Festival 2012: Schedule

SATURDAY Workshop Time Change: UNDER THE INFLUENCE- A WHIRLING WORKSHOP WITH TANYA EVANSON NOW STARTS AT 10AM

Thursday, February 16, 7:30 p.m. - Evening Mainstage

Batter Up! Baseball stories with Joëlle Anthony and George Bowering

Host: Barbara Adler

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Join two of our favourite heavy hitters on opening night for a double header that's all about writing and baseball. Your host for the evening will be rock-star accordionist Barbara Adler.

Joëlle Anthony Women in the Line-Up

Through a series of fictional characters, true stories, and a blending of both, writer and performer Joëlle Anthony explores women’s roles in baseball. From true-blue hardcore fans to scorekeepers, Little League moms, baseball wives, and the ladies who run the concession stand, women participate in a sport played by, run by, and announced by men. Why do women love something that excludes them so wholeheartedly from the actual game? And how could baseball function without them? These are some of the themes in Joëlle’s collection, Women in the Line-up.

George Bowering The Diamond Alphabet Book

George Bowering is fond of baseball, and he likes the alphabet. Having written a few baseball books and a few alphabet books over the years, he decided to write a baseball alphabet book. The Diamond Alphabet is made up of 130 between-innings takes, five for each letter. You probably expected "Mays", but were you ready for "Uzbekistan"? Tall tales, memories, facts, and opinions are interwoven in this delightful collection of short takes on the gentleman's game that demonstrates the full potential of the relationship between baseball and literature.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. - sharp!

Friday, February 17, 7:30 p.m. - Evening Mainstage

You're An Animal! Fantastic creatures with Jordan Scott, Cat Kidd and Fang

Host: Drek Daa

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

From a Gabriolan alteration of Darwin's On The Origin of Species, to a rock accordion alphabet suite, to a woman who has transformed herself into a hyena, this evening promises to bring out the beast in you. Your host is Drek Daa, last seen on Gabriola dressed as a fish.

Jordan Scott DE COMP

In 2010 Jordan Scott and his collaborator Stephen Collis traveled to five distinct BC ecosystems: the Coastal Rainforest, the Fraser River Delta/Vancouver, the Carribou/Chilcotin, the Rocky Mountains, and the North. In each ecosystem a copy of Charles Darwin’s On The The Origin of Species was placed in an outdoor location and left there for one year. The Coastal Rainforest location was Gabriola Island. Jordan will perform excerpts from Darwin's text that the environment of Gabriola 'selected'. Commissioned by Poetry Gabriola through the BC Arts Council.

Cat Kidd Hyena Subpoena

Excerpts from highly acclaimed Montreal writer and spoken-word artist, Cat Kidd's new solo multimedia creation, Hyena Subpoena. Set in a campsite in South Africa's famed Kruger Park, the show is a series of stories told by activist and poet Mona Morse, who has fled civilization for the bushveld. Postcards home claim she's transformed herself into a hyena.

Fang Beast Pieces

Barbara Adler has created a new performance piece about animals for every letter of the alphabet. Did you know that swans have teeth? Neither did Barbara, until she started on this project. Beast Pieces is a word-and-accordion mash-up created for and performed by Fang, Vancouver's most famous (and only) accordion rock band.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. - sharp!

Saturday, February 18th - Daytime Events

10:00 a.m - 11:00 am

Under The Influence- A Whirling Workshop with Tanya Evanson

This workshop will explore the intoxication that comes from drinking the wine of a different tavern. It is an introduction to Sema, the ‘dance’ of the Whirling Dervishes, whose inspiration comes from Persian mystic philosopher and poet Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. It will focus on whirling as active meditation and include history, Sufi poetry and music, unique exercises and instruction. Requirements: passion, patience, relaxed clothing and good socks. Bring a mat or cushion for sitting meditation. Warning: some people may leave slightly intoxicated.

In the Main Theatre. $15 at the door.

12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Knock-Knock, Who's There?

Knock-Knock, Who's There? is a free, site-specific, multi-artist installation designed to take place in the 11 tiny sleeping cabins on the gorgeous, oceanside grounds of the Dragon's Lodge. From 12:30pm until 2:00pm on Saturday, February 18 and Sunday February 19, the audience is invited to fan out into the forest and start knocking on cabin doors. Each of the 11 cabins will be occupied by one or more artists ready to have a close encounter. Poets, spoken word and performance artists, musicians, and even an occasional juggler collaborate to bring you Gabriola's most complex knock-knock joke. This FREE family-friendly event was a huge hit last year, featuring amazing performances that were poignant, funny, and surprising. To participate, meet at the foyer of the Dragon's Lodge on Saturday and Sunday at 1:00pm.

