Kaitlin Williams, Brahm Taylor,-Peter Anderson in Mother Tongue

Two of Canada’s finest poets, Lorna Crozier and Erin Mouré, have lent their work to choreographer/director Conrad Alexandrowicz, who will use their poems to present two works of physical theatre for actors, dancers, and musicians in a Vancouver world premiere next month.

The two pieces comprising Mother Tongue will explore themes of family life, parents and children, the death of parents, the nature of the poetic act, memory, dreams, angels, and returning to a land that has suffered ethnic strife and bloodshed in order to bury the ashes of a deceased parent.
 
our verges draws on poems and other texts from Erin Mouré’s most recent book, The Unmemntioable (published by House of Anansi in 2012). A first draft of this work was developed in mid-2013, outlining an exploration of borders between countries, languages, territories, peoples, and between mothers and their children.
 
Drawing on the poetic work of Lorna Crozier, The Poet’s Dream was originally developed at the University of Victoria for the 2013 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. The piece begins as a dream—or a nightmare—about a poetry reading gone awry, in which the poet disappears into the terrain inside the her psyche, and becomes involved with the beings of her imagination.

Poems drawn from a number of Ms. Crozier’s collections address themes of beginnings and endings, the death of parents, memories of parents, angels and other metaphysical presences, and the succession of generations as children go on to become parents, and then face mortality as their parents did.

Kaitlin Williams
[Kaitlin Williams]

Featured performers will include Peter Anderson, Sandra Ferens, Vanessa Goodman, Lucas Hall, Jane Osborne, Linda Quibell, Brahm Taylor, and Kaitlin Williams.
 
Director, writer, and choreographer Conrad Alexandrowicz is the artistic director of Wild Excursions Performance. A storyteller combining elements of theatre and dance, Conrad has created over 50 dances, plays, and physical-theatre works; several have been presented across Canada, France, UK, and the Big Apple. An associate professor at the Theatre Department of the University of Victoria, his curriculum specializes in movement for actors and devised physical theatre creation.

Most recently in Vancouver, Alexandrowicz presented House of X, a performance piece created for four actors employing texts by Ms. Mouré. His explorations continue into that mysterious territory where dance and theatre overlap.

Wild Excursions Performance Presents Mother Tongue

Dates: May 14 to May 18; Wednesday to Saturday, 8 pm; Sunday, 2 pm matinee
Venue: Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $20 (plus service charge); available in advance via Eventbrite

Wild Excursions Performance is a physical theatre company that aims to startle, surprise, challenge, and delight audiences, as well as to ignite a renewed sense of theatre’s possibilities.
 
This work is made possible by the very generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

All photos by Tim Matheson.

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