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As part of the IndieFest 2024 opening gathering, excerpts of works by fanny kearse, Bracha Burke, and As and When were featured in bite-sized performances.
Pieces:
33 Tongues of Thy (m)other
About the Performance
33 Tongues of Thy (M)other is a poetic monologue exploring the rooted story of origin. Through way of poetry, music & dance this piece invites the audience to get curious about what it really means to create human life and if we want to do it by exploring purpose, choice, the cultivation of community and collective frameworks of child rearing. 33 tongues is a lesson in unlearning and an uncovering of all the pieces of us that still need (m)othering.
Artist’s Note
“The redirection of former dreams; becoming a midwife, being a surrogate, being a mother and the embodiment of who I am to become; a poet, a knowledge sharer, a space holder has led me to pursue the creation of 33 Tongues of Thy (M)other. 33 tongues is an invitation to folks to sit with the expanse silence brings so we can more clearly hear who we are. It is an invitation to dream more expansively about familial structures and reclaim mentalities/ ways of being that value the village that is required to raise children rooted in community. As I abandon my heteronormativity and surrender into my Queerness, my views on who has children, how we have children and how we build family are ever expanding. Drawing on my own origin story, my mother, all the ‘other’ mothers who helped raise me up and decades long experiences as a social worker and a Doula (in Turtle Island, Tanzania and Uganda), 33 Tongues implores collective consideration if having children is something we really want or something we think we ought to do. Community roundtable discussions and one-on-one interviews will be used as research to help shape and frame these 33 lessons on longing, love & choice. Using poetry, music & motion 33 tongues will birth nuanced and brave considerations of how family and community is built, sustained and tended to.
‘when i speak in tongues,
i am speaking in the lessons i am learning.
When i speak in tongues,
i am speaking in unconditional love’.”– fanny kearse
Meet the Artist
fanny kearse (they/she)
Artist
fanny, a Black-Jewish-Queer & Otherly Abled human who lives on the Autism Spectrum and with Crohn’s Disease, is a recovering people pleaser & over achiever. a late bloomer, a dreamer & community tender, fanny took nearly a decade worth of experiences as a social worker & doula and headed west to step into the gnawing ache of what it means to live your life as poetry. fanny’s art explores themes of reclamation of land & self, grief as a guide, pain as a portal to the divine and the joy of unbecoming. fanny facilitates poetry workshops in schools, community centres & with corporate clients across the lower mainland, produces events (Vines Art Festival, soul stories) and advises on local arts boards (Curtain Razors, All Bodies Dance).
Production Team
Vision + Direction: fanny kearse
Music + Creative Support: Kinfolk Nation + river rowan stone
Consultancy + Care: Adonis Critter King
The Gnawing Mind
About the Performance
The Gnawing Mind is a multi sensory experience, showcasing what it would be like to step inside a neurodivergent persons brain. Through this piece, the audience experiences the auditory, physical and visual sensations that would occur in everyday life for a neurodiverse person the good, the bad, the beautifully mundane.
Artist’s Note
“The Gnawing Mind is a multi sensory experience, showcasing what it would be like
to step inside a neurodivergent mind. The audience will go through the auditory,
physical and visual sensations that occur in everyday life for a neurodiverse
person.
The good.
The bad.
The beautifully mundane.
This performance will be a spoken word excerpt from the full piece, which is a multi
faceted __ that showcases an assortment of topics and performance styles. An
ever fluctuating journey accompanied and amplified by 2D animations. Devour this
slice of art and be nourished: By The Gnawing Mind.”– Bracha Burke
Meet the Artist
Bracha Burke (they/them)
Artist
Bracha (they/them) is a queer, neurodiverse artist. A recent graduate of Studio 58 , co founder of the emerging theatre collective Desert Rose. They strive to use their voice and opportunities to create a space for those still looking for a way to share their own. Integrating their background and love for environmental physics & the sensorially based human experience. They hope to explore how nature interacts with our day to day on an more tangible and internal level. Bracha is an artist who believes that any art is worth doing poorly; the importance of creation is for expressions own desire and without the need to prove yourself. Make it. They can’t wait to see what happens next.
Production Team
Dramaturgy & Directing by : Julie Mallet-Paret
Willilish’d
About the Performance
Willilish’d explores themes of memory, emotion, change, and motherhood through lullabies and nursery rhymes sung to Hayley by her mother. through a re-composed narrative soundscape. The title of the piece, Willilish’d, comes from a nursery rhyme that Hayley’s mother, Glad, was taught by her sisters, who made it up. Through creative design, quad sound, and archival elements, what was two-dimensional and in the past becomes four-dimensional and present. It lives at the intersections of design, music, and immersive theatre.
Artist’s Note
“We recorded conversations between Hayley and her mother, asking her if she remembers the songs she used to sing to her when she was little. What followed was conversations that traveled from hummed songs, updates on everyday life, and recalled memories. These conversations felt precious, bittersweet, and nebulous for Hayley. The surprise of remembering things she thought to have lost and the recall of associated memories and feelings felt powerful. We integrate parts of these recordings into the composition. The conversations become alive and present even as they happened in the past, and the nature of the work becomes an active contemplation on the relationship between a mother and a daughter; on what can be changed and what can’t.
