Electric Company Theatre

of revolutionary photographer Eadweard Muybridge

BY ELAINE SCHIRMAN

YUKON ARTS AND CULTURAL MAGAZINE, 2008/2009

In March 2009, Whitehorse will be the first stop when the Vancouver-based Electric Company takes its innovative and dynamic style of physical theatre on the road.  The company will stage a four-day run of Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge at the Yukon Arts Centre.

The play examines the life and work of Muybridge, a turn-of-the-century photographer who was fascinated with capturing animal and human motion on film.  Studies in Motion playwright and Electric Company artistic associate Kevin Kerr came across Muybridge’s work while researching silent film.  “His photographs look like frames from a motion picture, but there was no such technology at the time,” says Kerr.  “Instead, he set up dozens of cameras and had his subjects walk or climb a ladder, dance or crawl, or do pratfalls onto a mattress.  An electronic timing mechanism triggered the shutters as they moved.  It was all very revolutionary for that time.  Before him, no one had even used shutters.”  The subjects were often naked and carried out their actions against the background of a grid.

Kerr was mesmerized.  He was watching film before film had been invented.  “I began researching Muybridge, and it was fascinating.  His photographs showed actions that were familiar but broke them down so you could see what the body looked like at different points in its gait.  No one had ever seen that before.  It was a revolution in perception and the beginning of a transformation in the way people see the world.  In earlier times, truth was something you could perceive with your physical senses, but as time went on, we began trusting technology to show us truth more accurately than our own perceptions.”

Muybridge’s life was just as compelling as his work, with elements of passion, infidelity, abandonment, murder and frontier justice.  “The play tells the story of the battle between Muybridge the man of emotion and Muybridge the man of science and reason,” says Kerr.  The Electric Company has transformed Muybridge’s internal struggle and the tumultuous events of his life into a highly sensory piece of physical theatre with stylized movement by internationally renowned choreographer Crystal Pite, period costumes by celebrated costumer Mara Gottler (which contrast with the nudity required in portions of the show), an original score by award-winning composer Patrick Pennefather and groundbreaking digital technology by scenographer Robert Gardiner of the University of British Columbia’s Department of Theatre and Film.

“Robert foregoes most traditional lighting instruments and uses digital light projectors instead,” says Kerr.  “His lighting design interacts with the show in a more layered manner because he can project light anywhere onstage in an infinite number of shapes.  The light can project images or text; it can create scenic backdrops or the stroboscopic effects of Muybridge’s images.  A set of hanging white squares fly in and out, with light projected on them to show Muybridge’s work or what’s going on in the minds or hearts of the characters.  The collaboration with Robert has been excellent because he instantly connected to the themes of the play: the nature of perception and our visual world.”

Yukon Arts Centre artistic director Eric Epstein has wanted to bring the Electric Company to Whitehorse for years, and finally, all the planets aligned.  “This company is at the forefront of a new wave of independent West Coast theatre companies,” says Epstein.  “It takes a very professional approach, developing shows over time in a creative, determined way.”

Nearly all Electric Company shows are original, collaborative creations involving partners from other disciplines.  The company takes risks, for example, by staging shows in unusual locations.  One play took place in an indoor swimming pool, another in an abandoned factory and yet another took audiences across eleven outdoor sites on Vancouver’s Granville Island.  The company has been rewarded with numerous nominations, awards and kudos.

“Not one of our shows is like the other,” says Kim Collier, Electric Company artistic producer and Studies in Motion director.  “They’re explosive in their theatricality, and we’re always thinking about how to delight our audiences.  We’ve never been in pursuit of naturalism because that’s well covered off by TV and video.  We embrace the potential and magic of theatre.”

The Electric Company creates some of that magic with its imaginative use of technology.  Some Yukoners will have the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes view of that when Studies in Motion comes to Whitehorse.  The company will arrive more than a week before opening night to use the Yukon Arts Centre to fine-tune the show’s technical aspects.  “Theatre is a meeting of various art forms,” says Collier.  “All those things don’t usually come together until you’re in the theatre a couple of days before the first performance.  This amazing partnership with the Yukon Arts Centre is allowing is to do the final creative technical work, which is so important, in a more relaxed time frame.”

The company will work with the arts centre crew and is looking for opportunities to do community outreach, which may include open tech rehearsals, workshops and an artist’s talk.  “This is a complicated show, technically,” says Epstein.  “Our people will have to chance to see how the Electric Company creates some of its stunning effects.”

Although the Electric Company will be in the Yukon for the first  time as a company, its four founding members have quite a history here.  Collier came more than two decades ago, at the age of 19.  She worked the summer in Dawson City, fell in love with the Ogilvie Mountains and came back many times, gradually bringing with her the three men who would become company co-founders.  Among other things, she and artistic director Jonathon Young worked at the Dempster Interpretive Centre, on the Dempster Highway, creating a puppet show about caribou migration.  They performed in summertime shows at the Palace Grand Theatre in Dawson and even held their wedding ceremony at a spot on the Dempster Highway.  Young created a theatre show called The Palace Grand, inspired by his Yukon experiences.  Kevin Kerr lived in Whitehorse in the early 90's (you might remember him from the Guild Theatre production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and returned in the summer of 2002 to perform at the Palace Grand in Dawson.  The fourth co-founder, artistic associate David Hudgins, wrote and performed in Dawson’s Palace Grand shows.

“We love touring our shows,” says Collier.  “But in this case, we are also coming because it’s an opportunity to be in the North.  We are just thrilled to take our work to a place that we love so much."