hum – She’s Gone Away

View a 30-second glimpse of the show on YouTube.

A woman in the fragmented home of her mind battles to stay in her body. She spins us through a continuous cycle of animal states that simultaneously provide both the escape from and the clues back to her integrated self. She’s Gone Away is a highly charged physical and emotional journey that throws us into the depths of voracity, bravado, dread, despair, and release. It takes dance into the territory between sound and movement, from which a new sensory language emerges.

She’s Gone Away is the latest work by the innovative interdisciplinary dance company hum, known for its powerfully communicative and transformative performances, rooted in emotion, that connect with audiences on a fundamentally human level. Artistic Director and performer Susanna Hood and composer/musician Nilan Perera are widely acclaimed for collaborations that see Perera taking part as another performer, manipulating voices, instruments and pre-recorded sound as the work unfolds on stage. Their stay in Peterborough offers audiences and artists an unprecedented opportunity to get an inside look at their process, including a master class with Hood and Perera, an open rehearsal of the work, and a number of talks given by or moderated by dance writer Sara Porter.

“Hood rivets the eye, and her performances are like a primal scream.”
~ Paula Citron, Classical 96.3 FM

“Whatever has taken possession of Susanna Hood makes for a riveting, if disturbing and even repelling performance.”
~ Toronto Star

SOUND/MOVEMENT INTERDISCIPLINARY CREATION WORKSHOP
Master Class with Susanna Hood and Nilan Perera from hum
Mon. Jan. 29 and Tues. Jan. 30
7pm – 10pm.
Knox United Church
400 Wolfe Street, Peterborough
(enter through side door)

Attention dancers, sound artists, actors, musicians, performance artists, composers, choreographers, movers and artists from other disciplines interested in performance creation. A rare opportunity to learn from two artists on the leading edge of interdisciplinary performance.

This two-part workshop draws on elements of the collaborative process that has built much of the hum repertoire. At the heart of this process are tools for facilitating the meeting of movement and music through improvisation, where the two forms inform rather than accompany each other. This template for integrated creation between dance and sound can then be extended to include other disciplines such as visual arts or writing. Participants are encouraged to bring all their skills and tools into the act of creation.

Each workshop begins with a warm-up that weaves vocal exercises with games in rhythm and sound improvisation. The session then moves into a broader exploration of strategies for interdisciplinary creation. It is suitable for artists working in any discipline who have an interest in creating interdisciplinary performance.

This is a two-part workshop, attendance at both sessions is required.
Fee: $20. Limited room, register by calling Public Energy at 745-1788.

Talk-Back
with Susanna Hood, Nilan Perera and Sara Porter
February 1, following performance
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre

Pre-Show Chat
with Sara Porter
February 2, 7:15pm, prior to performance
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre

Susanna Hood (Choreographer/Performer)
Susanna Hood is a compelling and virtuosic performer in dance and music. She began her career as a member of the Toronto Dance Theatre from 1991 through 1995. Independently, she has performed the works of various Toronto choreographers, created singing/dancing roles with Autumn Leaf Performance, acted on film for filmmaker Philip Barker, created music for the dance works of Louis Laberge Coté, Rebecca Todd and Eryn Dace Trudell, collaborated extensively with composers John Oswald and Nilan Perera, and performed widely as an improviser both in dance and music. Her collaborative projects as
well as her own choreography and music compositions have been presented throughout Toronto, nationally, and nternationally on stage and in film since 1991. In the fall of 1998, she was one of two recipients of the K.M. Hunter Emerging Artists Awards in Dance. In June of 2006, Susanna received a Dora Mavor Moore award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for her performance in hum’s latest creation, she’s gone away.

Nilan Perera (Composer/Musician)
In the past 19 years, Nilan Perera has been active in some of the most forward looking, influential and radical Canadian ensembles including NOMA, Bill Grove’s Not King Fudge, Handslang and the Excalceolators. He has also performed and recorded with John Butcher, Evan Parker, Vinnie Golia, Don Preston, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Glen Hall, John Oswald, Sarah Peebles and Michael Ondaatje. His decade-long association with guitarist/composer and iconoclast Rainer Wiens has led him into the world of dance/theatre as composer/performer/instrumentalist with Wiens and Jan Komarek in Sound Image Theatre and, most recently, with Susanna Hood’s hum.

hum
Founded in 2000, hum is an interdisciplinary performing arts company dedicated to the creation and dissemination of highly innovative, powerfully communicative and transformative performance, rooted in emotion, that connects with audiences on a fundamentally human level. In an ongoing exploration of the boundaries between movement, sound, theatre, improvisation and other media, hum’s activities include creation, production, touring, and education. As the company’s main artistic collaborators, Artistic Director Susanna Hood and avant-guard composer/musician Nilan Perera have built a dynamic and emotionally charged repertoire, critically acclaimed across Canada. In creation, they draw on a working palette they have been honing for seven years, where the sound-scape is created live by the manipulation of Susanna’s amplified voice. This is a rich and visceral process where the development of one element is mutually informed by and dependent on the other