Staging Residence
Staging Residence
Elegoa’s Role
Commissioning and artistic direction
Project
Staging Residence
Staging Residence is a youth-theater-based project that unfolds over two years and involves youth groups across Ontario in exploring social justice through theatre. It deals with issues of territory and identity. The geographical focus is on marginalized communities and remote territories in the Georgian Bay area. The artistic team is developing and currently includes theater director Serge Sàndor. The conceptualization of the project also benefited from the contribution of theater director Jennifer H. Capraru.
Countries/Territories Involved
The Georgian Bay area
Community Focus
Participating groups will represent Ontario’s diversity and might include the following: Anglophones, Francophones, First Nations people, newcomers to Canada, youth at risk and in detention centres, the global art community.
Artistic team (in progress)
Theatre director Serge Sándor (France)
Serge Sàndor is the creator and artistic director of La compagnie du labyrinthe. An award-winning French director, playwright, and producer Sándor creates internationally acclaimed and original projects which address issues of social justice by proposing to disenfranchised communities that they interpret original and classical texts in professional contexts.
For more than two decades Sándor has undertaken theatre projects in harsh environments, staging his productions in both prestigious locales around the world and in less august environments such as prisons (Mexico, France and Switzerland), difficult suburbs, hospitals, schools, and so on. His productions include The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky (Theatre National de Chaillot, Paris), The Council of Love (the Storm Theatre, New York), The Beggars Opera (Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne), The Chevalier de Paris (Havana), and The Children of Vermiraux (Avallon municipal theater, Burgundy, France). In the past few years Sàndor has developed a practice as a fiction and documentary filmmaker. Recent projects include Les 7 péchés capitaux (2012) the realization of seven short fictions involving at-risk youth groups from Burgundy. His goal is to make a quality theatrical and film work that challenges conventional practices. He seeks not to make professional actors but to awaken different cultures to themselves and each other.
Participants (in Progress)
The group ACTION (the Anishinabek Confederacy to Invoke our Nationhood) <https://oshkimaadziig.org> is our first community partner. We are currently researching youth groups in Ontario. Research includes investigations with organizations such as OJEN (Ontario Justice Education Network) and Prologue to the Performing Arts (Toronto).
Partners (in Progress)
We are currently in discussion with social services and cultural organizations in the Georgian Bay area that are strong advocates for local culture and identity, for community engagement, and for experimental art forms.
Co-Funders (in progress)
- Elegoa Cultural Productions
- Ontario Arts Council
- Consulate General of France (Toronto)
Time period
2013, research
2014 - 2015, production