Voices³ - Program

b e r k e l e y s t r e e t t h e at r e

voices

3

Artistic + General Director’s Note Voices3 is a unique opportunity to discover the musical and performance universes of three formidable female vocalist-performers; three expressions of a form of absolute; three intrepid adventurers into human expression and human emotion that carve their way into the very heart (or deeper still) of our being.

There is no comparing the sumptuous, at times almost carnivorous voice of Petra Magoni and her accompanist straordinario Ferruccio Spinetti, a Mediterranean pulse at its most intense; the haunting, at times truly other-worldly interpretations of Fides Krucker and her ensemble of musicians, accompanied by the lithe, inhabited bodies of dancers Peggy Baker, Laurence Lemieux and Heidi Strauss; and the visceral, ageless vocal art of Tanya Tagaq, brought to our stage with the magicianship of Greenlandic mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, two traditions which converse and explode before our very eyes.

Our lives, life itself would be all the poorer without the art of these three women.

It is an honour to share these moments with you.

Matthew Jocelyn

Season Sponsor

Berkeley Season Sponsor

Media Sponsors

musica nuda

Vo i c e

Petra Magoni D o u b le Ba s s

Ferruccio Spinetti P ro d u c ti o n/M a n ag e m e nt

BUBBA MUSIC srl Gianmarco D’Alessandro Tec h n i cia n

feb 22 - 24

Alessio Lotti

80 minutes no intermission

Generously supported by Instituto Italiano Di Cultura

Sometimes things don’t happen by chance. That was exactly the case with MUSICA NUDA, the unconventional duo born from the accidental meeting of Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti.

Over the years, Ferruccio and Petra have taken their project around the world, performing in prestigious venues such as the Olympia in Paris, and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. They have also taken part in the Pina Bausch Tanz Wuppertal Festival in Germany, where they were also the support band for Al Jarreau’s tour of the country.

In 2003 the pair crossed paths for the first time: Petra was a singer and Ferruccio played double-bass for Avion Travel (the band he was in from 1990 to 2006).

Petra Magoni was about to embark on a mini tour of small clubs in her native Tuscany, accompanied on guitar by a friend, but on debut day, the guitarist fell ill. Rather than cancelling the date, Petra asked Ferruccio if he felt like sitting in instead, and he promptly accepted.

The gig was such a success that in a matter of a few weeks the two members of this brand new Voice’n’bass combo put together a full repertoire, picking the songs they loved the most, and in a single day they recorded their first album, “MUSICA NUDA”, in a studio near Pisa. MUSICA NUDA spontaneously became the name of their project and of the band itself. The chemistry between them was perfectly obvious, but neither Petra nor Ferruccio could have imagined the achievements that were to come in such a short time: hundreds of performances in Italy and abroad, prestigious awards (Targa Tenco 2006, best tour award at the 2006 Faenza Mei, Les quatre cles de Telerama in France in 2007), recognition from fans and the media, TV appearances and radio broadcasts on major Italian and foreign FM stations.

In March 2014, they were the sole musical guests of the “World Theatre Day” held in the Italian Senate, before the president of the Senate Pietro Grasso.

Over a span of 12 years, Petra and Ferruccio have held over 1,200 concerts, produced eight studio albums, two live albums, and a DVD. Two years after their latest album, the duo are back on the international music scene with a new project that places a seal on a success-studded 12-year-long career. On January 27th, Musica Nuda released the album Leggera under the Warner label.

in this body mar 14 - 18 75 minutes no intermission

Co n c e iv e d a n d S u n g by

Fides Krucker C h o r eo g r a p h e d a n d Da n c e d by

Peggy Baker Laurence Lemieux Heidi Strauss This production has been made possible through the incredible generosity of Sheila Goldman.

