Collaboration and Collision (2006)

Gabrielle chats with Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge, Artistic Directors of Boca del Lupo, about their early productions at the PuSh Festival from 2006, and how they've witnessed change over the years.

Show Notes

Gabrielle Martin, Sherry and Jay discuss:

• Collaboration as a core tenet of creativity

• Collision and confluence of difference

• Norman Armour's early influence and guidance of the work

• How Vancouver's performing arts scene was dynamic at the time and has evolved since

• How Boca del Lupo's 2006 show, "The Perfectionist", was envisioned and created

• The artistic impetus for Boca's later shows, such as "My Dad, My Dog"

• The power and importance of international collaboration

• How has the artistic practice evolved over the years, and what has remained consistent?

• What is the right container or shape for the content you want to show?

• How has the cultural context of PuSh changed over the years?

• What makes the PuSh Festival about relationships, not just transactions?

About Boca del Lupo

Led by Artistic Directors Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge.

Sherry J. Yoon is a co-creator and director of the company's original productions and Jay Dodge's writing, performances and designs are central in Boca del Lupo's shows. During the tenure of the pair, the company has received numerous awards including Jessies for Outstanding Design, Outstanding Production, Significant Artistic Achievement and Outstanding Performance; the Critic's Choice Award for Innovation; and the Alcan Performing Arts Award.

For Boca del Lupo, collaboration is the core tenet of our creativity. Working across cultures and disciplines our productions are energized by the collision and confluence of difference. Since our inception in 1996, our artistic focus has been one that explores cultural hybridity and interdisciplinary through consciously convening artists from diverse backgrounds and giving them voice within the work through our established processes. We also have a well-established track record in touring, a strong level of engagement with our professional arts services organizations and meaningful outreach into the community. We proudly take our place as a theatre company that relentlessly expands creative possibilities through unprecedented innovations and partnerships with a repertoire that includes 60 original creations and unique presentations.

Boca del Lupo has a foundation in theatre but has evolved into a multi-disciplinary company often partnering with artists and organization that are beyond the conventional boundaries of our form and our sector.

About Sherry J Yoon

Sherry J. Yoon, Artistic Director of Boca del Lupo, is a theatre creator and director with a passion for creating new performances through collaborative pursuits. With Boca del Lupo, Sherry has co-created more than 35 productions, including: Fall Away Home, an intergenerational site-specific production in the forest of Stanley Park; Photog, a large-scale show that toured across Canada and was created with interviews from prominent conflict photographers; and You Are It, as part of the Silver commissions from the Arts Club Theatre that investigates the complex dynamics between female friendships. During Sherry's tenure, the company has received numerous awards, including the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, and Jessie Awards for Outstanding Production, Design, Actor, Ensemble, as well as the Critic's Choice Innovation Award. Her productions have toured festivals and venues across Canada, Europe and Mexico. She co-created an online exhibition of Expedition, an iterative collaboration between Boca del Lupo and the Performance Corporation, and working on Net Zero, an interactive theatre installation about climate change that involves the audience charging a battery with a stationary bicycle. She is also a freelance director who has worked at the Richmond Gateway Theatre, Bard on the Beach, the Vancouver International Children's Festival and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Canada.

About Jay Dodge

The Artistic Producer of Boca del Lupo since 2001, Jay Dodge was also part of the founding collective in 1996. During his tenure, the company has won the peer-assessed Alcan Performing Arts Award, and several Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards including seven nominations for the Critic's Choice Award for Innovation and the Patrick O'Neill Award for best anthology with Plays2Perform@Home. Jay is a passionate set and video designer with Jessie Richardson Awards in both of those categories as well as a published playwright including a contribution to Boca del Lupo's Red Phone project. His artistry is one of innovation and daring and his one man show, PHOTOG. featured interactive video, stunt rigging and verbatim text, touring to World Stage, Prismatic, Festival Trans Amerique and PuSh. Currently serving on the national board of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Jay also has special interest in creative space making including as co-founder of celebrated colocation space PL1422, co-founder of the Granville Island Theatre District, and as project consultant for Video In/Video Out and Left of Main.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

Gabrielle Martin 00:02 Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and in this special series of Push Play, we're revisiting the legacy of Push and talking to creators who have helped to shape 20 years of innovative, dynamic, and audacious festival programming.

Gabrielle Martin 00:21 Today's episode highlights the 2006 Push Festival in conversation with Sherry J. Yoon and J. Dodge on Boca de Lupos, The Perfectionist, and more. Sherry J. Yoon is a co -creator and director of the company's original productions, and J.

Gabrielle Martin 00:35 Dodge's writing, performances, and designs are central in Boca de Lupos' shows. During the tenure of the pair, the company has received numerous awards, including Jesse's for Outstanding Design, Outstanding Production, Significant Artistic Achievement, and Outstanding Performance, the Critics' Choice Award for Innovation, and the Alcan Performing Arts Award.

Gabrielle Martin 00:55 For Boca de Lupos, collaboration is the core tenet of creativity, working across cultures and disciplines, their productions are energized by the collision and confluence of difference. Since their inception in 1996, their artistic focus has been one that explores cultural hybridity and interdisciplinarity.

Gabrielle Martin 01:11 Here's my conversation with J. and Sherry.

Gabrielle Martin 01:17 I wanted to start by acknowledging that we're on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil -Waututh, and on this land we're also currently in what's known as downtown, very close to the push offices.

Gabrielle Martin 01:33 Thanks for coming into our neighborhood. My pleasure. And so, yeah, we'll just start at the beginning. How did, well, first I'll just say that in 2006, that was the first time Push presented the work at Boca del Luco, that was the second official festival, and Push presented The Perfectionist.

Gabrielle Martin 01:53 So maybe you can take us back to how your relationship with Push started and talk a bit about The Perfectionist and also how that related to where you were at as a company back in 2006.

Sherry J. Yoon 02:06 It's definitely a relationship with Norman.

Jay Dodge 02:08 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Dodge 02:09 Maybe I can talk a little bit about like our relationship and you can talk a little bit about the perfectionist. Sure. What do you think? Sure. Does that sound good? Yeah. All right. Well, I guess we go way back with Norman, you know, I think I think we probably like we marched over to the Rumble office at that time to ask for their documents of incorporation so that we could model those for our own.

Jay Dodge 02:34 So, you know, we had it was like, you know, so it kind of goes it's fundamental and it was of course, we all kind of knew each other back in the in the mid 90s when there was a lot of companies, I guess, kind of coming coming to into whatever into their own and and it really kind of even I think it even goes back to before push which is there was that there was the C7 series which was like kind of a joint marketing initiative between a whole bunch of theater companies in town I think there may be been as many as 11 or so and and that's where we really started to collaborate.

Jay Dodge 03:04 I feel like in that environment was this a spirit of collaboration between the companies that was really, you know, it was really about letting down our guard and realizing that we're better together.

Jay Dodge 03:15 You know, even at times when some people would be like secretive about what they were going to do or whatever have it there's still this idea that hey, if we work together at least on certain things it's it's gonna be better for the community.

Jay Dodge 03:25 It's gonna be better for the scene. I think I don't know but kept me in Vancouver as opposed to going to another town. It's because it felt like