Road Trip

Road Trip

Creators/Performers: Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan
Artistic Advisor: Marie-Josée Chartier
Lighting Design: Rebecca Picherack

Join us for a pre-show chat with Bill James at 7pm, hang back after the show to meet the artists and enjoy refreshments.

Susie Burpee returns to Peterborough for the first time since her hit appearance in 2009 in a program of duets with Dan Wild. This time she comes with an equally arresting performer – and her co-creator on Road Trip – Linnea Swan.

Be forewarned that this is not your average road trip.  There are no cars, no drive-thrus, and there are certainly no rest areas.  This trip is a journey into the minds of two women at a crossroads. Tracing the history of their lifelong friendship – as steadfast as it is volatile – we follow these women as they struggle to come to grips with the inevitable choice we all face at some point in our lives.  Will they continue down the same path, or jump off into the unknown?
The opening image suggests that something awful has just occurred, and the mounting excitement of the subtly deconstructed story amplifies that feeling. This portrayal of the complexity of human nature is recounted with complete physical commitment to the roller coaster movement of a melodramatic face-off. In a world where the questions ARE the answer, and the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred, these women are determined to face the truth head-on and with no regrets.  Road Trip is an enigmatic, tragicomic duet, realized through a skillful weaving of Bouffon, theatre and contemporary dance.  Creator/performers Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan have danced together from their early professional training through to their performing careers, and as such, creating work together has been a natural progression in their artistic relationship. They are fearless interpreters who embody both the darkness and levity of the human spirit, and this is the hallmark of their unique performance work.   Burpee and Swan have presented their work across Canada, including a half-evening version of Road Trip at the 2010 Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa and the 2011 Festival Transameriques in Montreal.  This is the second performance of the full-evening production of Road Trip following its world premiere in Toronto.
“The charismatic Swan and Burpee are formidable interpreters…each can dominate the space even when standing still.” -Paula Citron, The Globe and Mail

Biographies 

Susie Burpee creates ‘fully human characters, struggling for connection’ (The Toronto Star). She choreographs for contemporary dance and theatre, and her work has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Choreography and Performance (2005). She is also a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance. Recent credits include the 2012 Dora-nominated Stockholm (Seventh Stage Theatre) and a commission for contemporary dance collective Cloud 9.  As well as performing her own work, Susie was a company dancer for Dancemakers, Le Groupe Dance Lab, and Ruth Cansfield Dance. Based in Toronto for over twenty years, she has worked across Canada with such esteemed artists as Serge Bennethan, Peter Boneham, Lesandra Dodson, Sasha Ivanochko, Claudia Moore, TRIP Dance Company, Tedd Robinson, and Dan Wild. This new work (Road Trip), with long time colleague Linnea Swan, is a culmination of her diverse training and multi-faceted career experience.   Originally from Winnipeg, Susie completed her professional training at the Professional Program of Contemporary Dancers (BA Hons. University of Winnipeg), augmented her studies at the Limon and Cunningham schools in New York, and trained in Character and Bouffon at L’École Phillippe Gaulier (Paris). Susie teaches professional technique classes and workshops across the country, and loves it.  susieburpee.com

Toronto-based performing artist Linnea Swan has had the privilege of working with many of Canada’s esteemed dance and theatre companies and artists, including Dancemakers, Human Cargo, Ruth Cansfield Dance, TRIP dance company, Volcano Theatre, WCD, Serge Bennathan, Rachel Browne, Susie Burpee, Allison Cummings, Lesandra Dodson, Susanna Hood, D.A. Hoskins, Claudia Moore, Meagan O’Shea, Tedd Robinson, and Gerry Trentham.   Originally from Saskatoon, Linnea is a graduate of Main Dance Place (Vancouver), and the School of Contemporary Dancers (Winnipeg). She has continued her studies in New York, New Mexico, and was a danceWEB participant at ImPulsTanz in Vienna.   Linnea is a member of The Exchange Rate Collective, whose interdisciplinary collaborative creation Appetite received two Dora Mavor Moore Awards. She has acted as rehearsal director for Rachel Browne, TRIP dance company, and The Dietrich Group. She is featured in the Bravo!FACT videos Slip, Sahara Sahara, and La Revue. An emerging filmmaker herself, Linnea has worked alongside a number of choreographers to create promotional videos and films that accompany live performance.

Marie-Josée Chartier is a choreographer, director, dancer, vocalist, teacher and the Artistic Director of Chartier Danse. She has performed on international and national stages as a solo artist and with dance companies (notably with Dancemakers) and her choreographic work has been presented in prestigious dance series and festivals in Canada, Europe and Latin America. She choreographs and directs Contemporary Music and Opera productions working with companies such as Queen of Puddings Music Theatre and L’ Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (as resident director). She has received numerous grants and awards notably Dora Mavor Moore Awards in Choreography, Performance and Production as well as the K.M. Hunter Award for Dance. Upcoming projects for 2010 to 2012 include the creation and touring of Stria a solo show for Chartier, co-directing Contes pour enfants pas sages, a work for young audiences in collaboration with PPS Danse, an international creative residency in Berlin, co-creating, directing and mentoring several dance and multi-disciplinary works in Toronto and Montreal, and touring with opera works in Canada and Europe.  Rebecca Picherak designs lights for theatre and dance nationally and internationally. Recently in dance: Are you OK (Peggy Baker Dance Projects/Necessary Angel), Shudder (Humdansoundart), This Time (Adelheid). In theatre: Big League (LKTYP), Ruined (Obsidian), The Clockmaker (Tarragon), Goodness (Volcano). Rebecca has also worked professionally as an actor, production manager, and director, and for the past three seasons she has run the Blythe Festival Young Company. She has 15 Dora nominations and two awards for excellence in lighting design.