SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND WHEN THE SUN GOES SUPERNOVA Set for Théâtre Aux Ecuries, Now thru 5/30

Created in 2013 in Calgary, Sometime between now and when the sun goes Supernova is Mark Lawes' new multidisciplinary bilingual creation for a hyper-accelerated world, where the familiar rubs shoulders with the strange. Inspired by Marshall McLuhan's theories on media which essentially predicted the internet 50 years before its application, Sometime between now and when the sun goes Supernova is an inquest, one that investigates manifestations of personal isolation in an increasingly connected globalized world. The performers are caught on the soundstage of a B-horror movie or a pornographic film; yet the setting could be a suburban home. Amnesia flirts with psychosis in a world where we feel the convulsions of a hyperactive, digital, consumer society. Sometime between now and when the sun goes Supernova will be presented at Théâtre Aux Ecuries from today, May 28-30.

"I am interested in the hybridization of identities and how culture shapes who we are. Douglas Coupland and Marshall McLuhan were both born in the Canadian West, a place in search of identity, where utopian ideals are often transformed into dystopia, their opposite. Inevitably Los Angeles, Hollywood and the phenomenon of the 'suburbs' became my subject of investigation; like Brentwood, where Marilyn Monroe is buried for example. The existence of these suburbs hinges on a false reality: the gated community, a safe, comfortable cocoon for the nuclear family, a perfect, clean and artificial environment, the image of a private Garden of Eden sold to middle-class Americans and Canadians by spinners of dreams... A new generation was born out of these suburbs, lost in the "supersaturated information age" as Coupland put it." -Mark Lawes, Artistic Director, Theatre Junction

For three months during the summer of 2012, Mark Lawes and his team developed Sometime between now and when the sun goes Supernova under the auspices of the City of Paris and the l'Institut français international art-in-residence program at Les Récollets. Since 2006, Lawes has been creating work with a multidisciplinary company of artists. His writing for the stage is created organically out of a friction between fragments of history, visual art, contemporary dance, music, and an alphabet of material coming from dramaturgical research. Playing with the possibilities of live performance, Lawes continues to cross boundaries between artistic disciplines. His first trilogy, based on themes of death, desire and the Canadian West, received two national tours- to Toronto's Harbourfront Centre (On the Side of the Road, 2009) and Montreal's Usine C (Lucy Lost Her Heart, 2012). Theatre Junction will be back at Théâtre Aux Ecuries in September for an artistic residency that will host the first phase of their next creation. This work is poised to break out for the national and international scene.