-Cultural Exchange & Creation: Bali, Indonesia

by admin | Nov 16, 2022 | 3.Development, News

Cross-Cultual Exchange & Creation
Bali, Indonesia

East Meet West

BTC Creative Producer Jack Paterson partners with PEPADI Indonesian Society of Wayang Puppetry and Sanggar Paripurna in a cross-cultural exchange.

INTERNATIONAL CROSS-CULTURAL CREATION

East meets West: Wayang 4d

Western Theatre Force Collective, PEPADI Indonesian Society of Wayang Puppetry and Sanggar Paripurna (Bali, Indonesia)

Nowhere is it more evident that there is no “one way” but only one of many than in international practice.

Considered one of the longest uninterrupted performance traditions in the world, the Balinese traditional performing arts are unique, rich, and complex. Deeply embedded in Balinese spiritual life (Balinese Hinduism), virtually every form of music, dance, and drama has its origin in ritual, if not a ritual itself. Practices like Wayang Kulit (shadow puppetry) reach back to 1500 BC.

Bali’s highly trained and skilled professional artists, holding significant esteem and social obligations, are embedded with their public “creating community through art”. Creation is an essential part of daily life participated in by most from birth.

Balinese performers believe in the principle of Tri Loka – the three worlds. The acts of creation and performance serve to help find balance in these relationships. Human beings connecting with higher powers, human beings connecting with each other, and human beings connecting with the natural world around them. At the very heart of Balinese’s creative process is making creating community by making art together and the power of change. The act of creating art with others itself serves deeper and more meaningful purposes.

We travel to learn. And we have much to learn from our Balinese peers.

This residency is the first of a two-part examination of what new is sparked when different cultural rivers come together in equal respect through creative exchange of knowledge and combining of practices.

A fusion of Balinese traditional practices and western contemporary creation was presented and tested on the National Day of Puppetry. The project brought together, in an immersive 5 screen installation, new media, verbatim text, and devised creation, with the Balinese story and Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppetry).

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About

THE INDONESIAN SOCIETY OF WAYANG PUPPETRY – BALI (PEPADI)

We couldn’t ask for a better or more knowledgeable creative partners and hosts. THE INDONESIAN SOCIETY OF WAYANG PUPPETRY (PEPADI) is the Indonesian national organization of professional puppeteers, puppet makers and other specialty arts expertise (individuals and groups). Founded by General Surono in 1971, PEPADI’s mission is to preserve and develop the art as the supreme treasures of national culture, promote artistic and cultural discourse, enhance human dignity, developing the next generation of professional artists.

Venue Host: Sanggar Paripurna & I Made Sidia

SANGGAR PARIPURNA was founded in 1990 by multi-talented artists from the village of Bona, Blahbatuh, and covers a wide range of arts, such as puppetry, puppet building and creation, percussion and music, dance, mask and the art making offerings, and more. Since it’s inception, the studio has been dedicated to the preservation, development and creation of art and culture of Bali. The company is an intergenerational with a special focus on community. www.sanggarparipurna.com.

I MADE SIDIA is an acclaimed innovator in the Balinese Performing Arts. He has collaborated with many national and international productions such as the “Theft of Sita” and has toured extensively across the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia. He is the co-creator and director of the tourist spectacle Bali Agung Show featuring 180 performers in a fusion Balinese and Western forms.

New Translation Canada: Robert Moule by Martin Bellemare

by admin | Oct 10, 2022 | Martin Bellemare, News

Towards a national theatre

NEW TRANSLATION CANADA:
THE SIMINOVITCH PLAYWRIGHT PROJECT

Every three years, 5 Canadian playwrights in both official languages (French & English) are nominated for The Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s leading national theatre award. Each of these playwrights represents a leading voice in Canadian playwriting as nominated by their peers.

Bbouche’s Jack Paterson (BC), creature/creature’s Johanna Nutter (Quebec) and independant Yolanda Ferrato (Nova Scotia) formed the New Translation Canada Collective. We contacted each of the playwrights who shared our excitement for this vision. They each selected 1 piece from their body of work for translation. Working with a creative translation team drawn from leading theatre makers across Canada, we commissioned creative translation of the selected works.

DATE
Saturday October 8, 2022

TIME
PT: 3PM | MT: 4PM |
CT: 5PM | ET: 6PM |
AT: 7PM

RUNNING TIME
2 HRS including Q&A with the playwright and translator

FREE event. No registration required. Capacity 100. Latecomers welcome – audience does not appear on screen.

