"Tour", SummerWorks, Toronto, ON

This evening Gord and I participated in Tour, which is part of the Live Art Series of the 2004 SummerWorks Festival. 

SummerWorks is Canada's largest juried performance festival. For 11 days in August, it takes over the Queen West Strip, hosting theatre, music, performance and more.

Tour is a theatrical experience at once both intimate and spectacular; a literal journey on the most badass pedicab you have ever seen.

Four audience members hop onto a pedicab for a 20-minute historical tour. Negotiating an array of interruptions, a driver tells stories, both personal and historical, which reveal secrets hidden behind familiar facades. The driver compels the audience to contemplate where they are and the marks left behind. Featuring original music, magical contraptions and the unexpected history and myth beneath our streets, Tour is an adventure that will change the way you see the city you thought you knew.

Tour began its ride as part of 2010’s Cultural Olympiad, and has since pedaled throughout Vancouver and Victoria. This is Universal Limited’s East Coast debut. 

Performed by Yoshie Bancroft, Daniel Deorksen, Jessica Harvey and Cecile Roslin

Here we are on the pedicab ... Gord and I are in the back.  Our guide was Cecile and she took us around a couple alleys in our 'hood for about 20 minutes.

And off we went ...

Cecile stopped behind the Great Hall to tell us a story.

To follow along with that story, she told us there were ViewMasters under our seats.

Then this couple came rounding the corner and wanted to sing for us.  They said they were traveling across Canada collecting stories.

Cecile was very patient with them ...

 ... but finally told them to go away because we were doing a tour

This is the west wall around the CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) ... originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum.

Celeste told us stories about patients from years ago

And we were off again ...

Celeste stopped again for another story ...

Looking into the "periscope"

She went to the end of the alley and turned us around and headed back up it again, telling more stories.

She kept stopping to collecting glass for her bottle.

That couple followed us and stopped us again at the beginning of the alley to sing.

This gauze with glass was pulled over us

Oh, the couple was part of it ...

Duh!

I obviously hadn't read the description as closely as I should have because I didn't realize the couple who kept interrupting us were part of it ... none of us did so we did speak to them sharper than we would have had we known.  BTW, they had great voices and I had been wishing I could listen to them had we not been on the tour.

It was an interesting experience ... Celeste was a delightful storyteller.  I found it to be a bit of a conflict and distracting, though, with the tour with Cecile and the single couple who kept interrupting.  I would have enjoyed them both had they been separate.