something blue
8 pm, December 6 - Market Hall Performing Arts Centre
336 George Street North
Tickets at the door or call 745-1788.
$15 - $12 students/seniors/underemployed.
For more information go to www.publicenergy.ca.

something blue is a performance and fabric-art sculpture about women who are no longer married - through divorce, separation or widowhood. Meagan O'Shea, the creator, interviewed seventeen women who gave her their stories and their wedding dresses to use for her show. O'Shea gave the dresses to Peterborough costume designer Martha Cockshutt, who took pieces from each of the dresses and put them together to make one "patchwork" wedding dress. Then, with the help of Toronto-based techno wiz Dave Pijuan-Nomura the dress has been wired with interactive panels that, when activated by touch, play audio recordings of the women's stories of love, loss, commitment and freedom.

This remarkable interactive wedding-dress-quilt and the stories which went into making it are the inspiration for an hour long dance-theatre solo that includes a soundscore by Newfoundland's Lori Clark and vocals by Aviva Chernick.

Audience members are invited to come, Wed, December 6th at 8pm to the Market Hall to watch the dance piece and take the opportunity before and after the performance to view the dress and touch the panels, activating the audio to hear the stories.

At times hysterically funny, at times intensely moving, something blue examines the heart as an organ where memory lives, as a home for romantic love, and as a muscle that tears under stress and can only be healed through use.

something blue was created over the past several years while O’Shea was working in various dance venues and doing research around the world with Peterborough New Dance, fabrik Potsdam in Germany, Earthdance in Massachusetts, Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa, The Banff Centre, Sunshine Coast Dance Society and Linda Raino Dance in BC, and at her home studio, HUB 14, in Toronto.

something blue is O’Shea’s third "story quilt." The first two, first kissed (on the theme of romantic firsts, 2004) and As I unravel small maps of my spirit (drawn from interviews with victims and offenders of serious crime, 2005) involved the creation of quilts, the patches of which, when touched, triggered the sounds and images of people telling stories. something blue is the first time O’Shea has applied the technique to an article of clothing. O'Shea gained national acclaim as a performer for her 2003 dance-theatre solo Night Stills, which was presented by Peterborough New Dance and numerous theatres, festivals and venues across Canada and the US.

Don't miss this show. There will be chocolate.