The Arctic is melting and everyone wants a piece of it. In the race to shape the future of the region, seven characters — a climate scientist, an Inuit activist and her daughter, two Canadian Coast Guard officers, an Inuit hunter, and a polar bear — see their values challenged as their lives become intricately intertwined. Equal parts Inuit myth and contemporary Arctic policy, Sila mixes puppetry, projection, spoken word poetry and three different languages (English, French & Inuktitut). The play was originally commissioned by Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company in San Diego.
Chantal Bilodeau’s award-winning drama, Sila, will be performed as a part of UWS2 on Thursday, October 11/12 in Mount Royal University’s Leacock Theatre. Hosted by playwright Natalie Meisner of MRU’s English Department, Sila will be open to conference delegates as well as to the public. This is a Free Event.
CHANTAL BILODEAUis a New York-based playwright and translator originally from Montreal. She was awarded First Prize for her play Sila in the 2012 Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the 2011 Uprising National Playwriting Competition. Recent productions include Green Dating (Estrogenius Festival, 2011), Hunger (Bated Breath Theatre Company, 2011), The Motherline (New York Fringe Festival, 2009), Pleasure & Pain (Magic Theatre; Foro La Gruta, Teatro La Capilla and Festival de Teatro Nuevo León in Mexico City, 2007), and the English translations of Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé (The Movement Theatre Company, 2010) and Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre by Larry Tremblay (Alberta Theatre Projects, 2010). She has received commissions from the Lark Play Development Center, Play Company, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company and Bated Breath Theatre Company; and fellowships from the Dramatists Guild, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Banff Centre, the Jerome Foundation and The Farm, Inc. Her translations include a dozen of plays by contemporary playwrights Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria), Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire), Étienne Lepage (Quebec) and Larry Tremblay (Quebec). She is currently at work on a six-play cycle that looks at the impact of climate change on six regions of the Arctic. www.cbilodeau.com.