Theatre Passe Muraille
Digital Advisor to Canadian Theatre Company's New Digital Creators Lab
We are proud to announce a new partnership with Canadian theatre company Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto.
During the last two years we have been honing our practice and developing relationships with other innovative and creative collaborators in the UK and Canada.
With the challenges brought about by the pandemic, we have had to reimagine what theatre can be when we cannot gather in person. Out of this grew the Raucous Reflectories; a series of talks between international collaborators about how our industry can connect digitally in times of a global pandemic, and the Raucous Exchanges; a public-facing series of online workshops that considered how we do what we do.
And now, Raucous has now been invited to be a Digital Advisor at Theatre Passe Muraille’s new Digital Creator’s Lab.
The Lab's purpose is to build artist capacity in digital creation through workshops with digital experts and project-specific workshops, with a lens on incorporating accessibility as a part of the dramaturgy from the beginning. Raucous, along with Chimerik 似不像 Collective (a Vancouver interdisciplinary collective consisted by artists from underrepresented groups) will advise, mentor and guide artists Luke Reece, Katie Ready-Walters, Theatre du Poulet (Carmen Lee and Roland Au) and Nautanki Bazaar (Himanshu Sitlani & Neha Poduval). They will learn, explore and imagine new visions for their works from conception to a 2022 workshop in a newly equipped and accessible Backspace.
Theatre Passe Muraille is Canada’s original alternative theatre company, currently developing and producing new Canadian plays. Their mission is to break down walls by pushing against boundaries; to create art with and for an audience, examining the marginal, the unexplored and the unforeseen; to articulate a distinct Canadian voice that reflects the complexity of our intercultural society.
Raucous has been developing a relationship with Canada for a few years which grew out of Creative Director Sharon Clark spending time at the Banff Centre for Creativity. Sharon won a 2017 Bruntwood Prize Judges Award for her play PLOW, and as part of her development support, Sharon visited the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada where she met Marjorie Chan. Their connection was almost immediate, with the two of them seeing eye to eye on all things digital theatre. This project is the first of many between the two companies.
Raucous also has another new project in development with a truly inspiring Canadian company that will see a groundbreaking new production on both sides of the pond. More to be announced soon.
“We gained so much from our experience in working in new processes, that we began to understand that Digital was not only for pandemic times. Indeed, we saw that there was a unique evolution of work that was innovative, fresh and reached different audiences in a different way. Once upon a time, theatre did not have electric lights, or used projection, but it evolved. Digital components will continue to be a part of our future theatrical vocabulary, and we want to ensure that our artists and our building are ready for this evolution.”
~ Marjorie Chan, Artistic Director, Theatre Passe Muraille
Free Virtual Public Workshops
Theatre Passe Muraille are hosting a series of online workshops which anyone can attend to introduce the digital advisors and their work.
1 October, 6-8pm GMT: Sharon Clark, RAUCOUS — “Introduction to Immersive storytelling”
16 October, 8-10pm GMT: Sammy Chien, Chimerik — “The work of Chimerik”
21 October 21, 7-9pm GMT: Jess Watkin, Marjorie Chan, Indrit Kasapi — “Accessibility in Digital Projects”
More information about the workshops and bookings can be found at https://www.passemuraille.ca/digitaltransformationproject/