New Translation Canada

Robert Moule

By Martin Bellemare
Translateranslated from Moule Robert

“With Moule Robert, Martin Bellemare offers us a text of dazzling formal mastery (…). This virtuosic inventiveness is at the service of the ethical questions dividing our society. In his own way, Martin Bellemare wrestles with the question that haunted Brecht: how to be good in a world that is not?” – Prix Michel-Tremblay Jury

Robert Moule is a very ordinary man who works in a daycare. One day, he grabs a girl from the daycare by the arm and finds himself accused of sexual assault. He descends into a Kafka-like journey of inner decay and comic absurdity.

Moule Robert premiered in 2017, produced by Théâtre La Rubrique at the Mont-Jacob Cultural Centre (Jonquière). It has since been produced in Switzerland by POCHE/GVE, and in Belleville and Paris, France by Théâtre de Belleville.

-Recipient of the Prix Michel-Tremblay, 2018
-Shortlisted for the Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone, 2017

New Translation Canada gratefully acknowledge the support of Canada Council for the Arts, CEAD, Prix Siminovitch Prize, and UBCP/ACTRA.

Crawlspace at Feuilles Vives

by admin | Sep 14, 2022 | News

Towards a national theatre

NEW TRANSLATION CANADA:
THE SIMINOVITCH PLAYWRIGHT PROJECT

Jack Paterson (BC), Johanna Nutter (Quebec) and Yolanda Ferrato (Nova Scotia) formed the New Translation Canada Collective. We contacted each of the playwrights who shared our excitement for this vision. They each selected 1 piece from their body of work for translation. Working with a creative translation team drawn from leading theatre makers across Canada, we commissioned creative translation of the selected works.

Our success is measured in the success of orthers. We are thrilled the first text we developed will be presented at Theatre Action’s Feuilles Vives new works festival!

Feuilles vives

Discover the Franco Ontario new works and creations
6th edition | September 16 to September 18, 2022

A staged reading presented by the Théâtre français de Toronto

Crawlspace

By Karen Hines
Translation to french by Mishka Lavigne
September 16 at 8:15 p.m.
27 Larch Street
Greater Sudbury ON P3E1B7

Artistic team: Miriam Cusson, Karine Ricard and Elsa Simbagoye

Project Description
“A blistering commentary on our consumer culture. Pitch-black funny.” – Jo Ledingham, The Courier

Award-winning writer and performer Karen Hines explores the darker side of real estate in CRAWLSPACE, a comic, Kafka-esque monologue that snakes through the brutal battleground of real estate, decorative twig orbs and the state of the human soul.

This translation was commissioned and workshoped by New Translation Canada in association with Theatre Francais de Toronto.

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Meet the Playwright & Translator

Karen Hines (she, her)

Karen Hines’ multi-prize-winning plays offer keen musings on modern life, combining such disparate elements as magical realism, pink-brand feminism and environmental disarray. Her solo performances and ‘little’ films featuring her darkly comic character ‘Pochsy’ have traveled the globe. Hines has collaborated as a director and dramaturg with many fellow artists, and her productions, plays and performances have seen venues like One Yellow Rabbit, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre), Astor Place Off-Broadway, Tarragon, Videofag, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, NAC. For Festival du Jamais Lu 2022, Hines’ ‘Tous les petits animaux que j’ai dévouré’ was translated and staged (Mishka Lavigne; Lisa L’Heureux) and Hines’ real estate horror Crawlspace continues to micro-theatres across Canada in French and English. Crawlspace is being adapted as screenplay, and is now a CBC podcast (PlayMe; Radio One). Upcoming, Pochsy IV premieres January 2023.

Mishka Lavigne (she, her)

Mishka Lavigne (she, her) is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her plays have been produced, read and developed in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and the United States. Her plays Havre and Copeau were awarded the Governor General’s Literary Prize for Drama (French). Her recent play Copeaux, a movement-based poetic creation piece with director É Perron premiered in Ottawa in March 2020. She is currently working on her new play Shorelines and her first opera libretto with composer Tim Brady. Mishka is a National New Play Network (USA) alumni playwright as well as a member of the PGC and CEAD.

About Théâtre Action

Théâtre Action is an active provincial organization essential to the development, entrenchment and impact of French-language theatre practice in Ontario.

Formed in 1972, TA is the first Franco-Ontarian arts service organization in the province, TA created the Francophone cultural magazine, Liaison, participated in the incorporation of Éditions L’Interligne, and facilitated the business plans for La Nouvelle Scène d’Ottawa and Sudbury’s Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario, founded with the support of Réseau Ontario, participated in the creation, supported the creation of the Jets de théâtre and Connexion Théâtre du Conseil des arts de l’Ontario. Since 1972, TA’s programming events have included États généraux du théâtre franco-ontarien in 1991 and 2008, and more recently, the organization of many festivals and unifying events including Feuilles Vives, the Festival Théâtre Action en Milieu Scolaire, le Happening Théâtral Communautaire and the 24 heures de création pour les professionnels.

