Trace

Our second SideStream Cycle, Trace, premiered at SummerWorks 2015 and then headed to Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo in January 2017 as part of our 25th Anniversary Season. This site-responsive work was adapted for presentation in a former classroom for SummerWorks and for a Canadian Legion for HPR, embracing all that each setting evokes.

Trace was co-produced with our colleague Bruce Barton and his company Vertical City Performance. It was presented by the 2014 SummerWorks Performance Festival, and featured actors Martin Julien (It’s All True; Assassins) and Michelle Polak (The Overcoat; I, Claudia), who invited the audience to collaborate in the creation of an always new, always unique story of desire and loss. The audience was invited to share memories of childhood, love and loss and contribute them to the performance’s larger story. The details are rooted in triggered memories – the performers’ own and those offered by the spectators – in an intimate meeting of strangers no more. The audience felt the intimate and unique experience Trace aimed to provide, awarding it NOW Magazine’s Audience Choice Award. Glenn Sumi of NOW writes that “what this intimate experimental show – different, of course, at each performance – does most effectively is make us reflect on our lives, something only the finest art achieves.”

* Photos by Dahlia Katz

Conceived and Directed by Bruce Barton
Performed by Martin Julien and Michelle Polak
Dramaturgy by Pil Hansen
Lighting Design by Laird Macdonald
Set Design by Michael Spence
Vocal and Movement Consultation by Jacquie P.A. Thomas
Co-Produced by Yolanda Ferrato and Bruce Barton
Installation Design by Heather Nicol

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