Lisa Lipton works with many moving parts. There's her drumming practice, developing since 2011 and showcased as the marquee exhibit BLAST BEATS at Nocturne 2012. There's the film she's making, The Impossible Blue Rose, which she's been writing, filming and assembling on the road from California to Windsor, Ontario.
Unlike most features, which are unveiled as a whole, Lipton has been presenting each scene as a phase. On the afternoon of OBEY's closing day, she'll present the sixth one, Greysville, at the Greysville Meets Paradise event at the Bus Stop Theatre–while a basketball game goes off down the street.
"I came home and ended up at my parents' house and I didn't intend to stay there but I did," says Lipton of her Lower Sackville address, a decidedly less glamourous location than, say, Death Valley, California (trans DEATH, scene two) or less appealingly rural than Fairfield, Iowa (LOVE LETTERS, scene three). "I'm calling it a docufiction–it's based on reality and but informed," she says of the plot. ("Within my film, these expressions expose the crossing of mediums and artistic disciplines, specifically the fields of painting, sculpture, performance, theatre, writing, directing, filming, shooting, editing, sound and genres of music," she writes on her site at frankiefrankie.com. "The boundaries of their definitions are placed into question as sculptures and site-specific installations become props and sets, and as live performances are captured on film as acted scenes.")
There will also be "a basketball game being played by some people who have been involved in the project, and I rounded up a few members of my high school basketball team," says Lipton. "There's a lot of stuff embedded in being 16 years old and existential crises and disbelief in love." The game itself–team captains will be Flag on the Play's Paul Doucette and real former high school bball star Garnet Estabrooks–"an extension of the story that's gonna be happening down the street, but you have to choose which thing you wanna go to. You could potentially go to both but there's no way to see everything, which is intentional."
The game will be broadcast on CKDU. "I wanna see where things go and who gets a piece of what and how," says Lipton, who admits she has no idea how any of the enterprise will go. "I can only control so much, but a lot of this will rely on technology and people showing up, things happening–I can only time it as much as I possibly can. There'll be a give and a take. I'm playing with time to the best of my ability, and if it works out," she says, laughing, "then I win."
Sunday, May 25 at 4pm
Bus Stop Theatre
