Start Transmission
The French call it “je ne sais quois”. I don’t know what is going to happen on the evening I see *Transmission* and that’s precisely the point of intrigue. What is for sure is that *Transmission* will be both new and exciting.
And I suspect it's going to be great. Why? Because Tanya Marquardt, the storyteller behind the project, has that thing that is hard to name. It’s more than just a way with words; it’s a manner of manipulating information to form a story that reflects our nature as humans back to us.
It’s a hard thing to do truthfully. And it’s even harder in the "information age" to tell a story in an original way. And if your goal is to tell a complex story, how do you make it seem simple? Sometimes you have to go back to the basics. When conceiving of *Transmission*, Marquardt went way back, drawing inspiration from the Oresteia with its intimate (and somewhat gruesome) interactions between family members. Revisiting the maxim that the simplest truths run the deepest, she started with a focus on the powerful bond possessed between siblings. From this departure point, performance is then employed towards the transmission of something at our core. What exactly? Je ne sais quois…
As an artist, Marquardt plays many roles, including performer, writer, deviser and newly appointed Co-Artistic Director of "Proximity Arts":http://proximityarts.com/, who are co-producers of *Transmission*. Her work has been described as “fearless and conceptually challenging”. *Transmission* promises to be no exception. It tells the story of a man (played by David Bloom) struggling to piece together the past, a past he shared with a sister (played by Deanna Peters) who has been missing for many years. The piece raises many questions: what happened to her? Where is she now? Is she still alive? The performance will be like a puzzle and clues are promised but some assembly will be required by the audience. The story itself will be told through text, movement, live radio-broadcast and an especially created soundscape by Emma Hendrix. From the seemingly simple starting point of two siblings who were separated, *Transmission*, as the promotional material describes it, will spiral "out into the broader world, broader conflicts and broader loss”. Local in this case is defined as a spooky, dank basement in East Vancouver lit by a single light bulb. Spookier still is that the show’s venue.
*Transmission* will happen at the "Box Studios":http://boxstudios.ca/, which sit in the middle of a block of warehouses just off Hastings and Commercial. While the Box Studios have been converted to house the arts, the neighbourhood isn't exactly known for its homey feel, which makes it a entirely suitable for a piece seeking to evoke mystery and intrigue. As you enter the Box Studios, you may get a sneaking suspicion that something bad might have happened in the large chamber that houses the show. And considering the location, it’s entirely possible. Just a few blocks away is Vancouver’s skid row, famous for its missing women. While the play is not about the missing women, it does deal with the impact someone disappearing without a trace has on a family, in this case the brother, and the many questions that can never be answered. The brother, a late night radio talk show hosts, the kind that mumbles into their microphone, struggles with the uncertainty of his sister’s whereabouts. As both performers will inhabit the space, we are aware of where he is but where is she? And so this simple subject of separation opens us up to something at our core: the not knowing.
The idea was conceived by Marquardt and has been created through a unique process with many collaborators including Bloom, Peters, Hendrix and co-director Heidi Taylor, scenographer Illena Lee Cramer and stage manager Jeremy Waller. In an interview with Plank Magazine, she described the various segments that make up the work as a collage with shifting blocks that slide around, moving towards a suitable order. Making this show special is the fact that the puzzle will be assembled differently each performance. Combining sections of set script and choreography with a more open, free flowing form at other times, presents infinite possibilities in performance. While most theatre struggles to set itself up for repeatability, in this work the ephemeral is embraced. At its core is awe of theatre, that je ne sais quois that only exist in the moment.
_Transmission runs: February 13 – 28 2009, Tuesday to Saturday, 8:00 pm at the Box Studios; 1622 Franklin Street (1 block west of Commercial & Hastings). Co-presented by Chrysalis Theatre & Proximity Arts, for more transmit yourself_ "here":http://proximityarts.com/