Back Away, Slowly

In 2015, Theatre Replacement collaborated with recent SFU School for the Contemporary Arts alumni to create experiential and experimental site-oriented performances for Live at the ‘Bolt.

Theatre Replacement Artistic Directors James Long and Maiko Yamamoto are both graduates of SFU’s theatre program. Incidentally, several of the creation-based companies in our community were started by SFU alumni. Over the last five years, we have seen an influx of young companies borne out of SFU, all developing practices that attempt to push formal, spatial and conceptual approaches to performance-making. We invited some of these emerging artists to envision a work that uses the spaces in and around the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts as their canvas for creating an inventive and engaging evening of site-oriented work. These companies are: The Jamie and Sarah Experience Project, Resounding Scream Theatre, O, o, o, o., Hong Kong Exile, A Wake of Vultures and Zugzwang Media.

Together, these young artists tackled the theme for the evening: curiosity. The word derives from the Latin for care or diligence but modern sayings like ‘curiosity killed the cat’ give the notion a bad rap. In Back Away, Slowly, The next generation of theatre-makers pondered this dilemma of curiosity and carefully crafted works that both examined and troubled this mischievous theme.

June 19-20, 8pm
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts
6450 Deer Lake Park
BURNABY