Stage Door News
Stage Door News
TORONTO, ON (Nov. 10, 2015) – Tina Rasmussen, artistic director of Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage, has unveiled the 2016 season lineup of international theatre, dance and multidisciplinary performance. Taking place from January 20 – June 11, 2016, World Stage assembles contemporary artists from around the globe who advance the vocabularies of performance. This year World Stage will present performance leaders from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Montreal, the Netherlands and Palestine. Tickets to productions, which range from $20–54, are on sale now.
“World Stage has always been committed to showcasing work at the forefront of contemporary exploration, the global trendsetters,” explains Rasmussen, “and our new season is no different. This year World Stage looks at performance through the lens of ‘more.’ We believe that the way to the contemporary — the new, different and invigorating — begins by wanting more: asking more, exploring more. The creative impulse itself is about desiring more and accessing unknown places. What better way to discover groundbreaking forms of performance than seek out innovators from across the world.”
Tickets for World Stage are now on sale and prospective patrons can purchase tickets online, over the phone (416-973-4000) or in person at the box office, 235 Queens Quay West. New this season, World Stage is pleased to extend youth pricing to include those 29 years and younger. Youth and full-time students can receive tickets to any production for $15, and discounts are also available for groups, seniors and arts industry professionals.
The World Stage Season Pass returns this year, which gives access to all productions and includes a free ticket to the season party, the World Stage Mirror Ball. The 3-Show Flex Pass provides patrons with three transferable tickets to use for any performances during the season. Both passes provide savings of up to 45%, and are available until February 20.
For full company and performance information, including photos, videos and details surrounding World Stage extras and talkshows, please visit harbourfrontcentre.com/worldstage and connect with the season on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using @WorldStageTO.
Now that the Queens Quay revitalization is complete, please visit harbourfrontcentre.com/gettinghere for updates on how to access the site.
World Stage 2016 Season Lineup:
World Stage with Mother Trouble Nuance
Toronto
January 30, Harbourfront Centre Theatre
The World Stage Ball is now a tradition. We celebrate our 2016 season with a performance party in the spirit of more: more artistry, more theatrics, more mirrors. This year we’re inspired by the infinite reflection in the disco ball, so come dressed in your shiniest, most dazzling costume and let the fun amplify endlessly into the night. With 10 runway categories, a make-up station and a DJ spinning dance floor hits all evening long, the Mirror Ball is a collision of worlds, a festive night celebrating all things performance.
Halory Georger & Antoine Defoort
France
January 20–23, Fleck Dance Theatre
Straddling the playful and the profound, Germinal begins with a bare stage and a group of intrepid adventurers who set out on a mission of exploration. Their task: to imagine how they would remake the universe from the beginning. Throughout the show, their 8×10-metre world becomes increasingly complex as they construct and deconstruct the history of speech, technology, politics, art — nearly all forms of social structure. With an approach both giddily charming and deeply philosophical, Germinal is a truly inventive exploration of thought and social organization.
KVS, les ballets C de la B, A.M. Qattan Foundation
Belgium & Palestine
February 17–20, Fleck Dance Theatre
A Canadian premiere. The title Badke is a play on the Arabic social folk dance “dabke.” The performance assembles a group of Palestinian dancers to practice the traditional dance and infuse it with new proposals, vocabularies and ideas. With this simple yet elegant structure, Badke expresses the universal desire to belong and uses the language of dance in an urgent negotiation between the traditional and contemporary, the local and global. This work is a highly energetic, politically charged and stylistically diverse experience in which the artists incorporate movement from circus, capoeira and hip hop.
Volker Gerling
Germany
April 13–16, Harbourfront Centre Theatre
Having walked over 3,500 kilometres through Germany, Gerling took photographs of people he met during his wanderings, creating a travelling “thumb cinema” exhibition — portraits in the form of photographic flipbooks. In a series of enchanting recollections, the subjects he photographed are momentarily brought to life as the theatre becomes a communal place of storytelling. Portraits in Motion was the recipient of a prestigious Total Theatre Award at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Looking for Paul: Inez van Dam vs. the Buttplug Gnome
Wunderbaum
The Netherlands
April 27–30, Harbourfront Centre Theatre
A Canadian premiere. Inez van Dam lives and works in Rotterdam opposite the so-called “Buttplug Gnome,” a controversial public sculpture by contemporary American artist Paul McCarthy. After receiving a US grant, Dutch theatre collective Wunderbaum brings Inez to LA to help her confront McCarthy and to develop her story as part of their residency. The resulting work documents their journey and artistic process that explodes — sometimes very messily — into a debate on aesthetics and the politics and meaning of public art.
Zata Omm Dance Projects
Produced with Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage
Toronto
May 11–14, Fleck Dance Theatre
A world premiere. This solo work imagines a human trajectory where the boundary between flesh and technology becomes indistinct. What will our bodies mean and look like with the advancement of the technological age? As both question and answer, Steer reveals visionary worlds through movement, sound and a fusion of biology and technology. Zata Omm returns to World Stage after the highly successful world premiere of 2015’s Dora Award–nominated vox:lumen.
Touretteshero
England
May 25–28, Harbourfront Centre Theatre
A North American premiere. Combining storytelling, comedy and puppetry, Backstage in Biscuit Land offers an intimate glimpse into Jess Thom’s unique perspective as an artist and woman with Tourette Syndrome. As a result of her tics, Thom says “biscuit” 16,000 times a day. After having been asked to sit in isolation while attending a theatre performance, Thom found the only seat in the house she wouldn’t be asked to leave: the stage. Playful, spontaneous and laugh-out-loud funny, Backstage in Biscuit Land is a case in point that making theatre inclusive makes it better.
Jacob Wren / PME-ART
Presented by World Stage in association with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
Montreal
June 9 & 11, The Power Plant / WestJet Stage
From 1985 to 2004, Jacob Wren wrote 58 songs that few people have ever heard. In a way, because hardly anyone has listened to them, they don’t yet exist. Spanning performance platforms, Every Song I’ve Ever Written is an interactive project with ambitious ideas and a mixtape heart. It examines certain personal regrets about the past, while also exploring the much larger cultural shift in how we listen to and understand music. Lend an ear and discover what songwriting, musical community and collaboration mean in the internet age.
ABOUT WORLD STAGE
Since its beginning in 1986, Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage has evolved into a varied season of international performance. With bold curatorial vision, World Stage assembles and presents today’s performance leaders to share and develop Toronto’s understanding of the contemporary.
2015-11-10
Toronto: Harbourfront Centre World Stage unveils its 2016 season, tickets now on sale