We’re excited to be going back into the studio next month with some of our favourite collaborators (and favourite people, in general). Picking up where we left off last August in Calgary, we’re heading into Close Relations territory with the remarkable pianist/composer Eve Egoyan and the visionary multimedia artist Sherri Hay. In addition, we’re welcoming the electric dancer/choreographer Michael Caldwell into the mix. An exploration of intimacy across disciplines, Close Relations is both a practice-based research project and a new work development process. This year we’re gathering in Toronto and are particularly lucky to have both Natalia Esling and Nikki Cesare-Schotzko on board as keen eyes, ears, and minds on our process. Thanks to the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies for the generous loan of the Luella Massey Studio Theatre. Watch this space for updates as our work progresses….

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2016.

It’s a real treat to bring one of our most traveled performances to Calgary this month. All Good Things has been presented in Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax, been offered to audiences ranging from one to one hundred, and staged in a community hall, a micro-performance space, and a hotel swimming pool. This month we bring it to the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary where it is sponsored by the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. We will offer it three times: once as a 1-2-1, once as a 1-2-1 with an audience of 10 spectators, and once as a 1-2-1 with a full theatre audience. The final performance will also be a fundraiser benefit for the victims of the Fort McMurray wildfires emergency. Our friend Martin Julien, who first performed the role in Toronto in 2013 and recreated it in Vancouver in 2014, will be on hand, and the performances will feature a complex new soundscape by Eric Bumstead and a subtle new lighting design by April Vickzo.

Photo of Martin Julien by Bruce Barton © 2015.

We’re excited to begin a new project with one long-time, much cherished collaborator, one who is fairly new to us (and who we’re intoxicated with), and one who we are looking forward to playing with for the very first time. Our friend from Toronto, sound artist Richard Windeyer, has worked with us on multiple projects, including Swimmer (68) (2009 – 2011) and both versions of YouTopia (2013 & 2014). Bruce and Richard have also collaborated on artistic research writing — “Immersive Negotiations: Binaural Perspectives on Site-Specific Sound,” in Performing Site-Specific Theatre (Palgrave, 2012)” — and the new project is in many ways an extension of the conceptual questions raised in that article.

We’re gearing up for a city-wide performance as part of the 2016 JUNO Awards to be held in Calgary. “Playing Our City” is a multi-site, participatory, inter-active, semi-composed/semi-spontaneous performance to held in a variety of locations throughout the city on March 12th, 2016. Site selection is based on a range of criteria, representing a broad cross-section of the city’s cultures, geographic and geomorphic features, economic levels and other demographic considerations, architectural features, and environmental textures. Calgary citizens will collaborate with trained musicians in each location to create music by percussively ‘playing’ the material features of their locations.

The fourth iteration of the “Articulating Artistic Research” seminar series will take place at the 2016 annual conference of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research — right here in Calgary in May 2016. Co-organized by Bruce and Natalia Esling (University of Toronto), the seminar’s focus this year shifts to the tricky question of artistic research results. We welcome pitches for participation from individuals and groups conducting research-creation internationally. Here’s where you’ll find the full-length call for proposals.

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2015.

This month we made our way to Beakerhead. In collaboration with our friends at Ghost River Theatre (which basically cleaned up at this year’s Betty Mitchell Awards) we leapt into Calgary’s celebrated “Smash-up of Art, Science, and Engineering” with an innovative and highly intimate offering entitled Taste. Hosted by the equally celebrated River Café and featuring a custom-tailored taster menu, Taste wove the sensory with the imaginary to create a one-of-a-kind performance experience. Taste was co-created by Bruce and Ghost River AD Eric Rose. Eric directed, Bruce created the performance text, and Pil provided dramaturgy. We’re excited to note that Taste SOLD OUT for its entire run. This year’s offering was a work-in-progress production, so there’s a good chance there will be future opportunities for others to get a taste of it.

Photo of Emily Promise Allison and guest by Bruce Barton © 2015.

Between August 17 and 28 we led a research-creation laboratory at the University of Calgary with some heavy-hitting collaborators. Entitled “Close Relations,” the project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and focuses on the potential for/of/in intimacy in interdisciplinary performance. Joining Bruce and Pil were dancer/devisor Denise Clarke (One Yellow Rabbit), pianist/composer Eve Egoyan, and visual/installation artist Sherri Hay. Rounding out the team were two terrific Research Assistants, Natalia Esling and Alexandria Inkster. A combination of cross-disciplinary training, interdisciplinary collaboration, and structured dramaturgical reflection, the lab was the preliminary phase of a projected large-scale research-creation design.

Video image by Bruce Barton © 2015.

After a remarkable visit to Hyderabad, India for the annual conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research, Bruce headed to Halifax to begin the first stage of physical development on tiny with Zuppa Theatre. Along with core Zuppa members Alex McLean (director) and Ben Stone (performer), as well as Zuppa Artistic Associate Stewart Legere (performer), additional contributions were provided by 3 terrific apprentices: Miranda Jones, Lily Ross-Millard, and Erin W. Johnston.

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2015.

We’ve begun working on our latest performance with our most recent collaborators, Calgary’s celebrated Ghost River Theatre. The piece, entitled Taste, is the second instalment in Ghost River’s ambitious Six Senses Series and will be given a workshop presentation as part of this year’s Beakerhead Festival. The intimate and interactive performance will take place at Calgary’s renowned River Cafe. We’re excited about the project and about our first collaboration with Ghost River and its Artistic Director Eric Rose. 

Bruce participated in the Banff Centre’s Playwrights Colony, where he worked on a the new collaboration with Zuppa Theatre. Formerly known as Supers, the performance title morphed into tiny. The piece focuses on how difficult it is to live tiny when the world wants you to live big, big, big. See Bruce’s thoughts on the piece and the process on the Colony blog.

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2015.

Michael Green 1957-2015. Irreplaceable.

Vertical City collaborated with Kaeja d’Dance on a new solo performance by Kaeja co-AD Allen Kaeja. The Rogue Show, which ran November 8th to 16th, 2014, was co-choreographed and directed by Vertical City AD Bruce Barton. Check out the Facebook event page.

Photo of Allen Kaeja by Cameron MacLennan © 2014.

All Good Things was in Halifax, where it was performed (in a swimming pool!) by Zuppa Theatre‘s remarkable Ben Stone as part of the Nocturne Festival on October 18th. Here’s what The Coast  and the Chronicle Herald had to say about us.

Vertical City was commissioned to create a 12-hour version of YouTopia – entitled 2YouTopia – for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche all-night Art extravaganza on October 4th, 2014.

Photo of Kiran Friesen by Chris Halper © 2014.

Vertical City’s Trace was awarded the NOW Magazine “Audience Choice” Award at Toronto’s 2014 SummerWorks Festival , August 12 – 17. Also cited for Outstanding Production, Direction, and Ensemble by Now Magazine. Read Glen Sumi’s review here and Wayne Leung’s review here. Follow Trace @ SummerWorks on Facebook.

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2014.

Vertical City’s YouTopia was nominated for a 2014 Dora Award for Scenic Design. Congratulations Sherri Hay!

Vertical City’s All Good Things was invited to Boca del Lupo’s Micro Performance Series in Vancouver, BC., June 26 – 29, 2014. Check out our west coast adventure on Facebook. The Georgia Straight and Vancouver Presents welcome All Good Things to Vancouver.

Photo by Bruce Barton © 2015.