I feel very fortunate to be working on this upcoming production of The Threepenny Opera as Choreographer/Movement Designer and am very much looking forward to sharing it with audiences!

Below is all the information regarding the show. We hope you can join us!

THE THREEPENNY OPERA
by Bertolt Brecht with music and songs by Kurt Weill

Running February 22 - March 2, 2019 in partnership with and at the West End Cultural Centre
***Tickets are $30 and available at https://bit.ly/2EvdRv3. To avoid online admin fees, visit or call the WECC box office directly: 204.783.6918

The Threepenny Opera (3PO) was first performed in 1928. It is a seminal, often-revived work of the theatre; in many ways 3PO invented the musical theatre genre, with strong influence from German cabaret and agitprop theatre. It skewers capitalism, economic oppression, and patriarchy; in its final scenes, it transforms into a plea for fairness and compassion. Its urgent message remains distressingly timely, and the music seems as revolutionary as when it was composed almost 100 years ago.
3PO has as its conceit that a group of “beggars” tells the story of the underworld criminal Mack the Knife. In our production, that group of beggars includes people who are Deaf or physically disabled. Disabled people live in interdependence in a way that many others do not. The audience will be asked to consider this interdependence by watching disabled performers in a piece of theatre, and by watching these performers physically navigate the space through choreography. The cast will also include professional contemporary dancers. By witnessing dancers move with disabled performers, the audience will be asked to confront the reality that vulnerability and interdependence lie at the core of the human experience.


Content Warnings posted at bottom


Featuring- Prince Amponsah, Carol-Ann Bohrn, Andrea del Campo, Carlyn Graff-Czehryn, Joanna K. Hawkins, Ian Mikita, Deb Patterson, Jordan Sangalang, Natasha Torres-Garner, Stephen Yurkiw


Director- Arne MacPherson
Set Design- Sean E. McMullen
Costume Design- Brenda McLean
Light Design- jaymez
Production Management- Brooklyne Alexander
Music Direction- Paul De Gurse
Associate Music Direction- Renate Rossol
Choreography- Zorya Arrow
Stage Management- Jane Buttner


Showtimes:
Fri Feb 22 7:30pm
Sat Feb 23 7:30pm*
Sun Feb 24 7:30pm
Wed Feb 27 7:30pm
Thurs Feb 28 7:30pm
Fri Mar 1 7:30pm
Sat Mar 2 2:00pm*
*Performances with ASL Interpretation


Generously supported by Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, Gail Asper Foundation, Deborah Gray, Assiniboine Credit Union

CW: strong language, description and depiction of violent and sexual acts

BodyMind - a class
Connecting with our thinking/feeling body through movement

Register now!
12-Week Winter Course
Led by Zorya Arrow

Sundays 11am-Noon, Starting January 13, 2019
At Studio 320, Third Floor, 70 Albert St.
(Gender neutral washrooms, not wheelchair accessible)

ABOUT THE CLASS:
Working with movement methods gathered from various practices including Contact Improvisation, Physical Theatre, Contemporary Dance, and Clown we will explore the following concepts:

• Listening to our breath and letting it guide us
• Physically bringing out our inner monologues
• Using imagery with movement
• Group architecture/composition
  
• Making contact with other bodies/sharing weight
• Dance-party-time to keep our bodies warm through till spring

Part technical, part therapeutic, part fun, the root of this class is the practice of moving with impulse.

Working together as a group we will build a safe and encouraging space for all.

Early bird registration is $120 until December 16th, 2018 (That’s $10 a class!)
After December 16th registration is $150
Register by emailing zoryaarrow@gmail.com
Spots are limited.

Above photo by Michel Saint Hilaire

Video Pool Media Arts Centre Exhibition Series
As a part of Video Pool Media Arts Centre's 2018 Media Arts Residency year-end, they are hosting an exhibition of:


Toby Gillies – Home Tropics August 16-31

Home Tropics is an experiment in botanical preservation and video. It has been an exercise in translation, an attempt to capture a living object – a dandelion plant, using visual digital-media and to reconstruct it in physical space using sculpture and video projections. The project has been an investigation into the awkwardness of this transition and into the everyday redundancy of using digital media to create an experience readily available just out the front door.
 
Toby Gillies is a visual artist and art facilitator in Winnipeg, Canada. Toby’s practice is rooted in experiments in drawing and collage – encompassing work in digital animation, ceramic, sculpture, and social practice. The act of meandering and discovery is always present in Gillies’s work. He works intuitively, constructing and deconstructing themes and images as they dictate, giving form to the search and development of concepts.

Toby is the Studio Manager at Art City, a not-for-profit community Art Centre in Winnipeg’s inner city dedicated to providing people of all ages with high quality art programming, free of charge.

Toby is the Artist in Residence at Misericordia Health Centre. Since 2011, he has been working on visual art projects with a diverse population of older adults, many who live with dementia and/or other physical and cognitive disabilities.   

