IN PASSING

2011
Western Front, Vancouver, BC
A multidisciplinary work on mourning & mortality

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What is time, and how do we perceive it? In the midst of life, how do we regard and acknowledge death? How can we honour and celebrate the present without knowing what has passed before?

Astrolabe Musik Theatre with Heritage Vancouver, Tara Cheyenne Performance, and photo-based artist SD Holman present a site-specific, multi-disciplinary work at The Western Front, on the fascinating and taboo subjects of mourning and mortality.

Performances include: Astrolabe Musik Theatre presents George Crumb’s Apparition, and the world premiere of Leslie Uyeda‘s Pas de Deux – What We Heard About Death. Tara Cheyenne Performance offers The Three Widows (an excerpt from the upcoming, full-length work Highgate). Still Life, a photo installation by SD Holman, is a memorial piece to her wife Catherine White Holman, who died in a float-plane crash off Saturna Island. Heritage Vancouver opens the evening with an intriguing venue walking tour, shedding light on secret societies and burial practices in early 1900s Vancouver.

In Passing breaks from traditional form, affording audiences the rare opportunity to attend both the music and dance performances twice each evening, with both works performed simultaneously in different rooms of the Western Front. This offering provides patrons with ample time to contemplate and absorb the multi-faceted layers of the evening, while connecting performers and audience members on a more intimate level.

Presented as part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 anniversary celebrations.

PERFORMERS

ALISON DENHAM, dancer
RACHEL KIYO IWAASA, piano
MAURICE GUIBORD, lecture and venue walking tour
SD HOLMAN, photo-based artist
HEATHER PAWSEY, soprano
BEVIN POOLE, dancer
KIM TUSON, dancer

PRODUCTION

TARA CHEYENNE FRIEDENBERG, choreographer
GERALD KING, lighting designer

PROGRAM

PAS DE DEUX – What We Heard About Death – Leslie Uyeda *
APPARITION – George Crumb
* WORLD PREMIERE

REVIEWS

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In Passing faces death and other secrets

North Shore News – November 11, 2011
Astrolabe Musik Theatre with Heritage Vancouver, Tara Cheyenne Performance and photo-based artist SD Holman present the Vancouver premiere of In Passing, a site-specific, multi-disciplinary work on the taboo subjects of mourning and mortality at the Western Front, Nov. 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. as part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 anniversary celebrations.
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In Passing brings death to life

The Province – November 10, 2011
Multidisciplinary work includes show and exhibit at the Western Front
Death used to get a great deal more attention in the past than it receives these days. An obituary online is hardly a pyramid. Are we missing out on something by not bringing death to life?
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Astrolabe Musik Theatre’s In Passing boldly faces death

 Georgia Straight – November 9, 2011
It’s often said that art’s role is to push societal boundaries, and soprano Heather Pawsey’s Astrolabe Musik Theatre is no exception. This weekend, in an innovative evening of programming at the Western Front titled In Passing, the new multidisciplinary music-theatre group will be tackling one of our greatest taboos: death.
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Astrolabe Musik Theatre presents In Passing

Artsy Dartsy – November 8, 2011
Astrolabe Musik Theatre presents In Passing – an interdisciplinary meditation on mourning and mortality at the Western Front, November 12 & 13 at 8pm. This compelling exploration includes classical music performances of George Crumb’s Apparition and the premiere of Leslie Uyeda’s Pas de Deux by soprano Heather Pawsey and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, an enthralling dance excerpt from Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s Highgate, a moving photo installation and tribute by visual artist SD Holman, and guided tour by Heritage Vancouver, exposing eerie secrets of the building’s past.
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