Dixon Place presents

Nocturne

(an incomplete and inaccurate account of the love affair                                 between George Sand & Frederic Chopin)

U.S Premiere

March 14th 7:30pm

Dixon Place   161A Chrystie St (between Rivington & Delancey)

Nocturne (an incomplete and inaccurate account of the love affair between George Sand & Frederic Chopin) is a play of sex, games and piano concertos. A modern retelling of a classic romance, Nocturne is the love story between Fred, an ailing musician and George, a bi-sexual writer. Neighbors in a New York apartment, George steals into Fred’s window one night to listen to his music and leaves with his heart. But when Fred is unable to satisfy George’s sexual needs she create a role-playing game in the hopes of seducing him. When the game turns sour, both must risk seeing one another for who they really are even if there are deadly consequences. Directed by Mallory Cattlett (Latitude 14) and performed by Jessica Jelliffe (Banana Bag & Bodice) and Peter Blomquist (Franco & Billy), Nocturne is written by Tanya Marquardt and will be presented as part of Dixon Place’s Works-in-Progress Series.

Tix 12/10
dixonplace.org
866.811.4111

A new dawn, a new day.

It’s been a whirlwind here in NYC but I now know how to use the subway, bought a great pair of walking shoes, and can finally reveal my new projects for the 2010/2011 year.

This year I am experimenting with memory: besides being in New York getting my MFA in Memoir at Hunter College, I will be workshopping Fragments, a new play based on interviews with Whitehorse citizens and their memories of home for the 2011 Nakai Theatre Pivot Festival, creating Memento, a dance piece based in autobiographical texts, songs and gestures and performing Close at Hand with Nervous System System, using improvised monologues and games to explore memories of death as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in January 2011. If any of you are in Whitehorse, Vancouver or New York come have a pint with me and check out these projects:

Nakai’s Pivot Theatre Festival presents a staged reading of:

Fragments

written by Tanya Marquardt

January 25/26, 2011
The Old Firehall, 8pm
Whitehorse, Yukon
Tickets $20

In July 2008, Tanya Marquardt interviewed fifteen Whitehorse residents, recording their personal stories at the sites specific to where the stories occurred. Using the actual language of the interviews as inspiration for a new play, Fragments is about the intimacy of home and the often complicated search for belonging, resulting in a multi-voiced and episodic script where one actor plays fifteen characters. As part of the Pivot Theatre Festival, two separate artistic teams – one from Vancouver and one from Whitehorse – will workshop a staged reading of the script, each with a different actor, one male and one female. Audiences will see two versions of the same text, giving feedback to the creative team about contrast, performance, style and design, which will help us as we move forward into production.

Different voices, same words. One ticket. Same venue.

“Tanya has used a very unconventional method – editing recorded voices – to create a dreamy, swirling and poetic world. The result is surprising and moving” - David Skelton, Artistic Director, Nakai’s Pivot Theatre Festival

Fragments was created during a playwrighting residency with Nakai Theatre in 2008-2010 with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council.

nakaitheatre.wordpress.com

Memento

Choreographer / Performer
Tanya Marquardt

Contributors
Jennifer Mascall, Jeremy Waller, Adriana Butz, Kathleen McDonagh and Tanya Podlozniuk

Memento is a new full length solo choreographed and performed by Tanya Marquardt. An anatomical investigation of memory, Memento questions the role memory plays in shaping our pasts, our sense of ourselves and the world around us.

A workshopped presentation of Memento was presented at Mascall Dance in 2007 and was developed with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and The Dance Centre in Vancouver.

Further development of the work will take place in 2010/2011 in New York City and Vancouver, where autobiographical text, photographs, and dance will be integrated into a new solo work and presented for audience feedback in May 2011 in Vancouver.

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Theatre Conspiracy present a Nervous System System Production:

Close at Hand

January 28th, 2010
8pm
Club PuSh
Vancouver, BC
Tickets TBD

Inspired by a picture of skeletons moshing at a death metal concert, a line of text from Samuel Beckett, and the Hall and Oates song “You make my dreams come true”, Close at Hand is a performance filled with games, songs, and improvised monologues, all rooted in the question, what was your first experience of death? Created by Nervous System System and co-conspirator Tanya Marquardt, Close at Hand was first created for the Here Be Monsters’ Theatre Under the Gun, and is generously supported by the British Columbia Arts Council and the Push International Performing Arts Festival.

Nervous System System is Vancouver’s Caroline Liffmann, Tanya Podlozniuk, and Billy Marchenski. Since 2008 they have been collaborating on quick and dirty art-making, like video shorts, photo shoots, and small bits of absurd theatre. Nervous System System continues to be inspired by clown, contemporary dance, and collaboration.

pushfestival.ca

I’m here. I made it.

Here are a couple of computer shots of me – the first pics of me in New York. I took them on my first night here:

Me with my new strange wall hanging....

....and once more in black and white....

I lost my luggage for two days from Delta Airlines, they delivered it last night at 1 am. Now I feel like I have finally arrived, I have my clothes, my toothbrush, my books. I’ve spent the last two days roaming the streets in Brooklyn, getting groceries, just setting myself up in my apartment.

Bedford Avenue is my new neighbourhood, and its an amazing place. Clinton Hill borders me on one side, and I went there yesterday to get a phone and some food. There are a lot of brownstones, trees and great looking restaurants. I am looking forward to eating some mindblowing food here, and I will send the info on the restaurants that I love for those who want to come in the future.

