Behind the Kiln, 15 episodes of dance, music and visual improvisations, from January 28 2010 to April 13 2012
What is Behind the Kiln? A project by Tanis Macarthur (dancer/choreographer) and Judith Sandiford (designer/live image improvisor), for on-going occasional evenings of improvised collaborations by dancers, musicians and a V-jay mixer. The idea is to pair up at least one dancer with at least one musician, and see what happens.
Why does Tanis call it Behind the Kiln? If you leave wood to dry behind the kiln, it warps into all kinds of strange unpredictable shapes. As Tanis puts it, “This event is all about the interaction between artists. It’s not about blowing the audience away with high kicks and spins and intricate choreography. It’s more about small delights. Subtle but powerful communication. and, of course, play. Experiential rather than sensationalistic.”
Behind the Kiln #1, Thursday January 28, 2010 at 8 pm, pwyc. The prototype. Performers confirmed so far for Jan 28 include Tanis Macarthur and Anne Milne (dance) and Judith Sandiford (projections), musicians Annie Shaw and Sarah Good on vocals and feedback loops, Orange McFarland on stand-up bass, Jennifer Lockman on piano.
Behind the Kiln #2, Saturday July 24, 2010 at 8 pm. $5. An evening of improvisations between dancers, musicians and artists. Collaborators include dancers Tanis Macarthur, Laura Kappel, Anne Milne, musicians Eugene Martynec on laptops, Brian Ropcean on percussion, Orange McFarland on standup bass, Ron Weihs on fiddle, with Jeff Seffinga text and vocals, projections by Judith Sandiford on real-time video-mix software. Solos, duos, trios and all of the above.
Why is the evening called Behind the Kiln? Tanis explains: “If you leave wood to dry behind the kiln, it warps into all kinds of strange unpredictable shapes.” We did a prototype evening back in January and now we want to warp unpredictably again!
Behind The Kiln #3, Thursday November 25, 2010 at 9:30, an evening of real-time collaborations between dancers, musicians and artists. (Photos by D.Delgado July 24 session.) Collaborators so far include dancers Tanis Macarthur, Anne Milne, musicians Orange McFarland (standup bass), Jennifer Lockman (piano), Tom Shea (guitar), Ron Weihs (fiddle), with projections by Judith Sandiford on real-time video-mix. Solos, duos, trios and all of the above.
Behind the Kiln #4, Thursday February 10, 2011 at 8 pm, pwyc , an evening of improvised dance, music and visuals. This one takes as its jumping-off point (could mean that literally, you never know with dancers) “Smoky Romance of the Femme Fatale“, an exhibition of vintage party dresses from the 50s to 80s curated by collector Andrea Liss (in the installation gallery through February). Dancers: Liz Bates, Grace Loney, Tanis Macarthur, Orange Mcfarland. Musicians: Jennifer Lockman, Tom Shea, Orange Mcfarland. Visuals: Judith Sandiford. Photo left Tanis and Grace.
Behind the Kiln #5, Thursday March 10, 2011, pwyc. Due to popular demand these are now monthly, second Thursday (day before Art Crawl). Hosted by dancer Tanis MacArthur and video jammer Judith Sandiford. Participants: Liz Bates, Maxine Heppner, Grace Loney, Jenny Rae, Jennifer Lockman, Orange McFarland, Matthew Van Allen, Tanis Macarthur, Justine Lanza, Alison Novak, Ron Weihs, Judith Sandiford.
Behind the Kiln #6, Thursday April 7, 2011 at 8 pm: Movers: Grace Loney, Liz Bates, Jenny Rae, Laura Kappel, Victoria Slager (Runaway Brides), Tanis MacArthur.
Sound makers: Jennifer Lockman (piano), Tom Shea (guitar/spoon/etc.), Orange McFarland (double bass), Jenny Rae (saw), Ron Weihs (violin), Gordon Odegaard (various). Video jammer: Judith Sandiford.
Behind the Kiln #7, Thursday May 12, 2011 at 8 pm, pwyc , thrilling and unpredictable evenings of real-time collaborations between dancers, musicians and visual artists. Theme “EchOes” Participants: Sounds: Tom Shea, Jennifer Lockman, Orange Mcfarland, JonGordon Odegaard, Ron Weihs. Moves: Grace Loney, Jenny Rae, Liz Bates, Rose Gowling, Victoria Slager, Tanis Macarthur and a ‘maybe’ from our juggler Lacey Cameron. Visuals: Judith Sandiford.
