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Solocentric is a festival featuring solo performance creation and new works. It targets emerging and seasoned artists in theatre, dance and music. The festival’s structure allows for variety and flexibility as per length of performance, stage of development and content. Participants can apply to showcase interdisciplinary solos ranging from 10 to 90 minutes long. The festival consists of full length solo shows,
short works-in-progress featured in a cabaret-styled performance. Solocentric is a juried festival divided into 3 divisions, theatre, dance and music. |
The Next Solocentric Festival will be Spring 2007 |
Here's a look at our past festival line up!
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The 2005 Solocentric Festival was co-presented by One Yellow Rabbit at the Big Secret Theatre in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts
MAINSTAGES
Still
Weighting (dance-drama)
Laurie Montemurro (Cochrane)
Tues/Wed May 17 & 18, 2005 @ 7:30 pm
“A wagon, a chair, Tom Waits and the colour blue: One character¹s frustration
with patience, religion, age and love.”
Local dance artist Laurie Montemurro re-visits her character from her popular
piece A Wait On Me, and discovers her changed. Waiting for the Rapture and
mother to a sixteen year old, who¹s anxious to see the world.
Lenny Breau – Live! (music-drama-comedy)
Jeff Gladstone (Vancouver)
Tues/Thurs May 17 & 19 @ 9:30 pm
“This kind of grace and physicality compelling the narrative is the
mark of tremendous work and skill… Bravo!”-Denise Clarke, One Yellow Rabbit,
after seeing Bouquets & Elegies
Playing guitar regularly on Radio shows and dances by the age of three, Lenny
Breau quickly became a legend among the top guitarists of his day. Plagued by a
drug and alcohol addiction, his performances became less and less frequent until
the shocking moment when he was found dead in his L.A. swimming pool. Fact and
history meet myth and legend, and resonate directly into today. Lenny Breau –
Live! is a magical realist biography that explores the tie between incredible
talent and destructive behavior, musical ecstasy and heroin oblivion.
Strapped (music-drama)
Elliot Grey (Calgary)
Wed/Fri May 18 & 20 @ 9:30 pm
“BULLETS, BEATS & BEAUTY: HIP-HOP FUSES WITH FINE ART”
Violence, self-loathing and redemption – Strapped is a whirlwind of emotion and
imagery. Featuring Elliot Grey, Strapped is a personal journey that explores
themes of ideals, loss, and hope. Using his own biography as a platform, Elliot
Grey interprets the traumas and the joys of his life through dance, monologue,
film, and video projections. This controversial performance art piece captures a
psychological portrait of an artist, and a generation.
STRUCK (drama-comedy)
Eric Rose (Calgary)
Thur/Sat May 19 & 21 @ 7:30 pm
“In a moment I lived in a skin turned inside out”
On a rainy Sunday morning during the summer of 1999 while camping with friends
on Sudbury’s Long Lake, Eric Rose and his best friend were struck by lightning.
This near death experience irrevocably altered the course of his life. Eric’s
solo show STRUCK is a poetic examination of his lightning experience told
through a non-linear narrative. This theatrical story weaves in and out of time
and place in an attempt to understand this transformative experience.
EFFable (comedy)
Nicole Zylstra (Calgary)
Fri May 20 @ 7:30 pm & Sat May 21 @ 3:00 pm
"Better the devil you know, than the one you dated in high school. EFFable.
Watch her put it into words."
It’s 1980. I am a lonely friendless 12 year old girl. And I have a crush on my
imaginary friend: Jesus.
It’s 25 years later. And I am exchanging letters with my pen pal: the devil. How
did I get here?
EFFable is about the arc of gods and devils in my life, including the time I had
a crush on Jesus, the time I dated the anti-christ in high school, and the night
God broke up with me. A show about how devils and angels are symbols for forces
in your life that can light and obscure the way to being human… Also wickedly
funny.
CABARETS SERIES
Red
Cabaret Series
Thursday, May 19, 2005 @ 11:00 pm
Sky Dancer (dance)
Gina Janus (Calgary)
“Sky Diving a sport?? No….A dance!!”