In an average day, Toby will spend his mornings making art with older adults, his afternoons making art with children and his evenings working on creative projects alone or with his friends.



Zorya Arrow – Sleep & Spring August 16-31

Sleep: This is when rest happens…when no change happens.
And, where is the rest in the waking?
Spring: Destruction and renewal is all around.
Relentlessness? What does it mean to move through the day?

Artistically, Zorya Arrow has a tendency toward making dance, theatre, and film focusing on human politics. She likes to direct things and has created over ten original performance works, being presented by Company Link, Young Lungs Dance Exchange, and Nova Dance Collective. As a performer, Arrow just finished on set acting in Lasha Mowchun’s independent film Scopophobia, and was seen in Theatre Projects Manitoba’s A Short History of Crazy Bone and Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers’ Flesh + Machine this past season.

Arrow holds an Honours degree in Dance with a minor in Theatre and Film from the University of Winnipeg, in affiliation with The School of Contemporary Dancers Senior Professional Program. In addition to receiving Video Pool’s New Artist In Media Art Fund, her film works have screened independently, as well as at The Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, WINX, and abroad. Arrow is spending her summer playing Opheila in The Knavish Hedgehogs’ production of Hamlet for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, editing, and being outdoors.


POOLSIDE Gallery (221-100 Arthur Street, 2nd Floor)
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday: 12:00PM - 5:00PM
The Artspace Building is wheelchair accessible by elevator, from the west side entrance at King Street and Bannatyne Avenue.

Hey Shakespeare fans, come check out HAMLET at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival!
I am stretching out my more traditional theatre muscle in this production as Ophelia!

I am excited to say that my experimental tutorial video, How To Recreate Human Cremated Remains will be screened at the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival this year alongside four other artists' works.

STRANGELY INTIMATE THIS SPACE
8:00pm, June 3rd at the WFG Cinematheque (100 Arthur St.)
Intensely intimate space is carved out across five films and videos, engaging concepts of representation, transformation, domesticity and desire. Challenging yet brazenly open, the films in this block deal in radical contrasts between the extreme and the banal. It's about how we inhabit our skin as much as how we inhabit space; it's about turning inwards, and it's about how we use our lovers. New work from Canada and the United States.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambrosia dir. Janelle VanderKelen
2015 | US | 4 | video | Manitoban premiere
Inspired by the transformations in Ovid's Metamorphoses that linger as explanations for why and how the world is, this piece transposes the notion of transition and transmutation across imagery of hybrid statues and a cleansing of hands with honey. -JV
Between Relating and Use dir. Nazli Dinçel
2017 | TR/US | 9 | 16mm | Canadian premiere
Borrowing words from "Transnational Object" "Transitional Object", the film is an attempt to ethically make work in a foreign land. Transitioning from assuming the position of an ethnographer, we turn and explore inwards - on how we use our lovers. -ND
How to Recreate Human Cremated Remains dir. Zorya Arrow
2017 | CA | 3 | video | World premiere
An oddly content heavy, strange and experimental YouTube tutorial. -ZA
Palmerston Blvd dir. Dan Browne
2017 | CA | 15 | video | Manitoban premiere
An intimate portrait of a bay window recorded over the course of a year. Gradual shifts in the interior and exterior environments mark the passing of the seasons, a slow dance of objects and light juxtaposed by rapid bodies and the urban landscape. -DB
Strangely Ordinary This Devotion dirs. Dani + Sheilah Restack
2018 | US | 27 | video | Manitoban premiere
Strangely Ordinary This Devotion is a visceral exploration of feral domesticity, queer desire, and fantasy in a world under the threat of climate change. Utilizing and exploding archetypes, the film offers a radical approach to collaboration and the conception of family. Dani and Sheilah collect and arrange images and moments that are at once peculiar and banal, precious and disturbing, creating resonance and contrast through experimental modes of storytelling. -VDB

More Info on the WUFF website

I am very excited to be performing  in Theatre Projects Manitoba's production of A Short History of Crazy Bone this Spring.

A SHORT HISTORY OF CRAZY BONE
by Patrick Friesen
Directed by Andraea Sartison
Featuring Tracey Nepinak as Crazy Bone
March 28 – April 8, 2018Venue: Théâtre Cercle Molière – 340 Provencher

“Almost like it happened a long time ago and I was remembering…And then I wonder… was I being dreamed?”
Theatre Projects Manitoba is pleased to invite you to the world premiere of A Short History of Crazy Bone, a performance that treads the line between poetry, dance and theatre.
 
Canadian poet Patrick Friesen’s new play awakens Crazy Bone who walks on the outskirts of time, imagination and place –  shunned for her individuality, sexuality, and for the non-conventional choices she has made.  Crazy Bone is traveling to the river, trying to find a way back to herself.  The play, inspired by the playwright’s great grandmother, is an exploration of the nature of the outsider, crowded by others and acutely alone.  Crazy is a trickster, a wild woman laughing, a campesino, the artist.  The ghosts she lives – and sometimes dances with – are not past loved ones but present companions.

