What: Winterlab theatre festival
When: Jan. 25 to Feb. 1
Where: Metro Studio, Intrepid Theatre Club, The HQ (a.k.a. Rifflandia headquarters, 1501 Douglas St.)
Tickets: $10 to $18 at Ticket Rocket (250-590-6291or ticketrocket.org)
Call it the accidental festival.
Traditionally, Intrepid Theatre invites a few touring theatre shows to Victoria in January. Last year, five shows became available within the same week.
“So we said, ‘Oh, it sounds like a festival. We know how to do those,’ ” said Janet Munsil, Intrepid’s artistic director.
That’s how Winterlab was born. Now in its second season, the week-long festival hosts companies from Whitehorse, Vancouver, Halifax and Victoria staging adventuresome live performances.
If there’s a common thread this season, it’s multidisciplinary theatre: troupes that specialize in mixing up traditional theatre with elements of technology, such as video and projections.
We caught up with two of the companies:
Farewell Victoria and (We) Are Here (Secret Theatre, Halifax): Dustin Harvey is a Halifax-based performer who leads Secret Theatre, a collaborative company that uses everything from iPods to live film.
True to its name, Secret Theatre will mount Farewell Victoria on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in a yet-to-be-announced location. The show — which it has mounted in such cities as Montreal, Aarhus, Denmark and Cork, Ireland — typically takes place in a empty storefront.
It’s described as a “goodbye party made for a city.” There are food, streamers and balloons. Performers project photographs, play audio recordings, sing songs, ask questions and perform slow-motion goodbyes on the street.
Harvey said the series of Farewell shows stems from his own experience of deciding to stay in Halifax while his theatre friends sought careers in larger cities.
“It was always the question of ‘Why did I stay?’ The piece came out of exploring that kind of question,” he said.
The Farewell shows attempt to give people an “affirmative” sense about where they live. And it’s about the importance of living in the moment, Harvey said.
“This is it. This is the utopia. This is the community of the temporary moment,” he added.
Secret Theatre will also mount another show, (We) are Here, at the Winterlab Fête, taking place at the Rifflandia headquarters (a.k.a. The HQ) on Saturday at 8 p.m. (We) are Here is a combination of film and live projections that follows a homesick girl far from home.
Sci-Fi Double Feature (Ramshackle Theatre, Whitehorse): Remember those cheesy science-fiction movies from the 1950s and ’60s where you could see the strings supporting the spaceships? That’s what inspired Brian Fidler, artistic director of Ramshackle Theatre, to create Sci-Fi Double Feature.
The show, Jan. 30 and 31 at the Metro Studio, combines cardboard shadow puppets and film.
It’s set up so audiences can simultaneously have a behind-the-scenes view of the puppet show as well as a look at the front view, projected via video on a large screen.
“There’s something magical about seeing the show made in front of your eyes,” Fidler said.
“People love it when we make mistakes up there, like we drop something. … People clap for stuff like that. They want to see mistakes.”
Fidler says the esthetic of Sci-Fi Double Feature is, in part, a reaction to the hyper-realism of slick special effects in today’s movies.
The show uses free or inexpensive materials, including cardboard from Mark’s Work Wearhouse boot boxes and rare-earth magnets.
Ramshackle Theatre performed another show, Broken, at last year’s Uno Fest (also staged by Intrepid Theatre). Like Sci-Fi Double Feature, Broken features puppetry using found objects.
Munsil said the use of technology in theatre has become increasingly popular. It’s partly because it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to use.
“I think people who work in theatre are always interested in exploring what simple new technology can do,” she said.
More information on Winterlab, including a full schedule, can be found at intrepidtheatre.com.
