50 years since its founding, Theatre @ York opens the 2018-2019 season with the premiere of rochdale, a new play by David Yee under the direction of Nina Lee Aquino, featuring the fourth-year acting ensemble.
Opened in 1968, Rochdale College was an experiment in student-run alternative education and co-operative living. The project ultimately failed when it could not cover its financing and neighbours complained that it had become a haven for drugs and crime.
“We are delighted to open our season with a new Canadian play that embraces the same spirit of experimentation and social advocacy that guided the founding of the Department of Theatre at York 50 years ago,” commented department chair Marlis Schweitzer. David Yee and Nina Lee Aquino have collaborated on a play that not only gives voice to the youth, energy, and passion of the 1960s but also resonates with students today. We are incredibly fortunate to have such Canadian innovators kick off this season, as we reflect on the past 50 years and look ahead to the future.”
David Yee is a Canadian actor, playwright and the artistic director of fu-Gen Theatre Company. His play carried away on the crest of a wave won the 2015 Governor General Award.
Nina Lee Aquino is an award-winning director and dramaturge, and the Artistic Director of Factory Theatre. She is committed to the development of new works, and to the manifestation of interculturalism in theatre.
Performance Schedule:
7:30 p.m. on November 17, 19-23
1:00 p.m. on November 21 & 23
2 p.m. on November 24
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888
Theatre @ York presents Middletown by Will Eno, featuring the acting students in the MFA program and directed by the esteemed Jackie Maxwell.
Lives of the inhabitants of Middletown transect in an emotional journey that takes them from the local library to outer space and beyond. The moving and funny play emerges as a meditation on loneliness, birth, death, and the anxieties of our contemporary lives.
Performance Schedule:
Thursday, January 24 7:30pm Opening
Friday, January 25 2pm & 7:30pm
Saturday, January 26, 2pm
Theatre @ York presents Orlando by Sarah Ruhl, directed by MFA candidate Lindsay Bell and The Balcony by Jean Genet, directed by MFA candidate Margaret Legere. The two shows will be performed in repertory and feature the MFA and fourth-year actors.
Orlando is a dramatic adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic by contemporary playwright Sarah Ruhl. It investigates the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history.
The Balcony uses the setting of an unnamed city and a distant background of a revolution and counterrevolution to explore strains of power in a society. The play compelling examines the delicate equilibrium of reality and illusion.
Performance Schedule:
Orlando
Sunday, March 24 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Tuesday, March 26 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Wednesday, March 27 at 1:00pm
Friday, March 29 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 30 at 1:00pm
The Balcony
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm
Friday, March 29 at 1:00pm
Saturday, March 30 at 7:30pm
Tickets $7- 20
Buy online or call 416-736-5888
Doug Van Nort with special guest Anne Bourne
In this on going series Doug Van Nort performs with curated and invited guests.
This first event will feature an electronics and cello duo with Doug Van Nort and 
longtime friend and collaborator, Anne Bourne.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space.
IPHIGENIA 2.0
Presented by MFA Directing Candidates, Mandy Roveda and Philip Geller, featuring the 3rd year acting conservatory, Iphigenia 2.0 by Charles Mee is a modern reimagining of the Greek tragedy, Iphigenia in Aulis. Stuck in between a hastily prepared, royal wedding and an army on the verge of war, Iphigenia weathers a storm of deception before finally taking her destiny into her own hands. This show tests the strength of loyalty and duty to family, friends, and country in an unsparing environment.
SHOW TIMES:
October 31 – 7:00 PM
November 1 – 2:00 PM | 7:00 PM
November 2 – 7:00 PM
LOCATION:
CFT 139: Centre for Film and Theatre
Admission is free. Signup sheet is posted outside the studio door.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a beloved feminist revisioning of two of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Othello and Romeo & Juliet. Written by Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald, the play explores the hypothetical question: what if Shakespeare’s tragedies were actually intended to be comedies? To learn the answer to this question, please join us November 16-23 in the Joseph G. Green Theatre to find out.
