MERCERAMA
Performance/Dance/Film by various artists
Various Media
East and West Galleries

Canadian Artists

PRESS RELEASE

Mercer Union will be hosting three weeks of 'Performance' by artists, choreographers, musicians, and film-makers. Both the East and West galleries will be given over to interdisciplinary performers from Montreal, Toronto, and New York, providing the opportunity for them to rehearse, hold workshops, and give performances and screenings.

These intensive three weeks will hopefully induce and create a forum for encounter and interaction among the performers themselves, and the public.

Johanna HousehoIder and Frances Leeming
April 18, 8:00 pm

"See Home Run"', choreographed and performed by Householder and Leeming, is third in a trilogy of micro-dramas following "Home on the Rage" and "If you lived here you'd be home now" (performed last Nov. at Mercer Union, and in San Francisco in Dec., 1982). "See Home Run" features two women and a mansion suspended in a small but active universe (with the ever-present jungle just beyond the garden gate).

"The most original of the evening was "Home on the Rage", a genuine constructivist theatre piece...ominously close to a destructivist piece." and "wonderful". --Steven Godfrey Globe and Mail Apr. 15

Mary Jane Leach
April 19, 8:OO pm

"Songs for Light and Voice". This multi-media artist/composer/performer explores aspects of voice, movement and light, creating a synthesis of these elements. "I want to release sound/music from its tendency to be visually static in performance."

CeciIia Varga
April 20, 8:OO pm

Plane Jane/Moto Kind" a multi-media performance.

"I am the sole performer realising both the personas of Plane Jane and Moto Kind, the two moods fused together with a strong use of shadow, light, history and time." With soundtrack and costumes by the performer.

Ted Dawson and Suzy Lake
Risquet
April 21, 8:00 pm

Composer and mixed-media artist Ted Dawson presents 'Joint Actions' for dancer (Dena Davida) and double-bass player David Lee), and "The Clouds Of Magellan" -- "my first experimental mixed-media work (first non-musical work), a collaboration with visual artist Suzy Lake. The title refers to our nearest star cluster--a galaxy outside our own as a symbolic goal--artistic goal of stepping outside my traditional roots. "

After an intermission, Risquet performs "free" jazz improvisation, featuring David Lee, David Prentice, and Larry Potter.

Raphael Bendahan
Dena Davida
Vincent Dostaler
PauIa Ravitz
April 22, 8:OOpm

Raphael Bendahan, photographer and film-maker, in collaboration with Dena Davida, co-director of Quebec's Tangents, and Vincent Dostaler, founding member of La Chaloupe, present "Tocada":

"In Spanish the verb tocar means to touch, to play, to belong. A tocador is one who touches and plays. Tocada also means to take the NADA out of CANADA but still DAnce. TO touch, in CAnada, and DAnce = TOCADA. "

Dena Davida performs "Not Exactly With Difficulty But With Effort" choreographed by Paula Ravitz of T. I. D. E.

"This is a structured/scored improvisation which is a series of tasks and images around glass."
With music conceived and directed by Ted Dawson, is performed by Eric Cadesky.

Silvy Panet-Raymond April 23, 8:00 pm

This dance/performance artist and co-founder of Tangents in Montreal, presents a new, full-length work, "Changing Scales". Playing on the triple pun of shedding skins, shifting perspectives, and fluctuations of pitch and tonal centres, the piece alternates between the dreaminess of fading images and the sharp clear reality of impact. In addition to the two performances April 23 and April 24, Panet-Raymond will give a workshop, April 24, at 2:00pm.

Notations
April 26-30

An exhibition of music and choreographic notation with a focus on works by those who will be featured in MERCERAMA, and those who have performed or will be performing on 5 CONCERTS at Mercer Union.

The Glass Orchestra (Paul Hodge, Miguel Frasconi, Eric Cadesky, and Gordon Phillips) will present concerts on April 2B, 29, and 30 at 8:00pm, and a workshop on April 27 at 2:00pm.

"'The Glass Orchestra demonstrates both the aesthetic and functional properties of glass as a medium. . . Torontos Glass Orchestra manages the rare feat of making New Music enjoyable. " -Die Welt, Rerl in.

A week devoted to performance, film, and installation by students and graduates of the Ontario College of Art, curated by John McKinnon.

Installation by Brian Gee and Adrianne Trent.

Two evenings of performance:

"Performations" Two evenings of explorations by individuals of the diverse sensibilities of the performance vocabulary.

"Everything from an American middle class melodrama to a pre-verbal approach to language."

An evening of performance and fiIm featuring Edward Lam (performance), Christian Morrison (film), and Deborah Moss (film).