A Festival of Experimental Puppetry and Performing Objects
OBJECTO 2021
November 26-28, 2021
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DAY 1 and 2:
Live at The Tranzac Club
Friday November 26th and Saturday, November 27th
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Doors and Installations at 7:00pm, show 8:00pm
TRANZAC Club, 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto
*ASL Interpreted Performance Saturday night*
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Max Kelly and Matthew Richard - D'ontcha See
D'ontcha See is a psychedelic celebration of looming eco fear. Attempting to find healthy growth of reaching knowledge in fleeting moments of delight, spawning what could be and hoping to find little moments of joy and resistance. This is Dante and Max's first time collaborating on animation.
Max Kelly is an artist and musician living in Toronto. He has been a long time contributor to Concrete Cabaret, both as a musician and puppeteer. This is his first time working on an animation and is thankful for the supportive people in the Toronto performing objects community.
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Matthew Richard: I am from Prince Edward Island and now live in Toronto. I have pursued a mixed-media art practice throughout my life—primarily drawings, lo-fi paintings, collages and digital mediums—and recently animation. My work centres colours and forms; created from déjà vu and warped mirrors of the past brought into the present. I am interested in re-shaping memories without conscious reasoning—building new visions of the future. I prioritize a practice that is accessible, without hierarchy, and am interested in creating through skill-sharing and mutuality.
Shahir Krishna - Xaga Murthi
Shahir's film Xaga Murthi queers ancient Indian and Islamic aesthetics through mixed-media collage and drag performance. How does one go about mending ancestral schisms created by the impacts of colonization and oppression? What pathways must one take in order to heal inherited intergenerational trauma? And finally, what could a diasporic queer utopia look like?
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Stephen is a wandering poet who makes poetic dreamscape odyssey’s. Stephen has performed in several theatre productions including Black Boys (Buddies + Saga Collectif), Angels in America (Arts Club), Botticelli in the Fire/Sunday in Sodom (Canadian Stage) and more. Stephen has performed as the poet in the Queer Songbook Orchestra. Stephen continuously creates their own performance works and perform them in new and exciting places.
Stephen enjoys keeping an open heart.
Zen-Existential puppet theatre - HEY 30 JARS OV ZENEXP RETROSPEKTIV!
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Rob Cruickshank & Von Bark are both experimental musicians from the General Toronto Area, who have created various sounds for several years.
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Von Bark quote: ("I am vaguely motivated by repressed rage, which is flattened into mere nonsense.")
Rob Cruickshank quote: ("We can put googly eyes on anything.").
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The zenexp technique utilizes toys, found objects, and pathetic handmade things. blended with some quotes from classic & surrealist literature,
and some random nonsense.
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Vaudeville meets the recycling bin in a jam-packed circus of tangible illusions and cardboard titillations.
Corrugated Spectacles are puppetry and material performance trio Caitlin Ross, Arvin Heidari, and Denise Rogers Valenzuela. United by their interest in cardboard, political puppetry, and whimsy, they had been meaning to make a show together. And now they did! It's called Variety Box. Come and see!
Lowfills - Musical Guest​
Lowfills perform original country-infused songs composed for wierdos and circus ghosts... fast and rocking, slow and haunted... some songs float and shimmer, some get down and groove, and some stagger around like a drunken carny. All of our songs feature the soaring, sizzling, slinky sounds of Joe Burke's lapsteel, singer-songwriter Laura Gillis plays a big beautiful dusty Gretch, Phil Marvy plays a mean mean bass (but he himself is very nice indeed). Usually we play in bars, but sometimes we play in laundromats or bookstores, near horses, in boxing rings, in laneways, on public transit, at comedy shows, or at house parties, street parties or festivals.
Installation in the Tiki Lounge:
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Kristine White and Bee Pallomina​
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Bee Pallomina is a dance artist making and performing work for stage, installation, film/video and puppets. Her practice includes movement, care, and the everyday. She is an artist, educator, and mom.
Kristine White is an artist and storyteller whose work spans the disciplines of puppetry, theatre, visual art, installation, and radio. Kristine is interested in creating work that is immersive, site-responsive, and grounded in place.
This project is the beginning stages of a collaboration by dancer Bee Pallomina and shadow puppeteer Kristine White to move between and across disciplines through an embodied exploration of ecology, plant mythology, and the more-than-human world.
Installation in the Southern Cross Room:
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The Sisters of the Celestial Order of Nephology
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Polluting clouds from factory smoke stacks, exhaust clouds from fume pipes, atmospheric clouds on the horizon, electronic clouds where data is stored; The Sisters of the Celestial Order of Nephology (the study of clouds) is an interdisciplinary performance project by Horizon Factory (Erin Hill and Nina Vroemen).
Forming in 2019, during a dance residency at Studio 303 (Montreal), the fictitious, sudo-sect of two, blue cloaked, atmospheric-nuns were called by the unseizability of clouds and the ephemeral narratives that form them. These narratives are personal, environmental, futuristic, and potential warning signs.
Horizon factory is a research-creation project by artists Nina Vroemen (video, sculpture, performance art) and Erin Hill (dance, choreography, writing). Since their initial incarnation of the Order of Nephology in 2019 during a Studio 303 residency, they have expanded their practice, performing at The Darling Foundry (2020) as part of Place Publique, participated in provincially supported artist residencies (RURART 2020) (Conseil des Arts & Lettres Programme Atelier- Kamouraska, 2021) and have adapted their work during the pandemic, both online (Instagram @horizonfactory) and for radio (Local FM, Third Space Gallery, 2021). They are currently working on a Deep Gazing project inspired by the sonic meditations of Pauline Oliveros
DAY 3:
Exquisite Collaborations Live ONLINE performance
Sunday November 28th at 7:00 pm
A group of artists have been working for weeks, exchanging show ideas, storyboards, designs, and performances. Expect the unexpected: come together in digital space to marvel at these Exquisite Collaborations!
More details here
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Featuring:
Kayla Chambers
Steven Conway
Felicia Cooper
Olivia Costes
Naomi Duvall
Alexa Fraser
Alexander Mantia
Molly McGregor
Zita Nyarady
Greta Papageorgiu & Hugh Probyn
Nina Pariser
Robin Polfuss
Collette Radauz
Eish Van Wieren
Alex Winfield
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Followed by a free gather.town toast and gathering open to all!
OBJECTO 2021 was generously funded by the TAC and the Puppet Slam Network