Presented by FADO Performance Art Centre
In Association with The Theatre Centre
Sponsored by Images Festival

MONOMYTHS: Stage 12
Mistress of Two Worlds

Silver & Gold
by Nao Bustamante

Tickets: General $15 | Student/senior/arts worker $12
Service charges may apply. Limited seats available. Wheelchair accessible.

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Silver & Gold combines film, live performance, and original costumes into a hyrbid work that Nao Bustamante proclaims a "filmformance". In this filmformance, Bustamante evokes the muse of legendary filmmaker Jack Smith and his tribute to 1940s Dominican movie starlet Maria Montez in a magical and joyfully twisted exploration of race, glamour, sexuality, and the silver screen.
 
The performance alternates between action and live narration of a film projection. In the film, inspired by iconic underground filmmaker Jack Smith, Bustamante interprets Smith's muse: 1940s Dominican movie starlet Maria Montez. Honing-in on Smith's interest in Hollywood's obsession with filmic reproduction of the exotic, Bustamante embodies Miss Montez. Using video, live voiceover, audience interaction, and the body as a source of backdrop, narrative, and emotion, she takes the spectator on a bizarre and radical journey as she discovers a new bejeweled body part, which is at once her curse and oracle. This performance is the fruit of a commission by the LIVE FILM/ Jack Smith festival, co-organized by Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art and Hebbel-am-Ufer Theater (HAU) in Berlin. 

Watch the trailer of Silver & Gold.

Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/1206833142718098

MONOMYTHS invites a diverse collection of artists, scholars, and activists to revise Joseph Campbell’s conception of the hero’s journey through performance art, lectures, workshops, and other offerings. This new assemblage of non-linear un-narratives proposes a cultural, political and social feminist re-visioning of the world. The MONOMYTHS perception of the universal journey dispels the notion of the lone patriarchal figure on a conquest to vanquish his demons–both inner and outer–in consideration of community, collectivity, and collaboration.  

Joseph Campbell’s influential book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) prescribes a common pattern to all of the world’s mythic narratives. According to this fundamental structure, the archetypal hero is challenged to embark on a monumental quest. Over the course of the hero’s journey, trials and obstacles must be overcome until a victory is won and the hero returns home with new knowledge about himself and the world. Campbell’s concept of the monomyth (‘one myth’) is a recognizable motif in both ancient mythology and contemporary culture, including film, music, literature, sports, and advertising. A current trend in popular visual culture replaces the male character with a female one, in spite of the fact that our heroine–from the get-go–would make different choices if the conditions, and conditioning, allowed. While each MONOMYTHS stage stands alone, the work of each presenting artist is interdependent and connected. These independent visions, when stitched together through the audience’s collective presence, form an exquisite corpse of a larger experimental narrative. 

The year-long MONOMYTHS project is presented in three sections starting in February 2016 and concluding in February 2017. The series is conceived and curated Jess Dobkin and Shannon Cochrane.

Part 1 (February 3–7, 2016)
Stage 1: The Ordinary World/Call to Adventure
Stage 2: Refusal of the Call
Stage 3: Meeting of the Mentor
Stage 4: Crossing the Threshold
Stage 5: Belly of the Whale

Part 2 (May 2016–January 2017)
Stage 6: Tests, Allies, Enemies
Stage 7: Ordeals
Stage 8: Atonement with the Father/State
Stage 9: Apotheosis/Journey to the Inmost Cave

Part 3 (February 15–19, 2017)
Stage 10: The Road Back
Stage 11: Refusal of the Return
Stage 12: Mistress of Two Worlds
Stage 13: Freedom to Live
Stage 14: The Return Home

Accessibility at The Theatre Centre
The Theatre Centre is an accessible facility, with barrier-free washrooms and an accessibility lift to facilitate movement between floors. If you are planning a trip to The Theatre Centre and have any questions about accessibility or would like to make any special arrangements, please call our box office at 416.538.0988. We will be happy to make any arrangements to help facilitate an enjoyable visit to The Theatre Centre.