On another side of me is a large Hasidic community, which I find fascinating just because I have never really been exposed to the Hasidic community. There are places where it feels like I am walking around in a completely different world, a different time. I found a few bagel places and kosher markets that I am going back to, but really there is so much more exploring to do.

Today I go to see Witness Relocation at East River Park for the Summer Stage Festival, and later on this week I go to Joe’s Pub to visit with my friend Mallory Cattlet and see her show, an adaptation of Beowolf called Banana Bag & Bodice does Beowolf – A Thousand Years of Baggage. I’ve never been to Joe’s Pub, although I have been to the Public. I am looking forward to having a pint with Mallory and checking out Joe’s.

Much to do. Have to get a printer, school supplies, and also, there are many things to collect and drop off at Hunter College. Much rush off, but do check back soon. Once I fully arrive I will be able to send more information, and I in a couple of weeks I want to talk all about my upcoming projects.

Tomorrow I am running off to New York.

Tanya Marquardt in This Cage is a Ricketty Bridge, photo by Barnaby Killam

August 16th, 2010: tomorrow I fly out of the Vancouver International Airport and officially move to New York City.

Holy Shit.

For those of you who don’t know, I am going to New York to get my MFA in Memoir from Hunter College and work on a couple of new theatre and dance projects (info coming soon…). Exhilarated and terrified, I periodically have moments where all my synapses get overloaded and I have to stare out a window and realize I am actually moving. My bearings feel shaken and stirred, but it is going to be an adventure.

I am going to be documenting my thoughts and adventures on this blog along with updates on my work, so check back every now and then to see my many escapades.

To my Vancouver friends, love, thanks and see you for cookies and milk at Christmas.

To my New York Friends, see you very very soon….

Mal de mer, done and done

Mal de mer was a total success, and thank you to: the Firehall Arts Centre, The Dance Centre, the British Columbia Arts Council, Caravan Farm Theatre, Vancouver Foundation, Anatomica, Proximity Arts, all of the collaborators, artists and of course Mr.McKenzie, who taught me the Sailor’s Hornpipe. Below are some pictures, some from the Caravan Farm Theatre and some of the performance, which took place in Crab Park, July 10 and 11, 2010 as part of the Dancing on the Edge Festival:

This photo is of Susan Elliott and me dancing at the Caravan Farm Theatre in April 2009. We loved this section of improvisation so much we put it in the show. Much of the choreography that ended up in the final show was clarified and structured during our time at the Caravan. It was the first time I had a chance to improvise the same scores over and over again. Sometimes we would delve into the same improv for a few hours, breaking to eat and talk about what we liked, disliked etc. We would also come back to certain improvs throughout our dance residency, and because we would do residencies with months off in between we had time to contemplate what we had done and fully integrate it into our next residency. A rare and fine treat in the world of dance.

I like this picture because of our hands. Our wrists are bent in exactly the same way. I often had the sensation that Susan and I were very similar physically, even though visually, we are different heights and sizes. We played with this notion throughout the residencies and performance, shifting the perspective of the audience, or using the depth or length of the performance site to make it seem as if I was shorter or Susan was taller etc.

This is a shot of what the Mal de mer audience saw as they were ushered into Crab Park, taken by an audience member and posted on the blog Drake Alley, an excellent blog on art and ideas in Vancouver Canada.

Susan Elliott and I are wearing sailcloth dresses and hip waiters, all made and/or found by costume designer Nita Bowerman. We wanted to get the image of sirens out of the way, and the movement vocabulary we choose for this improv was far from the source sirens or mermaids and more a physical experiment of moving with the motions of the waves and layering in movement vocabulary from other parts of the show.

This is the audience…

They were ushered down in three groups, which made for it a long time to wade in the water. Sound was performed live by noise artist Emma Hendrix, and the audience listened to the score through headsets which were provided at Crab Park. We decided to use live transmission, meaning that the audience heard the sound through a radio transmitter which we would set and strike every night. It made for a very intimate experience for the audience, and a very individual one. No performance was sonically quite the same, and the performance / improvs that Susan and I did would shift and change nightly as well. Of course, since we couldn’t wear headsets our experience of the sound was mostly from the small radio speakers set up at each site to keep us on cue. Dancing to music that you could barely hear was a fascinating experiment……

The set was built from sailcloth and a stage that rocked back and forth like the deck of a ship. This photo is of Susan and I dancing on the stage. It was so beautiful to lay on the stage and look up at the sky. We were blessed with some very warm, sunny days.

Barnaby Killam and Jesse Garlick, (who took all of these photos), designed the set, and we were damn lucky to have them. Because Jesse is an architect and Barnaby is a industrial designer, we were able to experiment and collaborate in a wholly different way than I was used to. I became very interested in the set as an installation or even a sculpture, for lack of a better word. I felt that the performance enhanced the set, and vice versa, and that the set could have acted as its own art piece.

Mal de mer ended at sunset, with us dancing a Sailor’s Hornpipe on the Crab Park pier, overlooking North Vancouver, the mountains and the harbor. It totally blew my mind to watch the sun setting every night while dancing in a sailor’s costume with 60 people all staring at me. Very surreal. Very wonderful.

I feel so lucky to have done this show, especially as an homage to the sea and sand around Vancouver, since in September, I will be relocating to New York City. Check this blog periodically for info on dance, theatre, and writing in New York City as well as in Vancouver.