Tag: Performance Club

The sixth in the Golden Book series and essential reading for the performances presented in FADO’s Performance Club series, Performance Club: The Syllabus contains everything you need for your Performance Club 4–6 experience (including that pesky homework).

Designed by Lisa Kiss Design
72 pages

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. This is a Queer Series
Introduction by Moynan King

2. Queer/Play
By Moe Angelos

3. Three O’Clock
By Cornell Woolrich

4. I Wanted To Be Bisexual But My Father Wouldn’t Let Me
By David Bateman

Save your Thursdays in September for the ultimate trio of Queer Performance Clubs performed by Moe Angelos, Hope Thompson, and David Bateman.

Performance Club 6 presents, Art Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, subtitle; Does This Giacometti Make Me Look Fat? by David Bateman. This performance looks at the iconic romance novel Love Story (1970), with an emphasis on the famous phrase from the book, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” and its indirect connection to the General Idea sculptures.

THE GOLDEN BOOK
Join us for Performance Club and get your own Performance Club: THE SYLLABUS, a brand new addition to FADO’s Golden Book series (as always, designed by Lisa Kiss). This time, it’s bigger (it won’t fit in your pocket, think book bag) and it contains three performance texts and an incredible intro, entitled, This is a Queer Series… written by Moynan King.

CLUB TALK BACKS
Join us after each performance for a talk back with the artist and their fellow club artists.
September 10: Moe Angelos in conversation with David Bateman
September 12: Hope Thompson in conversation with Moe Angelos
September 19: David Bateman in conversation with Hope Thompson

Save your Thursdays in September for the ultimate trio of Queer Performance Clubs performed by Moe Angelos, Hope Thompson, and David Bateman.

This Performance Club Workshop will consider several of David Bateman’s past performance works, and ways in which he has re-considered various narratives/performance texts around sex and gender over the past thirty years. Works to be looked at may include: Death, Sex, & Macrame (2019), I Wanted To Be Bisexual But My Father Wouldn’t Let Me (1992), and the performance he will be presenting in the second part of his Performance Club 6, Art Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, subtitle; Does This Giacometti Make Me Look Fat? (2016).

Expect reading, writing and macrame curtain weaving.
THE GOLDEN BOOK
Join us for Performance Club and get your own Performance Club: THE SYLLABUS, a brand new addition to FADO’s Golden Book series (as always, designed by Lisa Kiss). This time, it’s bigger (it won’t fit in your pocket, think book bag) and it contains three performance texts and an incredible intro, entitled, This is a Queer Series… written by Moynan King.

CLUB TALK BACKS
Join us after each performance for a talk back with the artist and their fellow club artists.
September 10: Moe Angelos in conversation with David Bateman
September 12: Hope Thompson in conversation with Moe Angelos
September 19: David Bateman in conversation with Hope Thompson

“It’s not everyday you get to talk to the dead – and they answer.”
~Hope Thompson

Join us for Performance Club 5, and this special “conversation” between famed noir writer Cornell Woolrich (deceased) and his interviewer, Hope Thompson.

In a rare, ‘one-on-one’ Hope Thompson interviews crime writer and father of noir, Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968). Thompson brings alive her obsessive fascination with both Woolrich’s writing and his life in this ‘tell-all-from-beyond-the-grave’ interview performance. A solitary and reclusive figure in life, Woolrich is similarly reticent in death, however, Thompson’s interview techniques draw out the writer, giving the Performance Club a window into the dark secrets, vulnerabilities and surprising humour of this often overlooked giant of 20th century crime fiction.

Cornell Woolrich’s seminal short story, Three O’clock, will be provided as a sample of the author’s work. In this thriller of marital revenge, a husband known only as “Stapp” plots the murder of his wife, only to have a series of surprise events send him spiraling into nail scratching despair.

THE GOLDEN BOOK
Join us for Performance Club and get your own Performance Club: THE SYLLABUS, a brand new addition to FADO’s Golden Book series (as always, designed by Lisa Kiss). This time, it’s bigger (it won’t fit in your pocket, think book bag) and it contains three performance texts and an incredible intro, entitled, This is a Queer Series… written by Moynan King.

