Performer: Alexander Lazaridis Ferguson
Location: Zoom Room B
Online Session
This performance is an online listening and discussion around an excerpt from my theatre company’s podcast series, ‘The Refrain: Getting in Sync with the World.’ The series examines the philosophical and spiritual discourse and practices that inform the work of Fight With a Stick Performance, an award winning theatre/installation company. Our practice is one of collaboration with the other-than-human world around us. This manifests in our working methods and productions within an egalitarian collaborative creation process. We achieve this through a practice of deep mutual listening. The work of political scientist Jane Bennett, philosopher Kym Mclaren, anthropologist Eduardo Kohn, and various theatre artists and thinkers, have informed our practice. For an online performance/discussion I would lead the participants through a listening session of a portion of one of our podcast episodes, and through a structured “artful” response, in rounds, and then to an open discussion of the ideas that have informed the company’s work and the practical work itself.
Alexander Lazaridis Ferguson, Fight With A Stick Performance
I have been a theatre professional for several decades, working across performance related disciplines, and for the past 9 years have been Artistic Director of Fight With a Stick Performance. In addition to my work as an actor, writer, and director in theatre and theatre-installation art hybrids, I have undertaken applied theatre projects, including working with the Philippine Womens Association of BC, and teaching devising at the RealWheels Theatre Academy (for and by disabled artists). As an instructor, I have taught performance theory, theatre history, performance history, and devising at Capilano U, SFU, and currently at the School of Creative Arts, U of the Fraser Valley. I’ve developed and teach a devising method called “Scenographic Devising” at universities, professional theatre and dance artist workshops, and so on. I have won a number of awards for acting, directing, and innovation.