Mark Lawes and Theatre Junction’s company of artists is a performance ensemble, which, since its inception in 2006, has presented itself as markedly international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary. Comprised of a unique combination of people, skills, disciplines, and backgrounds, the artistic company includes actors, dancers, musicians and visual artists. Together they create new works in English and French and the multiple languages of artistic practice and origin to create a theatre performance that represents a composite of our place and time.
Mark Lawes, together with Theatre Junction’s company of artists, has created two experimental short works and three full-length works that form a part of a trilogy on death, desire and the Canadian West. The Harbourfront Centre in Toronto presented the second chapter of the trilogy, On the Side of the Road, as a part of World Stage and the Theatre Centre’s Freefall festival in 2011. The third chapter, Lucy Lost Her Heart, premiered in Calgary in March 2011 and will be presented at Usine C in Montreal in March of 2012, as part of their season of international contemporary performance.
Mark is looking to develop a collective engagement through performance creating new languages and forms. In this kind of creation process, dance, music, theatre, and visual art are crossing each other to manifest a live writing for the stage. Although Lawes is best known for his work in the theatre, as an artist he has always alternated working with an ensemble and working in the solitude of his travels, where he concentrates on his research and writing. In addition, the group of performers he has assembled over the last few years is unique in its versatility. The concentration of creation, and performance with multiple layers has created spin-off products that are born out of this meeting (EP’s, Short Films, Design Projects, Concerts, Parties).
Mark Lawes and Theatre Junction’s company of artists has become a group of ‘performer auteurs’ in a variety of fields and at a very high level. They and Theatre Junction GRAND are increasingly assuming the proportions of “factory”, which is clearly broadening its scope – an expansion that has grown organically from within, from the heart of the organization.
Theatre has several specific qualities that make it a rare art form and fuel my desire to continue to create in this milieu. Theatre is the art of meeting. It is an opportunity to be together, to dream, to think collectively, and to imagine a future for us as individuals, and our society.
Theatre also has a very specific and delicate relationship to time and therefore history. Theatre is a time shared between people on one occasion in one place. The performance is born each night and dies each night. As such, I see it is an intense celebration of life. Theatre is not an object that you can buy and take home with you. It is a collective condition. It is ephemeral and fleeting, leaving only traces behind, bits of recollections, and memories that become a part of our collective unconscious.
To create this possibility it is necessary to develop a specific language and form that reflects the universe of an artist or group of artists, and then to continually evolve that language and form. Each performance follows its own logic, its own chronology, and its own aesthetic, and it is up to each individual to find its resonance. An audience is a multiplicity of different subjects. Each person who sees a performance thinks differently, feels differently, likes and dislikes different things for different reasons. These differences are at the very core of what I imagine to be a vibrant society and is reflected in my vision for the theatre.
Mark Lawes
