{"id":3116,"date":"2018-10-04T14:40:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T18:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.playwrights.ca\/?p=3116"},"modified":"2019-11-19T10:18:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:18:42","slug":"lois-brown-on-genius-paper-and-microphones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.playwrights.ca\/fr\/2018\/10\/04\/lois-brown-on-genius-paper-and-microphones\/","title":{"rendered":"Lois Brown on Genius, Paper and Microphones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lire l\u2019article en fran\u00e7ais<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

By Harris Frost<\/p>\n

Interdisciplinary artist Lois Brown is currently rehearsing her new piece I Am A Genius Does Anyone Here Know Me?<\/em>. The piece was developed with dramaturg and PWM artistic director Emma Tibaldo and dance dramaturg Thea Patterson. Lois spoke with us in July during her studio residency at PWM.<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> The piece you\u2019re working on with us right now is called I Am A Genius Does Anyone Here Know Me?<\/em>, could you tell us a little bit about it?<\/p>\n

Lois Brown:<\/strong> It\u2019s gone through a couple different iterations. A couple of years ago I was calling it The Papers Improvisation. And even before that, its roots go back to when I was an artist-in-residence here at PWM. I used to write my thoughts down on paper every morning. And then I started getting more interested in the qualities of the paper and playing with it. That then lead to me becoming interested in different objects and what they might do if I tried my best not to act on them. And also I wanted to play with the microphone, so it turned into a sonic relationship.<\/p>\n

Now, at this residency, I brought in the composer whom I\u2019ve wanted to collaborate with for a long time. This is our first time working together. And because so much of this piece is based on the sonic relationships between different objects, it\u2019s been really exciting to have him here.<\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> You\u2019ve described this piece as a combination of improvised  and scripted elements.<\/p>\n

Lois Brown:<\/strong> Yeah, there are some things that I know that want to talk about. For example, I\u2019m talking about the value of playing aimlessly. Being able to realize the genius in things when you\u2019re not just focused on what their functions are. So I want to combine some of my skills in writing and structuring things in a theatrical way with my interest in the way that dance practitioners choreograph pieces. I\u2019m improvising because I don\u2019t really know what the paper will do when I do something to it, but I\u2019ve worked with it so long that I have a good idea of what it might do.<\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> How did you first become involved with PWM?<\/p>\n

Lois Brown: I came here first for a very short time, through a grant from Canada Council, back when Paul Dankert was the Artistic Director. And then, several years later after I had had an accident, Emma, who was just taking over from Greg MacArthur offered me the opportunity to be the Artist in Residence. That came at the right time for me, because I wasn\u2019t able to get around after my accident. I\u2019ve become really attached to this organization because it\u2019s helped me so much and it\u2019s become a sort of home for me.<\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> And is that experience part of the reason you\u2019ve chosen to collaborate with us on this piece?<\/p>\n

Lois Brown:<\/strong> Yeah, but also, strangely, in my community in Newfoundland, there are very few resources available to a small, independent artist. So for me to come to Montreal to rehearse is actually easier and less expensive than if I were to stay in my own city in Newfoundland.<\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> How has it been working with your composer\/collaborator James O\u2019Callaghan over this week? Especially since you\u2019re involving someone new in a project that you\u2019ve been working on alone for so long.<\/p>\n

Lois Brown:<\/strong> It\u2019s really scary, yeah. Before James came in I had a meeting with Thea [Patterson] and we laid out some of the principles on which the piece was developed, what my ideas were and what I wanted my relationship to the things to be. And then, with James we started by just going through all the different objects and playing with them separately. So I would show him what I had been doing with a particular object and then he would get up and start playing with the object himself. What he did was quite different and much more sonically sophisticated.<\/p>\n

PWM:<\/strong> Could you speak a little about the title of the piece? How does it tie into what you\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n

Lois Brown:<\/strong> Well, we all learn in grade school everything is made up of the same stuff, the same matter. So I use that fact as a jumping off point to examine the way in which I\u2019m trying to control things that happen. So for example, I\u2019m trying to tell a story with the plastic bags but if the plastic bags do something by themselves, then that becomes more important than whatever story I\u2019m trying to tell.<\/p>\n

And also my dad used to wear a pin that said \u201cI am a genius\u201d as joke, although maybe he thought he really was a genius. He really enjoyed that you never know what type of person actually is a genius. So I guess I just think that everybody\u2019s a genius really. But also, I want to explore the connection between genius and memory. You can appear to be really smart just because you can remember a lot of things.<\/p>\n

I Am A Genius Does Anyone Here Know Me?<\/em> will be performed at the Festival of New Dance<\/a> in St. John\u2019s on October 4th.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lire l\u2019article en fran\u00e7ais By Harris Frost Interdisciplinary artist Lois Brown is currently rehearsing her new piece I Am A Genius Does Anyone Here Know Me?. The piece was developed with dramaturg and PWM artistic director Emma Tibaldo and dance dramaturg Thea Patterson. Lois spoke with us in July during her studio residency at PWM. … <\/p>\n

Continuer la lecture de « Lois Brown on Genius, Paper and Microphones »<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews-en"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.playwrights.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/PWM-Interview-with-Lois-Brown_web_final.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Harris 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