performance

Theatre Adventures (Fringe Festival)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

When I was a kid my siblings and I used to love running around the department store, hiding from our mom, pretending we were ninjas, royalty, spacemen, and all kinds of other imaginary characters.

At the time, it made sense to shuffle through the crowd of shoppers and challenge our mother’s patience, but as we grew up we started to challenge that creative energies into various pursuits. I was interested in drawing and video, Ryan was excited about music and drama, Katrina was a poet and a piano player, and Neil was a lover of comedy and performance.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Neil was eventually going to participate in something much larger than himself, and become a member of a society of performance artists where his love of comedy and acting would make perfect sense for him. And now he is a regular on the Fringe circuit.

What the heck is Fringe timotheories?

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Well, every summer during the month of August a group of artists, performers, and curators get together to organize an international event that hosts over 800 creative types in something north of 200 shows across a 10 day period. That event is known as the Edmonton International Fringe Festival or simply Fringe for short. It is quite seriously the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in all of North America.

It takes place in the heart of Old Strathcona and features a chain of participating permanent theatres of the area. For instance, The ATB Arts Barns, The Walterdale Playhouse, the Varscona Theatre, and the Catalyst Theatre are all staples of the event, but neighborhood churches and restaurants like El Cortez take on their share of performers in the system – which is designed to provide artists with a venue, technicians and ticketing services, all in all a great opportunity for those types of artists to get some more exposure.

The major goal of the festival is to promote theatre, but all kinds of artists put in bids to participate in the festival via the lottery system. Which is why the crowd is always so diverse every year, you aren’t guaranteed the same set of performers every year. The second goal of fringe is to promote the spontaneity available in exploring the festival and trying out all kinds of shows. There are festival guides available for purchase, show listings online and at the the venue ticket stations, and of course, festival maps to help you find your way.

The Edmonton International Fringe Festival can be found all throughout the Old Strathcona area from August 11-21 inclusive. Consider taking public transportation to get there as parking is limited and the streets will be PACKED! And if you want to check out my brother’s show, it’s called Drinking In America, presented by Ronin Theatre, and takes place at The Backstage Theatre. I’ve dropped the link for you here.

That’s all I’ve got for the week my friends, I hope you have an excellent weekend and I’ll see you on Sunday with a new Cross Talk episode!

Tim!

Professional Theorems

What’s In A Name? (Defining The Term Artist)

Gallery | Posted on by Tim Kuefler

The visual arts are probably the most complicated of the creative fields to pin down. I mention this because it can take many forms from two-dimensional examples of drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography, to three-dimensional with ceramics, sculpture, video, and filmmaking, with fashion, crafts, design, and architecture existing in both realms.

Then you have your visual arts which also exist as theatre – performing arts and conceptual art.

You see dear readers, there was a time when the term artist represented fine art only (painting, sculpture, and printmaking) and anyone interested in handicraft or applied art was considered a craftsperson but not an artist.

This distinction existed until the 20th century, and it has taken over a century for it shift so that artist and art applies to multiple disciplines. Which can lead to some strange conversations among artists, with elitism still on the minds of fine artists and prejudice existing in all camps.

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As a graduate of a fine arts program myself, I’ve witnessed the distinction that professors, graduate students, and art historians make between fine art and other arts. What is even more difficult to swallow is that all the while that the older forms have a history and perception of “artist as genius” to them, the modern world laughs at the usefulness of such a profession.

There is a social stigma that if you are an artist you are naive, irresponsible and very likely financially poor. Morally too in some cases.

This conveniently happened around the same time that the “artist as genius” phase fizzled out, and the definition of artist began to broaden. As fine art became a commodity which had to be traded and in demand to gain recognition, it fit in very nicely with the already established forms of craft and applied arts (design, fashion, architecture) which business owners would pay for and have direct input in the results.

So where does timotheories fit into this landscape you may ask? I say why not both? Why can’t we elevate all art into a realm of marketable worth as well as recognizing the unique qualities required to create any sort of work, whether it be fine art, craft, theatre, or applied art.

I have this theory you see, that we’ve moved out of a post-modern mindset (one of deconstructing everything around us to see how it works and showcase intellectual superiority) to an age of modern craft. All artists need to become experts in their chosen form(s), and learn the proper marketing skills, finance skills, and communication skils in order to share their work with the world around them.

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timotheories supports the rights of artists to be successful at the profession of creating social value and entertainment for all people, and getting paid to do it.

