The Seeker Puppet Movie
Video
NEW EDIT IN DEVELOPMENT
In 2027, STO Union is returning to moving-image works originally created within its theatre productions. Selected works are being newly edited as stand-alone films, allowing them to exist independently from the performances for which they were first made and preparing them for new audiences and film-festival presentation.
The Seeker Puppet Movie is currently being re-edited as part of this project.
ABOUT THE WORK
The Seeker Puppet Movie is a short video work originally created as part of Act One of the live production What Happened to the Seeker. In the film, the Seeker is still trying to find herself through her work as an artist, with questionable results.
What Happened to the Seeker follows a female artist born into the revolutionary promise of the 1960s. Her world is shaped by ideas of liberation, transformation and the search for another way of living. As the work unfolds, however, the consequences and contradictions of that search become increasingly difficult to ignore.
The larger production combined exhibition, audio, video and live performance. During its first section, audiences were divided into groups and moved through several different experiences. One of these was a small cinema where they were given popcorn and watched The Seeker Puppet Movie.
Fiction and non-fiction blended throughout What Happened to the Seeker, as did performance, visual art, video, objects, sound and installation. The Seeker Puppet Movie was one part of this larger constellation and is now being revisited as a stand-alone film.
A STO Union production, in co-production with Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), The Theatre Centre (Toronto), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen, Norway), Brut Koproductionshaus (Vienna, Austria), and in association with the Wakefield Art Collective.
NEW EDIT CREDITS
- Written, directed and edited by: Nadia Ross
- Performers: Richard LeBars, Agnes Krischel, George Acheson and Nadia Ross
- Set and puppet design: Nadia Ross, Rob Scott, George Acheson, Michele April and Randolph McMillan
- Puppeteers: Nadia Ross and Rob Scott
- Original music: Wayne Hunter
SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS
“If what Nadia Ross does isn’t theatre, then give me less theatre — and more of this stuff, whatever you want to call it… (Ross) is kind of a Canadian, female, progressive, theatre person version of screenwriter legend Charlie Kaufman or even early days Woody Allen.”
Stephen Hunt (Calgary Herald) — one of the top ten shows of the year in Calgary.
“What Happened to the Seeker takes experimental performance to a new level.”
Justin Borrow (The Theatre Reader), Toronto
“I love how this piece got me to question, wonder, ponder, observe, be open to suggestion and appreciate.”
Lynn Slotkin (The Slotkin Letter), Toronto
“What Happened to the Seeker … is the biggest and most successful risk in this year’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival.”
Jonas McLean (New Ottawa Critics), Ottawa
“It would be easy to let the bitterness and quest for serenity disconnect and dismiss the culture as we find it. Instead, the final words are the words of the future, spoken by the newer voices. This gesture is one of profound grace and hopefulness. Exactly as expected from STO Union – grace and hope where none might be predicted.”
Jacob Zimmer (Small Wooden Shoe)
“…Everything shifts when Nadia Ross appears. It takes only a few seconds for us to become captivated by her voice, her undeniable presence.”
Lucie Renaud (Revue Jeu), Montreal
“What Happened to the Seeker shows us a high level of originality on the level of form. The presentation surprises and succeeds in arousing our curiosity on the path that Nadia Ross has followed.”
Genevieve Germain (Montheatre.qc.ca), Montreal
“The show is a bit like a warm, friendly hug and a reminder that peace can be found among the chaos and that it’s okay to lie down for a little while but eventually, you just have to keep going.”
Diane Lachapelle (Apt 613), Ottawa
ORIGINAL PRODUCTION TOURING HISTORY
Theatre Junction Grand / Calgary, Alberta
November 23–28, 2015
The Theatre Centre / Toronto, Ontario
October 1–3, 2015
Hebbel am Ufer / Berlin, Germany
June 18–20, 2015
Magnetic North Theatre Festival / Ottawa, Ontario
June 9–13, 2015
FTA Festival TransAmériques / Montréal, Québec
International premiere, May 27–29, 2015
WORKSHOPS AND DEVELOPMENT
Under the workshop title Intimacy with a Thousand Things
Meteor Festival, BIT Teatergarasjen / Bergen, Norway
Brut Künstlerhaus / Vienna, Austria
ODD / Ottawa, Canada
