Apply to Theatre Replacement’s New Aesthetics Performance Intensive 2014

February 21, 2014

From the PuSh Festival’s colleagues and long-time collaborators, Theatre Replacement, a blog entry about their popular New Aesthetics Performance Intensive. The deadline to apply for the 2014 intensive is March 1 and will be taught by Mariano Pensotti and Toshiki Okada. Read on to find out more about the program and the lead artists.

Theatre Replacement’s New Aesthetics Performance Intensive is about bringing the world’s top performance makers to Vancouver for two weeks and inviting them to shake up our expectations, invoke change, confirm suspicions and invigorate our practices as makers and artists.

For the 20 participants, it’s about giving over control and running blind with others who have similar appetites for the new – whatever that may be.

We at Theatre Replacement are interested in creating pairs of performance leaders that can bring us to places where we actively question whatever it is we think we’ve been doing. These questions might arise in-studio – or at the beach – or bar – during the two weeks, or they might pop up the next time we get to making something. It’s about condensing the world for a little while and seeing what comes up.

In 2013 we hosted instructors Crystal Pite (CDN) and Pol Heyvaert (BE) and a group of 20 artists from Canada and the US. The 10 days were comprised of studio work, evening events and great hangouts. This year, we continue with the incredible pairing of Argentinian multidisciplinary artist and director Mariano Pensotti and Japanese director Toshiki Okada of chelfitsch.

Mariano Pensotti is an internationally renowned writer, theatre director and cross-disciplinary artists who works with cinema, visual art and large scale installation. As artistic director of his company Grupo Marea, he is one of the contemporary performance world’s brightest theatre talents. Recent PuSh presentations include Sometimes I think I can see you, El Pasado es un animal grotesco (The past is a grotesque animal) and La Marea. His latest work Cineastas (Filmmakers), presented at the prestigious Kunsten Festival (BE), was called “a virtuoso of filmic drama“. Pensotti has also been presented at the Walker and Wexner Centes in the US and the Hebbel in Berlin among many other venues and festivals and venues of note.

Based in Tokyo, Toshiki Okada is one the most enigmatic performance makers in the world. Nearly impossible to define as solely a playwright, novelist, chorographer or director, his works, including Five Days in March, Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and The Farewell Speech, are text-based and uniquely physical explorations of a disintegrating and uncanny generation. Since forming his theatre company chelfitsch in 1997, his work has been presented around the world at multiple prestigious venues and events including the New National Theatre of Japan in Tokyo, the Festival D’Automne in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

New Aesthetics has space for only 20 participating artists. Last year’s group included individuals working across and between disciplines including dance, theatre, visual and live art. You can view a list of last year’s participants here. The participating artists are as diverse in practice and background as the instructors, which we think is part of what makes New Aesthetics exciting.

To apply, submit a CV and letter of intent via our website by March 1. In the letter, we ask you to discuss your practice, why you’re interested in New Aesthetics at this point in your professional development and if you’d like to be considered for financial support. Available financial support is being confirmed, but there will be at least one full scholarship available. We also encourage invited participants to approach organizations in their community to consider sponsoring their tuition and can help bridge those relationships.

The intensive is meant to be multi- and interdisciplinary. We welcome applications from artists of all creative affiliations who have been working at their personal practice for at least five years. Applications will be reviewed by a selection committee and invitations will be sent before the end of April.

If you have any questions, or would like more information – or if this sounds like something you’d like to be part of but you’re not sure how your work fits into the process – please don’t hesitate to be in touch. If you know others who might benefit from a two-week creative intensive, please pass it on.

Theatre Replacement would like to thank our community partners SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, without whom New Aesthetics would not be possible.