Post-Show talkback March 15

M u s i cia n s Ba s s

Rob Clutton Piano, accordion, melodica, trumpet

Tania Gill P e rcu s s i o n

Germaine Liu

Fides Krucker

Peggy Baker

Laurence Lemieux

Heidi Strauss

Rob Clutton

Tania Gill

Germaine Liu

Katherine Duncanson

Rebecca Picherack

Caroline O’Brien

Kathleen Doody

Laura Cournoyea

M u s i c a l A r r a n g e m e nts

Fides Krucker Rob Clutton Tania Gill Germaine Liu Faci litati n g D i r ec to r

Katherine Duncanson Lighting Design and Set Coordination

Rebecca Picherack Cos t u m e D e s i g n

Caroline O’Brien Co r s e t Scu lp t u r e s

Kathleen Doody S tag e M a n ag e r

Laura Cournoyea A s so ciate P ro d u c e r

Rachel Penny

Good Hair Day Productions is grateful to Sheila Goldman for her unfailing commitment. GHDP would also like to thank Canadian Stage, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, Peggy Baker Dance Projects and the following individuals for their generous support: Daphne Ballon, Janet Beauchamp, Thorel Beckett, Guillaume Bernardi, Katherine Bruce, Sturla and Margie Bruun-Meyer, Dawne Carleton, Laural Carr, Auleen Carson, Heather Conway, Kathleen Doody, Atom Egoyan, Eve Egoyan, Alex Fallis, Jenn Forgie, Marcy Gerstein, Lauren Gillis, Briony Glassco, Lesley Greco, Samir Grover, Larry Hahn, Thomas Hauff and Diana Belshaw, Mary Hay and Jamie Smith, Randi Helmers, Judy Holm and Michael McNamara, Niloofar Hodjati, Alaine Hutton, Renann Isaacs, Elaine Jackson, Tatiana Jennings, Matthew Jocelyn, Jane Kennedy, Gabbi Kosmidis, Mary Krucker, Deb Lambie and Richard Sanger, Anita La Selva, Mary Jo Looby, Cam MacLennan, Marilyn MacLennan, Shea McCallum, Andy McKim, Monique Mackinnon, Tessa McWatt, Maria Meindl, Anita Merlo, Allesha Narine, Kitty Orsten, Sargam Paul, Scott Peterson, Dimitrije Popovic, Laura Quigley and Michael Hopkins, Elliot Ritter, Patricia Rozema, Regina Sheung, Linda C. Smith, Magdalena Sokoloski, Oksana Sokoloski, Jacquie P.A. Thomas, Natalie Tiberghien, Julie Trimingham, Kazumi Tsuruoka, Kate Tucker, Trevor Walker, Karen Woolridge, Cheryl Zinyk.

A Note From Fides Krucker The story of love is mapped in all of our bodies. This programme’s songs give voice to a particularly Canadian geography of joy, pain, loss, wisdom, humour and hope. Twelve of their melodic curves and lyrics are from a female perspective, one that my voice understands from the inside out. My collaborators have generously shared their talents and insights to breathe to life the complexity of these songs for this concert with dance.

Fides Krucker is an innovative interpreter of vocal music in Canada and abroad. Her company, Good Hair Day Productions, has created and produced groundbreaking lyric-theatre including Girl with no door on her mouth (Bartley/Carson) the r’n’b love and disability show CP Salon with Kazumi Tsuruoka (now an NFB film) and the electroacoustic opera Julie Sits Waiting (Dufort/Walmsley), nominated for five Doras. Fides founded the interdisciplinary performance ensemble URGE. Her upcoming CD releases include a recording of Berio’s Folk Songs for Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble and an improv CD with guitarist Tim Motzer.

She facilitates vocal creation for a wide range of artists including Peggy Baker Dance Projects.

Fides has written a book about voice called Good Girls Don’t Sing.

Peggy Baker has been a vivid presence in contemporary dance for four decades, performing in the work of Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris (with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project), Doug Varone, Tere O’Connor, Molissa Fenley, and Charles Moulton (NY); Fortier Danse-Creation (Montreal); Dancemakers and Toronto Dance Theatre. She founded Peggy Baker Dance Projects in 1990, dedicating herself for the first 20 years to solo performance, winning praise for the eloquence and depth of her dancing. Her honours include The Order of Canada, the Carsen Prize, the Premier’s Award, the Governor General’s Award, Honorary Doctorates from York and the University of Calgary, and 5 Doras. She is Artist-in-Residence at Canada’s National Ballet School and a 2017 fellow of Italy’s Bogliasco Foundation.

Laurence Lemieux is a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director of Citadel + Compagnie.

Laurence studied dance at L’École Supérieure de Danse du Québec and The School of

Toronto Dance Theatre. She danced for TDT from 1986-1998, winning a Dora award in 1998 for her interpretation of Christopher House’s Cryptoversa. Lemieux has choreographed over thirty original works and danced for some of Canada’s most prominent choreographers, including Margie Gillis, James Kudelka, and Jean-Pierre Perreault. Lemieux is a passionate arts advocate and sits on the steering committee of Ontarians for The Arts, and is President of the board of Daniel Leveillé Danse. In 2012, Lemieux created The Citadel Dance Program, bringing high quality, free dance classes to youth living in Regent Park.