CLUB TALK BACKS
Join us after each performance for a talk back with the artist and their fellow club artists.
September 10: Moe Angelos in conversation with David Bateman
September 12: Hope Thompson in conversation with Moe Angelos
September 19: David Bateman in conversation with Hope Thompson

Save your Thursdays in September for the ultimate trio of Queer Performance Clubs performed by Moe Angelos, Hope Thompson, and David Bateman.

Save your Thursdays in September for the ultimate trio of Queer Performance Clubs performed by Moe Angelos, Hope Thompson, and David Bateman.

Are you a snowflake? Do you live in an information silo? Do you live to comment? Likes, dislikes, emoji bagels and a thumbs up? Are you a lurking flamer? (Or is your crazy uncle in Alberta one?) Is this making you mad? Would you like to say something? Do you feel silenced because there is no comment function? What happens when all your friends (and your “Friends”) think exactly the same as you? Can you talk to each other anymore?

Join us for Performance Club 4, Book Club: snowflakes in the echo chamber, one year after Queer/Play was published; one year after Ellie, Audrey, Jasmine, Stacy and Moe read it in their book club; and one long year on our journey ever deeper into the Offendocene, the epoch of being outraged.

THE GOLDEN BOOK
Join us for Performance Club and get your own Performance Club: THE SYLLABUS, a brand new addition to FADO’s Golden Book series (as always, designed by Lisa Kiss). This time, it’s bigger (it won’t fit in your pocket, think book bag) and it contains three performance texts and an incredible intro, entitled, This is a Queer Series… written by Moynan King.

CLUB TALK BACKS
Join us after each performance for a talk back with the artist and their fellow club artists.
September 10: Moe Angelos in conversation with David Bateman
September 12: Hope Thompson in conversation with Moe Angelos
September 19: David Bateman in conversation with Hope Thompson

You’ve go to climb to the top of Mount Everest
to reach the Valley of the Dolls.
It’s a brutal climb to reach that peak
which so few have seen.
You never knew what was really up there,
but the last thing you expected to find
was the Valley of the Dolls.
You stand there, waiting for
the rush of exhilaration
you though you’d feel–but
it doesn’t come.
You’re too far away to hear the applause
and take your bows.
And there’s no place left to climb.

Fifty years ago, Jacqueline Susann wrote these opening lines in The Valley of the Dolls, what would become one of the most successful books of its time (with over 31 million copies sold, and counting) making Susann a household name (even if many still read her book under the covers in secret) and bestowing her with the honour of being the first author in history to have three consecutive books in the #1 position on the New York Times bestsellers list. Some might remember the Valley of the Dolls best as the cinematic vehicle for a pill and booze soaked cautionary tale of female ambition, fame, fortune and failure. Despite this, fifty years later the story is still relevant, telling us as much about celebrity culture today and it forewarned us then.

You’re got to climb to the top of Mount Everest to see the Valley of the Dolls, and you’re invited to take this journey with Toronto’s very own performance provocateur Keith Cole in a 5-session book club-cum-academic master class. The first 4 sessions take place in a sprawling hotel room. In Session 5, book club attendees gather with audience to watch a screening of the 1967 film directed by Mark Robson, listen to a key note speech by a secret special guest, and receive their “V of the D” diplomas.

This Performance Club 2 provides participants with a survey of a range of theories and opinions about how we engage, understand and re-evaluate, literary works of art from the past. How do we talk about, feel and learn from a work of art that is still celebrated fifty years after its first release? Our lives are increasingly dominated by visual images on screens but what about the act of reading? The act of discussion? The act of listening? The act of offering up opinions? Have we globally lost the inter-personal understanding of the importance of ideas, the circulation of information and the importance of coming together to identify, contextualize and analyze literary works of art?

The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann refers to many performance and non-performance outlets. Namely popular entertainment and academic forms ranging from fine art, television, Hollywood, cabaret, camp, feminism, fashion, musical theatre, drug culture, power dynamics and gender politics. All of which will be analyzed in this participant lead Performance Club.

