Published by Leonardo Calcagno
01. Declaration
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: DECLARATION is a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ right to engage in the creation and evolution of arts and culture, as asserted in Article 11 of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Created by Toronto-based ARTICLE 11, DECLARATION is an immersive, live, sound and image installation and performance-creation lab. It offers the rare opportunity to witness established Indigenous artists mid-process as they take risks and explore new approaches and collaborations in a responsive, interdisciplinary environment.
02. AMERICANDREAM.CA
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: Can happiness be bought and sold, or have we been misled by that mythical thing called the American dream? AMERICANDREAM.CA Part 1: Malaise is the tragicomic story of three siblings whose families convene to celebrate a milestone birthday and ponder the fate of a long-lost grandfather. Each character has a dark secret that only the audience will witness as the story moves deftly between the present day, 1940s New York, and a terrible day in Dallas. The real tragedy – or is it comedy? – lies in the characters’ inability to talk to one another.
Ruthless in its portrayal of modern Canadian society, AMERICANDREAM.CA Part 1: Malaise is the first piece in an ambitious trilogy written by CLAUDE GUILMAIN and produced by Toronto’s THÉÂTRE LA TANGENTE.
03. The Double
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: An anxious government clerk meets a strange lookalike who is daring, romantic, and brash – a success at everything the clerk fumbles. Is it really his double, or could he just be paranoid? An ingenious Molotov cocktail comedy filled with laughter, obsession, and original live music, this Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning dark satire features the dazzling prose of Dostoëvsky, over-the-top physical comedy, and outrageously entertaining performances by a brilliant cast of three.
An outlandish riff on the eternal search for personal identity and social status, The Double will make you cringe with compassion…as you double over with laughter.
04. Who Killed Spalding Gray?
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: On the weekend of January 11, 2004, celebrated American monologist Spalding Gray ended his life by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry in new York. That same weekend, on the other side of the country, DANIEL MACIVOR was spending three days in California in a series of sessions with a man who had offered to save MacIvor’s life. Connecting these two real stories is a fiction derived from the obsessions of Gray and the inventions of MacIvor about a man named How who had forgotten how to live. A solo performance about truth and lies and the four most important things in life.
Who Killed Spalding Gray? links the two events in a powerfully entertaining one-man show that is smart, intense, and brutally truthful. MacIvor lays himself bare, delivering a crafted performance that is sometimes dark, sometimes uncomfortably funny, but always candid and honest.
Who Killed Spalding Gray? reunites MacIvor with renowned Canadian director DANIEL BROOKS for their sixth solo-show collaboration.
This play contains adult subject matter.
05. Daniel Lanois and Basia Bulat with the NAC Orchestra
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: One of the world’s most influential music producers – a shaper of albums by the likes of U2, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan – Daniel Lanois is also the world’s best argument for working from home. From the time he started his own recording studio at age 17 in his mother’s laundry room in Ancaster, Ontario, through the move to his storied home studio in Silver Lake, California (where he recorded Neil Young’s Le Noise in 2010), wherever Lanois hangs his hat is ground zero for great music.
06. Next Wave: Ottawa Music Spotlight with Roberta Bondar, The Yips, Bonnie Doon, and DJ Gina Vanelli
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: Come join the party at SAW GALLERY with some of the top bands in Ottawa’s vibrant indie music scene. On the verge of major breakthroughs, each of the up-and-coming groups featured in Next Wave: Ottawa Music Spotlight is part of a growing artistic incubation in the National Capital Region, evident in new music festivals, venues, and labels, and giving rise to an exhilarating cultural renaissance in Ottawa’s music landscape.
07. Compagnie ODD : Speeds and Slownesses 1a, The Eventual De-Expression of Rgs2, Mere Human
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: Under the direction of award-winning Ottawa choreographer and artistic director YVONNE COUTTS, COMPAGNIE ODD’s daring and compelling dance artists perform three works that will engage and heighten your curiosity with their tremendous physical intent. In The Eventual De-Expression of Rgs2, Coutts presents a world premiere solo work created in collaboration with award-winning Ottawa composer and musician JESSE STEWART playing live. The work takes its cue from American photographer Diane Arbus.
ODD’s mixed program also includes commissioned works by ANDREW TURNER and international touring artist MÉLANIE DEMERS. Demers, artistic director of Montreal’s MAYDAY, premieres a provocative quintet entitled Mere Human, while Turner presents the physically demanding quartet entitled Speeds and Slownesses 1a.
Mature themes.
08. Keeping It Beautiful
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: Landscape is the perfect inspiration for artists to explore Ontario’s subtle character – constantly shifting, but always present. The province’s fluctuating identity, largely shaped by its cultural diversity, makes pinpointing distinctive qualities difficult. But Ontario is full of natural beauty, and its vast and varied terrain has long been depicted in the artwork produced by its inhabitants, cementing its geography as an important part of Canada’s unique personality.
09. Representations of Time and Place Part 3 : Artists working in the Anishinabe and Woodlands style
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: In the 1960s, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) became the first federal government institution to support the development of contemporary Canadian Aboriginal art. Significant acquisitions over its history have made AANDC’s Aboriginal Art Collection one of the most important and comprehensive collections of contemporary Canadian Aboriginal art in Canada and one that is particularly rich in artworks by Aboriginal artists from Ontario.
Part 1 of a two-part, collection-based exhibition will feature work by NORVAL MORRISSEAU, DAPHNE ODJIG, ROY THOMAS, and ARTHUR SHILLING. Part 2 will feature work created more recently by RON NOGANOSH, GLENNA MATOUSH, MARIA HUPFIELD, and MICHAEL BELMORE. A third exhibition in the National Art Centre’s Theatre Lobby will feature artists working in the Anishinabe and Woodlands style.
10. Home Away from Home
City: Ottawa
Link: nac-cna.ca
Info: Featuring the work of six Aboriginal artists represented in the Ottawa Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition addresses space and place, belonging and home, and a relationship with land and territory. Whether through interactions with nature, spiritual inquiry, or social and political intervention, the pieces explore and engage with these matters from varying perspectives and Aboriginal cultural backgrounds.
for more info : nac-cna.ca