Performance Schedule:
Sat, Nov. 16 (preview 1) @ 7:30 pm
Sun. Nov. 17 (preview 2) @ 7:30 pm
Tues. Nov. 19 (Opening) @ 7:30 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 @ 1:00 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 (Relaxed Performance) @ 7:30 pm –Plan your visit
Thurs. Nov. 21@ 7:30 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 1:00 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 7:30pm
Sat. Nov. 23 @ 2:00 pm
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888
Dispersion Relation #4: Doug Van Nort with the Electro-Acoustic Orchestra
In this on going series Doug Van Nort performs with curated and invited guests.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space. The lab door will remain open, and people are welcome to come in late or leave early during the show. (Please remove shoes before entering!)
The fourth event welcomes a special performance with the Electro-Acoustic Orchestra. Two pieces will explore new modes of composing for attentional strategies that blend Soundpainting conducting, cross-performer shared sound processing, interactive spatialization and lighting.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space.
Music to Play in the Dark #1
In this on going series Doug Van Nort performs with curated and invited guests.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space. The lab door will remain open, and people are welcome to come in late or leave early during the show. (Please remove shoes before entering!)
An immersive, spatial audio-haptic concert in total darkness for the Winter Solstice!
This concert will feature existing pieces by invited composer Darren Copeland and Doug Van Nort that are re-imagined for the 28.2 audio and 56-channel haptic floor of the DisPerSion Lab. It will also include a new piece by lab member Rory Hoy created for this event.
Copeland’s piece will feature a small amount of light in order to see his performative gesture-based spatializations sound. Van Nort’s piece, originally composed in 2012, will be the first full use of the haptic floor that he has created over the past few years. Hoy’s piece will be a new construction created in the space leading up to the event.
About the guest composer:
Darren Copeland is a Canadian sound artist who has been active since 1985 and lives in the country outside the village of South River (Ontario). His work encompasses multichannel spatialization for live performance, fixed media composition, soundscape composition, radio art and sound installations.
His fixed-media compositions have explored both abstract and referential sound materials. Many of these works are released on the empreintes DIGITALes label and have received mentions from Vancouver New Music, Phonurgia Nova, Luigi Russolo, and other competitions.and lighting.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space.
Dispersion Relation #5: Doug Van Nort with guest Michael Palumbo
In this on going series Doug Van Nort performs with curated and invited guests.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space. The lab door will remain open, and people are welcome to come in late or leave early during the show. (Please remove shoes before entering!)
The fifth event welcomes special guest Michael Palumbo.
All are welcome to come and listen in this immersive sonic space.
Belly Dance as Mindful Movement for Stress Reduction
This movement-based workshop utilizes belly dance vocabulary designed for self-soothing. Learn movements that support the reduction of stress and anxiety symptoms. Participants will leave with applications on how stress responses can be experiences on a spectrum from hyper-arousal (feelings of overstimulation) to hypo-arousal (feelings associated with low-energy or burnout). Belly dance used as mindfulness offers gentle wavey movement designed to down-regulate physical stress responses. This workshop also combines more energizing vocabulary through shimmying and shaking as well as core engagement to support up-regulation of the nervous system, based on internal rhythm and percussion.
About the Facilitator :
Shaila is completing her Masters in Dance at York University. She concurrently training as a Dance Movement Therapist through the National Centre for Dance Therapy in Montreal. Her work focuses on belly dance practices that use sensuality as a healing tool within dance interventions. Her movement offerings look at building resiliency, decoupling stress responses and promoting body positivity. Shaila provides a unique framework that maps belly dance vocabulary for nervous-system regulation. Shaila has been an active member of the Toronto belly dancing community for over a decade, both as a performer and instructor. She currently works as a Health Educator and Training Specialist and enjoys offering students training on mental health and well-being.
Theatre @ York presents Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley directed by ted witzel
Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex shares Good Night Desdemona’s interest in the Shakespearean canon.