Heidi Strauss is the artistic director of adelheid, which she began in 2008. She was dance artist in residence at the Factory Theatre (2008-2012) and a resident artist at the Theatre Centre (2013-16). Her awardwinning work has toured nationally. Heidi has choreographed for Toronto Dance Theatre, The Frankfurt Opera, The Canadian Opera Company, Volcano theatre and the Stratford Festival, and given workshops across Canada, and in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Singapore. She received the KM Hunter Award for Dance (2012) and Dora Awards for her works: this time (2010) and what it’s like (2016). adelheid.ca Rob Clutton is a bass player who works in the intersections of composition and improvisation, mainly in long-term projects in which the relationship of the musicians has a central but incalculable role. Rob’s impetus to play the bass comes from listening, allowing inspiration to reside in a sonic imaginary, in which the sound of the bass is the same as the tree singing is the same as the human listening. Current projects include a new Cluttertones album with special guest pianist Lee Pui Ming, to be released later this year.

Tania Gill is a pianist and composer who is drawn to exploration and communication. Her work is centred in jazz and improvised music, and is informed by classical training and performance experience in contemporary and world genres. She leads the Tania Gill Quartet, with Lina Allemano, Rob Clutton and Nico Dann; is a current member of the Brodie West Quintet and Rebecca Hennessy’s FOG Brass Band; and a former member of The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Deep Dark United. She has worked with numerous world class musicians including

Steve Reich, Anthony Braxton and Mary Margaret O’Hara. She teaches at her home and Humber College. “All aboard for first-class and fanciful Toronto pianist!” (The Globe and Mail).

Germaine Liu is a Toronto-based percussionist, performer and composer. Her compositional interests involve collaborations with people and her relationship with the objects she plays. She honours the joyful explorations of everyday gestures and feelings in music making. Recent collaborations include CeramiX with artist ChihoTokita, creating compositions to Tokita’s ceramic works and Water Music with Joe Sorbara and Mark Zurawinski, exploring sounds of water. Liu has performed as a soloist and has been privileged to collaborate with many wonderful musicians, dancers and artists.

Laura Cournoyea is a Toronto-based arts manager and administrator. She was trained at York University’s Theatre Department, earning a Specialized B.F.A. in Theatre Design and Production. She splits her time between dance, theatre and event management. Ms. Cournoyea has recently worked with the Toronto Dance Theatre, Danceworks, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, adelheid, inDANCE, Julia Aplin, The Dietrich Group, TOES for Dance, Bouchardanse, Jess Dobkin, urbanvessel, and the 2015 Pan Am Arts Relay. She has spent the past 6 summers touring with Dusk Dances as their Company Stage Manager. As well, Laura is the General Manager for Yvonne Ng’s tiger princess dance projects.

Kathleen Doody is a multi-media designer and fabricator based in Toronto, Canada.

Her two years living in Kyoto, Japan early in her career greatly influenced her vision and methodology. Since that time her lanterns and lamps have been part of outdoor spectacles, installations and parades on Toronto Island, at Harbourfront, Toronto City Hall, First Night, Fallsview Casino and for the CBC. She was a founding member of Shadowland Theatre and for over 20 years she organized an annual lantern parade on Toronto Island.

As well as with several Toronto companies, she has worked in Canada, Japan, England, Italy and Trinidad on large outdoor projects.

She also creates lanterns and lamps for interiors for private clients and commercial events. kathleendoodydesign.com

Katherine Duncanson is an interdisciplinary performer, and music and interdisciplinary educator. She is active throughout Canada as a Facilitator for the Creative Process: assisting and guiding artists of all disciplines in the crafting and development of their work. Katherine has performed in concert halls, town halls, art galleries, gymnasiums, church basements and smoky bars; on Javanese hillsides, Newfoundland cliffsides, in South Indian forests; on rooftops, treetops, crumbling walls, and parking lots; in rose gardens, root cellars, thick fog, and waterfalls; she has sung in a silo, while tied to a tree, and once hummed under a rock while blindfolded; she has danced in National parks, bathtubs, canoes, in meadows, other peoples’ lawns and while surrounded by fire.

Caroline O’Brien is a costume designer, writer and educator presently completing Ph.D. studies at The National College of Art and Design, Dublin. As a costume designer she served at Canada’s National Ballet School from 1989-2007 and has worked internationally with ballet and contemporary dance companies and choreographers. Caroline’s research was published in Luce Irigaray’s Building a New World: Teaching II, and in Shapeshifting, from the Textile and Design Laboratory and Colab at Auckland University of Technology.

Caroline’s research interrogates the history of dress with an emphasis on the design process for ballet costume. She is a recipient of the Richard Martin award from The Costume Society of America for excellence in costume exhibition for Sixty Years of Designing the Ballet.

