SummerWorks Guide: Out-of-Town Artists

SUMMERWORKS SHOWS

Out-of-Town Artists

ARE WE NOT HORSES: THE SCI-FI SUMMER MUSICAL, by Jacob Zimmer

A science fiction parable about robot workers who travel from place to place, looking for a better future. Marking the tenth anniversary of the concept album Are We Not Horses, Jacob Zimmer and Small Wooden Shoe team up with Toronto band Rock Plaza Central to make a brand new summer musical.

THE FIRST TIME I SAW THE SEA, by Sturla Alvsvåg, Tonje Dreyer, Sellevoll, Miriam Fernandes, Elias Hauter and Maren Nysæther Sørensen

Oscar and Kate just moved to a new town. Everything is perfect. Until the roof starts to leak. A flood is coming, and Oscar hates water. The First Time I Saw the Sea is an interrogation into what we remember, and how we can remember something that never happened. Plunging into the mess of memory, an international ensemble from France, Norway, and Canada present a new work about imagination and evolution.

GHOST DAYS, by by Terrance Houle in collaboration with Simla Civelek

Evoking our colonial and non-colonial histories that exist in the light of night as in the darkness of the day, GHOST DAYS awakens a collaboration with artists, audience, and spirit. Internationally celebrated performance artist Terrance Houle will work in residence over night at the Theatre Centre throughout the festival, culminating in a final performance that combines video, performance, photography, and music to conjure spirits and ghosts as audience and collaborators.

LET’S TRY THIS STANDING, by Gillian Clark

Six years ago, Gillian was hit by an SUV. She was on the sidewalk. Now, Gillian is a professional theatre artist. Let’s Try This Standing is about shitting on nurses, having sex with atrophied muscles, and being massaged by a therapist as he eats a bagel. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does let us be in a room together and be honest about how okay we are.

THE PRINCIPLE OF PLEASURE, by Gerard Reyes

Inspired by the pleasures found in a Montreal trans bar, Manhattan vogue balls, Berlin fetish parties and Portland strip clubs, the virtuosic dancer-choreographer Gerard Reyes forges intimate connections with the audience by breaking the rules and conventions of these spaces. It’s a celebration of freedom, glamour, seduction and the unifying power of pleasure – set to the songs of Janet Jackson.

REASSEMBLED, SLIGHTLY ASKEW, by Shannon Yee

An autobiographical, audio-based artwork about Shannon’s experience of falling critically ill with a rare brain infection and her journey of rehabilitation with an acquired brain injury. Experience the show through headphones in a hospital bed, where you will enter a three-dimensional soundscape and viscerally experience Shannon’s medical journey and re-integration into the world with a hidden disability.

THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS, by Guilty by Association

Everyone is annihilating each other. Or dying of a plague. The patriarchy thinks it can set things straight by building a monument made of gold.Inspired by a scene from Romeo & Juliet that no one seems to remember, these violent delights asks: Why do we think a memorial can represent history and loss? How can a specific monument enfold larger issues of cultural memory and capital? And what, if anything, is sacred?

See the rest of the guide here.

The SummerWorks Performance Festival is on in Toronto from August 3 – 13.

Click here for tickets or more information

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