In/On/Out goes way beyond thinking outside the box

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This article was published 29/03/2023 (1140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What was a pandemic pivot is turning into a permanent festival fixture, as the In/On/Out Interarts Festival heads into its second year.

Owing to the virtual nature of pandemic-era performing arts, last year’s inaugural festival was heavily focused on interdisciplinary art that was created, viewed and/or experienced with technology. This year’s festival, which will be held at Cercle Molière from March 30 to April 2, is expanding on that idea and offering an immersive, interactive experience.

“To not have to start from scratch is really nice — it feels like we’re building something,” says In/On/Out artistic director Stéphanie Morin-Robert. “It’s very much a festival created by artists for artists as well as the audience, so there is this sense of community.”

As artistic director, Morin-Robert — herself a comedian and veteran touring multidisciplinary artist whose one-women shows as well as those as part of the Merkin Sisters have wracked up raves and sold-out runs — wanted to program artists whose work she was excited about and whose work inspires her own. There’s still an interest in showcasing artists who are integrating technology into their work, but other than that, anything goes.

“There’s so many different ways that you can do that,” she says of the technology piece. “There’s everything from a really computer programming and techie approach to it, but also a very hands-on approach where it’s an overhead protector, or integrating music. The artists in the programming really demonstrate the wide range of what could be done.”

Each night of the festival features a full evening of programming, the same each night. Only 100 tickets will be available per evening, and all tickets are pay what you can.

The program will begin with two interactive installations. One is Synaptic Resonances by the Montreal-based multimedia design and technical integration company potatoCakes_digital, a.k.a. Emily Soussana and Andrew Scriver. This piece will invite attendees to get hands on.

“It’s an interactive, large-scale laser harp where the movement is literally triggering sound and light manipulation,” Morin-Robert says. “It gets people to move, to play, to discover, to be curious.”

The other is Spiel, by Montreal interdisciplinary artists Peter van Haaften and Michael Montanaro, performed by Nien Tzu Weng, who will be taking the idea of call and response to a new level.

“They have a device that they wear that goes kind of on the inside of the mouth — almost like where you would wear a microphone — but it goes on the inside of the mouth and actually reads the muscle movement, the mouth movement, the face movement of the dancer, who is manipulating the sound while they move,” Morin-Robert explains. “The sound is captured from the audience. So they’re listening in on conversations, what’s going on as people arrive, get a drink, go out for a cigarette. So it is capturing what’s happening in the room and playing it back in a way that is manipulated by the dancer’s movement.”

Local short films by Jaime Black, David Garneau, Chantel Mierau and Sylvia Matas, curated by Video Pool Media Arts Centre, will also be screening on a loop.

Following the interactive installations is the world première of You’re Fired! From Citizen to Refugee, a one-man show by the up-and-coming standup comedian and emerging A/V artist Emmanuel Lomuro, who was born in Cairo and moved as a refugee to Winnipeg as a young child.

“This show dives into his experience as a refugee, arriving here, and becoming a stand-up comedian as a way to share his experiences,” Morin-Robert says. “We’re really excited.”

From there, festival goers will see Landscape Displacement Memory by Vancouver-born, Kitchener-based theatre maker Ben Gorodetsky, which is essentially a live duet with a flying drone, controlled by Gorodetsky. “The drone has a camera on it. It’s also live feed projecting what it’s capturing, what it’s seeing,” Morin-Robert says. “So it’s kind of live performance meets technology, technology becomes performer becomes duet partner.”

Morin-Robert and her partner, Alastair Knowles — one half of the Canadian clown duo and Fringe Festival favourites James and Jamesy — will also be debuting a new work they’re creating together in collaboration with potatoCakes_digital called TÊTE CARRÉE.

“TÊTE CARRÉE translates as ‘square head,’” Morin-Robert says. “It’s an expression used to describe an anglophone. Francophones will say ‘tête carrée’ when they are kind of putting down an anglophone. We are projecting our head on all sides of a cube and creating kind of this square-head personality.” This piece is loosely autobiographical; Morin-Robert and Knowles wanted to create “an abstract representation of what it’s been like to be an anglophone (Knowles) and francophone (Morin-Robert) moving in, building a relationship, having children, and how different feelings and different issues have come up within that.”

Rounding out the performances is Papillon by Montreal’s We All Fall Down, a.k.a. choreographer Helen Simard and composer Roger White, which takes a mathematical approach to choreography and will feature three dancers accompanied by a live, experimental score. “It’s very visceral in the experience of it,” Morin-Robert says.

Other programming includes a Saturday night dance party and daytime workshops on Saturday and Sunday. For tickets, visit inonoutinterartsfestival.com.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com