The questions inherent in the piece are of an artist’s place in society.  At the heart of the play is the movement, the process, of Crazy finding where she belongs, a spiritual odyssey in deeply human form.  It is also a poetic exploration of the prairie landscape, rooted in our province’s identity and history. The lead role of Crazy Bone will be played by actress Tracey Nepinak; one of Manitoba’s finest theatre artists.

It is a beautiful and difficult tale.  It is a Manitoba story.

Set Design Linda Beech
Lighting Design Itai Erdal
Sound Design Andrew Balfour
Costume Design Claire Thérèse Friesen
Choreography Tanja Woloshen
with David Arial, Zorya Arrow, Arne MacPherson and Tracy Penner
Stage Manager Jane Buttner

About Patrick Friesen
Patrick Friesen’s career spans three decades. He has published more than a dozen books of poetry, a book of essays and, with PerBrask, co-translations of several Danish poets, including Ulrikka Gernes. A lover of collaboration and live performance, Friesen has also written stage and radio plays, text for dance, and has recorded two CDs of spoken word and improv music with Marilyn Lerner.  His play, The Shunning, first produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange, was staged by the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in 2011.  His upcoming play, also called a short history of crazy bone, will be produced by Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2018.

Tuesday, March 27, 7pm PWYD preview
Wednesday, March 28, 8pm Opening Night
Thursday, March 29, 8pm
Friday, March 30, 8pm
Saturday, March 31, 8pm
Tuesday, April 3, 7pm
Wednesday, April 4, 8pm
Thursday, April 5 8pm
Friday, April 6, 8pm
Saturday, April 7, 3pm
Saturday, April 7, 8pm
Sunday, April 8, 2pm

Buy tickets here!

I am excited to be performing in this new dance work! Come check it out November 30-December 2!

FLESH+MACHINE BY DANIELLE STURK
November 30 - December 2 | 8pm

The World Premier of Artist In Residence Danielle Sturk’s integrated work for dance and camera.

PERFORMERS
Zorya Arrow, Mark Dela Cruz, Johanna Riley, Ali Robson, Natasha Torres-Garner

ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTORS 
Denis Duguay, Wanda Farian, Jaymez, Kayla Jeanson, Daniel Roy, Gabriel Levesque

“Holding up a lens to see our moving parts. The use of camera manipulation within the dance explores inter-relationships, intimacy and public space, shining a light into the corners of our soul, exposing desires, intentions and personality. The simple act of considering our flesh, in this case with light and through glass, is the nuts and bolts of being human.”


TICKET PRICES
ADULT $29.00
SENIOR $20.00
STUDENT $20.00
ARTIST $20.00

METHODS OF PAYMENT
Cash or credit card at door

ADVANCE SALES 
Credit by phone 204.452.0229 or online www.winnipegscontemporarydancers.ca

VENUE
The Rachel Browne Theatre | 204-211 Bannatyne Ave.
Wheelchair accessible - please reserve ahead

PRESS for "Flesh + Machine"
http://www.themanitoban.com/2017/11/lights-camera-dance/32983/

Erin Buelow and I, with the fabulous help of Sarah Thiessen made a One Take Super 8 film inspired by an idea that Scott Leroux had wanted to explore with me in a short film but that we never got to make together. The film features music by The Ineffable and I am calling it Face.

Face will be screened on Sunday along with 32 other One Take films. I am very curious to see Face and all of it's comrades on the bill as none of us have seen any of our film footage leading up to this screening!

Should be fun. Hope you can make it!

The​ ​12th​ ​Annual​ ​ONE​ ​TAKE​ ​SUPER​ ​8​ ​EVENT
Category:​ ​Shorts​ ​Screening
Event​ ​Date:​ ​Sunday​ ​October​ ​8​, 2017
Time: 7:00 PM
Location:​ ​Rachel​ ​Browne​ ​Theater,​ 211​ ​Bannatyne​ ​Ave

Advance Tickets : $10 All Admissions
First​ ​time​ ​filmmakers​ ​and​ ​experienced​ ​veterans​ ​face​ ​the​ ​same​ ​anxiety​ ​around​ ​their​ ​vintage​ ​cameras​ ​and creative​ ​visions.​ ​Regardless​ ​of​ ​the​ ​outcome,​ ​audiences​ ​are​ ​guaranteed​ ​a​ ​one​ ​of​ ​a​ ​kind​ ​film​ ​screening featuring​ ​local​ ​talent​ ​on​ ​the​ ​big​ ​screen​ ​adding​ ​new​ ​treasures​ ​to​ ​a​ ​long​ ​history​ ​of​ ​totally​ ​independent​ ​and budget​ ​conscious​ ​filmmaking​ ​in​ ​the​ ​peg.

http://wndx.org/events/