This is the fourth year we have toured a show with Poiema Productions.  Touring around Canada has become quite the norm to us Poiema Gals, but as we come to the end of this year’s "Anatolia Speaks" tour, it occurred to me that many people might not know what touring is like.  So why not take this time to highlight some of the best and worst things about touring?

1. A good thing about touring is the extended vacation you get.  If you make money off your show, great! You just got a free vacation!  If you don’t make money, at least you still got to travel, right?  Depending on the show, you also get to travel with your very best friends and see parts of Canada (and sometimes the world) that you may not have traveled to before.  In our case, the shows we’ve put on have taken us to: Winnipeg, London (Ontario), Victoria, Vancouver, Parksville, Nanaimo and Cranbrook. 

2. One part of touring that can be good and bad is your accommodation.  A very noble thing that many people do during Fringe time is open up their homes to random artists they’ve never met, offering a place to sleep, food to eat, and an entire home to live in for the two weeks of Fringe time.  I am happy to say that we’ve had more good experiences with our billets than bad.  Our bad experiences include messy houses with hoarder tendencies, apartments reeking of cat pee, and showers that you wish you brought flip flops to wear into.  But thankfully the good greatly outweighs the bad.  We’ve had a wonderful woman in Winnipeg two years in a row that shared her one-bedroom apartment with us, even taking the couch so we could have her bed.  The second year she was house-sitting and still trusted us enough to stay at her apartment without her.  Another wonderful and kind woman let all four of us take over her basement, each having a bed to ourself, and a bathroom for us to share.  She made it very clear that we were always welcome to use her kitchen and make ourselves at home.  

Of course, the only thing better than a great billet, is having family or friends to stay with.  My auntie Allison lives in Victoria and welcomed all four of us two years in a row.  She also gave up her bed and opted to sleeping on a mattress on the floor for us.  She cooked us some of the best home-cooking I’ve ever had, a much-needed treat after weeks of traveling fueled by fast-food and granola bars.  A huge reason we bring our shows to Cranbrook every year (Candice’s hometown) is because we get to stay with Candice’s parents.  Their beautiful house in the Kootenays can feel like home to anyone staying there.  Their Italian hospitality means there is always delicious food and drinks to welcome you and sustain you for your entire trip.  I think it’s an unwritten law there that they will never let anyone go hungry.  They have a beautiful pool that we always play endless hours of Marco Polo in, a huge yard where we play sardines, and we always get to have a fire where we roast marshmallows and sing songs.  A big reason we tour to the places we do (Nanaimo, Cranbrook, Victoria, hopefully one day Courtenay and Qualicum Beach…) is because it’s a great excuse for us to visit our family and friends all over the country.  And their huge support of our shows and open arms is more encouraging than they could ever know.  This year, we got to stay with family friends of Candice's, in Qualicum Beach, just a short commute to Nanaimo for the show.  We felt at home and so comfortable and can't thank them enough for having us and treating us like family.

The year we toured "Happily Ever After?", we were staying in Sara's cousin's apartment in Vancouver while they were away on their honeymoon.  The apartment was in a prime downtown location, and just a few steps from the water.  We felt like royalty.  One night, we cooked a lovely dinner at the apartment and decided to 'jam' with Sara's guitar and our loud, but beautiful voices.  Time got away from us, and we ended up singing at the top of our lungs, harmonizing, feeling like we were really sounding great, until way past midnight.  We thought nothing of it and went to bed.  The next day, Sara got a call from her cousin saying that there were several complaints from the neighbours in the building, complaining that the people in the apartment were extremely loud, throwing parties, and reeking havoc.  We were completely embarrassed and extremely apologetic, assuring her that we were not the party-type, just the singing-late-at-night-without-thinking type.  We were forced by the building to leave and were desperate to find new accommodation... fast.  I put it on Facebook and that very night, my sister's friend offered her basement suite to us.  She would stay at her friend's while we needed her place for the rest of the Fringe.  It's times like these that make you realize how generous people really are!  

3.  A great thing that happens at Fringe time is the artists, volunteers and theatre-goers create this fun little community for a short while.  Everyone goes to the same bar or lounge allocated for Fringe gatherings and you can always find a familiar face.  Everyone is on the same page and is ready to help you out, often cross-promoting shows, offering advice, and always interested in how your Fringe experience is going.  If you know us or have met us, we have probably told you about Chasing Demons, our favourite addictive card game we are obsessed with.  It is not rare for us to leave the party early to go home and play instead of the more advantageous mingling that we should be doing.  

