Neanderthal Arts Festival and Wild Excursions Performance present House of X, a physical theatre piece that explores our addiction to the various genres of storytelling — tragedy, comedy, melodrama, horror and fairy tale — and suggests that our stories derive from what’s going on around us as well as in our imaginations.
At once funny, disturbing and mysterious, it incorporates texts by Erin Mouré, one of the country’s best-known experimental poets and winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award. Through movement, gesture, invented speech and incantation-like poetry, the piece explores an artist’s drive to tell stories that may or may not be derived from her own experience, revealing storytelling as a collective addiction. House of X is an autobiography that collides with archetypal characters from both myth and fairy tale.
House of X is devised, directed, and choreographed by Wild Excursions Performance founder Conrad Alexandrowicz, known for being one of Canada’s pioneer dance-theatre crossover artists.
[Sebastian Kroon, Crystal Verge, Jane Osborne. Photo credit: Tim Matheson]
Conrad Alexandrowicz is a director, writer and choreographer and storyteller who frequently combines elements of theatre and dance in different ways. To date he has created over 50 dance and physical-theatre works, some of which have been presented across Canada, in New York City, France and the U.K. He holds a B.F.A. in Dance from York University and an M.F.A. in Directing from the University of Alberta.
Alexandrowicz is a faculty member in the Theatre Department of Faculty of Fine Arts, teaching movement for actors and devised physical theatre.
House of X
Dates: July 19 to 28: July 19 (7 pm), July 21 (6 pm), July 22 (8:30 pm, pay-what-you-can performance), July 25 (8:45 pm), July 26 (7 pm), July 27 (9:30 pm) and July 28 (7 pm)
Venue: The Cultch’s Historic Theatre, 1895 Venables Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $14; available online at Up in the Air Theatre, Neanderthal Arts Festival, or Wild Excursions
This production is made possible by the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
