PTC Welcomes Block P Participants 2017
We are pleased to announce the participants in this year’s Block P (Producing): lee williams boudakian, Moses Clyde Caliboso, Rachael Goddard-Rebstein, Peg Keenleyside, Jessica Leung, Ariel Martz-Oberlander and Anoushka Ratnarajah. Over the next six weeks these five artists will be learning the ins and outs of indie producing with UpintheAir Theatre‘s Daniel Martin and Dave Mott.
lee williams boudakian (uses they, them, theirs pronouns) is a queer, trans, Armenian-Liverpudlian mixie with familial & ancestral ties to Lebanon, Syria, what is current-day Turkey, and Liverpool, England. Born in Scarborough, Ontario, and having moved many times, lee currently works as an interdisciplinary artist, writer, producer and facilitator based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish lands. lee has trained across artistic disciplines in both institutional and non-institutional settings, and arrives at artmaking as acts of resistance, world&future visioning, and celebration towards liberation and healing. Current love projects include Kalik, ShapeShift Arts, and The HyePhen Mag.
Moses Clyde Caliboso is a poet, playwright, rapper, writer, performer, and barista. His work has been on display with W49, Urban Ink Productions, and the Arts Club Theatre Company’s LEAP program. He considers some of his influences and inspirations to be Frank Ocean, Pablo Neruda, Junot Diaz, Lydia Davis and Carlos Bulosan. His favourite cafe in Vancouver is Kafka’s.
Rachael Goddard-Rebstein is a recent graduate from UBC and has an interdisciplinary master’s degree in English, Psychology and Film and Theatre. She completed a play as her master’s thesis based on the life of the medieval mystic Margery Kempe. She also enjoys writing fiction and poetry, and has published articles in student newspapers and academic journals.
Peg Keenleyside is an actor/writer/director and producer. She has co-written and produced new Canadian plays including Smoke Damage (Nightwood Theatre) and Hockey Wives (Factory Theatre). Actor credits include the National Arts Centre, Centre Stage and the Blyth Festival. Directing credits include In Their Nightgowns, Dancing at UBC, and the political comedy Proud at Capilano University. Peg is currently producing the new comedy Obit at the 2017 Fringe Festival.
Jessica Leung is a DeafPOC(Person of Colour), Asian Taiwanese and Chinese, gender neutral person currently living, working and performing as a settler on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples. Jessica is a poet, dancer, movement artist and visual artist, hoping to combine movement with sign language (American Sign Language), which overlaps Jessica’s own journey. Jessica is learning and creating through collaboration or as an individual in the hopes of bringing their intersectional cultural focus to work in both the hearing and the Deaf world.
Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a theatre artist, writer, teacher and activist based in Vancouver. Her work explores the intersection of spectator and agitator in an attempt to find the personal in the global. Her newest play, created with support from the LEAP program, in which the climate crisis is explored through the lens of a woman losing her memory and the river who tries to understand her humanity, will be read at Arts Club in April 2017.
Anoushka Ratnarajah is a queer, mixed race femme, and an interdisciplinary and transnational artist and arts organizer. Her most recent creative projects include Capital, Alice!, an anti-capitalist, Alice in Wonderland-themed musical; and partnered projects with Kalik and Shapeshift Arts, including Dear Armen. Upcoming work includes (Untitled) Boxes and a solo show, Mixed Vegetable.
Bahareh Shigematsu was born and raised in Tehran, and lived in four countries and nine cities. As a result, she speaks Farsi, Turkish, French and English fluently. She has produced a feature-length film, and several music videos for Persian recording artists that have been seen internationally. She is currently an Artistic Associate with VACT, and Production Manager for VACT’s play development workshops.