Ontariario

Some of the people that I interviewed were in and around the small community where I grew up (Kemptville, Ontario, about an hour away from Ottawa). I got to visit with people who I knew as a little girl and made a few friends with people who I wished I had met many years ago. Here a couple of photos from some of the homes and gardens of the people that I met.

Kismet workshops

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The Kismet creative team is Emelia, Anita, Daryl, Camille and Hazel and we have just completed our second creation workshop.
In June we all met up in Toronto and spent a week introducing all of the interviewees to the team.
It was a very fulfilling week and there were many times we felt overwhelmed with the honor of hearing your Kismet experiences.
Our interviewees were all close with us in the room that week and we thank them again for their openness and trust in us telling their stories.

Soon after, in July we spent another week in Vancouver, delving further into the stories and finding themes, images and inspiring concepts that have similar creative touchstones.
We also got more imaginative and experimentational with our approach to the material.
"Hmmmm, what would happen if this character and this character met?" "What if this piece is only movement and music, no words are neccesary."

One of the Kismet questions was "Do you have a song that moves you when you hear it?"
We played some of the songs that were our interviewees favorites and we are now compiling a Kismet CD with a collection of all of the 100 favorite songs we have collected. Lets just call it an ecclectic mix.

So now its back to the writing table until our next workshop in November. We'll keep you posted.

More Kismet adventures

I got to have my own personal connection to Kismet on this trip. I went to the community i was born in called Usk, now population 5.
I crossed the Skeena river via a one-car ferry, saw the house my Dad built and met the man who's mother saw me take my first steps. We drank beers under a gazebo with some old-timers who remembered my family. It was a lovely feeling of going home. I briefly contemplated quitting theatre, buying land up there and homesteading untill i heard about the 8 month winters.
After the interviews, Hazel and i watched Midge roll around in something smelly for an hour. We were so tired we just thought it was the funniest thing we had ever seen
Our Kismet trip was complete in Usk. We were amazed and satisfied and filled with peoples powerful stories. It was time to start heading home.

Bella Coola photos

Some photos from Hazel and Emelia's Kismet journey up north.
Bella Coola was a highlight. But the long and winding roads, lunches out of the trunk and baby horses sure helped.

Looking back 'n keeping up: one to one hundred

Last May, Emmelia and i took off in our donated VW TDI on a road around NW BC tofind people to talk to about fate and destiny.  

Big highlight was Bella Coola!

Yoop Yoop!

  

We had the pleasure in participating in the town's annual Sports Day where everyone stepped out of their homes and played games and held races on the street.  I was involved in the Canoe Race that hadn't happened in over 10 years!  Yes, we came in dead last, buy who'd want to do the race twice anyways?  

Food was cooking on everyone's door steps, baked goods and fair food like candy apples were available on elementary school grounds.  Old skool games like the classic 'penny toss' and the 'potato sack race' were a few of the many that warmed my heart on that very wet wet day. 

Rain or shine, the games were on!!!

Starting Off

The Chop Theatre, has been developing a new piece of theatre for the past year or so called KISMET one to one hundred. The work is based on 100 interviews that we've done with 100 people, ages 1 to 100! We've got four interviewers; Emelia Symington Fedy, Hazel Venzon, Daryl King and me, Anita Rochon.  We'll be doing 25 interviews each. We are about mid-way through the process right now. We thought this blog might be a good way for people we've interviewed along the way to see how the project is coming along and follow a bit of the journey. We've been all over Canada. This photo is taken in St. John's, NF where I did our first 2 interviews out of the 100 - with bright and lovely Maren, 12 and Mike, 26, a really cool new friend I met while working on Artistic Fraud's AfterImage.