Livestreamed from The Bus Stop Theatre’s stage to be watched virtually, Nov 5-6, tickets are $15, tune in to nac-cna.ca/en/event/29336
It’s true that a thing cannot be defined by what it is not, but that didn’t stop Halifax’s indie theatre scene from stripping its art form to the core foundations during COVID-19. Without a traditional audience or stage, theatre-makers like Aaron Collier and his Frequencies collaborators Stewart Legere and Francesca Ekwuyasi put forth abstract new visions of what theatre can be—and what it is already. Now, the National Arts Centre is helping Collier and Co. restage their pandemic hit from The Bus Stop’s newly renovated theatre as a livestream spectacular, calling the show “one of the most exciting inventions to have emerged from livestreamed theatre.” The play will be viewable from your phone screen, yes, but still worth the watch.
Collier’s company, HEIST Live Art, has made a name for itself by blending technology and theatre since its breakout 2016 Halifax Fringe Festival play The Princess Show, which went on to win Best of The Fest (and is currently in the running for the 2021 Nova Scotia Masterworks Award, the largest cultural prize in the province). “We had already invested a significant amount of our time and energy into figuring out how to make sort of 3D digital worlds and these fantasy drag performances in the digital domain,” Collier told The Coast last summer in an interview on how the city’s indie theatre vanguard was changing the game during COVID. “So at that point we thought…'maybe there’s something in this.’ Now, here we are, trying to discover if there’s something in this.”
It looks like there is.
