Away With Home is a trans-disciplinary performance work featuring local youth. |
Youth sharing their voices with a community is very important for Elaine Carol and Miscellaneous Productions, which showcases real issues from actual youth performers in their production AWAY with HOME. The original play, a collection of compelling stories from all walks of life, will be presented at the Scotiabank Dance Centre Sept. 27 and 28.
“The best way to connect is in the community – face-to-face – to speak openly and directly instead of through the flashing light boxes we seem to be addicted to,” says Carol, cofounder of Miscellaneous Productions and director of AWAY with HOME.
Miscellaneous Productions is a self-described dance and theatre boot camp that prides itself in representing youth performers from all social and cultural backgrounds.
Connection to the community
Carol has been deeply involved with community and the youths within them for 35 years and has produced productions all over the world. Like all productions by Miscellaneous, AWAY with HOME doesn’t shy away from the difficult issues of today including racism, mental health, and immigration. They face them head on.
This production is especially unique because the play focuses on actual stories from the youth performers, interspersed with contemporary and hip hop dance.
“What I love about working with young performers coming from less privileged backgrounds is giving them access – a chance to learn and explore their artistry,” says Carol.
Carol wants her performers to shine whilst exploring their own artistic abilities, as well as encourage the audience to leave the production more community minded.
“Our goal with AWAY with HOME is to make the audience think in a more expansive way about the issues facing young people in our community,” says Carol. “Not that much has changed for youth except the common use of social media, which can be a creative tool, but in cases like Amanda Todd and other youth in our communities, a destructive and deadly force. We must be careful how we use it and how we represent ourselves through this limited and disaffecting medium.”
True stories on stage
One of the performers in AWAY with HOME is Arjun Panesar, a 22-year-old from Surrey, B.C. He has been performing dance since the sixth grade and teaches dance at VanCity dance, which is co-owned by his brother.
Panesar performed in a previous Miscellaneous production, Haunted House, and is excited to share more of himself and his own story in AWAY with HOME.
“In AWAY with HOME, I am completely myself. On stage I’m not playing anyone,” says Panesar. “I’m just being myself and speaking about stories and experiences that I’ve experienced. It’s a little funny going to school for two years to learn how to act and then having a show that says ‘don’t act’.”
Panesar’s piece focuses on a sensitive topic currently impacting him and his family’s life: his father’s declining physical and mental health.
“For me, putting on shows and art, expressing myself on stage or on screen, I feel that’s the ultimate fulfillment for what’s bothering me,” says Panesar. “I feel that mental health is something that’s growing in terms of awareness and I feel this piece is a really big stepping stone for me and other South Asians who are dealing with anxiety and other mental illnesses to speak up and break their silence.”
The play may revolve around the youth of today, but their issues are relevant to everyone. The pieces vary greatly in range so that every audience member will see a piece of themselves reflected through AWAY with HOME’s story-telling and dance.
“It is about a desire to make art and try something we have never tried before,” says Carol. “Demographics are a limiting way to look at people and what their art is all about. Better too, as one of our graduates, Dakota Prince says, ‘meet them where they are at’.”
Miscellaneous was formed in 2000 and every two years they produce a new theatrical work with their youth performers from many artistic disciplines.
For more information, visit www.miscellaneousproductions.ca