4.  A challenging thing about touring a show is traveling with props, set, costumes and not to mention the people that take up quite a bit of space.  That is why you may see most Fringe shows with minimal amounts of all of these, such as "Anatolia Speaks".  It includes Candice, a table (which we find at each theatre we’re in), a projector and a screen.  Easy to travel with.  It took us a little while to learn this.  If you recall our first shows were a bit more costume and set heavy.  It’s a hard thing to have a grand set design in your head that completely enhances the show, and try to scale it down to fit in the back of a car.  Luckily, some of the best shows don’t need a huge spectacle and draw audiences all on their own.  Ahem… "Anatolia Speaks" and "Aletheia" to name a few.

5.  A wonderful thing about traveling a show is that you get to perform it many times.  A normal Fringe spot gives you 6 performances.  We usually spend about a year creating the shows, so 6 performances never feels like enough.  That’s a big reason I love touring.  We can do the shows, improve them, rewrite, learn a ton, then pick up and take it somewhere else to try again.  We’ve always said that a show is never finished.  We always want to keep a script open to edits and new ideas.

That’s a small insight to my experience in touring a show.  I never thought I would be where I am now, and that touring would be such a big part of my life.  Thanks to everyone for giving us temporary homes, time off work, food to eat, and unlimited encouragement.

ALETHEIA opened Friday night at the Vancouver Fringe. There was a standing ovation at the end, and the audience was swimming with people I knew and some faces I didn’t. Am I ever blessed that people came! Especially blessed that I get to share something I am so passionate about with people.

Our fringe plays get produced and become successful due to a lot of late nights, countless hours in front of a computer, poutine (or your comfort food of choice), and emotional discharge. This summer has been a different experience for all the Poiema Gals. Last summer, though I did my solo show, we were all still in a show in the same city together. This summer, however, Candice toured (and still is) and though I am fringing also, we will not be performing in the same city. Strange, I’m a little nostalgic about it, but I have to say, I am proud of all of the growth and expansion we are doing as individuals. Being able to promote, perform, and produce my solo show really gives me a lot of pride. It’s also nerve racking as ever, so thank God it continues to be successful or I might have a tiny emotional break down.

I have done a few promotional things all on my own this year: performing at The Flame, at the fringe-free-for-all, and last night when I headed to the fringe bar with some friends from another show I am in called FrAcTured (which also opened last night immediately after my fringe show) to mingle and talk with other performers. Gotta say, I feel like I’ve grown up or something. My family (the Poiema Gals) aren’t around me anymore, and so I have to carry my own torch, and I’m happy to say that I haven’t started anything on fire yet!

Its like going on your first vacation without your family, or moving away from home (which is literally what I’ve done) and noticing you're alone, but you are okay. ‘I’m a big kid now.’ ……….but thank goodness Brianne and Candice will be visiting me for two days starting Monday! ;)

 If you are in Vancouver, pop on over to Studio 16 and see ALETHEIA and FrAcTured, I am happy to say, they will probably be two of the most thought provoking plays at the Vancouver Fringe this year.

The 2013 Edmonton Fringe is underway and it has seemed to bring with it an energetic, bigger vibe compared to prior years.  I can't put my finger on what exactly is different: More people?  Happier people?  Bigger shows?  Am I just in a good mood?  I've had a number of people comment on the different feeling they've been getting this year.  They've felt more buzz, more media coverage and more people showing up on grounds and best of all, in theatres.  What I've always loved about the Edmonton Fringe is how the whole city seems to stop and pay attention to the 10 day festival that closes down streets and creates a temporary theatre district in the heart of the city.  I've been to a few other cities during Fringe time, and I can definitely say that we are very lucky to have the festival we do.  

