Mark Lawes and Theatre Junction’s Company of Artists

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

Artist Biographies

2012/13 Ensemble for SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA

MARK LAWES – author, director, performer

Mark works as an actor, director, artistic director, and creator of experimental performance with an international multidisciplinary company of artists. His writing for the stage is created organically out of a friction between fragments of history, visual art, contemporary dance, music, and an alphabet of material coming from dramaturgical research. All of this is put in motion through a process of improvisation. Short works include Archeology and The Atlantis Project, and full-length works make up a trilogy consisting of Little Red River (2008,) On the Side of the Road (2009), and Lucy Lost Her Heart (2011), that toured to World Stage in Toronto in 2010 and to Usine C in Montreal in 2012. Mark has collaborated with choreographers and directors in opera, theatre and dance. In 2003 he lived in Paris where he worked on projects at l’opéra de Paris, at the théâtre de l’Athenée, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, at la scène nationale d’Orléans, and at the Steirischerbst in Graz. In 2012, Mark was selected as laureate of the City of Paris and Institut Français art-in-residence program at Les Récollets to begin his next creation, SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA (2013).

Mark is the founding artistic director of Theatre Junction and was the driving force and visionary behind the redevelopment of the GRAND Theatre in Calgary.  Under his direction, Theatre Junction GRAND has become one of the leading centres for creation and dissemination of multidisciplinary live performance art in Canada.

RAPHAËLE THIRIET – Writer, dramaturge, performer

Raphaele studied theatre in France at the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, learning the Grotowski Technique under Henry Bornstein. After graduating in 1997 she went to the Université d’Aix en Provence, where she studied philosophical and political views on theatre. In 2001, she honed her dramaturgy and acting skills under Angela Konrad, dramaturge and artistic director of In pulverem reverteris company, a research laboratory. She worked on new creations; Time is out of joint part 1,2,3, Richard III, and Traumzeit touring in France and Germany. She has also worked with choreographers Heddy Maalem and Emilio Calgagno (Ballet Preljocaj). She acted with several other companies in France including Ma voisine s’appelle Cassandre on contemporary authors Novarina, Edouard Glissant, and Schimmelpfennig. Recent work includes the new creation Les instituteurs immoreaux with the company Les travailleurs de la nuit, inspired by the writings of Donatien Alphonse Sade. She performed in Martin Crimps The Country, directed by Chris Abraham, from Crows Theatre Company (Toronto). Raphaele has also been working collaboratively for five years with Theatre Junction and its artistic director, Mark Lawes. She has worked as co-writer, performer and dramaturge for Little Red River, On the Side of the Road, Lucy Lost Her Heart and most recently, SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA.

LUC BOUCHARD-BOISSONNEAULT – Performer

Originally from Québec, Luc received training in Martial Arts at an early age, which has been an influence throughout his career so far.  Through Karate he learned about the philosophy of the other, of listening to the self and of balance in the game of forces.  Later in his life, Luc became interested in the social dance phenomenon and discovered Swing, which he practiced for several years.  Intrigued by the body and physicality, at 25 years old, Luc decided to pursue a degree in contemporary dance at the University of Québec in Montréal, which propelled him quickly into the professional dance world.  As an interpreter, Luc has worked with Dave St-Pièrre in the creation of Un Peu de Tendress and Bordel de Merde, which have toured internationally including performances in the prestigious Festival d’Avingon.  Luc is also a part of Dave St-Pièrre’s new creation in 2012.  In parallel, Luc has worked with the Québec choreographer, Virginie Brunelle in Les Cuisses à L’ecart du Coeur in 2006 and Complexe des Genres in 2011.  He has also worked for Marie Béland in Maribé, Live in Montréal in 2008.  Luc’s artistic path has led him towards dance-theatre and his young career has already brought him to the Montreal stage as well as the stage of many international festivals.   This year, for the first time Luc is working with Mark Lawes and his company, Theatre Junction on their new creation, SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA.

MELINA STINSON – Performer

Originally from Alberta, where she completed a BA in dance at the University of Calgary, Melina made a move out east to deepen her studies in contemporary dance where she received a diploma from l’école de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2009. Since then, Melina has remained based in Montréal where her career has quickly blossomed into the professional world. She has worked with many Montréal companies such as Carré des Lombes, Bouge de là, Human Playground, Pulse and Puppet, Woo Me Myth as well as with internationally acclaimed choreographers such as Manon Oligny and Mélanie Demers.

As a dancer and a creator, Melina is passionate about the poetic expression possible through movement and is continuously searching for these uniquely embodied narratives. She loves to work with a multiplicity of textures and physicality and often collaborates with contemporary composers to create her works.  As a choreographer she has shown work in Montréal, Winnipeg and Calgary. This year she is delighted to be a part of Mark Lawes and Theatre Junction’s new work, SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA.

CHRIS DADGE – Live Music and Composition

Chris Dadge is a multi-instrumentalist living in Calgary. He is the founder of Bug Incision and since 2005 has organized monthly concerts, tours, and has released over 40 albums as a record label for improvised and experimental music. Dadge also co-leads Lab Coast, a critically acclaimed pop/rock band. Since 2004, he has developed a large body of work as a studio musician and producer. He has worked, as a drummer, with artists such as Mats Gustafsson, Chad van Gaalen, Eric Chenaux, Woodpigeon, Jay Crocker, Snailhouse, and Rae Spoon, in studio and on stage around Canada and Europe. Chris has collaborated with Mark Lawes on Lucy Lost Her Heart (2010), Attempts on Her Life (2011) and is pleased to be at it again with SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA.

ALEXANDRE MEHRING – Video Conception and Design

After obtaining his BA at an early age, Alexandre left the academic world to devote all his energy to the Cinema. He was passionate about images, editing and directing and soon became a self-taught filmmaker. After writing and producing his first short-film, Tricycle, at 24 years old he entered several festivals and quickly attracted the attention of advertisement production companies. Subsequently, he began a career as a director in the publicity world.

In the following fifteen years, Alexandre wrote and produced additional short-films (A deux sur la comète, La vraie nature, Made in Taiwan) that were screened, some winning awards, in festivals around the world.  Simultaneously, Alexandre directed around 150 publicity films for the French and international markets. He occasionally worked on the production of other films by directors in the same milieu. In 2011 Alexandre wrote and directed a medium-length film, Voûte Plantaire, under the name of his new production company, Bacon Brothers Prod.  This film was presented at the VCU French film festival in Richmond (USA).  Currently, he is writing two full-length feature films, 19h02 la minute de Simon Artufel and Dakota Palace.  Alex filmed and edited the video images for Mark Lawes’ new creation, SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA.