A new residency program from the Fredericton Playhouse will directly support the development of new work from more than 70 local artists.
The Fredericton Playhouse has announced the artists selected for its new local artist development program called InterMISSION — offering local artists the opportunity to use the Playhouse’s stage, equipment and expertise in a series of paid creative residencies this fall.
Of the many applications received from local artists and companies, a total of 11 residencies (involving 71 local artists) were selected, supporting various artistic activities in music, dance, theatre, and media arts from September to December 2020.
“We are adapting to the unique and challenging situation we face with the pandemic by allowing artists the chance to continue to work and hone their craft in our professional theatre space,” explains Lesandra Dodson, Program Director. “We were very impressed with the quality of the proposed projects and are excited to have these local artists working in our facility at a time when the performing arts have been so gravely impacted.”
The Fredericton Playhouse would like to thank and acknowledge support from the Government of New Brunswick, the City of Fredericton’s Arts, Culture and Heritage funding Program, and to generous private donors who helped reach its fundraising goal to deliver the InterMISSION program.
An overview of the upcoming residency activities:
Choreographer/dancer Courtney Arsenault and photographer/videographer Gregor Dobson are working to choreograph for the camera and explore dance through film.
Violinist Nadia Francavilla is workshopping “Carving Space / Collecting Stones” a new composition by cellist-composer Emily Kennedy to be presented at Music UNB’s digital Contemporary Music Festival in November 2020.
Media Artist, musician Chris Giles and fellow bandmates of improvisational psych rock band, Helium Submarine, will film multiple live performances with projections, and multiple angles, intended for promotion of the group.
Multi-faceted theatre artist Tania Breen along with a cast of 9 seasoned professionals and mentor Alisa Palmer will workshop an original musical theatre piece “Sweet Dreams” (a modern-day adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” set to the timeless music of Air Supply). Young theatre director Ben Smith, will seize this mentorship opportunity, to work alongside, and theatre students from the local university programs will be invited to readings, and a work-in-progress showing.
Playwright/Director Jean- Michel Cliché, along with his collaborators plan a deeper dive into the possibilities of their new interactive digital theatre show “Space Girl” which premiered at the Notable Acts Theatre Festival.
Composer, and multi-instrumentalist Joel Leblanc & virtuoso trumpet player, Nicole Rampersaud unite forces to explore and discover site specific acoustics throughout the building to generate musical improvisations they will record, and film.
Violinist/fiddler Krista Tousenard will pay homage to her Cape Breton born mother, by creating a visual life story with her collaborators through documented audio, and film.
Motherhood band members invite a videographer and sound technicians to explore and document complex layers of experimental footage in order to create videos for several songs from their new album.
Playwright Jason McIntyre, will work with a mentor and his cast on a film version of his short recently premiered play “I saw Nicolas Cage”.
Marc-André Charron, and the team from Satellite Theatre will undergo a technical residency with their new full-length piece “Space Labo 2” where they will focus on multimedia and choreographic development – inviting other local actors/dancers to workshop ideas with them.
A Fredericton Playhouse release.
