05
Feb

Have a weird and wonderful performance idea? Interested in making provocative, interesting performance but not sure how to get it off the ground? We have a fantastic opportunity for you!

In a continued commitment to our Artist Equity program we are delighted to present The Strange Victory Performance Lab – a professional development opportunity for regional artists. It’s all part of our Creation Series at Femme Folks Fest ’25.

 

The Strange Victory Performance Lab
with Tori Morrison and David Gagnon Walker

This workshop will examine how and why to make unusual theatre. Through creation exercises and group discussion, Tori and David will share some of the methods, inspirations, and philosophies behind our creative partnership Strange Victory Performance.

Our focus will be on where ideas come from: how to tune in and harness the creative possibilities in the world around us. We’ll move through a creative process, from idea generation to writing, score-making, and multimedia (sound and video) design. We’ll talk about how to devise unique performance forms from everyday life, and tangibly explore some possible ways of making original work. Everyone will leave the workshop with a concept, early material, and rough design elements for a new performance. Along the way, we’ll discuss artists from across Canada and around the world who have been especially important influences on our work.

Participants may choose to work individually or in collaborative groups. Day one will be about idea generation and development. Day two, we will add design elements, and do some experimentation creating concepts with readymade materials and tech. Day three, there will be an opportunity to present and discuss the work we’ve generated, and talk about next steps like grant writing and the gathering of archival and support materials. We’ll finish each day with some open-ended Q&A time about making, producing, and touring strange shows like ours.

Please bring your smartphone, headphones (ideally with a built-in microphone), and the right clothing/footwear for taking a walk outside, weather-permitting. You might also want to bring any tools that are a regular part of your own creative practice, and that you can imagine wanting access to while making new work (e.g. musical instruments, movement clothes, etc).

  • Workshop runs over three (3) days March 10-12, 2025 in Waterloo
  • Daily 11am-4pm.
  • There is no cost to the participants
  • All artistic disciplines are welcome and encouraged to apply
  • Participants must be available for all three days of the workshop

HOW TO APPLY: 

  • Send us a short bio (maximum 150 words) that summarizes your artistic practice and point of view
  • Why you want to attend
  • Your Artist CV (Maximum 3 pages) and/or your artist website or social accounts.

To apply please submit the above to hello@patthedog.org under the heading The Strange Victory Performance Lab.

APPLICATIONS OPEN FEBRUARY 6, 2025. CLOSE FEBRUARY 28, 2025 at 5:00 PM.

Strange Victory Performance, established in 2019 in Edmonton and currently based in Toronto, is the artistic partnership of designer Tori Morrison and writer David Gagnon Walker. We make and tour interdisciplinary, participatory, and otherwise unconventional projects emphasizing dramaturgical innovation, emotional depth, and artistic risk. While grounded in text-based theatre, our projects have included artists and techniques from dance, circus, visual art, poetry, and digital performance. We consider a project successful when it feels like the form and content are telling the same story, informing each other through the alchemy we have always recognized in the art we love as audience members.

Our most recent project, This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear, is an interactive show about anxiety in which seven audience volunteers and David read a story out loud, with the rest of the audience playing a poetic chorus. The piece has been touring Canada since 2021, with 12 presenters to date including an upcoming Ontario Presents tour to Kitchener, St. Catharines, and Kingston. The script is published in book form by Playwrights Canada Press.

Outside SVP, we both maintain separate careers. Tori is the Director of Production for Toronto’s Outside the March, and a freelance composer, sound designer, and video designer. David is a freelance playwright, dramaturg, and French-to-English translator.

