HOME
The Project
Two strange lovers navigating new challenges and finding connection while adapting to an unfamiliar environment.
A structured improv/clown-based style & form, this piece features performers being captured from five perspectives: top, left, right, front, and back. Each perspective is live-fed to five projectors situated in a separate location and mapped onto a cube, house, or other objects and surfaces, allowing an audience to move around and observe the strange character that is created from these different perspectives of the performer. A piece which explores the interaction between audience and performance, gazing into the effects of long-term isolation we all felt and experienced with the covid-19 pandemic.
Artists
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Alastair Knowles passionately supports the discovery of self-expression and the generation of delight through creation and presentation of original live theatre and interdisciplinary works.
As one half of the Canadian Comedy Award winning duo, James & Jamesy, and with partner Stephanie Morin Robert, Alastair creates and tours theatrical performances that are typified by extended characters, rich emotion, and fantastical trips of the imagination. His shows are investigations in participatory theatre that merge physical comedy, clown, and dance to create theatrical environments where audiences feel invited and compelled to participate.
His arts practice is informed by his study of clown (Fantastic Space Enterprises), movement (Edam Dance), and visual (University of British Columbia) and his approach to the arts industry is supported by his commerce degree from UBC’s Sauder School of Business (UBC).
Alastair is the co-Artistic Director of the James & Jamesy Performance Society, served as a board member of Vancouver’s Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret Society, and Bellingham, Washington’s Lookout Arts Quarry.
His shows O Christmas Tea, 2 for Tea, High Tea, James & Jamesy In The Dark, Bushel and Peck, and INK, have been performed over 650 times across Canada, the United States, and the UK. The accessibility and wide appeal of these shows is evident by numerous 5-Star reviews and a growing number of Best-of-Fest, Most Outstanding Production, and Best Comedy awards from theatre festivals across the country.
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Stéphanie is a Franco-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, curator, performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Graduating from Concordia University with a BFA in Contemporary Dance, she was rewarded as the most outstanding graduate for her expansive interpretation of choreography and her intermedia practice. Shortly after, her clown training with David MacMurray Smith sparked her interest in blending audience interaction and honouring impulse within her creative process.
Her group choreography (Coming And Going, Bear Dreams and Within | Between), comedy duo shows (THE MERKIN SISTERS, BUSHEL AND PECK), and solo productions (INK, BLINDSIDE and EYE CANDY) have been celebrated by a wide range of audiences, critics, and producers with sold out runs, raving 5-star reviews, international tours, and multiple awards underlining her dedication to her practice, professionalism, and vulnerability on stage.
Through her one-person solo performances, she establishes a trusting and safe environment by sharing her very own experiences and how she managed to work through her childhood traumas and come to terms with her disability.
Past co-producer and co-host of Dirty Feet, Stéphanie orchestrated a modern discourse on dance and physical theatre. She is currently the Artistic Director of Vancouver’s HUNCH solo festival as well as the Artistic Director and General Manager of the Stéphanie Morin-Robert Performance Non-Profit-Society, a registered non-profit organization that is currently gearing up to launch Manitoba based programing for their 2022-2023 season.
The Residency
Before the DDI
With Home, performance duo Bushel & Peck sought to explore how two strange lovers can navigate challenges and find connection while adapting to an unfamiliar environment using a combination of structured improv and clown.
The pair’s aim was to create a multidisciplinary work that existed as a synergy between performance, film and artistic installation. With a large sculptural three- dimensional cube serving both the primary set piece and as a projection surface, they wanted to explore filming performers from six sides and then mapping each of these camera feeds onto the walls of the cube. The goal was to create a cube that could be visualized as a home, where people could enter and exit freely and where interaction between the audience and the performers could be explored. The group also wanted to experiment with lighting details that would accentuate the three dimensionality of the cube.
During the residency
During the residency, the group faced certain challenges with building the cube-they wanted a feeling of containment but also to offer the option to the audience to walk around the cube as an installation. They also became aware of questions related to how to draw focus both within the structure of the work and how to draw the audience’s attention within the body of the cube. Live video feed and live projection were an important part of the development of the work and allowed them to experiment with what feeling they wanted to create in a more real time way than if they were using pre-recorded footage.
The group's initial impulse had been to have the performer filmed with a wide shot, so that their entire body would be visible in the cube but they found after trying it that the negative space was less successful than having the body fill the entire space. This led to further experimentation with placing the performer in different, tighter camera shots as well as playing with a plexiglass to enhance the feeling of confinement and animate different parts of the face.
After switching from a wide shot to a much tighter focus it became clear how difficult it can be to work with 6 simultaneous cameras and how limiting that can be for a performer; there was really only one very small point where each camera would be focussed correctly and the performer moving their head even a degree or two would throw off at least one of the shots. The group was interested in exploring in future work how to create a multi sided camera rig for a performer to wear so that they have more freedom of movement in the space.
These initial experimentations projecting a close up face onto the cube led to further explorations which combined the cube with a second live performer. While one performer remained seated in the camera rig, the other wore a costume that covered their head with oversized shoulders and acted as the body of the cube. Together they animated one character, each one reacting to what the other is doing.
Post Residency
The group has a lot of exploration that they want to do with the art installation aspect of the project and they’ve identified various different scenarios that they want to continue to look at such as an outdoor exhibit, a more traditional live show and a gallery exhibition.
The digital residency led to the group to consider questions of audience inclusion and dissemination. Some ongoing questions include: how can there be further involvement of a broader community in creating and sharing the work within an expandable scale in the digital medium? Is it possible to also involve other people that are not just people trained as theater performers or as stage performers?
The group will also continue researching elements of technique, focusing on how performers can work with cameras and setting up live feeds with cameras to create an intimate theater space, working with GoPro cameras for different perspectives and dimensionality. All of these aspects will offer challenges in creating these scenarios with cameras, timers and live feeding to the projector.
Tools Used
Go Pro Cameras
Pico Projectors