I personally have always been driven by a myriad of artistic vehicles, so I can’t even favour one over the other because I don’t want to. I love drawing, painting, sculpture, filmmaking, writing, and performance art all the same. And I know that dabbling in photography, printmaking, design, and craft are ways that I express my ideas and creative ability just as well.

So for the sake of furthering the ambitious nature of this blog, I’m going to start sharing my own artwork with you, my friends, so showcase what I’m creating, receive critique, sell my work, and especially provide some insight into the entire art-making process.

Expect some cool collages in the coming weeks and if you’re lucky a powerful painting or two!

And in case you’ve been following the March schedule and noticed a couple of things out of order, I haven’t released the Paige Knickle interview yet, and that’s my bad. Due to some communication issues, the interview isn’t quite ready yet, so I’m going to publish Cross Talk Ep.3 next Sunday as planned, and then the interview will be ready for the 27th. We’ll have to bump the routines of famous creatives to April.

But I bet the wait’ll be worth it.

And that’s all he wrote. Please leave comments, follow/subscribe, and check in tomorrow evening for a Melodic Monday post.

Tim!

Karaoke Corral (Karaoke at H2O Lounge)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Everyone has at least one long-standing friend. I count myself lucky to have many friends that I’ve known for a decade or longer, but having a life long friend is something special.

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While he and I have never really shared the exact same set of hobbies, and our political and spiritual views haven’t been known as the ties that bind us together – those qualities are not why we are friends. At least it’s not why I think we are anyway. What it comes down to for me is that we both share a love of pop culture (largely music and movies), on of life’s great equalizers, and more importantly, we don’t judge each other’s life choices.

It’s quite a curiosity to me that something as simple as abstaining from obvious and unnecessary remarks can be what allow friendships to exist and then flourish. And that sometimes friendships become so strong that your friend won’t put up with your garbage behaviours and WILL call you out on whatever you are doing wrong in your life.

Think about it for a minute.

No one wants to go through adversity in life just because, there has to be value and a purpose for it. When we gain respect and trust with someone, that allows real connections to exist and we have a sounding board. So that no matter what the circumstance, that person will be there for you. They’ll see things through with you.

This is why friends are important dear readers. We all need someone for support and encouragement, a shelter to seek respite from our problems.

We all need people who can challenge us, encourage us, and share with us.

You never want someone in your corner that doesn’t let you grow and become a better version of yourself, and so it does help to have friends that challenge you – friends that will cheer for you, especially when life can seem difficult. When the chips are down and hope is in short supply.

This is why tomorrow night, I’m going to partake in one of my favourite pastimes for my oldest friends birthday. The musical kind of pastime that requires you to call up your favourite song on a screen and share it with a room full of strangers.

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Ah the empty orchestra. A concept where you can sing along to known songs and pretend to be the lead singer all while you generate a fan-base and the accompanying cheers that arrive from hard-won admiration.

Websites like edmontonkaraoke.com exist for the people. It allows them to get their karaoke fix by location or date and to ensure this act of lovemaking never dies.

I love karaoke, because not only do you get to sing along and pretend you are an accomplished singer for 3-5 minutes, but there are challenges to tackle with it as well. It boils down to life choices really.

  1. You have to decide whether to imbibe or not, knowing that you might lose your voice once you start down the path of yelling.
  2. It forces you to think about sharing. Should you make friends with strangers and let them sing a song with you if they get super excited?
  3. Know your audience. It might be better to sing a duet VS being a microphone hog.
  4. Do you want an intimate affair with a handful of people or do you want to fill the room with your posse?
  5. If you choose rock songs, there is a good chance you will be at the mercy of a guitar solo. You should have a game plan to fill that minute long silence
  6. Which usually means you need to either commit to the song or know when to walk away. But don’t drop the mic.
  7. Think about your song choices some. Theme songs and Disney songs are solid choices, and hip hop doesn’t require singing ability necessarily.
  8. And last but not least – are you willing to give a performance to win the crowd over? Sometimes its a simple matter of having the most fun of anyone, and not how well you sing the song.

If you are looking for inspiration, this article about the 13 greatest movie karaoke scenes of all time might just do the trick. There is a particularily awesome live performance of Vin Diesel performing Stay by Rhianna in there as well, but I couldn’t just link to that. so I decided to share it with you direct.

I’ll be heading out to H2O Lounge myself this weekend, but don’t forget about this option to improve your social comfort zone. And believe it or not, you CAN sing karaoke without drinking, and it will build your confidence to perform in front of strangers. It’s a natural fit for it, but that’s just a theory. And one I’ll share another time!

Please leave some comments Have a great weekend folks!

Tim!