Our Success is Measured by the Success of Others: Trina Davies’ Silence featured in SuperAbile INAIL Magazine (Italy)

by admin | Sep 7, 2022 | News

BTC is thrilled to share that the Italian translation of Trina Davies’ Silence is featured in Super Abile INAILE magazine.

Following our creative translation/ cross cultural workshop between BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective (Canada) and Piacenza Kultur Dom (Italy), it is wonderful to see such interest in Canadian work abroad.

Super Abile INAILE is the monthly EU online and print magazine of Super Able, a resource and service centre for disability issues. The article, DISABILITÀ E TEATRO by Antonella Patete, examines and showcases artists, companies, stories and characters in the Italian Disability Theatre Arts.

Teatro Trieste Trentaquattro in collaborazione con Global Hive Labs, BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective, il ChezActors presenta

Frammenti da

SILENZIO

By Tina Davies
Translated to Italian by Carolina Migli
Translated from Silence: Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell

When: Saturday, April 23, 2022
Time: 9 PM
Where: LA SERRA del PALAZZO GHIZZONI NASALLI
(Vicolo Serafini, 12 – 29121 Piacenza, Italy)

“The workshop presentation gave life to a deeply poetic reflection on our way of communicating and on the place of human beings in the world, thanks to the skillful translation work of Carolina Migli… Between beautiful vintage costumes and soulful music, the passionate and delicate reading staged at Palazzo Ghizzoni Nasalli is only the beginning of the story of how Mabel and Alec supported and challenged each other in the service of the good. Of a feeling that overcomes physical barriers and class prejudices…A concrete hope that accessibility and inclusion can become a priority focus also for Italian theater.”
– Micaela Ghisoni, www.piacenzasera.it

It only takes one spark of love to change the world forever. Mabel Hubbard Bell was a strong, self-assured woman—bright, passionate, and a complete original. Despite a near-fatal case of childhood scarlet fever that cost her the ability to hear, she learned to talk and lip-read in multiple languages. At nineteen, she married a young inventor named Alexander Graham Bell and became the most significant influence in his life. Mabel’s unique perspective on her remarkable life, and beautiful and true love story about how we communicate.

Canadian playwright Trina Davies working with Italian translator Caarolina Migli

To promote Canadian work over the pandemic, BTC reached out our international peers. With supported from CEAD, PTC and PWM, we supplied contemporary Canadian works in both official languages fitting each international company’s mandate to chose from; introduced like-minded artists and organisations; and supported funding applications and English language documents.

Translation for theatre falls in the professional category “Creative Translation”. By it’s nature Theatre is a collaborative effort, and translation for theatre is no different. A close cross cultural exchange between playwright and translator is crucial – providing understanding of the playwright’s motivations, choices, and the cultural understandings unique to the playwright’s culture, identity, etc.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Piacenza, Teatro Trieste 34, ChezActors & Piacenza Kultur Dom.

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About Our Partners

CHEZACTORS (Italy)

CHEZACTORS is a collective of professional artists working in a fusion of theatre, photography, activism, live music and electronic sessions, fashion, film, figurative, graphic and graffiti arts led by director, divisor, dancer Carolina Migli. With a focus on the now, the company revolutionizes the relationship between community and professional artists through new participation/ creation models.

PIACENZA KULTUR DOM & TEATRO TRIESTE 34 (Italy)

Founded in 1997, Piacenza Kultur Dom is a cultural association, cultural center and theatre that creates, produces, and presents live theater and the live performance arts in all its forms in Piacenza. Under the leadership of Filippo Arcelloni, we are the only independent producing theatre in the Piacenza region. For the last 20 years we have provided a home for independent music, contemporary dance, new works and creation, clown, and visual arts. Our productions are performed throughout Italy.

Special Thank you to our Supporters

The Ballad of Georges Boivin nominated for 3 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards

by admin | Jun 12, 2022 | A Glimpse into New Translation, Jack Paterson, Johanna Nutter, Martin Bellemare, News

The Ballad of Georges Boivin nominated for 3 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards

We are thrilled to share The Ballad of George Boivin (Western Gold Theatre) has been nominated for three 21/22 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards – Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Set Design (Glenn Macdonald) and Outstanding Video Design (Joel Grinke).

