Mermaid Spring
The SCA's Kyla Gardiner (MFA alumni and Assistant Professor in the Theatre Production & Design area) and Barbara Adler (MFA alumni and SCA Professional Development Coordinator), working with musician James Meger, are developing a new collaborative project called Mermaid Spring, and they've invited everyone to catch an early 'workshop' version of the work.
Here's the full press release:
SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, Barking Sphinx Performance Society & Sawdust Collector present
Mermaid Spring: Workshop Showing #1
a new serialized musical co-created by Kyla Gardiner, Barbara Adler, James Meger
with compositions by Peggy Lee & Leah Abramson
Featuring: Amanda Sum, Emma Postl, Lucien Durey, Megan Stewart, Hilary Ison, and Emily Millard (voice) & Alicia Hansen (piano)
Door 7:30 PM | Show 8:00 PM
Free Admission / Cash Refreshments
ABOUT
Mermaid Spring is an upcoming serialized musical in co-creation by designer and performance maker Kyla Gardiner, writer Barbara Adler and musical director/producer James Meger, featuring compositions by Peggy Lee and Leah Abramson. Over three episodes of live theatre, Mermaid Spring will tell the story of Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida –– a real-life deep water springs attraction where since 1947, women have donned mermaid tails to perform underwater shows. From our vantage point in the Pacific Northwest, Florida is chimeric; an unlikely land of working mermaids and orchid smugglers, vanishing plume birds and nursery-bred palm trees, gator wrestlers and engineered swamps. As in British Columbia’s lower mainland, Florida’s unique landscapes and climate inspire environmentally destructive and gentrifying land-use projects. Astonishing ecosystems exist as unsettling hybrids with tacky tourism, development schemes, and agro-business, selling nostalgia for what they will soon displace. Equal parts pleasure and panic, investigating Florida helps us ask: how is our enjoyment of a place complicit in its destruction?
We invite you to hear music in progress from Episodes 1 & 2, with compositions by Peggy Lee and Leah Abramson and lyrics and book by Barbara Adler. We will share images from our initial visit to Weeki Wachee as well as a short design presentation, framing our research into design-led creation, deep co-creation and eco-design.
The full production of Mermaid Spring is planned for 2020/2021 at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Episodes are currently planned for December 2020, June 2021 and December 2021.
IMAGE: a fashion photograph taken at Weeki Wachee spring, by Toni Frissell, first published in Harper's Bazaar, December 1947. Design by Barbara Adler.
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Our work takes place in Vancouver on traditional and unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish),Stó:lō and səlil̓wətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We are grateful for this place.
We gratefully acknowledge our producing partners, SFU School for the Contemporary Arts and Barking Sphinx Performance Society. Sawdust Collector is a producing partner for this workshop showing.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
We thank the Hamber Foundation for their support of this workshop.
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ACCESSIBILITY INFO FOR THE GOLD SAUCER STUDIO
The front door is located at 207 W. Hastings. There is one stair between the sidewalk and the building level. The studio is located on the second floor and is accessible by elevator. Seating is informal. There is one single-occupancy, gender-inclusive washroom on the second floor, accessible by key. We are a trans-inclusive space.
If you have any questions about accessing the space or our showing, please contact us at tenthousandwolves@gmail.com.