In partnership with Desjardins Caisse de la Culture and KissKissBankBank, Tangente is proud to kick start an innovative project aimed at supporting artists.

Eight artists from Tangente’s next season received a training session provided by Desjardins Caisse de la Culture and Nathalie Courville, KissKissBankBank’s Canadian ambassador, who is an expert in communications and funding in the culture field. HEC Montréal was also part the training with Professor Renaud Legoux who gave a workshop about marketing of cultural industries.

The artists are entirely responsible for the planning and the management of their own campaigns, and Desjardins Caisse de la Culture adds 500$ to the first 1000$ the artists raise.

VIVARIUM

A cyclic and playful meditation, VIVARIUM is a poetic allegiance to the unsung life persisting in neglected spaces.You are invited to visit a site where artists give their attention to detail, bending to weeds, bricks, and bugs. Two dancers oscillate limbs and torsos like Coleoptera or heliotropic plants — they jostle, camouflage, and compost. A musician plays field recordings, weaving a soundscape. A scenographer creates a pop-up garden from found-objects. In the lee of the linear time, Vivarium both colonises and pollinates, generates and contaminates pre-existing ecologies.

Vivarium_-_photo_mar_a_a._m_nera___interpr_te_paige_culley-1501688180 Paige Culley © María A. Múnera (video still)

CREATIVE PROCESS

Space is never empty. We try to work in a mode of soft manifesto — listening — in a spirit of equality and compassion. The performance is an exercise in placing value on alternative ways of moving and being moved through the world. We endeavour to cohabit spaces with other humans, non-human others, and objects, inspired by the drama of a garden, and attempt to resist prescriptiveness, worry, and harm. The paradox does not escape us. Patrick’s sound is a poem to the many voices in the field, but simultaneously drowns the hush of the air. As Noémie gardens, she contends with her conflicting roles as both fertilizer and colonizer. As Paige and Lucy dance, they both empathize with and trample what is at their feet. Our work began in 2014 in Hochelaga, and we continue our adaptations, outdoors and in.

Lucymmay_vivarium_20160612_121339-1501884487

(Noémie Avidar & Patrick Conan © Lucy M. May)

THE TEAM

Lucy M. May - Artistic Direction, Costume Design, Movement

Noémie Avidar - Scenography & Installation

Paige Culley - Movement, Costume Design

Patrick Conan - Sound Design

Lucymmay-1501709100 No_mieavidar_headshot-1501709110 Paigeculley-1501709123 Patrickconan-1501709135

Outside Eyes: Peter James, Sasha Kleinplatz

Thank you: Vivarium was created with support from Bête Sauvage, La danse sur les routes du Québec / Jouer Dehors 2017 & 2018, Monument National / LA SERRE — arts vivants, M-A-I (Montréal, Art Interculturels), École nationale de théâtre du Canada, Bête Sauvage and Erin Fortier, Nathan Yaffe, Stephen Glasgow, Marie-Chantale Desrosiers and the photographers & videographers Dorian Nuskind-Oder, Nans Bortuzzo, Emily Gan, Erin Fortier, María A. Múnera, Zuzu Knew

Vivarium is part of Jouer Dehors 2017 & 2018 | La Danse sur les routes du Québec

Previously performed at: Les Salons de l'est / Home Theatre Festival, Hochelaga, Montréal, May 25, 2014 Suoni per il Popolo, Montréal, Québec, École Nationale de théâtre, June 14th, 2017

AUDIENCE COMMENTS

“That was a really great show!!!” — Jacob Wren

“What a wonderful experience it was to sit through the dancers' fantastical journey as creatures of a Vivarium. The intimations of insects, ants, flies, bees, aphids and whatever else, the names of which I do not know, was so palpable. The moments of extreme stillness, of hidden presences lost behind a tree, a bush, a bench, were particularly intriguing. The artists created an atmosphere, a world that came to life, also thanks to the contrasting contribution of scenographer Noémie Avidar's role. Her presence was so pertinent. Everything she did was essential without being precious nor self-conscious. Patrick Conan's ambiant music played its vital role in contributing to and sustaining the atmosphere.” — An audience member

Vivarium occupies Tangente!

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