FUNDRAISER – Fall Connections

The Port Theatre presents an evening of theatre, dance, and music! Join Master of Ceremonies Joëlle Rabu for a celebration of the Arts with Nanaimo’s premiere professional performing arts companies:

The evening starts with The Ties That Bind, presented by TheatreOne: A story about choices, when we’re happy with them, and when we’re not. Martha recounts how choices she has made in the past ten, twenty, thirty years have gotten her to where she is today. They were good choices at the time, but what about now? Do those choices still fit the life she wants to create now?

Director: Brianna Hamilton
Playwright: Yvette Menard (last season’s participant in TheatreOne’s Emerging Voices program)

Emerging Voices is a selection each year of three plays that are new works from playwrights around Canada. TheatreOne has been hoping for some time to have the ability to take Emerging Voices playwrights and their works to the next professional level. This opportunity with the Port Theatre is exactly that.

“A Song of Years” (2022) is a poem in motion acknowledging the cycle of life. It evokes the unwrapping of our past to reveal our presence in the present moment. It offers a metaphor of the aging body dancing as it is now, letting go of what once was, sharing a lifetime of embodied memories. Through explorations of functional movement, the use of balance to create visual beauty and performative tension, and his commitment to sharing tangible and intangible archives, Tedd Robinson invested the creative process with a unique sensitivity that weaves itself into the choreography. Our collaboration on this work with Tedd was completed just before his untimely death. We know he would wish for you to experience your own story with this work, drawn from the poetic metaphor of your own life.

25 years is something to celebrate! Since 1998, CRIMSON COAST DANCE has produced dance events throughout the year as part of our Mainstage season, Inclusive Dance Classes, Body Talk Teen Program for Indigenous and non-indigenous youth, our Residency program and the InFrinGinG Dance Festival. We present the work of local, provincial, national and international artists and ensure that the community gets to enjoy classes and workshops while they are here. We view diversity as our greatest asset and we’d love to collaborate with you. Make your move by getting in touch: crimsoncoastdance.org

The evening concludes with musicians from the Vancouver Island Symphony under the leadership of Concertmaster Calvin Dyck sharing some of their favourite music including the familiar Prelude from Bloch’s Concerto Grosso, Gabriel’s Oboe by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone, the famous Libertango by Argentine composer Piazzolla.

 

Master of Ceremonies, Joëlle Rabu is a two-time Jessie Award winner, JUNO nominee and recipient of Nanaimo’s Cultural Ambassador award; BC Touring Artist of the Year award; Artiste Francophone de l’Ouest, and most recently the Lieutenant Governor’s Queen’s 70th Jubilee Arts and Music Award.