IMPORTANT UPDATE: Last Week of Shows Cancelled
Dear Community, we are deeply saddened to share with you that we will have to cancel the last week of performances of Clay and Paper Theatre’s Animal Nature this week due to Covid impacting our team. We need to prioritize their health and safety and yours too. We do not want to take any chances with our audiences, and especially vulnerable community members attending a show or a pre-show touch tour. Thank you to all of you who attended a performance of Animal Nature this summer and for supporting our extraordinary performers. It was so wonderful to see you back in the Grove and enjoying this crucial story about our vulnerable earth and home. Thank you as always for your generous spirit of community! Please take care of yourselves.
A long, long ways ago, before the Here and Now, before you was even a troublesome little grub, all the animals was pushed, and pushed and pushed – out, to the very edges of the earth itself.
The place was a ripe ol’ mess. The oceans was dying. The tundra was melting. The forests were burning. New deserts was forming, While the prairies was floodin’. .And every animal, even you humanimals, was at the end of their tether.
Possum/Narrator, Animal Nature, written By Tamara Romanchuk with Lyrics and Music by David Anderson
Finally, after a long pandemic break, Clay and Paper Theatre brings to you a BIG PUPPET SHOW! Our 2014 hit, Animal Nature, gets a glorious new remount this July and August in Dufferin Grove Park.
In this epic fight for the future of the planet, the remaining animals of the earth get pushed to the very edges of the world itself. A neurotic Caribou poet, a storytelling flatulent Possum, a sleep deprived Grizzly with anger management issues, and a lonely Orca lost in her watery dreams, are just a few of the colourful and bold creature characters in Animal Nature. “How did we get pushed to the very edges of the earth itself?” they all demand. With its cast of puppet tricksters and merrymakers, Animal Nature rallies audiences to love the planet entirely, absolutely, fervently and to find the way back home together.
With live, original music, newly re-imagined puppets painted by international muralist Shalak Attack and signature Clay and Paper Theatre satire, Animal Nature runs from July 27th to August 12th, with 7pm shows from Wednesdays to Sundays and a 3pm matinee on Saturdays.
Without profound change, the climate catastrophe cannot be avoided. Our first iteration of Animal Nature nine years ago already saw this problem. Today, it has only intensified with Indigenous Land Protectors being criminalized, with corporate forces working in tandem with governments to plunder the last resources, and with billionaires wanting to leave the very planet they’ve helped commodify and ravage.
Tamara Romanchuk, Co-Artistic Director, Clay and Paper Theatre
From the original 2014 production of Animal Nature: 1) Gavin Bowerman as Possum and Michaud Garneau as Grizzly. 2) Sara Ahmadieh and Darla Contois as Helper and the Worker 3) Anna Sapershteyn as Owl. All puppets for the 2014 production of Animal Nature were painted by the incomprable Russian puppeteer and painter, Mila Lipovskaya.
We thought it was important to go back to Animal Nature at this time in 2023. We wanted to highlight the resource extraction and habitat destruction aspect of the story, especially with what we know today of Canadian mining companies and their unchecked impact across the planet. But we also wanted to return to the hopeful reminder and vision in this play, “that humans are not the centre of the story.” Can we hold onto this vision and begin the journey anew, with clearer eyes? Can we have “a revolution of the heart?” as Isaac Murdoch, Ojibway artist, storyteller and activist from Serpent River First Nation, has said.
David Anderson, Founding Artistic Director, Clay and Paper Theatre
From left to right: 1) The 2014, Public Space Performance program Apprentices begin the building of the Animal Nature puppets under the guidance and design of Artistic Director, David Anderson. The group includes Sara Ahmadieh, Gavin Bowerman and Darla Contois 3) Clay and Paper Theatre Music Director, Dr.Chris Wilson and musician, Bruce McKinnon during at 2014 performance of Animal Nature. 3) Back at Clay and Paper Theatre’s old Strachan Ave studio, the 2014 crew celebrate the completion of Owl. The group includes Gavin Bowerman, Dana Prieto, Anna Sapershteyn, Darla Contois, Ruthie Pitka-Jones and Sara Ahmadieh.
A New Vision for Animal Nature
“In Shalak’s artistic practice, she fuses the spirit of South American muralism with contemporary street art. Shalak’s distinctive multi-layered and signature use of colour are emblematic of her unique style that inhabits the realm of psychedelic magical realism. Specializing on her acclaimed series of evocative animal and human portraits, she creates visual narratives that strive to honour the sacred power of Nature. Frequently Shalak will juxtapose her Spirit Animals with environmentally devastated habitats to call attention to the critical mistreatment of our natural resources, Pachamama. The Spirit Animals she paints are most often endangered animals, and their bold presence is a conscious reminder that their existence is at risk because of our ego-driven-addicted-busy-daze-of-never-ending-urban-life-consumption.”
Website Bio of Shalak Atttack
Clay and Paper Theatre is truly honoured to have the inspired and magical artist, Shalak Attack, help us re-imagine our Animal Nature puppets for our 2023 remount. Her words and her values as an artist and human being speak deeply to the unprecedented urgent need for us all to wake up to the environmental catastrophe before us. We hope that through her glorious work, Possum’s words in Animal Nature come alive: us “humanimals are not the centre of the story” and we must act to protect and celebrate the profound beauty of the earth.
In her home studio, artist Shalak Attack, revisions the Animal Nature puppets into magical and epic characters of the earth.
Clay and Paper Theatre 