Focus: DESIRE

"Within my close circle of friends, four couples have recently dealt with Citizenship and Immigration Canada in order to legally gain residency for their partners. To assist the government in making their decision, my friends have been asked to prove their relationships. Their romance is scientifically calculated in check marks, dates, anecdotes, photographs, lawyer fees, and piles of paperwork. The Immigration Series is my contribution to the justification of their relationships—a constructed embrace performed for public consumption. A document representing the truth, love, and passion between them. A kiss of hope for the future."

The Immigration Series

Jennifer Long

York Quay Gallery
March 17 - May 13, 2007

"There is a need for understanding, for knowing that my story is not so different from your story, whoever you might be. I share my story with you to see the change in your eyes, to see your understanding, to know that we are here, so briefly, together.

In Revisited, the desire to remember, to hold on to what is past is set against the desire to find peace through letting go."

Revisited

2b theatre company (Halifax)
Created by Christian Barry, Steven McCarthy and Michelle Monteith

Brigantine Room
April 4 - 19, 2007

"When I was 5 my desire was to have breakfast.

When I was 8 my desire was to have a bathroom in my home.

When I was 16 my desire was to have a bicycle.

When I was 20 my desire was to fly like a bird.

When I was 30 my desire was to swim in the deep ocean like a fish.

When I became 40 my desire was…Unbound.

Unbound

Wen Wei Dance

Premiere Dance Theatre
April 17 - 21, 2007

"Events that happen behind closed doors seep into the walls and become a part of that room's history. If walls could show what happens in the space they enclose, not one inch would be spared. A whole story would form very quickly and no secrets would be safe. In If These Walls Could Talk, a single act is isolated and recorded on the walls. The floral pattern of the wallpaper acts as a backdrop to the couples' intimate embrace holding them safely in its memory."

"No matter how hard we try, it is impossible to remember every event that has happened within a single space. Moments pass us by and time tends to erase memories that we hold dear. This exhibition highlights one fleeting moment shared between two people. It denies the privacy that is usually offered by a domestic setting and invites the viewer in, expanding the memory and allowing this moment to live on."

If These Walls Could Talk

Geneviève Jodouin

Premiere Dance Theatre
Winter/Spring 2007

"Yes, the two rings I initially sent are impermanent. 'I've loved you since the moment I met you' and 'I want to be your wife Always' (2006). They are the only rings with 'unprotected' love. Yes, I did like that their ephemeral quality was both visual and physical. In that it could reflect the impermanence of a once overwhelming feeling. That as the love fades so too does their once bold declaration of love. A ghost of their love."

"I am interested in the relationships that people have with their belongings, and how these objects have the ability to illustrate one's personal history. The piece that I have included in The Object(s) of Longing, is entitled December 26, 1942. Working with tengu-jo paper, black walnut dye and devoré in a sculptural manner, this piece is evocative of a bridal veil, exploring desire, longing, and a promise. The material and process are very important to this work as they reference the story of a love affair. A delicate pattern has been carefully burnt out of the tissue paper, resulting in a fragile lace-like material. I believe that while there is an inherent fragility in delicate garments, at the same time there is a tangible sense of security."

The Object(s) of Longing

Curated by Melanie Egan

York Quay Gallery
January 20 - March 11, 2007

"This installation reflects an integral aspect of my current studio practise. I haunt flea markets and 2nd hand stores in search of things that interest me. Back in my studio, I affix my ‘finds' to the wall on nails or pins. In turn, the studio wall becomes my visual sketchbook and informs the work I then create. Initially, when I first viewed the collectibles that I placed on the wall I was struck by the incredibly personal nature of these items and the fact that all of the objects on the wall referred to some form of written communication, such as autographs, handwritten letters, dance cards, postcards, journals, etc."

"In my art practise, I simulate script. Wordlike shapes are created by pulling snags in the fabric to which pigment is applied. Although these shapes appear to be a familiar script, they are in fact, obscure and indecipherable. I continue to explore the ambiguities inherent in the comprehension of language."

Re-collect

Curated by Patrick Macaulay

York Quay Gallery
January 20 - March 11, 2007

"The notion of desire underpins The Russian Play's formal and thematic experiments. In The Russian Plays, I explore the role of desire in the life of a young Russian woman. As Sonya—the play's central character—lies dying in a Moscow prison cell, she reflects on the love affair that led to her ruin. Sonya uses the story of her brief romance with a gravedigger named Piotr to warn the audience against the dangers of desire. However, the memory of the joy she felt with Piotr contradicts and subverts her bitter condemnations of love. I argue, in The Russian Plays, that desire is both a destructive and a beautiful force in our lives."

The Russian Plays

companytheatrecrisis / Absit Omen Theatre

Studio Theatre
February 19 - 25, 2007

"The desire to understand is overwhelming. To make sense of what we see and feel. To understand our place, how we got here, and where we go next. This desire can drive social and physical sciences, art, religion and personal relationships. It is a desire that will never be fulfilled completely and so its pursuit is as absurd as it is required. It is a desire as emotional as it is intellectual. It is the desire—its difficulty and its necessity—that inspires Dedicated to the Revolutions."

Reasonable People, Reasonably Disagreeing
Dedicated to the Revolutions Part Three: The Gutenberg Revolution.

Small Wooden Shoe

Enwave Theatre
March 11, 2007

"I should like to define DESIRE as thought that leads to an action. Theatre gives us a chance—thank heavens!—to enact our visions for the future, both dreams and nightmares. The TEAM is fueled by a desire to believe in a world where revolution is possible—and fueled by the simultaneous panic that we as individuals will not have the character to execute the revolution when the time has come."

"Particularly in the Heartland desires a return to innocence, a world in which ideological barriers have been rendered obsolete by a catastrophic event that returns us to our basic humanity and begs simple compassion. The piece was designed as a big Christmas gift to the audience and is largely inspired by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a story about the desire for one more chance at revision and redemption. Heartland's joy is balanced by a painful longing at its core for a dream in which all are reduced to the frail, pathetic and hysterical beings we are in every moment of our lives, and in which we all look at each other and ask "Are we good people?""

It is a dream in which the answer to that question can only be, "I think so."

Particularly in the Heartland

The TEAM - Theatre of the Emerging American Moment

Enwave Theatre
March 28 - April 1, 2007

"Desire always seems to be about desire frustrated. The state of desire is one of want, of absence, of anticipation. That's why the troubadors had to make the women they wrote ballads to inaccessible in their songs. When we hear the word desire, our minds often default to sexual desire; the word seems to signify lust. But there is so much else we desire: closeness, communion, status, filthy lucre, love. After someone dies, we can never be in anything but a desirous state in relation to them. We wish to see them; we have repeated conversations with them in our heads; we see them through a prism that never existed when they were alive; we gain perspective and this perspective makes us feel their absence more keenly. Why didn't we see things clearly when they were alive? We desire to speak with them now, there is so much we would say—and this will never happen. And we desire things for ourselves: I desire to be a better, more reflective, more loving person, and I am often frustrated in my desire to effect these changes. The Girl in the Picture Tries to Hang Up the Phone is very much about desire: an attempt to make flesh one of the departed. A seemingly impossible desire—but then, perhaps, desire requires this seeming impossibility in order to exist, to gain strength, to obsess us and guide our conduct."

The Girl in the Picture Tries to Hang Up the Phone

Optic Heart Theatre

Studio Theatre
March 20 - 25, 2007