Tesseract 1, part one of a 2-channel video installation adapted from the performance. The left and right side of this split screen were initially projected on opposing walls.

A Performance, a video installation and more…

This work was initially conceived as a performance and made in collaboration with Alexis O’Hara, featuring contributions from Lucy Bazzo (lighting) and the Monday Night Choir when it premiered at Phénomena in 2013.

We adapted portions of the video and text for an 2-channel installation that we presented in Concordia University’s floating box in 2014 as part of the Hemispheric Institute’s Encuentro.

Subsequently we adapted the performance for incoming students at the National Theatre School of Canada and we presented a version of it in Winnipeg for Nuna Now in 2016.

Single-channel versions of the installation videos have circulated as part of mixed video programs in Spain and Switzerland.

Tesseract 2, part two of a 2-channel video installation adapted from the performance. The left and right side of this split screen were initially projected on opposing walls.

Considering the multiverse

With ((TESSERACT)) we consider the possibility of other dimensions and universes beyond imagining in an effort to shake the foundations of accepted reality. Within the scope of this performance we revisit childhood fascinations with parallel universes, 4th and 5th dimensions, wrinkles in time and 19th century concepts of the “Multiverse” along with contemporary interpretations of these ideas to elicit a visceral and fleeting presence, a glimpse of humanity bound together, hurtling through space: a disappearing act and a reminder of our own transience.

Olivia and the Golden Record

This is an audio excerpt from the original performance with a slide show documenting certain elements of the work as it was presented at the Bain St-Michel.

Sparking Memory

Backed by a virtual choir of singers and musicians, 2boys.tv along with collaborators Alexis O’Hara and Radwan Moumneh, summon the shadows, apparitions and voices of the disappeared; an invitation for us all to participate in a communal act of remembering.

A Trans-Local Experiment Spanning the Americas

Tightrope premiered in 2011 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, Canada. Originally created with the support of Montreal arts organisations Studio 303, festival Les Trois Jours de Casteliers, OBORO, New Media Laboratory and Usine C, the performance was re-imagined and reconfigured for engagements in Montréal (Triennale, Musée dʼart contemporaine de Montréal, October 2011) and MexicoCity (Laboratorio Arte Alameda in collaboration with the International Festival of Cabaret, May 2012). The performance was also featured at the 2013 Hemispheric Institute Encuentro in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the 2015 Bienal de la Habana in Cuba, the 2015 Phénomena festival in Montreal,and finally, it was present by Operación Queer in Grenada, Nicaragua in 2016. English, Spanish, French and Portuguese language versions have been created and the performance always incorporates music and poetry from the local community in which it is performed.

Readings on Tightrope:

Peter Dickenson, Still (Mighty) Real: HIV and AIDS, Queer Public Memories, and the Intergenerational Drag Hail

Samantha Wu, Mooney on theatre

Shoes, walking and the built environment

ARCADE is an ongoing work, exploring urban environments and communities through the act of walking and through the ruse of a shoe store. Since we first presented this work in a shipping container in Montreal’s Old Port in 2009 we have adapted it to a variety of circumstances and contexts. It all began with the two of us presenting a series of ruminations on various sites and boroughs of Montreal. We presented all subsequent iterations of this work in collaboration with Shauna Janssen, who saw its value as a pedagogical tool and encouraged us to workshop it with other artists, students and community members. The 2009 presentation was a co-production with Studio 303 and les Escales Improbables.

Urban occupations and artivism

In 2011, we joined Shauna Janssen’s Urban Occupations series and invited artists and community members to join us in an exploration of Montreal’s Griffintown neighborhood as presented at the Darling Foundery. From there the work has evolved and traveled widely to include a master class at Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal (2013), a workshop with playwrighting and directing students at the National Theatre School (2014), a summer intensive for Graduate students at York University, a workshop and presentation in Carleton-Sur-Mer (2016), a theatre design course at Concordia University (2018) and as part of the Performance Arcade in Wellington, New Zealand (2020).

For the Love of Fear

From 2008 through 2013 we presented Phobophilia to audiences in Montreal, Regina, Victoria, Santiago de Chile, Valdivia, Buenos Aires, Glasgow, Winnipeg, Bogotá, Vancouver, Kelowna, New York, Rekjavik, Hofsos, and London.

Phobophilia is the key component of a body of work that includes the installation, Persephone and the short, cabaret work, Pas peur.

The Theatre of War

Phobophilia is a performance rendered in Black and White. An homage to interdisciplinary artist, Jean Cocteau, this work draws parallels between the fallout of WWI and II and the impact of 21st century campaigns of state-sanctioned terror and torture. The performance begins with an interrogation that quotes verbatim the testimony of a Canadian man sent to Syria through “extraordinary rendition”. The interrogator makes a series of demands, from the mundane – “What is your name?” – to the elaborate – “Tell me your story from the day that you were born until today”.

Accusation and Guilt

Within the folds of the zona pellucida, rapt in a somnambulous state, the “accused” begins to believe she is capable of the crimes with which she has been charged, and that perhaps, somehow, she has indeed carried out some horrific transgressions.

A touring, one-woman show featuring a drag queen and a bear

We premiered zona pellucida in Calgary in 2006 at the Big Secret Theatre. Subsequently we presented it in Montreal, Buenos Aires, Halifax, Winnipeg, Toronto and Victoria.

Video documentation of the performance in its entirety is available through the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL)

Writing on zona pellucida:

Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Emisphérica

Christopher Hoile, Stage Door

Glen Sumi, NOW

Apophenia is the human tendency to perceive meaningful connections or patterns in random or unrelated events, objects, or ideas.

Our beginnings as a duo

We began working together in the late 90s and our collaboration came into its own within Montreal’s wildly eclectic cabaret scene. What follows is a small selection from a larger repertoire of short works, mostly created between 2001 and 2009 for the Kiss My Cabaret. Many of these little performances have toured the world, making appearances in such places as Halifax, Toronto, Provincetown, New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Bogotá, São Paulo and Milan.

Bienvenidxs

Is it a video or is it a cabaret performance? When our beloved colleagues at Operación Queer requested a cabaret work for their web launch in late 2020, we were only too pleased to contribute.

Swansong

Consider this an hommage to Gloria Swanson though the voice is Elizabeth Taylor’s and the text is care of Gore Vidal’s screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. Absurdity reigns as it all segues into some lusty passages from Carmina Burana. The screaming, rambling and singing of this short little show-stopper all made its way into the long-form zona pellucida the following year. Pure madness.

Show Business

Created for the ordination of Pope Benedict XVI (Rats for short), this little nugget proved to be a cross-cultural crowd favorite. We have had to opportunity to present it on multiple occasions in Montreal and in Toronto, New York, Bogotá and São Paulo and Provincetown.

Bette & the Wolf

A lip-sync number that consists of dialog and music from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Bette welcomes a furry stranger into her home. They enjoy a cup of tea, Bette serenades her visitor but things soon go awry.

A chase ensues but Bette gets the upper hand and finishes her song. “It’s really hard to be an artist when people don’t understand.”

Casta Diva

Gigi wanted to lip-sync to an operatic aria while conducting a puppet show inside her dress. The invasion of Afganistan was in full swing and we were looking for nuanced and lasting ways to consider and critique western imperialism and geopolitics through the fog of war. We had a week to make it all happen and no budget whatsoever.