Here, Findley imagines an intimate meeting between a group of players and Queen Elizabeth I, who has ordered a command performance of Much Ado About Nothing as she awaits the execution of a former lover, the Earl of Essex. With wit and poetry, Findley explores the entanglement of love, desire, and gender identity.
Performance Schedule:
Tuesday March 17th at 7:30 p.m. (Preview)
Wednesday March 18th at 1:00 p.m. (Preview)
Wednesday March 18th at 7:30 p.m. (Opening)
Thursday March 19 at 7:30 p.m. (Relaxed Performance)
Friday March 20th at 1:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Saturday March 21st at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday March 21st @ 7:30 p.m. (Closing)
Box Office Information
Previews: $7.00
All Other Performances:
Tickets: $20.00
Student: $12.00
Senior: $12.00
Groups of 10 or more: $10.00
(Group price applies when all group tickets are purchased at once for a single performance. Not available online, please phone or visit the box office)
Buy online or call 416-736-5888
Relaxed Performance: Thursday, March 19th at 7:30pm
A Relaxed performance is intended specifically to be sensitive to and accepting of audience members who may benefit from a more relaxed environment. The performance is designed to reduce anxiety and provide a safe, enjoyable experience, taking into account variable sensory, communication or learning needs and abilities. This means that there is a more casual-than-usual approach to front-of-house etiquette and we ask audience members to be aware of people’s needs to move or make involuntary noise.
Dispersion Relation X…where X = you
Dispersion specializes in carving out a virtual space of community, allowing for remote connections of listening and sounding.
To this end, the Dispersion Relation series continues over the Zoom teleconferencing platform. Doug Van Nort will perform each week on Zoom. Please join him and fellow collaborators for a truly unique musical experience.
Event Information
Saturday, April 4, 2020
6:00pm-7:00pm
Zoom Event Link
The April 4th performance will feature:
Alex Ring – Violin
Maurice Rickard – Guitar + Max/MSP
Erin Corbett – modular synths
Dispersion Relation X
Dispersion specializes in carving out a virtual space of community, allowing for remote connections of listening and sounding.
To this end, the Dispersion Relation series continues over the Zoom teleconferencing platform. Doug Van Nort will perform each week on Zoom. Please join him and fellow collaborators for a truly unique musical experience.
Event Information
Saturday, May 2, 2020
6:00pm-7:00pm
Zoom Event Link
Password: 237478
The May 2nd performance will feature:
Viv Corringham – Voice
Rory Hoy – Processed Bass, drums
Danny Sheahan – Voice
Matt Wellins – Laptop
Doug Van nort – greis/electronics
Electro-Acoustic Orchestra @ Dispersion Relation X Continues!
Dispersion specializes in carving out a virtual space of community, allowing for remote connections of listening and sounding.
The Electro-Acoustic Orchestra (dir. Doug Van Nort) is an ensemble comprised of a mixture of acoustic and electronic performers. It is an emergent sonic organism that evolves through collective attention to all facets of sound, and soundpainting-based real-time composition.
The conducting language used with the group is based on Soundpainting, with modifications and additions by Van Nort for the electro-acoustic context. In the words of the language’s inventor: “The Soundpainter (the composer) standing in front (usually) of the group communicates a series of signs using hand and body gestures indicating specific and/or aleatoric material to be performed by the group. The Soundpainter develops the responses of the performers, moulding and shaping them into the composition then signs another series of gestures, a phrase, and continues in this process of composing the piece.”
The EAO functions as a year-round resident ensemble for the DisPerSion Lab, and also runs as an undergraduate and graduate course during the Fall terms. EAO integrates members from YorkU, the larger Toronto electroacoustic and improvising communities, and the international community of electro/acoustic improvisers via performances over the internet.
Event Information
Saturday, August 22, 2020
6:00pm-7:00pm
Zoom Event Link
More Information: Dispersion Lab Facebook Page