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Catoptromantics

Performance, Installation

#catoptromantics #drag #theatreofwar

Ex Teresa, Mexico City, photo: Julio Pantoja. Phénomena, Montreal, photo: Caroline Hayeur.

A Performance Around a Table

The CatoptROMANTICS invite 12 guests to gather around a table. As the 2boys.tv alter egos, Gigi L’Amour and Pipi Douleur, our hosts invoke the presence of “the other” to the table—an intimate encounter where we can collectively contemplate how we ended up together in this moment and question who might be missing or excluded from our gathering.

We premiered this performance in French and English for the Phénomena festival in 2018 and we remounted it in Spanish and English at Ex Teresa in Mexico City for the 2019 Encuentro of performance and politics.

Full performance documentation from Mexico City 2019

Music and Sound

A series of musical motifs, soundscapes and songs form the core of this performance. What follows is a sampling of music from Catoptromantics, broken down into 4 tracks:

Actions, Reflections & Projections

As a performance, Catoptromantics begins with of a moment of greeting where the audience enters and is seated around a table. The two performers carry out a series of actions around the table: the distribution of a mirrored plate for each guest, the ringing of bells to call on the spirits outside the room and a literal act of mirroring, tracing a circle around the audience. These actions culminate with a concert played to a series of projections. What follows are excerpts of some of the projections as they appear on the table, the mirrors and on a lamp shade/centre-piece.

La Viajera (ES, EN)

Help Me Out of Here

J’étais noyé (ES, FR)

La voyageuse (FR, EN)

Tesseract

Performance, Installation, Video

#paralleluniverses

Photo: Caroline Hayeur
Photo: Caroline Hayeur
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.
Photo: Caroline Hayeur
Slide show from Tesseract, Millenium Centre, Winnipeg (photos by Emily Christie)

Reverberations

We adapted text from Tesseract as part of a series of musical recordings we made in winter 2024.

Photo: Caroline Hayeur
Photo: Caroline Hayeur

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.

Photo: Caroline Hayeur

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.

Tightrope

Performance

#drag #paralleluniverses #lipsync #disappearance

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.

Corda Bamba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2013. Photo credit: Lorie Novak
Corda Bamba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2013. Photo credit: Lorie Novak
Corde-raide with the House of Bogue, Triennale de Montéal, Musée d’Art Contemporain, 2011

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.

Cuerda Floja with Alejandro Belli, (Operación Queer, Espira Espora) Grenada, Nicaragua

ARCADE

Installation

#shoeboxtheatre

Photo credit: Andrea Hausmann

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.

photo credit: Nikol Mikus

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).

Photo credit: Andrea Hausmann
Photo credit: Nikol Mikus
Photo credit: Nikol Mikus
Photo credit: Nikol Mikus

Phobophilia

Peformance/Installation

#phobophilia #theatreofwar #drag #lipsync

2boys.tv (Stephen Lawson & Aaron Pollard) Hemispheric Institute 7th Encuentro: Staging Citizenship, Cultural Rights in the Americas (Bogotá, Colombia, August 2009)

Phobophilia (excerpted documentation of the performance)

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.

Pas peur (documentation of the cabaret performance)

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”.

Phobophilia, 2boys.tv

Persephone (documentation of the installation)

zona pellucida

Performance

#drag #lipsync

Photo credit: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

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.

Photo credit: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio
Photo credit: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

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)

Apophenia (Cabaret Works)

Performance

#lipsync #theatreofwar #drag #cabaret

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, 2005

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.

Photo credit: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio
Photo credit: Annie Tremblay

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.”

Photo credit: Annie Tremblay

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.

Casta Diva

Due to the C*****19 p******c, the format for the Operación Queer launch was entirely online. For us, one of the saving graces of this moment in history is the innovation and sheer chutzpah of all those amazing queens out there who are working to connect with each other internationally and to put on their most fabulous faces forward by any means necessary. We decided to make something especially for the occasion but something that could also last for more than its 7-minute duration. What we have here is a video that speaks with a cabaret ethos: Something a little bit raw and absurd with ephemeral qualities but it also available on demand. Strange times.

To make this work, we drew from some texts and motifs that were also part of our performance, CatoptROMANTICS.

 

Pas peur, 2007

Pas peur

We made this work as we were sketching out the beginnings of Persephone and Phobophilia. All those same themes – Cocteau, the trafficking of fear, the theatre of war – wrapped into a short lip-sync number. We created this work for the Kiss My Cabaret and we have since presented it for the Studio 303 Spark Series (Montreal), the Phénomena Festival (Montréal), at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre (Toronto) for Art House Cabaret, for the International Cabaret Festival (Mexico City) and at FOMMA (San Cristóbal de las Casas).

 

Photo credit: Annie Tremblay