The Walworth Farce

Necessary Angel's Hamlet

DV8 Physical Theatre

roadkill

Once and for all we're gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen

Blind Date

Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods

Loin... (Far...)

On the Side of the Road

Ame Henderson/Public Recordings

Giselle

World Stage is proud to partner with The Theatre Centre for this acclaimed biennial festival of contemporary performance. Be sure to check out these award-winning companies and solo-artists from across generations and across Canada. Performances will take place both at Harbourfront Centre and The Theatre Centre.

Tickets can be purchased on the Harbourfront Centre website, and at the Theatre Centre Box Office.

The Culture Congress
March 24-28, 2010

In conjunction with Free Fall ’10, Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre and The Theatre Centre, in association with Calgary’s Theatre Junction Grand, host this year’s Culture Congress, an event bringing together practitioners from local, national and international arts communities for an exchange of practical skills, information sharing and ideas.

In 2010, The Culture Congress poses the question How do we come together? – artist to artist, artist to presenter and artist to audience, while examining the topics of mentorship, the Canadian presenting ecology and building of community. The event takes place over four days through a series of talks, roundtable discussions and social gatherings in venues across the city.

For more information and a detailed schedule contact culturecongress@harbourfrontcentre.com.

L'Orchestre d'Hommes-Orchestres performs Tom Waits
March 19 & 20, 8pm
The Music Gallery

In 2002, when they founded the Orchestre d'Hommes-Orchestres in Quebec City, the group's members had no idea they were preparing a veritable building site for the performing arts: music, performance, street theatre and urban happenings.

Originally, the Orchestre d'Hommes-Orchestres was a music ensemble, although its members worked in other disciplines as well. But over the course of various projects, which demonstrated how rich and innovative these collaborations could be, the group gradually evolved into a makeshift interdisciplinary workshop.

Gravitating around the figure of the homme-orchestre ("one-man band" or "jack-of-all trades"), the group tried its hand at just about everything, without the required knowledge or expertise. It was therefore necessary to find off-the-track solutions, to reinvent virtuosity in other ways. By adopting this do-it-yourself approach, the group moved away from uniformity and standardization, in favour of resourcefulness and intelligence. What resulted was a much-needed reconciliation between today's art and popular culture.

The Orchestre d'Hommes-Orchestres also takes an oblique look at the notions of performance and the presence of the actor; its raw productions create disarming imbalances and direct, unassuming connections with the audience. Most important, each performance is an event that will never happen again!

The Orchestre d'Hommes-Orchestres attempts to find new sound textures through the use of unusual instruments, invented or borrowed from everyday life. It is unafraid of risks, intentionally provoking acoustic accidents on stage, which its performers skilfully juggle. It has been said that the group makes "music that can be seen."

$20 in advance
$24 at the door
$18 to festival pass holders

To purchase tickets, please visit musicgallery.org

One Reed Theatre
Little Iliad
March 25-28, 2010

This in-progress workshop presentation of One Reed Theatre’s newest performance at The Theatre Centre is a special addition to the regular Free Fall programming. Performances run 30 minutes and show times will allow for audiences to catch it before or after performances at The Theatre Centre. PWYC tickets can be reserved and purchased at The Theatre Centre.

Little Iliad is a conversation between two people, two old friends – one a writer, one a soldier – who together attempt an unlikely re-telling of a lost Homeric tale. The play is about real war and mythical war – how both shape us, and how both can be survived. In form it refers to the traditions of documentary theatre, but over its course it reveals itself as an act of literary and theatrical imagination. Little Iliad is a political story that looks at the emotional currents of a friendship, and proposes that these currents are what make things happen in our big world.

One Reed Theatre was founded in 2005 by Frank Cox-O’Connell, Megan Flynn, Daniel Mroz, Marc Tellez and Evan Webber to create and produce new performance work. One Reed makes rigorous formal investigations in text, choreography and music in theatre. The company looks always at what performance means, tries to strip things down and give things up. "If, despite these ragged edges, we performers can struggle to understand without embarrassment or dishonesty, then the audience might be willing to do so as well." (Canadian Theatre Review)

World Stage Ambassadors

Andrea Donaldson is a director, performer and theatre-maker with a knack for heightened physicality. Favorite credits include Montparnasse (Summerworks Spotlight Award - Director), Offensive Fouls (Dora-nominated), The Unfortunate Misadventures of Masha Galinski (Dora-nominated) and the Dora award-winning And By the Way, Miss.

Chris Dupuis is a videographer and performer. His work has been presented at galleries, theatres and festivals across North America and Europe. He also works as a freelance arts writer and edits the online arts criticism magazine Time and Space.

Jordan Tannahill is founder and artistic director of Suburban Beast, a company devoted to the creation of multi-disciplinary documentary performances. He's 21, lives on Queen West and is a firm proponent (in no particular order) of: red wine, atheism, Tanya Mars.