Blog

Mount Pleasant Artists in Communities!

1/28/2019

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Popcorn Galaxies has been selected as the 2019 Artists in Residence at the Mount Pleasant Community Centre!!

If you are interested in receiving updates about projects, workshops, and events sign up to our newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/gfn73L

Meeting Places Project
January - December 2019

Taking place in and around Mount Pleasant Community Centre throughout 2019, Meeting Places is a collaborative community art project centring on the potential for creativity to strengthen and activate community. In a city where neighbours often don’t know each other and where it can be challenging to make new connections outside of our own social circles, this project investigates how we can use art to bridge gaps and make the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood a more lively and welcoming place to live. Through pop-up activities, artist walks, guerrilla art installations, and community collaborations, participants will be invited to share artwork, share skills, share stories, and share experiences with one another, sparking curiosity, generosity, and empathy between people who might not otherwise meet.

Meeting Places is created by Mount Pleasant Community Centre artists-in-residence Popcorn Galaxies as part of Vancouver Park Board Artists in Communities program

For more info visit https://meetingplacesproject.weebly.com/project.html

Branscombe Artist Residency

2/22/2018

Popgals are excited to say that this year Keely is the Richmond's Artist-in-Residence, working out of Branscombe House in historic Steveston to produce free community art workshops, collaborative projects, performances, exhibitions and events!

You can check out this page for upcoming events at Branscombe House, or follow along with Keely's process in her notebook.

Presenting Paper Dream

5/15/2017

We are excited to present Paper Dream coming up this spring. The idea for this piece literally arrived in a dream! As an interdisciplinary artist who loves both visual and theatrical mediums, this project is an attempt on my part to engage simultaneously with both these elements of my practice. Paper Dream is intricate, beautiful paper craft and unconventional, sited, immersive theatre all at once.

Coming up on June 3, 4, 10, & 11.
More info and tickets here.

-Keely

Invisible City Reboot!

4/4/2017

We are thrilled to be rebooting one of our favourite past shows, Invisible City, this Spring. After learning that the starting point for this interactive, theatrical audio-walk is slated to be torn down we knew this could be out last chance to share this piece with the world!

For for more info and tickets, click here.

Announcing...Apocalypse Parade!

7/25/2016

Friends! We are so excited to announce our upcoming show in the Vancouver Fringe Festival, Apocalypse Parade! We've been brainstorming, researching, and day dreaming for many months now, and are finally about to dive into devising. Yeeees!

For more info, click here.

New Narratives Artist Interview Series: Valerie Christiansen

5/20/2016

The final New Narratives artist in our interview series is the brilliant Valerie Christiansen!

Tell us a little about yourself and your work:
Valerie Christiansen is interdisciplinary artist with background in theatre performance, directing and cinema. She is interested in political theatre and creating spaces that collapse social hierarchies. She is a member of The Uninvited Guests collective whose productions focus on local social issues.

A major theme we are exploring in New Narratives is the interconnection between art and environmental activism. What is your perception of this relationship?
Art has sneaky way of manifesting your own personal reality into creation, a reality that I share with all humans on the planet is one that that is called climate change. We might as well change the name to what it is, climate of human extinction. Unless my eyes and ears were stapled closed it would be impossible to ignore the urgent condition of the abuse of our planet. Art is really our only hope, science and knowledge is never enough for the masses. Facts may feed us with knowledge but art moves people into action.

If you had to choose five words to describe your piece in New Narratives, what would they be?
Intimate, Rusty, Exhausted, Cheeky, Squeaky.

Would you rather eat a candle or wear shoes made of ice?
Shoes made of ice, I could glide around on my shoes and my feet would never sweat. There would be no use for me in eating a candle other than lighting my poop on fire.

Thanks so much Val, we can’t we to see your piece!
For more info on Valerie’s work, visit:
http://theuninvitedguests.ca

New Narratives Artist Interview Series: Elliot Vaughan

5/15/2016

Next up in our New Narratives artist feature series: a rare interview with the elusive Elliot Vaughan!

Tell us a little about yourself and your work:
I like sound. It is fun to create, manipulate, refine, notice, abandon, and communicate with noise. Mainly I make music, and that has led me to be involved in plenty of dance shows and theatre projects, or more often "theatre" projects, as well as studios around Vancouver and concert venues around the world. I have a moody pop solo project called Iffy South, an art trio called The End Tree, and have recordings available under my own name. I play the viola and some other things, and outside of the pop realm I compose textural, spatial music. Viiiiibe is key. But most of all I like hearing trains begin, gulls reflecting off buildings, different sized rooms, the morning bells from over the road, pages turning, onion skins, someone distant reversing, leaves in the wind, sand, plastic and paper bags, other people getting on with it.

