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Upstream Downtown at the TOFringe

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Thanks for checking out Animacy Theatre Collective's gofundme campaign! By supporting our campaign, you'll help us with the creation and production of our new play, Upstream Downtown, a research-based, clown/bouffon multimedia play exploring salmon-human relations in the Greater Toronto Area.

Upstream Downtown  is premiering at the Toronto Fringe Festival (June 4-15, 2018)  and has received a 15 minute slot at the Toronto Festival of Clowns (Thursday, May 31, 7pm Saturday, June 2nd, 6:30pm & Sunday, June 3rd, 2pm). We are also bringing this work to a site-specific venue at the 2018 Scarborough Salmon Festival in the Highland Creek Watershed in partnership with the TRCA (Toronto Recreation Conservation Association).

Research for Upstream Downtown  began in 2017 and involved site-visits to watersheds in the GTA and archival research. This show is directly related to Animacy Theatre Collective's mandate of telling stories that are driven by women, use humor and physical storytelling to raise social awareness, and create characters who defy pre-existing borders (human, nonhuman, gender, sexuality). We believe strongly in the necessity – especially in the current political climate – of bringing research into conversation with communities through stories that are funny, physical and imaginative.

ABOUT UPSTREAM DOWNTOWN 
In Upstream Downtown,  the world is experienced through the bodies of two salmon-human hybrids, Sojo (short for sojourner) and Beagle (named after Darwin’s boat), who complicate perceived species/gender hierarchies. After being evicted from their watery dwellings, they must play “human” for their audience in order to survive in an anthropocentric and androcentric world – all the while searching for home, food, room(reproductive)mates, and acceptance. Through salmon stories, we find a huge connection to concepts of home and female identity. Salmon have a remarkable connection to place, using homing abilities to find their way back to their native streams and rivers. Historically and currently, the role of creating a home is extremely gendered, with the devalued labor falling on women. As two female-identified artists of European ancestry, living as settlers on Indigenous land, we are interested in how to address the complexity of home when our access is predicated on the history of colonial/patriarchal violence. Upstream Downtown questions what we can learn about the concept of home and connection to place by looking at salmon-human relations, particularly through the lens of eco-feminism and settler colonialism.

We've got an amazing group of artists working on the show: created and performed by Morgan Johnson  and Alexandra Simpson; direction and dramaturgy by Martha Ross; music composition by Anders Azzopardi; and poster design by Madeleine Tuer.

Your donation will go towards artists fees, rehearsal space, research expenses, and production costs associated with bringing the show to the Toronto Fringe, Toronto Clown Festival, and the Scarborough Salmon Festival.

Animacy Theatre Collective  is SO excited to share Upstream Downtown  with Toronto and Scarborough audiences, and to celebrate local watersheds and underwater creatures through humor, joy, and perhaps a little bit of trouble making. Telling stories is important. Sharing research is important. Laughing and being challenged is also important. We appreciate your support in these endeavours. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Morgan and Alexandra
Animacy Theatre Collective

Organizer

Alexandra Simpson
Organizer
Toronto, ON

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