Theatre is by it’s nature an ensemble based art form and no individual award nomination happens without the work of a great many people. A tremendous thank you to Tanja Dixon-Warren and Western Gold Theatre who supported the project from translation to stage, francophone playwright Martin Bellemare who allowed us to bring his work to English language, the entire Ballad translation, dramaturgy, production and creative teams, and – of course – the wonderful actors Jay Brazeau and John Innes who both returned to the stage for this project.

Bouche workshoped the creative translation through our digital “A Glimpse into New Translation series” and partnered with Western Gold Theatre for Senior Access Design and Creative Translation workshop prior to the producduction.

Congratulations to all the Jessie Richardson Award nominees!

DATES & Times

November 10 – 28, 2021
Evenings: Wed – Sat @ 7:30 pm
Matinees (from Nov. 14): Wed, Thu, Sat, Sun @ 2:00 pm

Location

PAL STUDIO THEATRE
581 CARDERO STREET, VANCOUVER

Website

www.westerngoldtheatre.org

Western Gold Theatre
In association with Bouche Theatre Collectve

WESTERN GOLD:
THE BALLAD OF GEORGES BOIVIN

By Martin Bellemare | Translated by Jack Paterson with Johanna Nutter
Translated from LE CHANT DE GEORGES BOIVIN (Quebec, Canada)

FEATURING
Jay Brazeau and John Innes alternating as Georges Boivin in repertory

At 77, Georges Boivin “gives the dice a roll”. Georges just lost his wife, you see, the “centre of his universe”. He’s terrified “he’s no longer exists for anyone”. But there is life after 70 and it must continue even after great loss. With his three friends, all the same age as he, he sets out on road trip from Québec to Vancouver, in search of his first love who he hasn’t seen in 50 years.

“…explores with great insight thematic territory I’ve never seen covered before…the execution is poetic and the insight genuine…his (John Innes) skill is a joy… a wonderful combination of ease and thoroughness in his technique…he inhabits every word…moments of magic and even transcendence…an intimate — and rewarding — conversation about love.” – Colin Thomas, colinthomas.ca

“…insightful, thoughtful and mind-expanding…Brazeau gives a riveting performance, showing that emotions are still alive – and even volatile – even in your seventies… This is a beautiful play, filled with hope and longing and the realization that yes, there is life and love well into our golden years!” – EntertainmentVancouver.com

“…a heart-warming play that shakes off the myth often associated with old age.” – Reviewvancouver.com

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Creating Access, Inter-Gernerational & Cross-Cultural Dialogue

It is no secret that elder artists face barriers to partcipating in the live performing arts due to our professional structures and the natural process of ageing. We have attempted in this project to fuse all elements from scheduling, to rehearsal and design processes, to live performance with access. What has been particularly exciting is how the individual needs, priorities, and theatrical interests of each actor have come to play, creating two district pieces unique to each artist.

Francophone Canadian playwrighting is a uniquely Canadian form and is on the forefront of international practices. Born from different circumstances and cultural needs, the francophone theatre often places metaphor and experience over dramatic arc and the “well-made play”. Cross Cultural collaboration is inherent to bringing this work to English language translation.

One of the great joys of this project was over the pandemic, as we created a Zoom space bringing artists together across cultural, lingual, and physical distances in an intergenerational conversation – with playwright Martin Bellemare and translation collaborator Johanna Nutter joining us from Montreal.

I have had the privilege over the last few months of working with 2 remarkable theatre artists, a wonderfully creative design team, highly supportive producing body in a pan-Canadian conversation. A tremendous thank you to Western Gold Theatre and the Georges Boivin team.

Credits

Writen by Martin Bellemare
Translated by Jack Paterson with Johanna Nutter
Directed by Jack Paterson

FEATURING
Jay Brazeau and John Innes alternating as Georges Boivin in repertory

Assistant Stage Manager: Jessica Adamson
Assistant Lighting Designer: Chengyan Boon
Sound Designer: Stephen Bulat
Artistic Director: Tanja Dixon-Warren
Video & Video Systems Design: Joel Grinke
Costume Designer: Alaia Hamer
Senior’s Access Consultant: Dr. Julia Henderson
Set Designer: Glenn Macdonald
Assistant Director: Hannah Siden
Video & Video Systems Assistant: Vanka Chaitra Salim
Stage Manager: Ingrid Turk
Access And Surtitle Coordinator: Anika Vervecken
Lighting Designer: John Webber

Meet
the Cast

Jay Brazeau (He, Him)

