Table of Contents

1. Words from Lisa Pijuan-Nomura
2. Feature Theatre Festival: Summerworks
3. Classes, Workshops and Conferences
4. Read This Book! With Book Lady Sarah Selecky
5. Local Business to Support – My Luscious Backyard
6. Photography by Dave Pijuan-Nomura
7. One Last Thought

 

1. Words from Lisa Pijuan-Nomura

Well, it’s been a long time since I have sent out a RED Letter and I must apologize.  Time got away from me, and it seems that summer became busy with travel for work, and preparation for the fall season. (I just finished hosting Dusk Dances in Vancouver and on Saturday I head off to Taos, New Mexico for a writer’s retreat!)  I am doing a lot of teaching, collaging and performing these days so it’s been great fun!

There are some exciting developments including my First EVER collage exhibition at Wise Daughters Craft Gallery as part of the Junction Arts Fair!  I will be having an opening on September 9th with some surprises so please save the date !

I am also excited that storytelling extraordinaire Dan Yashinsky and myself will be hosting the inaurugal F.O.O.L – Festival of Oral Literature in October which will feature an exciting diverse line up of story artists.  More info to come as we schedule the performers!

I will be taking one more month of a hiatus and will re appear in September with an all new vibrant letter! 

So, I hope that you are keeping well, and taking time to rest and relax during these crazy hazy summer days.

Best,

Lisa Pijuan-Nomura

 

 

2. Feature Theatre Festival: Summerworks

 

I love this festival for the diversity of the programming.  This year, the addition of a Performance Art Series is super exciting!

August 6-16, 2009

Toronto’s 19th annual SummerWorks Theatre Festival kicks-off Aug.6th with 42 plays, offsite performances, concerts, workshops of plays-in-development, youth activities, and a host of free events and happenings. 

This year’s Festival features the 2nd annual SummerWorks Music Series with an exciting indie rock line-up. The SummerWorks Festival, sponsored by CBC Radio3, hosts nine evenings of music featuring some of Canada’s best indie bands, including Miracle Fortress, Karkwa, Think About Life, DD/MM/YYYY, The Got To Get Got, Still Life Still, Kids on TV, Boys Who Say No, The D’Urbervilles, Forest City Lovers, The Sunparlour Players, Josh Reichmann Oracle Band, Germans, Great Bloomers and more.

The Gladstone Hotel hosts INSIDE THE BOX: The SummerWorks Performance Gallery August 6- 9 & 13-16, 7-9pm. The Performance Gallery is a curated event happening every night of the festival, featuring five to eight minute performances created to exist in one of the rooms or the hallway of the second floor of the hotel. Artists currently confirmed to participate are Razvan Anton, Anthony Bergamin, Hannah Cheesman, Lindsey Clark & Jonathan Seinen, Scott Dermody and Joanne Williams, Sedina Fiati, Jamie Franklin & Natalie Scott, Elana Freeman, Darrah Teitel, Kathleen Brown, Megan English, Mark Goldstein, Jenna Harris, Jannine Saarinen, Diana Kolpak, Sasha  Kovacs, Shira Leuchter & Julie Tepperman, Laurel MacDonald, Erin Macklem, Kaleb Robertson & Ame Henderson, Zack Russell & Joanna Caplan, Chris Stanton, and Clinton Walker. 

Here are some shows that I would recommend!

Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry
by Daniel Barrow
Composer: Amy Linton, Featuring Daniel Barrow
Awarded the 2008 Images Prize at its premiere, Daniel Barrow's newest "manual animation" combines overhead projection with video, music, and live narration to tell the story of a garbage man with a vision to create an independent phone book chronicling the lives of each person in his city.

Apricots
by Misha Shulman
Directed by Adam Lazarus
Featuring Sam Khalilieh, Lauren Brotman, Evan Webber, Pierre Simpson, Kevin Sheard, Melissa D’Agostino, Allan Michaels and Kwame Kyei-Boateng
Based on a true story, Apricots is a political Israeli-Palestinian comedy. From behind the scenes of the Middle East peace talks to the front lines of Hamas rocket launchers, a plumber and a farmer find a way to sift through the crap together.

Lake Nora Arms
Adapted by Jane Miller and Brian Quirt from the book by Michael Redhill
Composer: Jane Miller
Dramaturg: Brian Quirt
Director: Liza Balkan
Presented by Lake Nora Arms Collective
Featuring: Neema Bickersteth, Alex Fallis, Susan Henley, Ken McClure, Jane Miller
Originally a book of poems by Michael Redhill, (Martin Sloan, Consolation) Lake Nora Arms skillfully navigates memory and longing, drawing on tastes and touches as if for the first time. This stage adaptation, a series of interlocking songs and monologues, features an original score sung entirely A cappella.

