The Company
Multidisciplinary Live Art Creation
Theatre Junction is a bilingual multidisciplinary live art ensemble based in Montreal, CANADA. Led by its co-artistic directors Mark Lawes and Raphaële Thiriet, the company brings together francophone and anglophone artists from varied cultural backgrounds and disciplines. Together they explore themes that are at the intersection of their differences, constructing live performances that are composite forms of our time. The interconnectivity between manufactured and natural environments, real and virtual worlds, are at the core of the artistic research of the company.
The research and writing of Mark Lawes and Raphaële Thiriet is derived from a system of improvisation and collective collaboration that searches inbetween disciplines for new forms of representation. This mode of creation is at the 'junction' of contemporary dance, theatre, music, and visual art.
History of the Company
Founded in 1991 by artistic director Mark Lawes, Theatre Junction began by staging plays from the national and international contemporary canon. The company developed and produced new Canadian plays by John Murrell, Sharon Pollock, Morwyn Brebner, and Daniel Brooks, among others. In 2003, Mark Lawes went on sabbatical and traveled to Europe, where worked at the Paris Opera, Théâtre L’Athenée, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, la Scène Nationale d’Orléans, and the Steirischerbst in Graz, and returned to Calgary with a new vision for the company orientated towards a contemporary multidisciplinary aesthetic. At the same time, Theatre Junction saved Calgary’s oldest theatre from demolition, and raised $12M to transform the Grand theatre into an international hub for contemporary live art and a new home for Theatre Junction creations.
From 2006 to 2016, with the arrival of actor and dramaturge Raphaele Thiriet, Theatre Junction created several multidisciplinary works in French and English that toured in Canada and internationally. The arrival of Raphaele Thiriet represented a turning point in the history of the company, as her artistic and political engagement underlined questions surrounding the diversity of forms of expression in the predominantly conservative and English speaking cultural environment.
In 2018, after presenting work on the national and international stage for 10 years, Theatre Junction reached another significant turning point in its history. Following the creation and international tour of the Supernova Trilogy, a major bilingual work supported by a New Chapter grant from the Canada Council for the Arts celebrating the 150th anniversary of confederation, Theatre Junction began its own new chapter by separating from the Grand theatre and moving its operations to Montreal where cultural conditions supported the artistic trajectory of the company. Montreal has always been aligned with Theatre Junction’s cultural, political, and artistic values, and has generously contributed to its development by hosting the company several times over the last decade, in its theatres, in residencies, and on tour. In April 2019, Raphaële Thiriet was appointed co-artistic director of Theatre Junction, sharing in the development of the artistic vision of the company in Montreal where the company currently has three artistic projects in development in residencies at Usine C and Theatre Aux Écuries.
Creations
SUPERNOVA TRILOGY – CREATION 2018
“A genre-defying exploration of live and digital disturbances that ask, “if the medium is the message, what does it say?” The future becomes a retrospective in an absorbing probe in search for the possibility of ‘re-enchantment’ in a technological world.”
The last two years Theatre Junction has been working on the development of the he Supernova Trilogy, a multidisciplinary and multi-media work composed of three independent modules. Metaphorically, the trilogy follows the life cycle of a star. The explosive impact of new technologies on consciousness and the erosion of the utopian promise of the American Dream, combine to create a future that has yet to be constructed, in which science and imagination collide. Each module will consist of live performances and satellites, including short films, concerts, and installations.
The Supernova Trilogy had its world premiere in the frame of the Festival des Francophonies en Limousin in Limoges and was subsequently presented by the Festival International des Arts de Bordeaux in October 2018.
MODULE 1 – SUPERSATURATED
Module 1 of the Supernova Trilogy explores the acceleration of cultural change related to advances in technology. Instantaneous communication, social media, and high speed internet have altered consciousness and transformed our relationship to time, each other, and the world. Inspired by Douglas Coupland’s ‘supersaturated information age’, and underscored by a ready-made pop-art aesthetic, the company of artists surf the wave of a culture transformed by its own speed.
Module 2 – The End of a Dream
Module 2 of the Supernova Trilogy is situated after the high-speed crash of electronic interconnectedness and the implosion of the ‘global village’. What happens after the collapse of the American Dream? On the edge of a deserted landscape, fragments of a broken love story reawaken dreams of the past. There is a longing to go back home to the way things were, however that place is no longer what we thought it was, and we are no longer ourselves. Module 2 attempts an autopsy on the heartsick condition of a society that has lost its dreams.
MODULE 3 – THE LAST FALL OF WILE E COYOTE
In Module 3 of the Supernova Trilogy we watch the final fall of Wile E Coyote. This time, the famous coyote doesn’t get back up and repeat himself, instead he watches his image slowly dissolve under a starry sky. The last fall of Wile E Coyote is situated somewhere between the image and the shadow. Onstage a post-rock band sings songs as incantations to summon ancient memories or visions of the future, where animals resemble men. And on the screen, the performers are trapped and interrogated in a series of “assessments” inciting their fears and paranoia in a “post-truth” world where the camera is the only witness. And in the space between the stage and the screen, beyond the frame of the camera, there is an unknown territory, vast and infinitely complex, where nature and the cosmos carry on the subtle dance of reality. The performers act as a chorus in search of a collective reconfiguration of the present moment.
PRESS
“A mediation through dance, music, and in particular body language and movement that transcends the limitations of verbal language.” Brad Simm, Beatroute Magazine
“Supernova Trilogy invites the spectator as an object, subject, and actor of the research, to evaluate his own journey in life.” Natacha Margotteau, Mouvement Magazine
“A primal scream, animal, enraged, nostalgic and despaired. A call to awaken consciousness.”
Natalie Geilibert, Kulte
“The juxtaposition of the suburban and the solitude…is stunning and moving” Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald
“Haunting, catastrophic, addicting — this performance covers all bases.”Lifestyle Magazine
“ I very much hope that this group of artists can continue their difficult while not commercial way of theatrical work in the future. I strongly believe that Theatre Junction will soon gain international reputation.”Almut Wagner
Contact
General Inquiries
CONTACT US
Mailing address
2230 Avenue du Mont Royal E
Montreal, QC H2H 1K4
MARK LAWES
Co-Artistic Director
Email: mark@theatrejunction.com
RAPHAELE THIRIET
Co-Artistic Director
Email: raphaele@theatrejunction.com
GENERAL INQUIRIES
Email: info@theatrejunction.com