Jay is seemingly everywhere. His TV work includes SUPERNATURAL, PSYCH, STARGATE SGI, BATES MOTEL, ROGUE, WEST WING, THE X FILES, AIR BUD and THE KILLING. Films: DOUBLE JEOPARDY, WATCHMEN, INSOMNIA, BEST IN SHOW, COOL RUNNINGS, WE’RE NO ANGELS, THE POSSESSION, LITTLE WOMEN, ANDRE, HEAD OVER HEELS, HORNS, FATHERS AND SONS and many others. You’ve HEARD him in countless voice roles for cartoons from “Sabrina: The Animated Series” to “My Little Pony”. Plus voicing the the NFB Oscar-nominated THE BIG SNIT. Jay’s favourite theatre roles includes: Man in the Chair “The Drowsy Chaperone” (National Arts Centre, Vancouver Playhouse), Tevye “Fiddler on the Roof” (California The Rubicon Theatre), “The Goat” (Presentation House Theatre), Cyrano (Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival), The Wiz in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s North American Tour of “Wizard of Oz” and the wonderful Edna Turnblad in the Canadian premiere of “Hairspray”. Jay is writing his own play FORTUNATE SONS and co-writing a screenplay THE PROFESSIONALS. IMBD

John Innes (He, Him)

John Innes was an early graduate of the National Theatre School (’67). He has performed in every major regional theatre in Canada, including 12 seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival where he received a Tyrone Guthrie Award twice. He has also performed in regional theatres in the United States including 3 seasons with the Denver Center Theatre Company. In all, he has been a working actor for over 55 years.

Learn more about gender affirming language here

Meet our Playwrights & Translators

About the playwright

Martin Bellemare

(He, Him, His)

A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s writing program, Martin Bellemare was nominated for the 2020 Siminovitch Prize and awarded the 2009 Gratien Gélinas Prize for Le Chant de Georges Boivin. La Liberté was presented at La Rubrique (Jonquière) in 2013 and in Montreal in 2015, and was scheduled to be staged in Ottawa in 2020. Maître Karim la perdrix (2018 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone, awarded by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) will premiere at the Théâtre des Capucins in Luxembourg in 2021. Moule Robert (CNL Scholarship, shortlisted for the 2017 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone and the 2018 Michel Tremblay Prize) was produced simultaneously at La Rubrique and at the POCHE/ GVE in Geneva, then at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris. Martin is a four-time recipient of the Aide à la création grant from the Centre national du Théâtre/ARTCENA in Paris, and two of his plays are included in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. Two of his plays for young audiences, Un château sur le dosand Des pieds et des mains, which was first produced at the NAC, have toured in Canada and internationally. In 2019, Extraordinaire et mystérieux and Charlie et le djingpouite were produced, and Cœur minéral premiered at the Francophonies in Limoges. The latter play was scheduled for a Montreal production in 2020.

His work has been produced in Quebec, France, Poland and Switzerland and translated into German, Italian and Lithuanian.

About the translator

Jack Paterson

(He, Him, His)

Jack’s practice has taken him across Canada, the UK and around the world. His work has ranged from contemporary devising, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural and multi-ligual projects to new works and contemporary approaches to classical theatre. He trained at Circle in the Square (NYC, USA), GITIS (Moscow, RU), SENI (Denpasar, INA) and received his MFA from The University of Essex and East 15 Acting School (London, UK). Recent project include devised creation in Italy (Teatro Trieste 34, Piacenza) and Indonsia (SENI, Denpasar), and a deep dive into German innovation with Flausen+ (theatre wrede+, Oldenburg). www.JackPatersonTheatre.com

About the colaborating translator

Johanna Nutter

(Elle, She, Her)

Johanna Nutter (she, euro-settler, multidisciplinary artist) developed her passion for translation through acting: being one of few perfectly bilingual theatre artists, she played leading roles at Centaur (Good People, You Will Remember Me) and La Licorne (Les Événements). The attention of both circles came thanks to the success of her solo my pregnant brother/mon frère est enceinte, which she translated during a residency in Tadoussac, accompanied by Linda Gaboriau. The show toured across Canada and Quebec in both languages, and to the UK and Belgium. Subsequently, she translated the works of Annick Lefebvre (Barbed Wire), Guillaume Corbeil (You’ll Go Looking for Her), and Florence Longpré & Nicolas Michon’s ballet-theatre hybrid CHLORINE, which she also produced and directed at Centaur, with her company creature/creature.

About our Partners

About Western Gold Theatre

Western Gold Theatre is the premier company in the country focused on sharing and celebrating the talents of senior professional theatre artists (age 55+). Western Gold also mentors emerging younger professional artists as they ‘share the boards’ with us. We are a vibrant creative gathering place for artists and audiences, young and old. www.westerngoldtheatre.org