TPM presented In Time, a live art production created in partnership with End of the West Collective on December 2 – 12 2021.

Once Upon a Time is now.

In Time is a Live Art show -a hybrid of theatre and installation art- told through theatre, architecture, and dance.  It is a campfire myth of the god Janus told three times: through three different arts practices, three different artists’ views, and in three different rooms; each for an audience of one.

Brought to us by an eclectic group of artists – neighbours in Winnipeg’s West End who met around a backyard fire pit during the Covid 19 pandemic. Jacquie Loewen (a theatre maker and fight choreographer), Avinash -Nash – (a dancer trained in Bharatanatyam), Dave Thomas (Anishnaabe artist and architectural designer) and Scott Henderson (a theatre lighting designer).

In Time reveals the mythic God Janus – Deity of Doorways. Drawing on Bharatanatyam dance, Indigenous art, modern theatre, and spectator participation, audiences can expect an intimate and powerful encounter of cosmic, cultural and aesthetically diverse storytelling.

THE TEAM

Eric Blais (Ensemble)

Eric Blais is a performer, director, educator and theatre maker who has been working in theatre, film and television for over 20 years. Locally, he has performed with Theatre Projects Manitoba, Shakespeare in the Ruins, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and has worked for various independent productions as well. Recent credits include directing Shakespeare’s Will for SIR, Performing in Love and Information for Company Link and the new television series SkyMed.

Eric trained in Theatre at the University of Winnipeg and holds a Masters in Fine Art from York University.

 

 

 

Charlene Van Buekenhout (Puppet Builder/Operator)

Charlene is a Métis / Belgian / Canadian theatre artist living and working on Treaty 1. She is the Artistic Producer of Echo Theatre and is a professional actor, and mom to Phoebe. She participated in the 2018 New England Puppet Intensive where she learned to perform, make, create puppets and introduced her to a new passion: lantern puppets which she explored recently in a Nuit Blanche project with Theatre Cercle Moliere to create a large scale metis beading project with lanterns as beads. She has performed ghost stories and more with her Crankie box which is fast becoming part of every project, and she is currently creating some theatre about her Métis self preparing for a residency with RMTC in December 2021. She participated in a Michif language revitalization project in 2021 and has been learning to speak southern Michif since May 2020.

Her play Minoosh Doo- Kapeeshiw (a partnership with Indigenous Languages Manitoba) was part of the virtual kidsfringe of 2021. www.echotheatre.net

 

Waawaate Fobister (Ensemble)

Waawaate Fobister is an actor, dancer, playwright, choreographer, instructor, and a producer, currently residing in Shoal Lake. A proud Anishnaabe from Grassy Narrows First Nation. A recipient of two Dora awards for outstanding actor and play for Agokwe, Humber College outstanding actor, Mark S. Bonham Centre award from University of Toronto for their advocacy and public knowledge in sexual diversity. Waawaate also has many nominations, including Ontario Premiers’ Award, K.M Hunter Award and Sterling Award – Edmonton.

Waawaate trained and studied Theatre Arts – Performance at Humber College, Indigenous Dance at Banff Centre for the Arts, Summer School Intensives at Toronto Dance Theatre, Intensives at Centre for Indigenous Theatre and Kahawi Dance Theatre. Waawaate has performed in many major theatre companies across Canada and their work and research has taken them to many places as an artist, including Japan, UK, US, and many coasts across Turtle Island.

Currently, Waawaate is working at the Grand Council Treaty #3 as the LGBTQ2S+ Council Coordinator in Kenora, On.

 

Danielle Friesen (Graphic Designer/Illustrator)

Danielle Friesen is a local artist and illustrator born and raised in Winnipeg, where she currently creates from. Danielle graduated from the Red River College Graphic Design Program in 2019 and has since used her studies to expand her practice as an artist. Danielle conveys work primarily in ink, exercising pen techniques such as pointillism and cross hatching to achieve work that ranges from high detail to minimalism.

 

 

 

 

Scott Henderson (Lighting Designer/Technical Coordinator)

Scott Henderson is a Winnipeg-based Lighting Designer who has worked in theatres across Canada including the Stratford and Shaw Festivals. In Winnipeg, Scott has designed over 60 Productions for the Manitoba Theatre Centre, 48 for Prairie Theatre Exchange as well as numerous productions for Manitoba Opera, Manitoba Theatre for Young People and most other theatre and dance companies in Winnipeg. Scott is a graduate of Ryerson Theatre School (1990) and has been a member of the Associated Designers of Canada since 1996.

