playwright // performance maker // public artist // arts organizer
Part of Coming Home to Wild: New Works on Extinction and Resilience The township of Saber, MN hasn’t made news since one of its farmers discovered a saber tooth skull in 1883. Yet, when the City Council considers reopening an abandoned quarry, the woods surrounding […]
ROBIN: Once upon a time SAMMY: No That’s not how you tell it ROBIN: OK How do I tell it? SAMMY: You say ‘A very long time ago’ ROBIN: That’s right Because it’s not a fairy tale SAMMY: No its completely real —— Robin Slater […]
ALONE WE SURVIVE <<>> BUT TOGETHER WE THRIVE
The year is 2121.
Honeybees are now extinct.
Now the only hives
are the ones that humans have built for themselves.
It’s not the next revolution – it’s the one after.
102 years into the future, cities have sealed themselves under holographic domes to protect themselves from the inhospitable climate. Yet, when the robo-bee population begins to die off like their honeymaking ancestors, the fate of this new society rests upon the fading memories of the last living beekeeper, a (former?) revolutionary who goes by the name Queen B.
Conceived & written by Elle Thoni, given life by a mulit-talented ensemble, and buzzing with the sonic imagination of Dameun Strange, QUEEN B is a new outdoor play dripping with honeybee futurism.
#queenbplay #honeybeefuturism
See the buzz on facebook
Check out the instrumental versions of Queen B’s futuristic score by Dameun Strange!
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Queen B premieres summer 2019! Click here for tickets!
Friday, August 23
Saturday, August 24
Sunday, August 25
@ 6pm
Tamales y Bicicletas Urban Farm
2820 15th Ave S
Dakota land
Upper Mississippi watershed
Minneapolis, MN
Future site of Dome 389
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QUEEN B is conceived and written by Elle Thoni
Composed and music directed by Dameun Strange
and co-created with the ensemble, Commarrah Jewelia Bashar, Lelis Brito, Laura Levinson, Ricky Morisseau, and Estefanía Sedarski
with outdoor performance guidance from Scotty Reynolds
and food inspirations from Mollie Rose Krumholz
Illustration by Tori Hong
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Special thanks to:
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Elle Thoni is a fiscal year 2019 recipient of an Artist Initative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.
It’s the year 2120, and the climate is hot, wet, and volatile. Temperatures have risen–and so have the flood waters. Public infrastructure has been overwhelmed by storms, which are frequent and extreme. Water, while abundant, is often not clean enough to drink or swim in. […]
Modern Anxiety Goes to the Beach is new performance work that uses the tragicomic world of clown to explore how our own inner chaos mirrors the greater climate chaos. Modern Anxiety is a genderqueer antihero who is just trying to have a relaxing afternoon at the […]
Lost Lake is a freshwater fable told through the poetry of mask performance. After many years away, a Traveller returns home to Lost Lake, only to discover that the lake itself has vanished. As the Traveller searches for the truth behind this transformed landscape, they risk falling prey to the strange survivors of the dried up lake – and the dryness itself.
Inspired by epic tales such as The Little Prince and Spirited Away as well as real-life stories from personal travels along the Great Lakes, and told through the magical lens of puppet and physical theatre, Lost Lake is a love letter from the long disaster.
Lost Lake was developed as a part of In the Heart of the Beast’s 2017-2018 PuppetLab Fellowship program, premiering March 23-25th, 2018.
If you would like to bring Lost Lake to your venue or city, please email elle.thoni@gmail.com.
Conceived and created by Elle Thoni and the ensemble
Co-directed by Elle Thoni and Isabel Nelson
Performed by Katie Burgess, Chava Kokhleffel, and Kat Luna, and Elle Thoni
Music composed and performed by Walken Schweigert
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Thousands of years after her extinction, Keke the Woolly Mammoth has returned to her former stomping grounds to attend public demonstrations abou. By doing so, she hopes to bring greater visibility to the plight of so many non-human species on this planet who are under […]
Words by local artists and poets take over Nicollet Mall January 30 – February 5, 2017 as part of inaugural Great Northern festival in the Twin Cities. Presented by Northern Lights.mn, Words for Winter by 17 local poets make us think about this defining season of the […]
The Water Shed is a live art installation that curates unique and personal conversations with Water. The idea for the installation came after two years of research by Porte Parole Productions, Montréal’s documentary theatre company. Collecting interviews for a play about fresh water led us to the realization that many Canadians have abstracted water in their everyday lives. The Water Shed emerges from the desire to bridge that cognitive disconnect by offering people a surprise opportunity to engage with the miraculous and mysterious presence of Water, both around us and inside of us.
In its research, Porte Parole collaborated with freshwater scientists, environmental policy-makers, advocates and artists to create an intriguing structure that places people at the centre of a playful dialogue with Water. We believe that the spontaneous exchange of thoughts, feelings & experiences opens our awareness and mimics the natural flow of water itself. The Water Shed does not seek to prescribe. Like water; it listens, absorbs and reflects.
The Water Shed had its first full presentation at the PANAMANIA arts and cultural festival, presented by CIBC, which featured “water in the Americas” as one of its themes. The installation animated the Distillery District concurrent to the premiere of Annabel Soutar’s documentary play, also called The Watershed. Porte Parole hopes to tour the Water Shed installation to locations across Canada and the US, deepening the many overlapping dialogues about something that is truly inseparable from us.
Installation History:
Ecologos’ 2016 WaterDocs Film Festival (Toronto), March 22-27th, 2016
PANAMANIA, Distillery District (Toronto) July 11-25th, 2015
Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Conference (Toronto) June 22, 2015
Vanier Céjep (Montréal) Feb 1-4, 2015
For more information about the Water Shed, click here.
For more information about Porte Parole Productions, click here.
This two-person puppet shanty explores our dependance to oil through the romantic lens of whaling lore. In this mythic world, lighthouses are really fishermen’s wives and the whales are made out of plastic garbage. Collaborators: Jeanne D-L, Sean Kropveld Performed at: Mache-Puppet II, Cafe Touski […]
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