On the Grounds of the Dragon's Lodge. FREE event.

3:00 p.m.

Salon #1: Character Study with TL Cowan and Cat Kidd

Cat Kidd and TL Cowan have a lot in common: they are both spoken-word artists, writers, performers and directors. They have each created several original feature-length works and toured them extensively. They both have plenty of experience and great track records, and each of these artists has honed a unique performance style that incorporates specific personae. Salon #1 is an informal discussion about the use of character and other techniques that facilitate expression.

Dragon's Lodge Salon Room, $10 at the door.

Saturday, February 18 at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Mainstage

How Can I Say This? Distinct articulations with TL Cowan, Adeena Karasick, Tanya Evanson and CR Avery.

Host: TBA

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Innovative ideas demand ingenious strategies. How Can I Say This? showcases four aesthetically diverse artists, each completely committed to developing a unique voice in the search for artistic expression.

Writer, performer, cabaret artist, political activist, and feminista TL Cowan travels with a panoply of extra personalities. Tonight she invites her audience out on a date with one of her favourite alter-egos.

Adeena Karasick's writing has been described as "electricity in language". Her gritty, beautiful aesthetic and complex wordplay fully engage with the art of turbulent thinking - creating linguistic havoc wherever she goes.

Multilingual poet, spoken-word artist, vocalist, arts advocate and classically trained whirling dervish, Tanya Evanson transcends ordinary ideas of poetry in performance, lifting the spirit and invigorating the word.

Every C.R. Avery set is an all-or-nothing affair, and we're thrilled to have him back on Gabriola as one of our commissioned artists. What better way to close out Saturday night than fearlessly, with great music, provocative words, and whatever else he might get up to...

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. - sharp!

Sunday, February 19 - Daytime Events

11:00 a.m.

Salon #2: What Comes to Mind with Susan Musgrave and Gregory Scofield

Gregory Scofield is one of Canada's leading Aboriginal writers, known for a unique reading style that blends oral storytelling, song, spoken word and the Cree language. In the April 2003 edition of Playboy, Susan Musgrave is referred to as "one of the most beautiful and interesting women on the planet". Join two of Canada's most perceptive poets in this free-range conversation.

12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Knock-Knock, Who's There?

On the Grounds of the Dragon's Lodge. FREE event.

3:00 p.m.

Salon #3: Enter the Laboratory with Adeena Karasick and Jordan Scott

Adeena Karasick and Jordan Scott are both powerful poets who have spent their careers deeply involved with the tactility of language. Adeena's linguistically provocative, philosophically complex wordplay is a testament to the creative and regenerative power of language and its infinite possibilities for pushing meaning to the limits of its semantic boundaries. Jordan is the author of Silt (2005) and Blert (2008), the latter of which explores the poetics of stuttering. His areas of poetic inquiry are speech disfluencies, interrogation, found archives, and decompositions. Join Adeena and Jordan in the Poetry Gabriola Laboratory for a discussion of experimental language.

Dragon's Lodge Salon Room, $10 at the door.

Sunday, February 19 at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Mainstage

Take Me To This Place

with Tim Lander, Susan Musgrave, Gregory Scofield, and Tanya Davis

Host:TBA

Mainstage Theatre. Tix $16.

Take Me To This Place is the final night of the festival, an evening that celebrates poetry of place, of passages, of lives lived, and of new beginnings. This is poetry that takes us down intimate paths, recognizing landmarks, through maps devised by the hands and minds of artists.

Nanaimo poet Tim Lander takes us on a dark trespass where

The future

is a hard dusty road

through shabby streets

and worn out

strip development

on the edge of the city...

Susan Musgrave is our guide on a tour of Questions You Might Ask, offering invaluable advice towards the negotiation of tricky encounters with retail clerks, border patrol guards, automated message services, and overzealous fans.

Gregory Scofield's ancestry can be traced back to the fur trade and to the Metis community of Kinosota, Manitoba, established in 1828 by the Hudson's Bay Company. His moving, beautiful language moves backwards and forwards in time, taking his audience with him, into the present.

Closing the evening and the festival is the poet who has traveled the farthest, Tanya Davis, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. This accomplished artist's career is taking off, as indicated by her hit videopoem How To Be Alone - which has had more than 3.5 million YouTube hits since it went viral one year ago.

Note: Mingle! Wine Bar opens at 6:30 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.- sharp!