In order to reach a greater understanding of how meaning circulates through our diverse and hectic lives Performance Club participants must first come to terms with 4 items of importance:

• reading is crucial
• participation is mandatory
• attendance counts
• opinions matter

There is limited enrolment to attend all 4 sessions. The first eight participants to enrol for all sessions will receive a FREE softcover copy of the book. Each week, there will be a limited number of audited spots to attend a single session. These spots also require registration. These spots are PWYC. Auditors attend single sessions and BYOB (Bring Your Own Book).

EVENT & SCREENING
February 27, 2018
The Commons @ 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto
7:00pm: Keynote by Kristyn Dunnion & Graduation
8:00pm: Screening of The Valley of the Dolls

As a proposition for a performance or the framework for an actual book club, FADO’s Performance Club series redefines the historical and contemporary performance art canon, one book club, and one book, article, essay, or anthology at a time. Invited artists perform the role of book club facilitators, leading the audience through a performance of a reading, a reading performance, a performance about a book, or a bookish performance. This series is on-going. Sometimes we pick the book and invite an artist; sometimes we invite an artist and they pick a book. Just like a real book club, we ask the audience to read the suggested material before coming to the performance. But don’t worry, just like a real book club, no one ever does. 

Performance Club 1: Queer/Play
Edited by Moynan King
Performance by Moe Angelos
December 14–15, 2017

Performance Club 2: Valley of the Dolls
Performed by Keith Cole
January 20–February 20, 2018

Performance Club 3: 9Questions, an artist project by Gustaf Broms
That time we made our own book, 2018

Performance Club 4: Book Club: snowflakes in the echo chamber
Performed by Moe Angelos
September 10, 2019

Performance Club 5: The Talking Grave
Performed by Hope Thompson
September 12, 2019

Performance Club 6: Art Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, subtitle; Does This Giacometti Make Me Look Fat?
Performed by David Bateman
September 19, 2019

Performance Club 1 includes the launch of Queer/Play, edited by Moynan King, and a series of performance accompaniments, such as verbatim readings of some of the interviews contained in the book and a new performance by Moe Angelos entitled (what else?) Queer/Play.

In Queer/Play (the performance) Moe Angelos interprets and takes inspiration from the material content of Queer/Play to create a new performance work of their own, playing with the idea of book club.

Verbatim interviews performed by a roster of artists, writers, and performers including:
Shannon Cochrane
Amanda Cordner
Sky Gilbert
Darren Gobert
Johanna Householder
Aisha Sasha John
Louise Liliefeldt
Pamila Matharu
Tanya Mars
Susan Wolf
Michaela Washburn

Queer/Play is a collection of never before published scripts and interviews from both emerging and established Canadian queer theatre and performance artists, Queer/Play maps a cross section of current performance works found at the intersection of queer life and art, delving into the resulting subcultures and always-changing concepts of identity and performance. In this book, queer is not just something someone is; it’s also something these artists do.

WORKS INCLUDED in Queer/Play:

Graceful Rebellions by Shaista Latif
Lapine-Moi / Rabbit-I and Cerveau Fêlé 101 / Broken Brain 101 by Nathalie Claude
Dirty Plötz by Alex Tigchelaar
Chronicles of a War Child by Jazz Kamal “Nari”
She Mami Wata and The Pussy WitchHunt by d’bi.young anitafrika
The Magic Hour by Jess Dobkin
Trapped! by Hope Thompson
Sister Mary’s a Dyke?! by Flerida Peña
Hiding Words (for you) by Gein Wong
SPIN by Evalyn Parry
Plus interviews by: Alisha Stranges, Erin Hurley, Laine Zisman Newman, Donna-Michelle St Bernard, Mel Hague, Keith Cole, Laura Levin, Tabia Lau, Kim Crosby, Margo Charlton

This is your book club. You are the audience. You decide how many sessions you attend. 

It is not a requirement that you have already read the book being clubbed to attend this Performance: Club. But you are more than welcome to! There will be a limited number of discounted books for sale at the door or you can purchase your copy in advance through the Playwrights Canada Press website.