Rebecca Picherack has designed lighting for dance and theatre on hundreds of productions, toured across Canada, and internationally. Recent shows include Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools (Buddies in Bad Times), The Fish Eyes Trilogy (Factory/ Nightswimming/Tour) King Lear + Twelfth Night (Canadian Stage), Kiss (Theatre Smash/Canadian Stage) Infinity (Volcano/ Tarragon/Tour), Century Song (Volcano), Disgraced (Hope and Hell, Mirvish) James and the Giant Peach (YPT), Uncle Vanya (Shaw Festival). Rebecca has received three Dora awards for outstanding lighting design.

tanya tagaq & laakkuluk williamson bathory mar 22 - 24 70 minutes no intermission

Tanya Tagaq

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

vo c a li s t

Tanya Tagaq G r e e n l a n d i c m a s k da n c e r

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory vo c a li s t

Christine Duncan d r u mm e r

Jean Martin c e lli s t

Jeffrey Zeigler so u n d tec h n i cia n

Peter Kadelbach

Christine Duncan

Jean Martin

Jeffrey Zeigler

Tanya Tagaq’s music is like nothing you’ve heard before. The Arctic-born artist is an improvisational performer, avant-garde composer and experimental recording artist who won the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for an album called Animism. Tagaq contorts elements of punk, metal, and electronica into a complex and contemporary sound that begins in breath, a communal and fundamental phenomenon. Tagaq’s improvisational approach lends itself to collaboration across genres, and recent projects have pulled her in vastly different directions, from contributing guest vocals to a F**ked Up song (a hardcore punk band from Toronto) to premiering a composition made for Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future collection, and composing a piece for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Tanya’s most recent album Retribution was released in fall 2016.

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is a Greenlandic mask dancer and contemporary performance artist. Laakkuluk uses uaajeerneq – Greenlandic mask dancing – as the praxis for live performance, an eyehole for writing and a foundation for her ways of thinking about human beings. Notable recent projects include starring in the music video for the song Retribution with Tanya Tagaq and #CallResponse, a nationally touring gallery and performance project. In October 2017, Laakkuluk performed Kiinalik - These Sharp Tools at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Laakkuluk lives in Iqaluit with her family. She is a founding member and organizer of Qaggiavuut! and currently works there as a Program Manager.

Christine Duncan is a Canadian artist, who has been performing with Tanya Tagaq since 2014. She directs an improvising choir called the Element Choir and when Tanya is performing in Toronto, this choir often performs with her. Christine trains improv choirs to perform with Tagaq in other cities, as

well. Duncan is a veteran vocalist and a musical chameleon and is known for using her voice as an instrument. With Tagaq, and long time collaborator Jean Martin, Christine is part of the creation team, and ongoing performances of the symphonic piece, Qiksaaktuq; she conducts the orchestral brass in structured improvisation during the performances. An active educator and clinician, Duncan teaches in the jazz programs at the University of Toronto and Humber College.

Jean Martin is a drummer, multiinstrumentalist, producer, and a key member of the field of creative music in Canada. As a performer, some of his principal associations are with Christine Duncan, Barnyard Drama, The Element Choir, Jesse Zubot, Tanya Tagaq, John Southworth, ZMF Trio, Bernard Falaise, and Justin Haynes. He has perfomed and recorded with notable artists: David Murray, Evan Parker, William Parker, Veryan Weston, Phil Minton, Craig Tayborn to name a few. He was nominated in 2004 as 'Best Drummer' at the National Jazz Awards and received the 2004 Freddy Stone Award for excellence in contemporary music in Canada. As a producer, Jean is best known as the artistic director of Barnyard Records, one of the most vital labels for contemporary music in North America.

One of the most versatile cellists of our time, Jeffrey Zeigler is admired for being a potent collaborator and a unique improviser. Zeigler has released over three dozen recordings for Nonesuch Records, Deutsche Grammophon and Smithsonian Folkways and appears with Norah Jones on her album Not Too Late on Blue Note Records. Zeigler can also be heard on the film soundtrack for Paola Sorrentino’s Academy Award winning film, La Grande Bellezza, as well as Clint Mansell's Golden Globe nominated soundtrack, The Fountain, featuring performances with the Scottish band, Mogwai.

Njo Kong Kie + Folgaa Gang Project

picnic in the cemetery

★★★★★

Luisa Ferreira

“euphoric assault on the senses… must experience”

A whimsical concert-theatre performance combining the original music of Toronto composer Njo Kong Kie (Mr. Shi and His Lover) and an evocative journey through the passage of time.

- B r iti s h Th e atr e G u i d e

APR 26 – may 6 Berkeley Street Theatre

canadianstage.com 416.368.3110