Fringe News
Fringe News
After an electrifying 11 day festival marking its 26th year, SummerWorks Performance Festival revealed the winners of the 2016 SummerWorks Awards last night at its Closing Night Party. At the Festival’s official hub, the Factory Theatre, artists and audience gathered in celebration of yet another ground-breaking year.
Sponsored by local arts organizations, the SummerWorks Awards are adjudicated by a jury of three performance professionals, with the exception of the Audience Choice Award and a new Live Art Award.
This year’s SummerWorks Awards jury members were Nina Lee Aquino, Brandy Leary, and Coman Poon.
The 2016 winner of the SummerWorks Award for Production, announced by Festival Artistic Director Laura Nanni and Festival Producer Meara Tubman-Broeren, was given to Lessons in Temperament from TuneSmith Productions. Written and performed by James Smith and directed by Mitchell Cushman, in Lessons in Temperament James Smith tunes pianos in various private spaces throughout Toronto while exploring theories behind Equal Temperament as well as his three older brothers’ mental illnesses: obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, and schizophrenia. The jury cited the show’s “poignant and artful elevation of the craft of tuning a piano into a transpersonal journey of finding harmony through imperfection.”
The NOW Magazine Audience Choice Award, determined by audience members who vote for their favourite performance by placing their ticket stub in a ballot box as they leave the theatre, was awarded to the third instalment in d’bi young anitafrika’s Orisha Trilogy, Bleeders, and was presented by NOW Magazine’s Associate Entertainment Editor Glenn Sumi.
The Canadian Stage Award for Direction, presented by Canadian Stage Producer Sherrie Johnson, was awarded to choreographer Nova Bhattacharya for her work Broken Lines. The jury lauded the project’s “radical work that pulls apart notions of power, tradition, and ritual, puncturing exoticism and querying the contemporary.”
2016 also saw the inaugural presentation of the FADO Performance Art Centre Live Art Award, announced by FADO Artistic and Administrative Director, Shannon Cochrane, which was awarded to artist lo bil for the root of the river runs darker than clouds. Adjudicated by the FADO board and staff, the award is given to an artist or artists whose work rigorously engages with site and context in experimental, provocative, and challenging ways.
Young performer Maddie Bautista was honoured with the Spotlight Award for Performance for her work in My Nightmares Wear White. Experimental shadow puppetry company Drawing With Knives was chosen for the Theatre Centre Emerging Artist Award for In Utero Out.
“2016 has been another incredible year for the Festival and a thrilling first festival for me as Artistic and Managing Director,” says Artistic and Managing Director Laura Nanni. “What I am so pleased to see reflected in our award winners is the diversity that we saw across the festival programming - an intimate show staged in non-traditional venues winning the production award, a dancer/ choreographer winning the direction award, and an experimental vocal piece winning for New Performance Text. Not to mention the incomparable d’bi young anitafrika - who breaks down every barrier of distinction - winning the Audience Choice honour. In their choice, our jurors and our audiences are demonstrating new thinking about what performance is and how genre can be redefined or put aside altogether. This is an important part of what SummerWorks is about.”
Other awards handed out last night included the Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation and The Contra Guys Award for New Performance Text.
A complete list of awards and recipients follows. The 2016 SummerWorks Performance Festival ran in Toronto from August 4-14, 2016.
2016 SummerWorks Awards winners:
SummerWorks Prize for Production:
TuneSmith Productions, Lessons in Temperament
Honourable Mentions:
Bleeders
Plucked
Situational Anarchy
The NOW Magazine Audience Choice Award:
Bleeders
Canadian Stage Award for Direction:
Nova Bhattacharya, Broken Lines
Honourable Mentions:
Mitchell Cushman, Lessons in Temperament
Jennifer Quinn, I’m Not Here
The Spotlight Award for Performance:
Maddie Bautista, My Nightmares Wear White
Honourable Mentions:
Adam Lazarus, Daughter
Shadi Shahkhalili, The Unbelievers
Thomas McKechnie, 4 ½ (ig)noble truths
The Theatre Centre Emerging Artist Award:
Drawing with Knives experimental shadow puppetry co, IN UTERO OUT
Honourable Mentions:
Farah Merani, Trompe-La-Mort, or Goriot in the 21st Century
Simon Portigal, Aattitle
The creators of Inside
The Contra Guys Award for New Performance Text:
Gabriel Dharmoo, Imaginary Anthropologies
Honourable Mentions:
Falen Johnson, Two Indians
Georgina Beaty, Extremophiles
Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation:
Wants&Needs danse, Fame Prayer/EATING
Honourable Mentions:
Helen Simard, NO FUN
Ellen Furey, Performing Performance
FADO Performance Art Centre Live Art Award:
lo bil, the root of the river runs darker than clouds
Website: SummerWorks.ca
Twitter: @SummerWorks
Facebook: SummerWorks Performance Festival
Instagram: @SummerWorks_Festival
Photo: James Smith with TuneSmith company members. ©2016 Dahlia Katz.
2016-08-15
SummerWorks announces 2016 award winners