Public Energy Performing Arts — Peterborough’s presenter and facilitator of contemporary dance, theatre, performance, and interdisciplinary work — has announced its 2019-20 season, featuring seven performance events from October through May.
The upcoming season includes two festivals, a free outdoor storytelling installation, and mainstage events at three downtown Peterborough performance venues, as well as artist discussions, classes, and workshops.
Themes covered this season range from transformation, mental illness, and the precarity of creative labour to the impact of residential schools and environmental activism.
Here’s the full 2019-20 lineup:
Trophy – October 4 and 5, 2019
Trophy, by Ottawa artists Sarah Conn and Allison O’Connor, features local stories of life-changing moments of transformation in a pop-up living installation at Fleming Park (427 Aylmer St. N., Peterborough).
Audience members will move through at their own pace from tent to tent listening to stories that capture turning points in the lives of the storytellers. The light-filled tents become temporary beacons to a world in changing times, before they vanish off into the night.
Drop in anytime during performance times: from 7 to 10 p.m. on Friday, October 4th and from 4 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 5th. This event is free.
The Mush Hole – November 2, 2019
The Mush Hole is a visceral and thought-provoking dance performance that reflects the realities of the Mohawk Institute residential school experience through dance.
Performed by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, The Mush Hole offers a way to open dialogue and to heal through acknowledgement and by honouring the spirit of the survivors and families that were impacted.
Curated by Patti Shaughnessy, The Mush Hole was choreographed by Santee Smith (Six Nations / Toronto). Local audiences may remember Smith’s dance about lacrosse, The Creator’s Game, that had its world premiere for a crowd of 3,000 at the Peterborough Memorial Centre during the 2012 Ode’min Giizis Festival. Smith is an award-winning producer and choreographer whose original work has been seen around the world and featured on film and television.
The Mush Hole will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 2nd at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St, Peterborough). Tickets will cost $25 ($12 for the underwaged and $7 for high school students) and there will be a post-show question-and-answer session with the artists.
Precarious2: Peterborough ArtsWORK Festival – November 1 to December 21, 2019
Rat costumes created by Laurel Paluck. One of the theatrical pieces during the 2017 Pecarious Festival was Kate Story’s “Festivus Rattus 2035”, a post-apocalyptic retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin as a metaphor for the underpaid and undervalued artist. (Photo by Andy Carroll)
Precarious2 is a month-long multi-arts festival that explores the precarity of creative labour features more than 50 artists creating and presenting new works in theatre, visual art, music, spoken word, literary arts, and performance. The first Precarious Festival took place in November 2017.
Presented by Fleshy Thud in partnership with Public Energy Performing Arts with Kate Story as artistic director and Ryan Kerr as festival director, Precarious2 will also offer workshops, artistic mentorships, and panel discussions on topics including food security, decolonizing artistic practice, precarity and aging, labour issues, and gentrification.
Precarious2: Peterborough ArtsWORK Festival will run at multiple venues throughout downtown Peterborough from Friday, November 1st until Saturday, December 31st. More details will be coming closer to the event date.
Every Brilliant Thing – January 16 to 19 and 21 to 25, 2020
Public Energy Performing Arts has partnered with New Stages Theatre to present Every Brilliant Thing, directed by New Stages artistic director Randy Read and starring Stratford company member Steve Ross.
Written by Duncan MacMillan and Jonny Donahoe, Every Brilliant Thing is a powerfully moving comedy-drama about a man who remembers when, as a young boy, he tried to ease his mother’s depression with a list of everything he could think of to remind her that life was still worth living. In the process, he makes his own discoveries about the power of hope and storytelling.
A full production of Every Brilliant Thing will be staged at The Theatre on King (171 King St., Peterborough) at 7:30 p.m. from Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 25th (no performance on Monday, January 20), with a 3 p.m. matinee performance on Sunday, January 24th. Tickets will cost $25 ($12 for the underwaged).
The Chemical Valley Project – March 6, 2020
Toronto’s Broadleaf Theatre presents The Chemical Valley Project, a work of documentary theatre featuring an innovative blend of design, object puppetry, and performance.
Located in Sarnia, Ontario, the so-called “Chemical Valley” is a corridor of petrochemical industry plants that lie adjacent to the Aamjiwnaang First Nations reserve. In The Chemical Valley Project, theatre makers Julia Howman and Kevin Matthew Wong document the activism of Vanessa Gray and Lindsay Beze Gray, who have dedicated their lives to fighting the pollution that threatens their community’s health and future.
The 2017 critics’ pick by Toronto’s NOW Magazine, The Chemical Valley Project will spark conversation on Canadian environmental policy, treaty rights and Indigenous relations, and Canadian identity and values.
The Chemical Valley Project will be staged at 12:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 6th at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St, Peterborough). Tickets will cost $25 ($12 for the underwaged and $7 for high school students) and there will be a post-show question-and-answer session with the artists.
Emergency Festival #23 – April 3 to 5, 2020
Now in its 23rd year, the Emergency Festival is a cornerstone of support for local artists creating new work, from experimental theatre to contemporary dance and aerial circus arts.
A call for artists to submit proposals for Emergency Festival #23 will be issued in November 2019, with artistic programming decisions to follow.
The schedule for the 2020 festival is still to be determined, but performance venues will include Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St, Peterborough) and The Theatre on King (171 King St., Peterborough).
In-Ward – May 14, 2020
Presented by Montreal urban dance company Ebnflõh in conjunction with Showplace Performance Centre, In-Ward uses hip-hop dance to explore the human psyche with dramatic tension and dark humour.
Choreographer Alexandra “Spicey” Landé builds bridges between hip-hop culture and contemporary dance, taking the dance of the streets to new artistic heights. With six accomplished dancers, she plunges us into the deep waters of the human psyche, depicting the overlapping of feelings and the subtle contradictions of the unconscious — both individual and collective — while faced with forced confinement, sharing same spaces, and isolation.
Renowned hip-hop beat maker and producer Shash’U provides a sound design that simultaneously accompanies the dance and propels it forward.
In-Ward will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 14th Showplace Performance Centre (290 George St. N., Peterborough). Tickets will cost $25 ($12 for the underwaged and $7 for high school students) and there will be a post-show question-and-answer session with the artists.
For more details about Public Energy Performing Arts’ 2019-20 season, visit publicenergy.ca/performance-season/2019-2020/.
kawarthaNOW.com is proud to be a sponsor of the 2019-20 season of Public Energy Performing Arts.