This year, I am helping to produce Candice's one-woman show, "Anatolia Speaks", and I couldn't be more proud to not only be a part of an inspiring Kenneth Brown show, but to see Candice play the role with such honesty and heart... (not to mention all the awesome reviews she's been getting).  I am also a part of Grindstone Theatre's "The 11 O'Clock Number!", a fully improvised musical.  I am in love with this show.  Something about improvisation really gets to me...  and oddly enough, a lot of us feel even more comfortable improvising songs than scenes.  I love the shared passion all of us have, and the growing relationships with all the new friends I have made.  There's a huge sense of trust that is earned over time between actors working together, especially when improv is involved, and you need that trust in order to make big decisions and take risks and know that your peers will catch you... and rhyme with you... and dance with you.

I love Fringe.  And you should, too.  Get out there and take in the food, outdoor shows, and pick a play, a musical, or dance piece to go see.  It only comes once a year.

-B 

This one goes out to all the supporters! Everyone who comes out to watch us perform, shows up to a fundraiser, gives us a word of encouragement – This one's for you.

I’ve been doing a lot of solo performing lately - Candice also, in her one woman show "Anatolia Speaks" (soon to be performed at the Edmonton fringe) - and the both of us have had a similar experience – It gets lonely. When on stage alone, in a city where you know few people, or no people at all, even performing to a sold out crowd, you feel alone when you leave the performance by yourself.

I never realized how much having even just one friend in the audience means more than having hundreds of audience members. To me, having someone in the audience who knows me and cares about me regardless of how my performance was, is very comforting.

On a slight side tangent, this experience goes to affirm that fame will never be the measure or delight of our successes as artists. It is the individuals we meet, connect with, learn from, and maybe even are blessed enough to grow with, that really enriches our lives, brings joy, and instills a deep sense of accomplishment.

How timely that I should be having this experience just around the time that Poiema had it’s fundraiser in Edmonton. To everyone who came out, know that regardless of what $ value you contributed to the evening, what has exponential value to us as a company is your support, your belief in us as young women hoping to create meaningful theatre and bring about a change.  We really are blessed to have you in our lives; it touches our hearts all the time.


-S

       Last weekend, the four Poiema Gals and one Poiema Gal Sister took a road trip to celebrate the upcoming marriage of Melissa Heagy and Mark Blackwood.  Poiema Gals have been known to love a good surprise, and the stagette weekend was no different.  We had the entire weekend away planned and Mel had no idea where we were taking her or what we would be doing.  Our trip took us to Fernie, Lake Kookanusa, and Cranbrook.  Each day we gave Melissa clues in a vintage photo album about what was to come.  A fujifilm instant camera was the perfect accompaniment, allowing her to document the trip and fill the album as we went.  What I loved most about the weekend, was the spontaneous, unplanned fun we had.  Yes, our plans were brilliant (Japanese dinner, dancing all night, lounging by a lake) but it was the random games of grounders, the abrupt stops to go jump in a new lake, the fully-committed improvisation of songs, the impromptu heart to hearts detailing what each of us love most about the rest- these are the things I will remember.  For Monday, we had planned a 2 hour bike ride from Cranbrook to Kimberley on a beautiful trail, but awoke to thunderstorms.  No problem.  We played cards, swam in the pool playing Marco Polo and having jumping competitions, watched a movie, went to a café, and finally played the scariest game of Sardines I've ever experienced.  (Candice, your parents have a terrifyingly dark and eerie yard when the sun goes down.)  The rain didn't make us skip a beat.  "Ah well," we thought, "just an opportunity to do something else exciting."  These trips remind me how lucky I am to have the friends I do.  It makes me pause to appreciate the moments I share with them, and how important these relationships are in my life.  It was brought up on the trip how people, girls included, view women as dramatic, catty, or selfish, and how saddening this is.  Girls are great.  I hope that everyone can be surrounded by women just like the ones I have who they can laugh with, share with, and lean on.  Congratulations, Melissa!  Thank you for letting us be a part of your day!

-B

As Poiema Gals, we have been working together as a group since 2008, though we weren’t calling ourselves Poiema until 2009.  And although we consider ourselves to be a company in most senses of the word, we have not yet incorporated.

Now in our 5th year of operation, we have decided to look into becoming a society.  Lucky for us, Edmonton has fostered a lovely inter-disciplinary arts community that is interested in the success of everyone!  Edmonton artists want everyone to succeed, realizing that we aren’t competing against each other for audiences or popularity, but that the more successful someone else’s company is, the more people will continue coming out to community arts events.