Behind the Kiln #8, Saturday June 11, 2011 at 8 pm, $5. We are delighted to have two of the best improvisers in Canada as our guests for a special “Behind the Kiln”. Eugene Martynec, laptop improviser, and Nobuo Kubota, sound poet, will kick us into very high gear. The rest of us will also be there to provide the movement, visuals and more sound. [Photo: Eugene Martynec, Nobuo Kubota, dancers Victoria Slager and Tanis MacArthur, plus a Steel Image by Shane Turcott manipulated by Judith Sandiford.]
Movers include Liz Bates, Tanis Macarthur, Jenny Rae, Victoria Slager. Sound from Jennifer Lockman piano, Tom Shea guitar, Orange McFarland upright bass.
Behind the Kiln #9, Thursday July 7, 2011 at 8 pm, pwyc. Thrilling and unpredictable evenings of real-time collaborations between dancers, musicians and visual artists. Participants Tanis Macarthur, Liz Bates, Grace Loney, Victoria Slager, Jennifer Lockman, Tom Shea, Andrea Frolic & video-jammer Judith Sandiford. [Image: dancer Andrea Frolic] Behind the Kiln — it’s thrilling, it’s unpredictable, it’s unexplainable. Be there!
Behind the Kiln #10, Thursday Sept 1, 2011, 8 pm, pwyc. “Last fling of summer.” Last minute craziness. Our wildly unpredictable multi-media collaborations between dancers, musicians and a video-jammer, making it all up on the spot. We’re filling a gap the only way we know how — having fun and making magic. Come and join us. Coordinated by dancer-choreographer Tanis MacArthur. Participants so far: movers Liz Bates, Carissa Bowerman and sister, Tanis Macarthur (maybes from Rose Gowling, Victoria Slager); sounders Jennifer Lockman, Ron Weihs, Tom Shea; visuals Judith Sandiford
Behind the Kiln #11, Thursday September 15, 2011 at 8 pm, pwyc. Organized by dancer-choreographer Tanis MacArthur and video-jammer Judith Sandiford. Movers: Jenny Rae (via skype from Thailand), Liz Bates, Rose Gowling, Paula Grove, Tanis Macarthur. Sounders: Jennifer Lockman, Ron Weihs, Orange McFarland. Image right: live realtime duet Jenny Rae (in Thailand) and Liz Bates (in Artword Artbar), via skype and a web-cam. Wow! We did it! (photo Anne Milne)
Behind the Kiln #12, “ghOulish and dreAry”, Thursday October 13, 2011 at 8 pm pwyc. Movers and sounders for our “ghOulish and dreAry” evening: Victoria Slager, Anne Milne, Jennifer Lockman, Tom Shea. Orange McFarland, Tanis Macarthur, Liz Bates, Ron Weihs, Judith Sandiford. [Image left Sept 15: duet Tanis MacArthur, Rose Gowling, plus live web-cam, photo Anne Milne]
Behind the Kiln #13, Thursday November 10, 2011 at 8 pm pwyc. Always thrilling and unpredictable, our evenings of real-time collaborations between dancers, musicians and visual artists, are a treat. Organized by dancer-choreographer Tanis MacArthur and video-jammer Judith Sandiford. [We did not record the doings on November 10. Image here shows the whole space in February 2011.]
Behind the Kiln #14 + Trio Arjento, Friday, February 10, 2012, from 8 pm on… (James North Art Crawl). Behind the Kiln part one, dance and music improvised before your eyes, featuring Tanis Macarthur, with the improvising orchestra, Trio Arjento plus friends. Second set, a concert by Trio Arjento members Jennifer Lockman piano, Tom Shea guitar, Orange McFarland stand-up bass. Last set, Behind the Kiln part two, more real-time collaborations with guest musicians (including Angela Macaroni on flute) and dancer/movers including Jenny Rae on a visit from Thailand, live video-mix by Judith Sandiford.
Behind the Kiln #15, Friday April 13, 2012, 7 pm-9:15 (James North Art Crawl): Behind the Kiln multi-media dance, music, video collaborations in real-time. Dancers include: Olga Barrios, Liz Bates, Laura Reid, Victoria Slager, Grace Loney, Tanis Macarthur. Musicians include: Brier Pomfret, Ronald Weihs. Video vee-jaying by Judith Sandiford.
Friday April 13, 2012 turned out to be the final episode of Behind the Kiln. Tanis went off to become an aerialist! And Ron and Judith were busy doing four plays at The Lyric (2012-2013) as well as running our live music venue. In 2013 we decided to make our cozy little Artword Artbar into a space for our theatre work, with black walls and a stage lighting hang. Our first fully staged theatre show at Artword Artbar was Scroogissimo! in December 2013.
In June 2014, we started up a new series of dance and music collaborations we called Big Dance Little Stage, hosted and curated by dancer-choreographer Learie Mc Nicolls.