Volcano Theatre, The Book of Life Playbill 09/23/23

MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS

VOLCANO THEATRE, THE BOOK OF LIFE

September 23, 2023 | 7:30 PM

Alice Jepson Theatre

Post-Show Artist Q&A

UNIVERSITY of RICHMOND

MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS

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PHOTO CREDIT: DAHLI KATZ

Thank You

THIS ENGAGEMENT OF VOLCANO THEATRE, THE BOOK OF LIFE IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

H. Gerald Quigg Arts Endowment

Clinton Webb Fund

THANKS TO OUR 2023 -2024 MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS SEASON SPONSORS & COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Louis S. Booth Arts Fund

Cultural Affairs Committee

Dewitt Fund for the Arts

A. Dale Mayo Fund

Virginia B. Modlin Endowment

Norman and Gay Leahy

William and Pamela O’Connor

Welcome

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE OUR 2023-2024 SEASON!

At Modlin Center for the Arts, we are committed to providing the University of Richmond campus and our broader community with the best in diverse, thought-provoking, and captivating performances. Each season is cultivated with our attention to showcasing artists who provide insight into our shared humanity. At the University of Richmond, we pledge to you—our patrons and partners, on campus and in our region—that the arts will provide broad access to rich voices, creative passion, and unforgettable experiences.

Modlin is more than our presenting series. We operate as the home for our academic partners within the School of Arts & Sciences, providing spaces for conversation, connection, and collaboration across disciplines. Explore the full range of opportunities from the Department of Music, Department of Theatre & Dance, and University Museums. Don’t miss the extensive calendar of FREE concerts, performances, and exhibits, and make plans to join us.

I hope that you will also consider a contribution to the Modlin Center for the Arts. Your backing is a vital endorsement of the value that Modlin contributes to our cultural landscape. We are deeply grateful to have you include Modlin in your cultural investments. Thank you for being a valued member of our community of the arts. I look forward to seeing you at Modlin performances in 2023-24 and to hearing what moves you this year!

Paul Brohan, Executive Director

MODLIN ARTS

2023/24 Calendar

FALL

 P Ticketed: Paid

 F Free: Tickets/Registration Required

 F Free: No Tickets/Registration Required

 Modlin Arts Presents

 Department of Theatre and Dance

 Department of Music

 University Museums

 Tucker Boatwright Festival

AUGUST 2023

Queer Pioneers: LGBTQ+ History Through the

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY 2024

2023/24 Calendar

SPRING

MARCH

MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS presents VOLCANO THEATRE, THE BOOK OF LIFE

Produced by Volcano Theater (Canada) and Woman Cultural Centre (Rwanda)

A Note from the Producers: Because the global arts world is asymmetrical with respect to funding access, there is often a basic inequity in North/ South partnerships. Volcano (Canada), and the Woman Cultural Centre (Rwanda), are pioneering an Asymmetric Co-production agreement based on transparency and shared agency. We would like to make this available to other producers. If you’re interested, reach us at info@volcano.ca.

Tonight’s performance will run approximately 80 minutes with no intermission. A post-show Q&A with the artists will be moderated by Paul Brohan, Executive Director of Modlin Center.

PROGRAM NOTES

“In The Book of Life there’s an opportunity to re-invent things; to dream; to try to undo something; and to propose for a moment another point of view, another way of the re-visiting the past… It’s like a ceremonial way to just rehabilitate life.”

– Odile Gakire Katese

PHOTO CREDIT: JON DAVEY

Playwright / Performer / Co-creator

Director / Co-creator

The Women Drummers of Rwanda

Gakire Katese Odile “Kiki”

Ross Manson

Kamariza Mediatrice

Mukeshimana Alphonsine

Mukamugema Chantal

Mukanyandwi Claudine

Musabyemariya Christine

Nyinawimbabazi Claudine

Uwamriya Clementine

Uwintije Clementine

Visual Animation Designer / Operator

Visual Animation Designer

Composer

Producers / Production / Design

Translator and Visuals Assistant

Tour Company Manager

Assistant Director

Set Construction

General Manager

DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

Kristine White

Sean Frey

Mutangana Moise

Kaitlin Hickey & Patrick Lavender

Katese Aurore

Kafi Pierre

Abigail Whitney

Tuyizere Ernest, Kigali Rwanda

Ray Bramble

Merriam Webster defines Serendipity as: “The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.”

PHOTO CREDIT: DAHLIA KATZ

When I first travelled to Rwanda in 2008, I was keenly aware of Canada’s complicity in a global and wilful blindness to an unfolding genocide that had happened just over a decade earlier. Like many Canadians, I had learned of my own country’s failure to act through UN peacekeeping General Romeo Dallaire’s insistence on speaking out. He was our witness to the perils of ignorance and inaction.

