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The Isthmus Project

CANADA WATER CULTURE SPACE
EMERGING ARTISTS' PROGRAMME
Sept 2013 - Feb 2014

 
 Isthmus     

ˈɪsθmÉ™s,ˈɪstmÉ™s,ˈɪsmÉ™s/

noun: isthmus; plural noun: isthmuses; plural noun: isthmi

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       1. a narrow strip of land with sea on either side, forming a link between two larger areas of land.

       2. Anatomy a narrow organ, passage, or piece of tissue connecting two larger parts.  


 

 
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The name Isthmus Project came from a desire to connect those imaginative spaces to something tangible in the physical body.
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I was awarded an emerging artists residency from the Canada Water Culture Space and got together 8 creatives from a variety of backgrounds (puppetry, movement, classical music and jazz) to explore collaborative making through improvisation. Within this cross-disciplinary collaboration we wanted to create links between bodies... 
 
Taking Cortazar's surrealist novel Hopscotch as a starting point to explore themes of heaven on earth, estrangement and entanglement, we worked on developing a messed-up melodrama, in which the audience was co-opted by a host to choose the fate of two possible protagonists.
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AIMS...

- To create experimental, devised theatre that moves and resonates and where the fantastical, grotesque, and clown meets the perceived real

- To allow the performer/ creator to make from their own impulses, through play and improvisation

- To join up different practices in new collaborations

- To find in theatre a place where artist and audience commune
 

ABOUT THE ISTHMUS PROJECT

ABOUT MARELLE 

Written & Directed by Pip Hambly

Performed by Tunde James, Joanna Dahlgren, Johanne Lange, Zac Gvi, Teele Uustani, James Riordan

Community Bridges facilitator: Raquel Varela Pessoa

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Marelle is the french word for the game 'hopscotch'. If the journey to heaven is a game of hopscotch, with each throw of a stone the journey changes and a new story is made.

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But what if the fate of this story was already determined? Then the task for each of us here on earth is just to work out how this story goes.

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Into this multiverse of possibilities, we place the fractured remnants of two families, caught in an infinite reflections of each other. 

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Guided on this journey by the oceanic ruminations of Jacqueline le Poisson, and the joyful all-singing-all dancing Prawn Cocktail Chorus, the audience unpack the stories of Frank and Annie. In an evening of cabaret style theatre, the order of things is a matter of desire… all you have to do, is choose.

Music composed & arranged by Zac Gvirtzman, Johanne Lange & Joanna Dahlgran. Copyright of artists. 

Heaven

Let The Circle

Maya

COMMUNITY BRIDGES
 
Alongside our research, we also ran a series of workshops with library users, introducing others to parts of our process and exploring other ways we could connect the work to the wider community.
 
The workshops explored:
- writing from dreams
- moving from dreams
- writing through movement
- creating ensemble

 
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