Tag Archives: 2015 PuSH Festival

Dark Matter at Vancouver’s (Canada) PUSH Festival, Jan. 28 – 30, 2015

With a title like Dark Matter, my expectation is for an art/science theatrical piece but the performance description makes a murky mess of my expectation (from the 2015 PuSH Festival’s Dark Matter webpage on the Simon Fraser University website; Note: A link has been removed),

Like so much good art, Dark Matter defies categorization. Creator Kate McIntosh takes the weightiest issues—time, space and existence—and turns them into wild, anarchic play. You might call this a musical about the universe—the one we know and others that may exist. Or you might say it’s an exploration of the mind/body problem—with the emphasis on bodies. It has billowing smoke, propulsive percussion, powerful symbolism and crazy dance. A woman stands before you with a mic and asks questions, some of which have no answer. You can think about them while you’re watching the universe being poured into a glass, darkness coming out of a paper bag, dancers being dragged across the stage with lassoes. What does it all add up to? The answer will be different for everyone, but one thing’s for sure: no one will emerge unshaken. With her two performance partners, McIntosh has produced a triumph of physical performance, of theatrical conjecture, and, most of all, of imagination.

Here’s a Dark Matter trailer McIntosh has made available,

The show seems to have had its start in 2009 when the science aspect was more explicitly part of the performance, from McIntosh’s Spin website (Performances webpage),

Dark Matter a performance from Kate McIntosh hosted by a woman in a spotlight, dressed in a sparkling dress and a long grey beard. With the help of two assistants, some small strange dances and a few materials you might or might not have at home, Dark Matter approaches the big scientific-philosophical questions in a full-on show-biz late-night theatre style, illustrating these knotty conundrums – time and gravity, being and not being, thought and the body – through what look suspiciously like a series of improvised home-science experiments.

There’s also a Nov. 22, 2009 review of that Dark Matter version on the Utopia Parkway blog (Note: A link has been removed),

A parallel universe. It’s always nice when a performer succeeds in taking you there. Some silly jokes delivered with a straight face, a couple of scientific experiments going wrong in the best Tommy Cooper-tradition, a leading lady pretending to be in control of everything, and a story taking a few absurd turns. That’s how Kate McIntosh won me over. And of course it always helps to throw in some balloons and twinkling stars too.

Intriguing, non? Although the show has likely undergone some changes over the years. In any case, here are the logistical details for the event in Vancouver, From the 2015 PuSH Festival Dark Matter webpage,

Venue
Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver (Level B2)


When
January 28–30 (2015)
80 Minutes (No intermission)

Tickets
$36

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, there will be a post-performance artist’s talk at the Scotiabank Dance Centre (the talk is included free with the performance on Jan. 29). You can get more details about the talk at PuSH Conversations webpage. The moderator for the session, Maiko Bae Yamamoto is the Artistic Director of Vancouver-based Theatre/Replacement.