Lofty themes are explored in new theatre piece from popular collaborators Veda Hille and Maiko Yamamoto
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Article content
End of Greatness
Article content
When: April 16-19
Where: Historic Theatre, 1895 Venables St., Vancouver
Tickets: From $35 at thecultch.com and ar 604-251-1363
Article content
Article content
Is the world in a death cycle? That cheerful notion is the starting-off point behind a new theatre piece from collaborators Veda Hille and Maiko Yamamoto.
Article content
End of Greatness is in answer to a manifesto from Association for the Palliative Turn, a collective of artists who argue that art should reflect the idea that we — civilization, if not the planet — are in a moment of decline.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
“Art has to acknowledge the current death cycle of the world, and anything that doesn’t deal with that is just business as usual,” said Hille. “We took a little bit of that on and tried to be less business as usual.”
Article content
Sun Spots
Article content
APT’s manifesto reads, in part: “Embrace instead the end of everything as we know it. Do it with generosity, kindness and humour.”
Article content
“We started to look at our own personal relationship and identities and noticed that there were some things that we felt like were very similar inside of our growing-up stories and inside of our lives,” Yamamoto said.
Article content
“We drew on a lot of components and fragments of things. We both share a fascination for the natural world, so that became a part of it. And we started to build this larger analogy about the very tiny, microscopic, very close to the earth, to the forest floor, zooming out way, way out to the edges of the known universe.”
Article content
“It’s how to cope, but also literally about moss and mushrooms and lichen and grand cosmological concepts,” Hille said. “And it’s also based around the Roland Juno-106 synthesizer that I had just started to become obsessed with when we began the work. That tied in nicely to the outer space themes.”
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
Article content
A favourite among acts like Tangerine Dream, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Chvrches, and Daft Punk, the synth is a big part of End of Greatness. It’s the only instrument Hille plays in the show and is even the subject of a mini-lecture on “how it works and what it does, morphing into why I’m really interested in it and why it’s so hard to play.”
Article content
Read More
Article content
Hille, a songwriter and performer, and Yamamoto, the artistic director of Theatre Replacement, are known for their collaborations on the popular East Van pantos. End of Greatness has loftier themes in mind than jokes about the SkyTrain and local politicians.
Article content
“The Panto is super fun and hopefully has meaning, but it’s an entertainment,” Hille said. “This is not a kids’ show. The Panto is a fun excursion, like a picnic, that’s taken over our lives. And then this is home base for us, where we live more normally.”
Article content
“I think this lands more in the experimental art world,” Yamamoto said.
Article content
In that vein, End of Greatness seeks to provoke conversation.
Article content
“One of the main questions that we ask is, ‘What is the end of greatness?’” Yamamoto said.
Article content
“The great thing about those words and that phrase is that we talk a lot about using analogies, and it is an analogy for so much right now to ask that question. It’s actually a cosmological phenomenon that we talk about in the show, but it also feels like the times we’re going through.”