Tori Morrison is a designer, composer, producer, production manager and technical director originally from amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, AB), currently based in Tkaronto (Toronto, ON). She is the Director of Production for Outside the March, the Executive Director and Artistic Producer of Tiny Bear Jaws, and she collaborates with writer David Gagnon Walker as Strange Victory Performance. Her recent credits include composing, co-creating music, video design, and producing for I Don’t Even Miss You at Factory Theatre (2024, Toronto); sound design and composition for The Woman in Black at Teatro Live! (2024, Edmonton); and sound design and additional music for Murder on the Links at Vertigo Theatre (2024, Calgary). She did multimedia design and producing for This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear with Strange Victory Performance, which toured to nine Canadian cities from 2021 to 2024 and has an upcoming Ontario tour in 2025. Tori is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre Slaight Family Music Residency. Fern, a short film she created at CFC with writer David Gagnon Walker and director Lisa Rose Snow, is available on YouTube. www.torigmorrison.com.

 

David Gagnon Walker is an award-winning writer, performer, and theatre translator born in Edmonton (Treaty 6) and based in Toronto (Treaty 13). His work has been performed and developed in cities across Canada, and through residencies in Sweden, Finland, France, Australia, and the USA. This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear, a play read aloud by David and the audience, has been touring Canada since 2021, and is published by Playwrights Canada Press. Other plays include Premium Content (High Performance Rodeo), The Last Children (Curtain Razors), and translation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine’s The Retreat (Imago Theatre). His awards include the Playwrights Guild of Canada Emerging Playwright Award for The Big Ship, first prize in the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition for Pink Moon, and the 2019-20 Emerging Artist Residency with 2b theatre company. David is Artistic Producer of Strange Victory Performance, a collaboration with designer Tori Morrison, through which he tours experimental and interactive projects. He holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from the University of Toronto, and is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada. www.davidgagnonwalker.com.

Accessibility: Pat the Dog encourages submissions from all individuals. We are committed to the practice of inclusion and diversification. We will make every effort to identify and remove any barriers to inclusion within all aspects of the selection process by making decisions and communicating without regard to ethnicity, age, gender identity or expression, colour, disability, national origin, family or marital status, language, physical or mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or any other characteristic that make our communities and individuals unique.

Tori Morrison is a designer, composer, producer, production manager and technical director originally from amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, AB), currently based in Tkaronto (Toronto, ON). She is the Director of Production for Outside the March, the Executive Director and Artistic Producer of Tiny Bear Jaws, and she collaborates with writer David Gagnon Walker as Strange Victory Performance. Her recent credits include composing, co-creating music, video design, and producing for I Don’t Even Miss You at Factory Theatre (2024, Toronto); sound design and composition for The Woman in Black at Teatro Live! (2024, Edmonton); and sound design and additional music for Murder on the Links at Vertigo Theatre (2024, Calgary). She did multimedia design and producing for This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear with Strange Victory Performance, which toured to nine Canadian cities from 2021 to 2024 and has an upcoming Ontario tour in 2025. Tori is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre Slaight Family Music Residency. Fern, a short film she created at CFC with writer David Gagnon Walker and director Lisa Rose Snow, is available on YouTube. www.torigmorrison.com.

 

David Gagnon Walker is an award-winning writer, performer, and theatre translator born in Edmonton (Treaty 6) and based in Toronto (Treaty 13). His work has been performed and developed in cities across Canada, and through residencies in Sweden, Finland, France, Australia, and the USA. This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear, a play read aloud by David and the audience, has been touring Canada since 2021, and is published by Playwrights Canada Press. Other plays include Premium Content (High Performance Rodeo), The Last Children (Curtain Razors), and translation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine’s The Retreat (Imago Theatre). His awards include the Playwrights Guild of Canada Emerging Playwright Award for The Big Ship, first prize in the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition for Pink Moon, and the 2019-20 Emerging Artist Residency with 2b theatre company. David is Artistic Producer of Strange Victory Performance, a collaboration with designer Tori Morrison, through which he tours experimental and interactive projects. He holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from the University of Toronto, and is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada. www.davidgagnonwalker.com.

Accessibility: Pat the Dog encourages submissions from all individuals. We are committed to the practice of inclusion and diversification. We will make every effort to identify and remove any barriers to inclusion within all aspects of the selection process by making decisions and communicating without regard to ethnicity, age, gender identity or expression, colour, disability, national origin, family or marital status, language, physical or mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or any other characteristic that make our communities and individuals unique.