Clinton Walker
presents
The Distance Between Us
The Distance Between us is a brief, heightened interaction between one performer and one audience member. This piece examines the concept of personal space and how we connect with or deflect the thousands of strangers that we encounter in an average day. You decide how far we go.
Aug 13-16

For more info about Summerworks and complete schedules see

www.summerworks.ca

 

 

 

3. Classes, Workshops and Conferences

 

Writing Classes with Sarah Selecky

Register now for Sarah Selecky's summer creative writing classes - two new courses start at the end  of July! Spaces are limited, and registrations are rolling in now.

Introducing the Story -  Short fiction writing for beginners

Wednesday evenings, 6:30 – 9:30
July 29th - September 16th, 2009
7 weeks (no class on Aug 12)
$300

Introducing the Workshop -  Short fiction writing and critique

Monday evenings, 6:30 - 8:30
July 27th - August 31st, 2009
6 weeks
$250

Go to www.sarahselecky.ca for more details on these workshops, listed below. That's also where you'll find information about her private manuscript critique and writing coaching.

---

Flamenco Summer Intensive with Ilse Gudiño

August 2 to September 12

Monday
5:30-7 Beginner
7-8:30  Intermediate/Advanced
Tuesday
12-1 Technique
1-2 Choreography
7:30- 9  Por Tangos
Wednesday
6:30-7:30 Technique
7:30-8:30 Choreography
Saturday
12:30-2 Classes for Absolute Beginners

Classes held @ Academy of Spanish Dance
401 Richmond St West Ste B104

For registration or more info,
Contact Ilse Gudino
endanza@losamigosdepilar.com
416 887 4607

 

 

 

4. Read This Book! with Book Lady Sarah Selecky

Bridge of Sand
by Janet Burroway

I have been reading Janet Burroway’s elegant textbook on writing (Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft) for almost ten years now, taking her sharp advice when I come up against problems in my own work, or when I’m looking for a new way to teach point of view or dialogue to my students. She’s written about ten books of fiction, as well as a few more on the writing craft. In other words: Janet Burroway knows what she’s doing.

Reading Bridge of Sand is a thrill because Burroway writes scene so beautifully. Her dialogue is crackly and quick, her lyric description of Florida’s landscape crisp and true, and her pacing – in a novel laced with unpretentious romance, drama and intrigue – is flawless. Also, she writes excellent sex, with zero flake- or cringe-residue.

The story takes place just after September 11, 2001. Dana is thirty-nine years old, widowed, and temporarily at a complete loss. She spends a good deal of her grieving time refinishing an antique hutch (the most beautifully-written furniture-stripping passage I’ve ever read, incidentally. It made me want to finally get started on that paint-encrusted banister in our house) before she decides to take a road trip to the South, where she grew up, to try to make sense of her new life. While there, she contacts Cassius, an old friend. Dana is white; Cassius is black. Neither of them expect to fall in love, but they do. When Cassius’s family finds out, they threaten Dana. She leaves – she drives down to a little village on the Gulf Coast to wait for him.

The village is called Pelican Bay, and it has its own delicate equilibrium, balanced on the divide between white and black. Dana lives in the middle of that divide. She moves into a guest cabin and waits for her lost love. But then, despite her intentions to stay out of it, she gets involved in the tight community of Pelican Bay. The situation here is even more complicated. What follows is a surprising and emotional story about secrets, love, race, and refinishing. 

 

 

 

5. Local Business to Support – My Luscious Backyard

 

Every week from June to October, I look forward to Thursdays.  I often come home to a bouquet of brilliant  flowers from Sarah of My Luscious Backyard.  She is an urban gardener that creates brilliant bouquets from flowers of local gardens.  A lot of her flowers tend to be a bit different then I would have in my garden and honestly, the more flowers, the better.  What could be more pleasant to waking up to see brilliant hues of colour by your bedside, or on your kitchen table.  Especially during these rainy days, the bouquets inside the house make everything extra sweet. 
Check out some recent press!

Learn more about Sarah and her work here:

http://www.mylusciousbackyard.ca/

 

 

6. Photography by Dave Pijuan-Nomura

Photograph by Dave Pijuan-Nomura .

Dave specializes in macro and live event photography.
Contact dave@nomuraphotography for more info.

 

7. Last Thought

The function of art is to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
– Anaïs Nin