So as we begin to embark on our incorporating journey, we were blessed to have Ainsley Hillyard of Good Women Dance Collective join us this past Tuesday evening at Remedy Café.  She generously shared her successes and failures with us imparting a breadth of knowledge that she spent over a year researching.  Even after our 2 hour long conversation, she continued to go the extra mile, emailing us resources and ensuring we know we are welcome to call her if we have anymore questions along the way.

Stay tuned over the next year, as Poiema starts another leg of our journey, continuously moving towards bigger and better things. We are definitely in a good company in Edmonton, what a wonderful community we have here.  I am so proud of the Edmonton arts scene!  Love you guys, may one person's success be a victory for all.

-S

While it costs quite a large dollar to go to a Ted conference, you can see them on the internet for free.  Or, if like me, you want to be in a room surrounded by hundreds of other people getting fired up and inspired by their fellow human beings, then you could head out to Pecha Kucha for only $15.

Similar to Ted Talks, there are a variety of speakers speaking on any number of topics.  The difference is, each speaker only gets 6 minutes and 20 slides each lasting roughly 20 seconds.

I attended the Vancouver chapter of Pechu Kucha with a few friends on June 13th for the first time.  The main theme was “Around The World” and featured native Vancouverites sharing the work they are doing around the world.  One guy was developing a water filter to give to families in developing nations, another volunteered at an elephant sanctuary, another was founding girls soccer clubs around the world and the list goes on.  The innovation, hard work, and what seemed to be random happenstance, came together to create something beautiful and inspirational.  These people’s small hopes to change one person's life, teach soccer, or take photos, lead to the changing of communities, countries and entire lifestyles.

Pechu Kucha has put a fire in my belly to live beyond myself, keep dreaming, and get connected to the silent voices in my heart that are leading me towards whatever it is that I will do to help better the world around me.

This all leads back to the wonderful accomplishments of people immediately in my world, like the Fashion For Freedom fundraiser that my fellow Poiema Gals pulled off with major success.  Who knows, maybe us Poiema Gals will be up on a stage at Pecha Kucha in Edmonton or Vancouver one day to talk about the things that we have been doing, and hopefully all the lives we are positively affecting.  I’m so proud of my fellow Poiemians and privileged to count myself among them.  Can’t wait to see what great things come out of your lives, ladies.  I love you so much.

Find a Pecha Kucha event near you, and be inspired. 

-S

Candice and I arrived last Sunday in London, Ontario for our first Fringe Festival of the year.  We didn't tour our show, "Middleton: a folk musical", last year and we were itching to be back on tour.  This is also the first time either of us have been to this beautiful city.  

Poiema Productions is producing Candice's one-woman show, "Anatolia Speaks", written and directed by Kenneth Brown.  We had a preview the day before we left Edmonton, and it was the first time I had seen the play.  

What a beautiful piece of theatre.  The writing is brilliant and Candice completely becomes Anatolia, an immigrant from Bosnia living in Edmonton and working at Superstore.  She shares heart-wrenching stories of the life she has left behind, as well as touching hopes and dreams of the life she has started and will continue to build.  The play puts an immigrant’s life into perspective- especially the things that happen to them before they immigrate.  We are extremely lucky to be living in Canada, free to do as we please with a surplus of food and water to fuel us as we go. Anatolia doesn't take anything for granted and celebrates the life she has now without throwing away her past.  She has every right to be an angry, cold, dark person after going through life in war-torn Bosnia and her difficult travels to get here, but instead she is uplifted, joyful, and hopeful of what is to come.  Her personality and outlook is a breath of fresh air and will capture anyone she shares her story with.  

We opened the show last night and it went great!  Our audience was responsive and Candice received a standing ovation, well deserved I might add.  We were in a wonderful article about Ken Brown (and the 5 shows he's involved in here) and put in the list of the top 10 buzzed about shows in the London Free Press so I'd say we are off to a great start here in London!  It doesn't hurt that the show is written by Ken Brown, not only our teacher and mentor, but also the man who has taken part in the Fringe Festival since the year after it's creation.  He has written or co-written over 30 produced plays!  It is a huge honour to produce one of his shows.  

London has been so good to us and we are sure it will continue to show its love throughout the Fringe.  Break legs everyone!