Western complicity, and a colonial eugenics program that ran for most of the 20th century in Rwanda before independence, had generated the most horrific imaginable consequences. Groups that had been more socio-political than racial, had been pitted by Europeans against one another over decades of toxic misinformation, forced labour, the introduction of identity cards, and racial favouritism based entirely on fiction. All of this was foremost in my mind.

It was in Kigali, at a coffee shop in the centre of the city, that Serendipity, like an agent of fate, put another theatre artist, Kiki Katese, in front of me. Kiki and I have had a long and productive artistic relationship ever since. We have invited each other to our respective countries to teach, to perform and to create. We have been doing this now for well over a decade. The Book of Life spans this entire time. It is a project that has taken many forms for her: short films, a book, a national letter-writing campaign, and now a play. The wisdom of it, of Kiki, of the women drummers who have been so integral to the construction of this project – this wisdom is a light, a beacon for the rest of the world, as we all peer ahead into an uncertain future. Kiki’s artmaking is, in fact, a valuable and agreeable thing.

BIOGRAPHY

Gakire Katese Odile “Kiki”, as she herself describes it, is a professional dreamer and a woman of firsts. She is a Rwandan playwright, director and cultural entrepreneur. Among her many accomplishments in Rwanda are the first women’s drumming company (Ingoma Nshya, Women Initiatives), the first professional contemporary dance company (Amizero Dance Kompagnie), the first international festival (Festival Arts Azimuts), the first national festival in Rwanda (Rwanda Drum Festival), the first co-op ice cream store (Inzozi Nziza – Sweet Dreams) and the first recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Rosamond Gilder/Martha Coigney International Award. Kiki is a grand person with a warm, generous, insightful outlook on life. She has a vision that is a long one, of how art will heal and inspire her country.

Kiki is the founding director of Rwanda Professional Dreamers and is currently working on Mumataha, Remember Me and The Book of Life. More

than projects related to the commemoration of the 1994 genocide, they are a dressing of wounds and come to lessen the sounds of tears and sorrow and to accompany the dead and the living on their respective journeys.

Women Drummers of Rwanda (Ingoma Nshya)

For centuries in Rwanda, drumming was an activity reserved exclusively for men. Women were not permitted to touch the drums or even approach the drummers.

In 2004, Gakire Katese Odile, “Kiki”, created the first-ever Rwandan female drumming ensemble, Ingoma Nshya – which is Kinyarwanda for ‘New Drum’ or ‘New Power’. After the near collapse of Rwanda in the wake of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis, a group of women decided it was time for a change, for the sake of the country, and, in particular, for the sake of its girls and women.

Ingoma Nshya is a visionary grass roots project with multiple goals – healing, reconciliation, women’s social and financial empowerment, and artistic excellence. For the women, the group has been a place to begin to live again, to build new relationships, to heal the wounds of the past.

For these women, culture is a driving force that allows them to emerge from the devastation of genocide, and to create a new future. Ingoma Nshya is now a company of 20 professional drummers – together, they are a potent symbol of a society’s ability to heal, move forward, and create hope. Find out more at ingomanshya.org or womanculturalcentre.com

PHOTO CREDIT: DAHLIA KATZ

Volcano, Canada

Volcano is a Toronto-based live performance creation company. It works adventurously, collaboratively, and with an eye to making art that transcends borders, boundaries and orthodoxies. A push for equity, racial justice and human well-being is critically important to Volcano. It is specifically mandated to be inclusive, and to diversify its sector through mentoring, training and representation. In its nearly 28-year history it has explored a wide-range of ethical terrains using opera, theatre, and cross-disciplinary performance, and toured productions to three continents. It has received over 70 awards or nominations at local, national and international levels. In Edinburgh, its shows include: Century Song; White Rabbit Red Rabbit; Goodness; My Pyramids; Weather; and Lambton Kent.

Volcano’s goal is to make the world a more resilient, just and caring place through imagination, action, respect for one another and through the art it supports.

Find out more at volcano.ca

PHOTO CREDIT: JON DAVY

Ross Manson - Director

Ross Manson is an award-winning director, and the founding artistic director of Volcano, an internationally acclaimed theatre company based in Toronto. Volcano is an independent, concept-driven company characterized by multi-disciplinarity and collaboration across intersectional identities.

Ross’s shows for Volcano have toured to three continents, and won or been nominated for over seventy local, national and international awards. He has directed for theatres across Canada and around the world, including: the Canadian Stage Company; the Tarragon theatre; Luminato Festival; the Traverse Theatre Scotland; LiteraturFest Berlin; PS122 New York; the National Svenska Theatre, Helsinki, and the Edinburgh International Festival, among many others. Award recognition includes Toronto Theatre Dora awards as a director, a writer, and a producer; the KM Hunter award in Theatre; and short lists for the Siminovitch National Directing award (twice); the Ontario Premiere’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Toronto Arts Foundation Cultural Leadership Award.

