4 South Van art fest about community Creating original art with neighbours strengthens community, relationships By NATASHA CHANG dents collaborating to make public art can strengthen a sense of com- munity, and the South Hill neigh- bourhood is a tes- tament to this. The Langara fine arts instructor said a two-year weaving project she participated in Ss": Bartlett believes that resi- with South Hill SHARY BARTLETT community, for ex- Langara fine arts ample, has brought instructor neighbours closer to each other. The project was collaborative and multicul- tural because the tapestry they made weaved together fabrics from each par- ticipant’s culture. Bartlett will be speaking about pub- lic art Nov. 26. at the Vancouver Public Library in her lecture, ‘The Magic of Collaborative Public Art.’ “TThe] idea was that weaving cuts across cultures, in every culture people weave, you don’t need to know languag- es to be able to weave,” Bartlett said. See COLLAB ART, page 5 Risky nights, riskier style Studio 58 play tackles how women treat and talk to one each other By VIVIAN CHUI trangle the person on stage when you feel like you want to, the director of Studio 58’s latest Risky Nights production said. Studio 58 opens the 15th season of its Risky Nights series on Nov. 24 with Mouth, a production in the British in- yer-face style featuring four women struggling with communication issues. Mouth’s director Chelsea Haberlin from Itsazoo Productions, having di- rected three in-yer-face plays previ- ously, said the style emerged in 1990s British theatre and aims to shock the audience into making change in the world. “It’s all about making the audience look at something that is ugly in soci- ety and making the audience mad,” Haberlin said. “It uses lots of violence, lots of sexuality, and lots of aggressive language.” Addressing the “barrier that often exists between your heart and what comes out of your mouth,” Haberlin said the play takes arguing to the ex- treme. “There’s no limit to how [extreme] the show goes,” she added. The cast worked with a fight director to practice stage fighting safely. “It looks unsafe and it feels unsafe, but actually it’s very safe for everyone involved,” she said. The actors will have practiced the fight scenes 100 times by the time they perform, Haberlin added. Risky Nights provides opportunities for second-year acting students from Studio 58 to create original theatre with a professional director and per- form it in an intimate setting, accord- ing to the program’s website. Cast member Elan Bertles had not heard of the in-yer-face style before working on the project. “lve never seen anything like this,” Bertles said. The play follows two main storylines, one depicting interactions between Al- ice and her daughter Allie, and the other between Kerri and her daugh- ter’s nanny Leah, Bertles said, and the two stories are connected. Alice is Ker- ri’s dentist and Leah is Allie’s best friend. Carly Pokoradi plays Alice. She said her character has a difficult relation- ship with her daughter, who is strug- gling to find herself. The other storyline is more about the employer-employee tension be- tween Kerri, played by Bertles, and her daughter’s nanny, Leah. Pokoradi and Bertles hope the audi- ence will become more aware of mo- ments of self-censorship after watch- ing the show. The idea is to be conscious about whether thoughts are spoken aloud, Pokoradi said. “[Censoring yourself] can be damag- ing to yourself and to others,” Bertles said. Mouth will be showing from Nov. 24 to 29 starting at 8:15 p.m. and on Nov. 30 at 3:15 p.m. in the Langara’s Students’ Union Building. Entry is by donation. i VIVIAN CHUI photo Elan Bertles plays Kerri, a mother struggling through a difficult relationship with daughter’s nanny in Mouth. Frisky puppets get dirty on stage AVENUE Q, continued from page 1 She says working with puppets isn’t easy, “We spent a lot of time in the mir- ror checking angles, because it’s really easy to have the puppets off looking somewhere else while the actor is talk- ing to that puppet.” After over 100 performances during the play’s last run, Dunbar is now more comfortable as a puppeteer. “Once you get used to having that thing on your arm... it [feels] just like another limb,” Dunbar said. The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical is the brainchild of Robert Lo- pez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty, who came together in the summer of 2002 to hash out their ideas. “There’s always lots of puppets around here,” Preston Whiteway said, currently the executive director of the Eugene The cast of Avenue Q (left to right: Jeremy Crittenden, Andy Toth, Selina Wong, Evangelia Kambites, and Kayla Dunbar. DAVID COOPER- submitted photo O’Neill Theater Center in Conneticut where they met up. The O’Neill, as it is commonly known, is also home to a puppetry program set up as a legacy to Sesame Street Muppeteer Jim Henson. Whiteway explained that Avenue Q was developed at the O’Neill because of their expertise in musical theatre creation and not because of the Hen- son connection. Their music and lyrics were hilarious, said Paulette Haupt, artistic director at the O’Neill. “There was a real buzz about [Avenue Q].” The O’Neill is sometimes called the launchpad of American theatre said Haupt, who remembers all the hard work the creators put in to develop a story to go with all their songs. Haupt said the creative process by which the play came together took only two weeks. “By the time they left the O’Neill they really had a story,” she said. Performances of Avenue Q begin at the Arts Club’s Granville Island stage on Nov. 20 and run into the New Year, tickets start at $29. 66 Once you get used to having that thing on your arm...it just feels like anoth- er limb KAYLA DUNBAR PUPPETEER Want to see more Smutty puppetry? Por more puppet fun check Out these felty features By MEL EDGAR Neil’s Puppet Dreams (2012-2018): a web series created by the Jim Henson company exploring Neil Patrick Harris’ (How I met your Mother) sexy puppet- filled dreams (YouTube). Meet the Feebles (1989): one of Peter Jackson’s (Lord of the Rings) early ef- forts, this black musical comedy fea- turing sexcapades and puppet porn, has a cult following in Australia and New Zealand (YouTube). Meat Love (1989): not your typical flesh film, but this short by Poland’s Jan Svankmajer of steaks falling in love is worth watching if you’re curious about what animated meat might look like (YouTube). Magic: the Gathering the Musical (2012): this musical by Zombie Cat Produc- tions has puppets competing against each other in the famous wizarding game (You- Tube).