What is a current question, topic, or theme that inspires your work?
Today I am restless, reckless. I want to to get caught in a web of outlandish lies, write strongly worded letters to WHOEVER, dismantle, undermine, argue about fine print, improvise, repeat nothing, provoke conversation between unlikely partners.

What project are you working on for New Narratives?

Wonders of the Ancient World: a speculative exhibition of extinct shadows, made by Keely O'Brien, with collaborators Ashley Aron and Alex Mah.

Would you rather be a banana or a bat? Why?
Maybe a banana, for the passivity. I love being a though human, it is seriously so cool. We are the actual best. Second choice would be australopithecus, those little guys were on the right track, or a neanderthal.

Thanks Elliot! Ugh you’re really cool!
For more info on Elliot’s work, visit: http://www.elliotvaughan.com/

New Narratives Artist Interview Series: Tallulah Winkelman

5/8/2016

Connect the Plots Mid-Summer Festival at the Strathcona Community Garden. Performer Thomas Jones as the God Lugh welcomes the crowd.

The next artist featured in our New Narratives Artist Interview Series is the incredible Tallulah Winkelman. Her answers pretty much blew us away. We’re especially excited to post this interview because of Tallulah’s connection to the Environmental Youth Alliance Wild Mind Project: the initiative that your New Narratives ticket purchase will support!

Tell us a little about yourself, your company, and your work:
Tallulah Winkelman is a Vancouver born theatre artist who has worked professionally as an actor, improvisor, playwright, theatre maker and teacher for over 20 years. Her collaborations include new improvisation formats, sketch comedy, mask, music, puppetry, site specific and environmental theatre. Twenty years ago she became a shareholder and fell in love with Fraser Common Farm Cooperative and by extension, small scale agriculture and natural food systems. Out of this interest, Theatre on Earth and it’s first production, Project Corndog, was born. Do we own the life forms we create? Do we owe them anything? Do life forms have intrinsic rights? Project Corndog travelled through the fields and forests of Fraser Common Farm following a farmer, her daughter and her daughter’s wonderfully weird creation. The play ended with a full sit down, outdoor organic meal sourced heavily from the farm and enjoyed by audience, artists and farmers alike. The conversations around the table were an integral part of the evening.

The Theatre on Earth collective has had the privilege of including many great local theatre artists. The current ensemble is made up of original members; Sarah May Redmond, Thomas Jones and Tallulah Winkelman. This year’s project Wild Mind will mark our 5th year of working together with the Environmental Youth Alliance in the Strathcona Community Garden on our Connect the Plots series. We have hosted Keys to the Streets pianos, garden music jams, the Cultch’s Ignite Youth Program and festive community gatherings.

Theatre on Earth team up with the Cultch's Ignite Youth program to create an original site specific piece that travels through the Strathcona Community Garden.

What is the Environmental Youth Alliance Wild Mind project, and how are you involved?
The Environmental Youth Alliance’s Wild Mind Project is phase one of a succession plan for transitioning the south/east corner of the Strathcona Community Garden from a landscape dominated by Himalayan Blackberry to a wildscaped pond and forest garden that is safe, inviting and open to all. It will create habitat for a diversity of local pollinators, birds, insects and small mammals as well as a space to convene the local community that provides education and inspiration on urban re-wilding. Theatre on Earth will be working alongside Environmental Youth Alliance’s Wild Mind project as artistic collaborators. We will be gathering content and sharing our artistic practice to enhance the learning process with a wide range of school and community groups. Throughout July and August we will lead weekly workshops that encourage creative expression of the themes of the project, inviting the participants into the creative process as writers, performers and designers. Our program will culminate in a theatrical presentation at the Strathcona Community Garden Fall Fair, based on themes regarding the history of the location, the life of indigenous plants and the story of creating a place where urban and wild co-mingle.

