Award-winning show returns July 11
Show creators and producers Laurie Murphy and Amanda Mark invite people of all ages to experience Ebb & Flow: Tides of Settlement on P.E.I., Saturdays, July 11 to Aug. 22, 8 p.m., in Charlottetown’s Beaconsfield Carriage House.
“With fellow Island artists, Amanda and I are presenting original writing, music and storytelling along with photography, archive materials and film that together present a living poem,” Murphy says.
“It’s a snapshot of P.E.I.’s in and out-migration of settlers, from the indigenous Mi’kmaq to colonizers and from newcomers to refugees.”
The inaugural production of the show in 2019 was given a P.E.I. Museum & Heritage Foundation Heritage Recognition Award this past February.
Returning artists Tiffany Liu (pipa), Amanda Mark (vocals, flute, bass, tenor sax), Laurie Murphy (vocals, bodhran), Teresa Kuo (vocals) and Julie Pellissier-Lush (vocals, storyteller) welcome Haley Zavo (vocals, keyboard, acoustic guitar) and Vince the Messenger (vocals, percussion).
Confirmed weekly artists include Victor Cal Y Mayor (opera singer, dancer) on July 11 and Dutch Thompson (author and storyteller, Bygone Days) on Aug. 15. Additional writing is by Margie Carmichael (a song titled Calling Johnny Home), Yvette Doucette (a poem titled All Fruits Ripe, Mama as recorded by Tamara Steele), Jason Kun (a short story titled Swamp Water about working at his parents’ restaurant, The Golden Wok, presented onstage by Teresa Kuo) and Emily Nasrallah (a passage from Flight Against Time, as recorded by her daughter, Mona Nasrallah).
New, this year, animation will appear with each artist’s segment and provide transition between each piece.
Kuo, who is also a professional video artist, has created original artwork that animates and helps tell the stories about settlement on P.E.I.
New to the team in 2020 is Dylan Smith, a stage lighting and sound professional providing technical direction to the production.
The show will be recorded for online audiences later in July by Pat Martell.