 

 

 

Victoria Emilie Hill (Ensemble)

Victoria Emilie Hill is a creator, mover, and actor based in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory.  She is curious about work that focuses on movement and the body as a place we hold and tell stories.  Victoria holds a BA Honours from the University of Winnipeg in Theatre (Acting) with a double major in Politics.  She has trained in Viewpoints, Grotowski, Suzuki, and Contact Improvisation and has worked as a performer, dancer, and facilitator for various companies in Winnipeg.  Victoria has a love for adventure, her last exploration taking her to a small off-grid island on the West Coast to study Contact Improvisation and live in her tent for a couple of months.  The tent got moldy, the curiosity grew large.  In Time will be her next glorious adventure, and Victoria is deeply grateful to be a part of this new work.

 

 

Jacqueline Loewen (Director/Creator)

Jacqueline Loewen is a theatre maker, and founding member of the multiple Canadian Comedy Award nominated physical sketch group Hot Thespian Action. She has worked extensively as a fight choreographer and movement coach on every stage in Winnipeg, as well as at Bard on the Beach (VAN) CanStage (TO), and Kansas State University (KS), and has won two Winnipeg Theatre Awards for outstanding choreography. She has adapted and directed site specific operas for Manitoba Underground Opera, Little Opera Company, and Flipside Opera, and created several experimental physical theatre pieces, notably La Belle Laide (nominated for Harry S. Rintoul award), and Tree in the Closest Distance (residency at The Sawdust Collector, Vancouver), and directed The Telephone/La Voix Humaine, the first show of Manitoba Opera’s 2021-22 season.

 

 

Ian McFarlane (Puppet Designer)

Ian is a multifaceted theatre maker whose unique practice of landscape poetics, junkyard theatrics, and performative alchemy explores the unexpected correspondence between the performing body and the performing of the world. Expanding on the disciplines of puppetry, ecoscenography and sensory ethnography as foundations for creative inquiry, Ian creates works for the theatre, outdoor spectacles and community-led projects. Recent artistic activities include: workshop facilitation at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, performance/creation/design of Troubling Joy: A Bicycle Puppet Circus (2021) and Late Night Radio (2020) with The North Barn Theatre Collective , Resident Puppeteer with Bread and Puppet Theater, including an international performance of The Honey Let’s Go Home Opera at the 2019 Festival Mondial des Theatres de Marionnettes, and puppeteer in Iinisikilmm with The Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry (2017). Ian received an MFA in Contemporary Art from Simon Fraser University in 2018, is a co-producer and resident scenographer for The River Clyde Pageant in New Glasgow, PEI, and a co-creator of The North Barn Theatre Collective in Mi’kma’ki, Antigonish County, NS.

 

Doug Morrow (Mask Builder)

With over thirty years experience as a makeup artist in film and television, Doug Morrow has been involved with almost every aspect of creative makeup. From beauty and character work to puppets and prosthetics, his love of film keeps his feet firmly planted during those long 18 hour days. Credits such as “Happy Gilmore”, “The X-Files”, “Capote”, “Jumanji”, and “The Haunting in Connecticut” are just a few of the more than 100 film and television projects Morrow has been involved with over the years. He credits his continual success (ie., keeping busy!) to his great passion for makeup and his incredible mentors who taught him the most important thing about movie makeup; learn to not only be a great character/prosthetic artist, but to be a great beauty/straight makeup artist as well. “Make yourself indispensable to every production that you are in involved with and never, EVER say no to a director!”

 

Rafael Reyes (Composer)

Rafael grew up in El Salvador with most of his formative years spent exploring popular forms of music, which eventually led him to learning piano and guitar at a young age, forming bands and performing around his birth town, at age 14. When he immigrated to Canada in the late 90s, he found a thriving and highly regarded music scene in Winnipeg, where he now resides.

As a young musician, he performed in various musical outfits ranging from traditional Andean music to rock and punk, including reggae and tropical Latin combos, all of which have made him a well-rounded musician, well versed in many genres of music. These experiences have also made him quite adept at many instruments, including many stringed, percussive, and wind instruments. In 2009, Rafael joined The Mariachi Ghost in its very early stages of development, helping to establish a sound and a more cohesive musical direction alongside his band mates, a position he continues to this day, touring extensively across Canada, parts of the US and Europe. The band continues to be very active in the music scene in Canada, being awarded two (2013, 2020) Western Canadian Music Awards in the Category of Best World Music Album and one (2020) for Visual Media Composer Of The Year (Octavio is Dead)

Although Rafael tends to bring the heavy and progressive rock aspect to The Mariachi Ghost, his love and knowledge of many other genres of music, such as Classical and Jazz for example, have allowed him to contribute to various other recordings and live acts as Guitar/Bass player, pedal steel guitar player and other instruments, as well as continuing to write music for bands and soundtracks and scoring for film and theatre.