Freidi meets her corn/dog creation for the first time. Theatre on Earth's Project Corndog @Fraser Common Farm

Is there a quote, an image, an artist, an artwork, a book etc. that currently inspires you? What is it?
Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.His work teaches me what is possible. He is a weaver of; reverence and rebellion, art and nature, people with the land they work and eat from, as if it is all one and there is enough beauty
in the abundance of life itself to sustain us. He gives me hope that if we truly integrated with our present world we could find a balance within it. I encourage you to read (with a simple google search);

The Peace of Wild Things
For the Hog Killing
& any of the Mad Farmer Poems

Would you rather live under the sea or inside a giant balloon? Why?
Under the sea, absolutely. I would rather face my fear of the depths and encounter whatever enormous sharp-toothed cold-blooded creature I may find than to be floating in absolute isolation untethered from the earth.

Georgia and her daughter Freidi say goodbye to the Corndog. Theatre on Earth's Project Corndog @Fraser Common Farm. Performers: Sarah May Redmond, Chloe Doucet-Winkelman and Tallulah Winkelman

Thanks so much Tallulah! We’re SO excited to see your piece in New Narratives!

For more information on the Environmental Youth Alliance Wild Mind Project (the initiative that your New Narratives ticket will support!!) visit:
http://eya.ca/project-view/wild-mind/

New Narratives Artist Interview Series: Anna Kraulis

5/2/2016

One of the most exciting parts of our upcoming project, New Narratives, is the killer group of artists/activists who have all jumped on board to contribute their work! I still can’t quite believe we’re lucky enough to be presenting NINE different pieces in a wide variety of disciplines, with over TWENTY (!!) amazing makers involved.

In order to give a little sneak peek into some of these folks upcoming work, we’ll be posting a series of artist interviews leading up to the event. Let’s kick it off with the lovely Anna Kraulis!

Tell us a little about yourself and your work:

I’m a choreographer, having received my training in contemporary dance, but am equally connected to the world of environmental advocacy and nature-based education. I am very interested in the dynamic between these two worlds, and how they can feed each other. I am fortunate to collaborate with some amazing human beings, most recently filmmaker/media artist Leslie Kennah and environmental activist Hannah Carpendale. As a trio we have created and presented work at the Dance Centre’s DanceLab residency, Vancouver Society of Storytelling’s Creek Forum, Planet in Focus Film Festival in Toronto, and BC Buds Festival in Vancouver. I also work frequently in the fields of community-engaged dance and art for social change. I am finishing my degree in Environmental Studies at Langara college, and developing experiential outdoor education projects with some local enviro groups.

What is the piece you're contributing to New Narratives? What has the creation process been like so far?

Well, I feel excited and fortunate to be presenting two collaborative works at this event!
One is a new work with media artist Leslie Kennah and dancers Jen Aoki, Angelina Krahn and Charlotte Priest. We are particularly interested in “rewilding”- something that has received much attention as of late- “to give nature fuller expression in a world in which it is muted” (James Mackinnon). We are researching into questions such as- how can we, as humans, renew meaningful relationships with the more-than-human world? How can non-human species be co-creators in the design and execution of this work? The second work is a short film called Verge: Dancing a Scarred and Sacred Landscape, which was shot on location on Vancouver Island, in tandem with the work of Ancient Forest Alliance. It is also a collaboration with Leslie and Hannah, along with dancers Jen Aoki, Jen Dunford, Angelina Krahn, Rianne Svelnis and composer Oliver Nickels. We are very thrilled to be presenting it in an outdoor context for New Narratives, which will be a first for this film.

On your website you mention interconnectivity and connection to the earth. How do these ideas inform your artistic practice?

I think that re-connecting with our own bodies- our alert, responsive selves- are fundamental to renewing our connection to the wild. In this way I feel that dance and environmentalism are in fact very related. If we can begin to think more with the whole of our bodies, and not only our brains, we might reconnect more deeply with other creatures and organisms we share this planet with. If we valued physical and emotional intelligence as well as intellectual intelligence, we might see ourselves as one part in a web of relationships, as opposed to the pinnacle of some sort of hierarchy…

Would you rather have licorice for legs or only ever eat lemons?
Licorice legs for sure! They would be so bendy.

Thanks so much Anna! We’re so excited to have you involved! You can find more info about Anna’s work here:

cleverfauna.com

www.artforimpact.ca

Announcing...New Narratives!!

5/1/2016

Hey folks!
We are beyond excited to be announcing out upcoming project, New Narratives!
For more information/tickets, click here.

This project has really taken on a life of it's own, as so many of our projects seem to. What started as an idea for a small scale puppet show has expanded into a site specific scavenger hunt featuring multiple works from a wide variety of really incredible artists.

Keep your eye on this blog/our facebook and instagram, because we'll be posting artist interviews and project updates throughout the month of May!