Loop pedals allow us to actively construct and deconstruct the melodies and lyrics of nursery rhymes in front of an audience. They see and hear every step. What was at one point live becomes an echo. The re-imagining, distorting, and re-membering that takes place is as a magic trick: we showed you our entire hand, and yet something entirely new emerges. The repetition of loop pedals mimics the early forms of learning found in nursery rhymes, while the gradual layering and distortion of those harmonic cycles mimics our manipulation of memory. Repetition transforms fragments of sound into new cascading melodies and beats. Loops fold into one another, disappear, resurface changed, becoming foundations for new narratives.” – As and When
Meet the Artist
As and When
Artist
As And When is a new duo with Thule van den Dam (she/her) and Hayley Sullivan McInerney (she/her). They create interdisciplinary work using elements of music, theatre, and design. By juxtaposing live performance and technological manipulation, they engage with how memories are constructed and transformed and how nostalgia for the mundane becomes transcendent.
Thule van den Dam is a classically trained violinist, composer, and dramaturg. Hayley Sullivan McInerney is an accomplished actor and has extensive experience with using technology and voice in composition. The synergy of these mediums – traditional and electronic, literary and embodied – elevates their artistic expression to new innovative methods.
Following a showcase presentation with Tara Cheyenne Performance in 2023, they were invited back to do a Startle Reflex Residency in March, 2024.
Production Team
Artistic Direction: As and When (Thule van den Dam and Hayley Sullivan McInerney)
Director: Moya O’Connell
Dramaturge: Melanie Yeates
Hiraya
About the Performance
Hiraya, from ancient Tagalog, means the fruit of one’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations. As a child of immigrant parents, Alyssa has always imagined the possibility of belonging in both Canada and the Philippines and what it looks like through music. Hiraya is a story of the journey of self-discovery and identity that transcends opera, culminating in a mosaic of genres: opera, R&B, pop, and musical theatre
About the Artist
Alyssa Samson (she/her)
Artist
Based in Vancouver, BC, Alyssa Nicole Samson (she/her) is an accomplished Filipino-Canadian mezzo soprano with a passion for performing Contemporary/New Works. Notably, she is driven by her belief that classical music can make an impact that transcends traditional performance settings. This is evidenced by her breadth of experience leveraging classical music to advocate for marginalized voices, share contemporary stories about pivotal societal issues and build community between musicians and non-musicians alike. Recent 2023/2024 highlights include: Mrs. XE in Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone, Shi Ping in Emily Pan’s Thunderstorm, and Medusa/Melpomene in Roan Shankaruk and Georgia Perdikoulias’ Monster’s Made.
Something to Say
About the Performance
Something to say is a 40-minute album written in 10 days in a log cabin in Squamish, in June 2020. The pandemic was in full force, and social justice movements were taking place all over the world, through the lens of our devices. With one song written every day, Kristina Lao left that cabin with an organic pop album that takes the audience on a sonic journey through reflections and curiosities, detailed with the sounds of their surroundings.
About the Artist
Kristina Lao (she/her)
Artist
Kristina Lao (she/her) is a multi-national touring Artist and Advocate from Hong Kong with a focus on social betterment and systemic change. Her professional work lives in the world of immersive performance art, Music, Film & TV, and championing sustainable careers in Media & Entertainment. Kristina is the first Hong Konger to graduate from the London School of Musical Theatre and holds a Degree with Distinction in International Business from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Kristina is of Chinese/Nepalese and British/Polish descent, and is currently based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Watuth Peoples, otherwise called Vancouver, B.C. She loves a good cup of tea, paperback books, her mother’s cooking and Cantonese lessons, and walks with her father around the lake.
Unsent Letters
About the Performance
Unsent Letters: revised is an experimental play/multimedia installation researching the intersections between Van Lefan’s artistic practices and healing modalities. Inspired by personal experiences and background in psychology and counselling, this work is an intimate dive into the cyclical nature of interpersonal relationships, attachment patterns, and memories. Using songs, movement, monologues, and controlled feedback, Lefan investigates how experiences are imprinted in bodies, spaces, objects, and the processes we engage in to re-write these stories.
About the Artist
Van Le Fan (she/they)
Artist
Van Lefan樂凡 is a Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist with practices in music, sound art, visual media, written works, theatre, northern Shaolin kung fu, dance, and aerial hoop. Using field recordings, feedback, electronics, voice, and acoustic instruments, her work continues to explore new ways interweaving mediums can create spaces for healing, processing emotions, ideas, and reflection on personal and collective experiences. Her recent works include debut album “What Holds Us Together?” (2022), “Unsent Letters: To Whom It May Concern”(2023), an experimental play/installation created in residency at What Lab, diving into the cyclical nature of interpersonal relationships, attachment, memories, and the subconscious, “Space is Made” (2023) created in Residency with Media Arts Committee, and Assistant Sound Design on “Julius Caesar” at Bard on the Beach 2023. She currently works as a 4DSOUND technician at Lobe Spatial Sound Studio.