GET TICKETS HERE
Part of Vancouver Opera’s “VOICES: Free Concert Series” supported by TD
Progress Lab 1422 Studio (1422 William St)
Oct 19: Show starts at 7:00pm; Doors open at 6:30pm
Oct 20: Show starts at 2:00pm; Doors open at 1:30pm
Tickets: Pay What You Decide (online and at the door). Suggested $15.
About the Show
Kicking off the month of September, Anju Singh and Asitha Tenekoon joined Rumble’s AD Jiv Parasram to dive back into the creation process of this new interdisciplinary collaboration blending Theatre, Opera, and Contemporary Music.
BBB started as an artistic response commissioned by Vancouver Opera to engage the highly problematic Orientalist depiction of South Asians in Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” which VO produced in fall 2022. While in that initial creation period, Queen Elizabeth II died, prompting the trio of South Asian artists to satirically engage the complex legacy of British Colonialism framing the piece as a tongue in cheek eulogy of sorts to Empire. The project takes us from delighting in the absurdity of this proposition to a loud expression of South Asian rage against this legacy of occupation and oppression.
Audiences are invited to attend the workshop presentation of this new work in progress!
The Progress Lab Bar will be open, and the show features complimentary food for audiences (dhal and rice – vegan, gluten free).
Tickets will also be available at the door. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
Content Warning:
Very loud instrumentals/electronic music (we suggest bringing earplugs, and will have some on site). Discussion of colonization and colonial violence, potentially disturbing images.
Co-presented by Rumble Theatre and Little Chamber Music
With support from The Vancouver Opera as part of their “VOICES: Free Concert Series” (supported by TD)
Co-created and performed by Anju Singh, Asitha Tennekoon, Jivesh Parasram
Lead composer – Anju Singh
Additional composition and arrangement- Asitha Tennekoon & Jivesh Parasram
Co-directed by Jivesh Parasram & Tom Arthur Davis
Stage Manager – Anna Brew
TD / lighting design – Jack Goodison
Sound Design consultant and engineer – Christopher Ross-Ewart
Projection Design consultant- Candelario Andrade
About the Artists
ANJU SINGH experiments with texture, sound, images, and compositional structure in her practice and work as a composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, noise/sound artist, media artist, and curator. Her work engages in a practice of deconstruction and reanimation as process-based methods and plays with the application of contrasting themes and boundary/volume stressing experimental elements. As an interdisciplinary artist, she works in music, media arts, performance, theatre, film and opera. She has toured, presented and performed her work across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and the United States.
ASITHA TENNEKOON is a Dora award winning, Juno nominated opera singer, composer, consultant, and arts administrator. Born and raised in Sri Lanka he has performed with many of Canada’s leading opera and concert organisations.
He is a Co-Founder of Amplified Opera, a Toronto based indie Opera company committed to placing artists at the centre of public discourse. He makes his home in the unceded traditional territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (TsleilWaututh) Nations.
JIV PARASRAM is a multidisciplinary theatre artist of Indo-Caribbean descent. He is the founding Artistic Producer of the acclaimed socio-politically mandated collective “Pandemic Theatre”, and the current Artistic Director of Rumble Theatre here in Vancouver.
Recent credits include (Sound of the Beast, Theatre Passe Murialle – PuSh Festival), East Van Panto: Beauty and the Beast (Theatre/Replacement & The Cultch), Someone Like You (Arts Club), Take d Milk Nah ? (Pandemic/Rumble), Szepty/Whispers (Rumble, V. West), Maybe Not Tomorrow (National Theatre School), Isolation Suite (Rumble & Theatre Conspiracy), Fat Joke (Neworld/Cultch/Rumble), & Measure for Measure (Bard on the Beach)
TOM ARTHUR DAVIS is an arts worker based on Lekwungen territory. In 2009, he co-founded Pandemic Theatre, for which he has acted as the Artistic Director. Tom has worked as a Managing Proucer with Why Not Theatre, as a Program Director with Toronto Fringe, and as the Interim Director of Programming with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Currently, he is working with the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, helping to organize their annual Indigenous Youth conference, Gathering Our Voices.
As a theatre artist, Tom frequently works as a collaborator on new works, and connects with theatre creators across the country. His works for the stage include Mahmoud (co-writer – Playwrights Canada Press), Take d Milk, Nah? (co-creator/dramaturge – Playwrights Canada Press), The Only Good Indian (co-creator/co-writer – J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing), and SWIM (co-creator – upcoming production at PuSh Festival).
JACK GOODISON is a Technical Director and Sound/Lighting Designer who originates from the UK and now designs on the ancestral and stolen lands of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
TD Credits: Theatre Conspiracy (Himmat), Electric Company Theatre (Fire Never Dies), Rice and Beans Theatre (Peace Country), Rumble Theatre, Touchstone Theatre (Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing) and Assistant TD for Theatre Conspiracy (Same Difference), Neworld Theatre (Clean/Espejos).
Design Credits: Luna Creatives (Portraits of Solitude), Pulsive Party (Lip Service 3), Rumble Theatre (Las Pasiones de Don Pasquale), Axis Theatre (Where Have All the Buffalo Gone), As and When It Happens (Willilish’d), Douglas College (Jane Austen Action Figure; Orlando; Mad Forest), Vancouver Opera (The Pearl Fishers), Massey Theatre/UBC (We Deserve to Work), Jeb Beach Productions (Terminus).
CANDELARIO ANDRADE is a video editor and media designer based in Vancouver. Recent theatre design credits include: Empty Handed (Biting School); Eyes of The Beast (Neworld); You used to call me Marie (NAC/Savage Society); La Befana ( Théâtre la Seizième); Women Of The Fur Trade (NAC, Native Earth, GCTC); Julius Caesar (Bard on the Beach); Little Red and His Lawyer (Savage Society/Belfry/NAC); Tree Drum (Theatre Terrific); Mom’s the Word Talking Turkey (Arts Club); White Girls in Moccasins (The Frank); Clean/Espejos (Neworld) and DYMISH (Theatre Replacement). Recent editing credits include: Looping (Company 605); Bard on The Beach’s feature film Done/Undone and the 2020-2021, Belfry Theatre’s digital productions, as well as the short films: Common Law; a film about a uterus and The Day My Cat Saved My Life. In recent years, Cande has edited several projects for Mochizuki Studios and as a content creator for the Vancouver International Film Festival.
CHRIS ROSS-EWART is a sound designer, composer, and performer. He works in theatre, musical theatre, dance, podcasts and installations. Recent design credits include Hamlet (Canadian Stage), Measure for Measure (Bard on the Beach), A Tale of Two Cities (Alliance Theatre), The Clearing (Shaw), Hamlet 911 (Stratford), The Sound Inside (Coalmine), The Cave (Luminato), and Distant Early Warning (Buddies in Bad Times).
ANNA BREW is a stage manager and administrator currently working and living on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaɬ Nations. Anna’s recent credits include Lumbar 5, Thoracic 12 (rEvolver Festival), Sunrise Betties (ITSAZOO Productions), The Narrow Bridge (Pomerantz Collective), Peace Country (RIce&Beans Theatre), Symbiotic, Harvest Moon & Cardinal Point Cabarets (Rumble Theatre), Tremors Festival (Rumble Theatre), Angels Bone (Sound The Alarm), Vancouver Fringe and Bard on The Beach. Anna began her career in the UK as an audio technician on an award winning musical TImpson: The Musical! (Gigglemug Theatre) at Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