-B

---Other shows to check out at the London Fringe: "Minding Dad", "Grumpus Gets Revenge", "Be A Man", & "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea"

Two Thursdays ago, I started my long 1206 km journey to the Sasquatch Music Festival in the Gorge Amphitheatre, Washington.  Packed into the Toyota Matrix along side me was my wonderful boyfriend, a tent, some clothes, and a bunch of disposable cameras, ready for a weekend celebrating music with other like-minded people.  This was my first camping festival I had ever been to and I wasn't sure what to expect.  I pictured lying on the grass on a blanket in the warm sun in front of a gigantic stage soaking in all my favorite songs.  I wasn't too far off.  Other than being relatively unprepared for the camping portion- forgetting rain gear, cooking tools, warm clothing, and games/books to keep me occupied during the day- it was a magical weekend.  

The campsite is a short trek away from the festival grounds and so when Friday arrived, we joined the herd of people excitedly walking the marked trail.  As we entered the gates, I could see we had arrived; we had made it to Sasquatch!  But it wasn't until we stood at the top of the hill that it really hit me, looking down on the lawn, the stage, and behind it- the Gorge.  Tears came to my eyes at the beauty of it all.  The grass plunged down the hill to the huge stage and the view was breathtaking.  The Gorge had beautiful walls of rock surrounding waters that were calm and still except for the occasional boat or sea-doo carving the glass.  

Music.  Here are some of the bands I got to see:  Vampire Weekend, Bloc Party, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Dropkick Murphys, Postal Service, The XX, The Lumineers, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Elvis Costello, and best of all... MUMFORD & SONS!  I had caught their Rexall Place show the day before I left Edmonton, and seeing them only made me more excited to watch them again at Sasquatch.  We started making our way to the front about three hours before they were scheduled to take the stage.  Luckily, we were surrounded by very friendly people we could chat, laugh, and rap with.  That's one thing about Sasquatch: you meet tons of great people.  Mumford & Sons did not disappoint.  Seeing them up close was amazing.  I love seeing a band enjoying themselves on stage.  I like to know that they are having as much fun as the audience is.  I sang the words to every song and jumped and clapped along with the whole mass of people who have been touched by their music.  It was one of the best experiences of my life.  

So yes, the port-a-potties (their brand of choice was Honey Buckets) and the rain and the chilly weather was no expense when it came to the once-in-a-lifetime experience I had.  I'd like to give a special thank you to my boyfriend, David Dempsey, for going out of his way to get me to the front for Mumford & Sons, and for making sure I had one of the best weekends of my life.  

-B

I just watched this video this morning and it brought me to tears. The ability of those two humans bodies is unreal, but it’s also the trust that they have in each other. The hours they must have spent in the studio developing that routine is incredible, YEARS I’m sure.

But even before they met one another, their parents put them in dance class. Or perhaps they had to pay for it themselves because their parents didn’t support it. Then they chose to take the risky, sometimes thankless path of becoming an artist, because you can’t develop a skill like that on the weekends, or a few hours in the evening during the week. Becoming that talented at something means giving up so much, and dedicating your life to your art.

Still, what you gain is worth it. Whenever I create something with others, from nothing, we develop a relationship. That relationship, like any other comes and goes with time, but in that space for whatever amount of time you hold it, there is the deepest connection you have ever felt. You connect so deeply with who you are, and with the other people in your midst partly because of trust, and partly just this magical, subconscious, consciousness, creation-thingy-bondy, indescribable something seems to happen. In that space in time you are a community, where everyone is contributing by just being and bringing who they are to the table.

As our world gets larger and people spend more time connecting online, I feel, and I know others I have talked to feel the same as well: that what we crave above all else and hidden under all the crap, is connection, a sense of belonging, community. But it’s hard to find in a world that revolves around your face and a screen. You need human to human contact.

So art, giving people the space to create something out of nothing, even if they do it just in their spare time and never as a career, is more important as our culture moves towards more introverted lifestyles. In this video the performers and the audience were engaged and created a community for just 6 minutes, but the time is irrelevant, because you measure this experience in feeling. Seeing the faces in the audience, you see how moved they are, and I, watching this was brought to tears, as those two artists reminded all of us of how beautiful creation is and how majestic and breathtaking it is just to be alive, in these glorious bodies.

THANK YOU ART! 

- S