Humour, tragedy, interactions mix in How to Be
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg last performed How to Be in Vancouver two years ago, as part of Boca del Lupo’s Micro Performance series and again with Dancing on the Edge 2015. For this latest iteration, the Vancouver choreographer/ dancer has expanded the length of the show and added performers. The new, full-length version features a cast of seven, including dancers Justine A. Chambers, Susan Elliott, Kate Franklin, Josh Martin, Bevin Poole, Kim Stevenson and playwright Marcus Youssef. We talked to Friedenberg about changes to the show, and what she hopes audiences will get out of it.
Q: How has the piece changed since you last did it in Vancouver?
A: I initially wanted to work with this whole cast, and to be able to do a full hour to explore the themes and the ideas in their completion. There are seven people now. So we see the story of each character. And they’re all so unique and all so different. So we can see all these different ways people struggle with the idea of how to be. They’re also funny. So I was able to do things I wasn’t able to in the first version, in terms of comedy, and how they interact with each other. Do the performers get solo time? Sometimes there’s one person onstage. Everyone’s kind of always in the space. But there are solos, duets, times when they’re all moving together. Marcus Youssef, who’s a theatre artist, is also dancing in this piece. He’s a central character.
Do each of the seven represent a different struggle or different kind of person?
They’re all really different. There are times we see one of the characters struggling with a simple idea of a list of to-dos that’s too damn long, and how it metabolizes in her body, how she’s struggling with the weight of too much to do. Another example is how one of the dancers is so good at giving people compliments, so we have a section where she’s giving people compliments and it’s so delightful and really funny.
How have other projects, like the recent piece you did with Italian dance/ theatre artist Silvia Gribaudi, affect this work?
Sylvia and I did a big exploration of comedy, and how tragedy and comedy are so closely linked.
That’s definitely something that’s present in this piece, when something is poignant and then all of a sudden funny and the other way around, and in the coping mechanisms we have.