Kristine White - Visual Animation Designer

Kristine White is a multidisciplinary artist who works with visual and performance arts practices in collaboration with theatre-makers, musicians, dancers and communities. Shadow puppetry and projection are a focus of her current practise. Her work has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and Kingston Arts Council. Kristine has worked for national and international theatre companies designing puppets, props, and costumes, led mask and puppet-making workshops, and facilitated community-based creative activities.

Kaitlin

Her design work has been seen on stages across Canada and Internationally. Working with Volcano Theatre since 2014, she has been a part of the Book of Life team since 2019. Recent selected credits include: Set & Lighting Design, Wildfire (Factory Theatre), Set & Lighting Design, Miss Caledonia (Regina Globe Theatre), Set & Lighting Design, Supper Club (Resource Centre for the Arts, NL); Lighting Design, Is My Microphone On? (Canadian Stage);

Lighting Design: Controlled Damage (Neptune Theatre), Set Design: Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools (Buddies in Bad Times, Edinburgh International Festival);

Production Design: Empire Trilogy: Four Sisters (Paradigm Productions); Set Design: Noor, (Generous Friend, Aga Khan Museum); Lighting & Set Design: Knives in Hens (Coal Mine Theatre), Lighting Design: The Children’s Republic (Belfry Theatre). Nominated for multiple Dora Mavor Moore awards and the recipient of the Robert Merritt Award for outstanding lighting design.

Hickey - Producer / Designer

Patrick Lavender - Producer / Designer

Patrick began working with volcano theatre in 2014. Since then, working with volcano on over 5 productions, he has been given the opportunity to travel as a theatre ambassador and learn from artist in many remote and fascinating communities. These experiences will last a lifetime, and he is forever grateful. For volcano theatre: co-design and production for The Book of Life; production manager and associate lighting designer for Century Song (2014 - 2018); production manager and assistant video design for The Four Horsemen Project; production manager and lighting design for Waiting for Godot. Patrick has received 4 Dora Mavor Moore awards for his design work in Canadian Theatre. His work has been seen internationally some career highlights include: The Edinburgh International Festival, World Stage Design in Taipei, Nova Scena in Prague, Jaffa Fest in Tel Aviv, Spoleto Festival USA, Luminato Festival in Toronto.

Kafi Pierre - Tour Company Manager

Kafi Pierre has been involved in the Arts professionally for over 20 years. She has held roles as a Producer, Artistic Director, Creative Director, Company Manager, Artistic Consultant, and Production Coordinator with top-tier international organizations. She has a graduate certificate in arts administration and cultural management and has performed and taught in over 100 cities across five continents. As you can see from her resume, Kafi has worked with industry legends like Franco Dragone and Ron Kellum, in all aspects of performing arts, including arts administration, production management, strategic brand management, writing, directing, choreography, acting, coaching, set design, costuming and backstage management. After 12 years of dancing on Broadway and Cirque du Soleil stages, Kafi joined Cirque Du Soleil as an Associate Artistic Director, touring North America for 2 years. As a company manager, she has worked for Fall for Dance North and as a producer, Ms. Pierre has worked for Danceworks, Luminato Festival, Reelworld Film Festival and is currently the Creative Producer for Season 2 of Canada’s Got Talent.

Abigail Whitney - Assistant Director

Abigail Whitney is an actor, film and theatre director, and an international fashion model. Her first tv credit includes playing Moonshadow, a superhero on Amazon’s The Boys. She won Best Stage Director for her theatre directorial debut at UofT’s Drama Coalition Awards and Audience Choice Award for her second work as a theatre director at UofT’s Drama Festival. She’s modeled across Canada and abroad in national and international

magazines. She’s featured in Covergirl, Sephora, Sirens, Lululemon campaigns and more. Her debut short film Seule that she independently wrote, produced and directed is airing on CBC Gem. She is independently writing and directing her next short film.

Katese Aurore - Translator & Visuals Assistant

Katese Aurore, producer, has been working as a volunteer with Ingoma Nshya and the Woman Cultural Centre since 2019 when she collaborated in the production of a day event celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Ingoma Nshya in Kigali. She has been assisting with administrative and financial work, with logistics and communication. In 2022, she joined the team of “The Book of Life” as a producer and a translator as they performed in Rwanda and in Scotland at the Edinburgh International Festival and at Clifton Street Festival. In 2023, she will also be working as the project manager of “Gira Ingoma – One Drum per Girl”, a program ensuring artistic education for girls in ten primary and secondary schools in Huye district. She is the next generation of Ingoma Nshya as she is taking over the legacy.

PHOTO CREDIT: JON DAVY

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Concds t

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