 

Ridge Romanishen (Stage Manager)

Ridge is thrilled to back working in LIVE THEATRE again with live audiences! Ridge is a recent graduate from the University of Winnipeg’s Theatre and Film Department with Honours in Stage Management. Over the pandemic he has been lucky to stage manage two digital productions: Time Within the Window (University of Winnipeg) and Shakespeare’s Will (Shakespeare in the Ruins). Ridge’s Stage Management credits include Growing Op and It’s Fine, We’re Working on It (Winnipeg Fringe) as well as on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Arcadia (University of Winnipeg) and TRIGGER WARNING: Cassandra (Sick + Twisted Theatre). He has also worked as Apprentice Stage Manager on Kiss of the Spider Woman (Dry Cold Productions), The Golem’s Might Swing and Narrow Bridge (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre). Thanks so much to everyone at Theatre Projects Manitoba for all their support and for this amazing opportunity!

 

Avinash Muralidharan Pillai Saralakumari (Creator & Ensemble)

Avinash (Nash) started his training in Bharatanatyam at the age of 10. He has won many prizes in the field and expanded his horizon to other Indian dance forms such as Kuchipudi and Kathakali. The most exciting part for Nash when it comes to classical dances, is the ability to tell a story through movement. Indian classical dances provide the best opportunity to learn that correlation through its vast vocabulary of hand gestures, facial expression and body movement.

 

 

 

 

David Thomas (Creator/Performer/Designer)

David Thomas loves to create, his secret weapons are sketching and painting. He is a Master of Architecture Grad who has worked creatively with the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Canada’s Diversity Gardens at Assiniboine Park, Humber College in Toronto, Vancouver General Hospital and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. He believes in collaboration and working with people who are passionate about what they do. He has presented his work in Aotearoa, the UK and was part of Canada’s entry for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. David is currently developing a VR and AR experience for a 108 acre Treaty #1 First Nation urban development.

 

 

 

Kelsey Kanatan Wavey (Ensemble)

Kelsey Kanatan Wavey (they/them) is a proud member of Tataskewyak Cree Nation. They are a native and white person, more specifically, Muskeg Ininowahk (Swampy Cree) and 5th-generation German/Swedish American settler. They grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Vancouver to attend Studio 58 and graduated in 2019. Kelsey’s acting credits include: My Father Podplay (Arts Club), Women of the Fur Trade (RMTC), Skyborn: a Land Reclamation Odyssey (Savage Society), and The Unnatural and Accidental Women (National Indigenous Arts Center). Kelsey is also and emerging director, some of their work includes: Gather: Stories in Nature (Neworld and Pacific Theatre), and Cerulean Blue (Studio 58) Gather: Stories in Nature (Neworld and Pacific Theatre), and Cerulean Blue (Studio 5 Assistant on Boy and the Moon (Neworld Theatre). Kelsey is currently part of the Arts Club’s Emerging Playwrights’ Unit, has a script in development CITY NDN LUV, 50 cent Lemonade (The Cafe – itsazoo and Aphotic Theatre) and wrote Institutionalized (Fourplay at Studio 58). Kelsey is passionate about new work development and is so happy to be home on Treaty 1 Territory to play!

 

In Time Photos

 

 

Photos by Dylan Hewlett

1, 4 & 7
Eric Blais (Janus in front of screen)

Design: David Thomas
Costumes: Heather Lee Brereton
Lighting: Scott Henderson

2 & 3
Eric Blais (Janus in front of screen)
Victoria Emilie Hill (Janus behind the screen)

Design: David Thomas
Costumes: Heather Lee Brereton
Lighting: Scott Henderson

5
Avinash Muralidharan Pillai Saralakumari

Design: End of the West
(David Thomas, Avinash Muralidharan Pillai Saralakumari, Jacquie Loewen)
Costumes: Heather Lee Brereton
Lighting: Scott Henderson

6
Waawaate Fobister

Design: David Thomas
Costumes: Heather Lee Brereton
Lighting: Scott Henderson