The Linear Animal
Saturday, March 15, 2008, 8:00 p.m.
Western Front (303 East 8th Avenue, Vancouver)
Tickets $15 / $10 Students and WF Members
Digital media meets the 19th century tradition of paper theatre in this interdisciplinary performance work. A meditation on home and exile, and on the nature of storytelling, sweeping an arc that ranges from Bavaria across the New World and to the bottom of the deep blue sea…
Is it a love story?
Is it Heideggerian ontology?
Or is it just a bunch of cardboard cutouts?
Putting a modern spin on an antique form of household entertainment, The Linear Animal utilizes recent technologies to create a one-of-a-kind performance. Through live narrated voice, live video, and an improvised score of recorded sounds, the story unfolds alongside a children’s train set that circles in front of the audience, carrying on it the cut-out characters of the story. The narrative behind The Linear Animal is one of history, family, adolescence, love and memories; but most of all it is a story that explores different views on the often conflicting and perplexing idea of “home.”
The text of The Linear Animal was written by Andreas Kahre; an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer and musician who has been involved in the creation of more than a hundred projects with theatre, dance, and music ensembles across Canada. His collaborators for The Linear Animal are internationally recognized media artist, composer-performer and software developer Kenneth Newby, and media and visual artist Aleksandra Dulic. Kenneth and Aleksandra are both members of the Computational Poetics Group at Simon Fraser University, where they specialize in the development of intelligent performance instruments and the creation of new works that combine live animation and music techniques for live performance. David Garfinkle narrates, and Stefan Smulovitz joins the ensemble as a special guest improviser on viola.