The concept for ’Sky dancer' originated from Abbotsford, BC where Gina spent
most of her summer of 2004. There she discovered a drop zone located in the
center of the flats surrounded by berry farms and mountains. Below an open
field, sky divers from all over the world came to jump out of planes. As Gina
watched the jumpers prepare on the ground, which is referred to as a dirt dive,
an epiphany came over her. They’re dancing!!
Sister,
Sister (comedy)
Liza Rhymer (High River)
“Whoever said girls were made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” was
probably a guy… and he definitely didn’t have a sister.”
A tale of two girls with the same DNA and different plans. One is ambitiously
reaching for spiritual enlightenment, or perhaps marriage… No wait a basketball
star-- The other just wants to party!!! The collision of ambitions is inevitable
and when it happens, it brings out the worst and funniest in both. You won’t see
‘Sister, Sister” on the Family channel but those of you with siblings will
agree, it is definitely a ‘reality’ show.
Surrendering to Paradise (dance)
Matthew Popoff (Calgary)
“A metaphysical dance experience that reveals the secrets of an alternate
reality.”
After a long and wearisome journey on the path of relentless struggle, one
finally gains a miraculous glimpse into the ever-present bliss for which he
yearns. Like a flash of lightning, it is here – and then it is gone. This
ephemeral realm is likened to a mirage: the more one tries to possess or attain
it, the further away the goal appears. The only way it can be invited into one’s
life is to release all attachments and wholeheartedly surrender to the glorious
rapture of the here and now. This one fleeting moment is real – all else is but
illusion.
La Stras Mona (comedy)
Julia Rigaux (Calgary)
“Finally, a new Specimen to Fixate on”
Holding onto a giant plate of fruit going down an escalator from the +15’s in
Calgary one day, Julia lost her balance and tumbled down the slow moving steps
to her untimely death. Did she, or didn’t she die amongst the squashed bananas
and decorative parsley? Only time will tell, they say. “Who’s they?” “La Stras
Mona”, explores human addiction to life and arty methods to become unstuck in
time.
The Auction (drama-comedy)
Natasha Platt (Calgary)
“Trash or treasure? This story will mesmerize you like an auctioneers' voice!”
"The Auction" tells the story of biding and bidding at an estate auction just
north of Calgary, one Saturday last fall. As a favor to her husband, Natasha
ends up stuck, cold and frustrated at a doomed farmstead. Baby in tow, waiting
to bid on an antique German moped, she observes the people, the process and the
peculiarities of auction culture, and finds herself questioning the value of
time and the things we treasure.
Blue Cabaret Series
Friday, May 20, 2005 @ 11:00 pm
Contorted Grief (circus-dance)
Beverley Rice (Calgary)
“A poetic journey of gnarly grief.”
Weird boredom and sadness manifest physically through movement, dance, balance,
and hat manipulation. A glimpse of poetic heavy-hearted storytelling involving
circus arts.
Life Attacked Me Today (dance)
Amber Rose Teodorovici (Calgary)
“When Life Conspires Against You, how do you learn to let go?”
Everyone’s had them: A Bad Day. An exploration of that old familiar feeling,
that everything and everyone in the universe is conspiring against you.
Sometimes life can be distilled down to pure emotion.
M@ther (dance)
Tara Blue (Calgary)
“How Deep is Your Love?”
A lovingly comedic look at how a little thing like motherhood can turn a
self-possessed woman’s world upside down, and a self absorbed starving artist’s
world right-side up.
Standing By (drama-comedy)
Frank Gallant (Calgary)
“This is what happens when a technician gets control of a stage.”
A brief look into the love-hate relationship between a theatre technician and
his career. Stemming from a childhood encounter and ending with a brutally
difficult decision to make, we follow the path of one man on his quest to
create, to grow and build something from within himself.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Teen
Soul-Oh!
Calgary Young People’s Theatre
Saturday, May 21, 2005 @ 1:00 pm
Come join us for the solo artists of tomorrow, as cypt teens strut their stuff
in their unique own new works.
WHAT
THE CRITICS SAY:
“Solocentric celebrates the ego—and that’s a good thing.”-Fast Forward 2004
“Solocentric Festival offers exciting new work by performers challenging
themselves and their audience”-Fast Forward 2003