Saturday 31 May 2014

Portraits of An Imagined Past



The Portraits of An Imagined Past explores individual ancestry, identity and memory through the making and performing of a series of “living portraits.” Participants/artists investigated their personal histories, identified a person of interest from their past, and then researched this person to embody them in the present. They use imagination, interpretation and memory as tools to reconstruct the lives and stories of their family members, and in this process reveal their own perspective of who they are, set against the backdrops of their histories.
Concept and Project Leader: Sean Frey
In collaboration with the Community Arts Guild
Lead Artists: Sonja Rainey (design and lead), Beth Helmers (performance and lead), Sharada Eswar (story telling and performance). Arber Makri (painting and building).
Assisting Artists: Thomas Truman John, Andrea Thring, Bill Livingston, Molly McGregor, Dave McNiven

Sulogini S. as Sothynathan, her husband
P. Parameswary as  Sinnappusubramainiam, her father 1951
Yasmeen Safawi as her mother, Adawia Aziz
Afroza Parvin as Anwara Begum, her mother, 1968



Pathma M. as Radnam Thiagarajah, her mother, 1954

Karis Jones-Pard as Joan Phillip, her grandmother, 1969
Komathy Sarah as Subramaniam Arumugam, her grandfather, 1942






Friday 30 May 2014

The Water Thief


The Water Thief is an interdisciplinary performance project conceived by Sean Frey and Amy Siegel, that layers film, live performance, music and projection art. This “living film” is set in an abandoned East Coast town, where Charon maintains a clepsydra (trans. ‘water thief’), a giant clock run by water. Over three nights, he is visited by a whale and spirits from his past. On the final night, Charon enters the whale and is completely immersed in the vivid and wild world of the afterlife.

Performing at SummerWorks Festival, August 2014.

Funded by The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.
Bertholet Charron as Charon, film still


Betholet's Shadow, film still
The Water Clock, film still

Thursday 1 May 2014

Small, Sweet And Quiet

Here are some shadow puppets that I created for Lisa Pijuan-Nomura's show Small, Sweet and Quiet. Performed at Theatre Aquarius in 2014.