The Banff Centre: Communications

CCN Matthews – February 18, 2004.  
Artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (media arts) of Montreal and Lily Yung (visual arts) of Toronto are the second recipients of two-year fellowships from the Artists-in-Residence for Research (AIRes) program jointly established by the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). These fellowships will provide the artists with a research residency ($75,000 per year) in one of NRC’s 19 institutes across Canada.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: For nine years this artist has forged links between architecture and the public realm and will now begin work with NRC-IRC. He develops interactive pieces that deploy new materials and utilize sensor and input technologies. Rafael incorporates artwork into existing structures, enabling the public to interact with them. His work has been shown in two-dozen countries. He received four grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and has twice been a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

CBC Arts –

February 12, 2004.  

A comic opera about a chimpanzee that becomes human wraps up a successful run at an eclectic Pittsburgh theatre company. Kafka’s Chimp was developed by the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Karla Boos, artistic director of Pittsburgh’s Quantum Theatre, felt that Kafka’s Chimp — lauded at its 1996 Banff Arts Festival world premiere — was perfect for her adventurous theatre audience. So, in addition to staging the unusual 75-minute production, which was also translated and toured Sweden in 1999, she decided to present the opera at the Pittsburgh Zoo…. In the case of Kafka’s Chimp, combining a unique opera and an out of the ordinary venue earned praise in local papers and resulted in sold out shows. “It’s a shame to think that it hasn’t been produced more since 1996,” Boos told the Pittsburgh Tribute-Review .Composed by John Metcalf and librettist Mark Morris, and developed and originally produced by Banff Theatre Arts’ 20th century opera and song department, Kafka’s Chimp ends its Pittsburgh run Thursday. The opera’s Canadian creators are hoping the recent triumph south of the border will spark an interest in theatres at home and abroad.

Calgary Herald – February 4, 2004. &nbsp “It turns out the blockbuster movie of 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, has a Banff Centre connection. Marie Ebbing and Mark Willsher, both alumni of the the Centre’s music and sound audio training program, worked closely with composer Howard Shore on the soundtrack of the epic film.”

Calgary Sun (links die after one day) – February 1, 2004.   The 2004 Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Work began previews January 28 with Ken Cameron’s My One And Only, a fictional account of the relationship between an Alberta teenager and superstarlet Marilyn Monroe, who spent several weeks in Banff shooting the 1954 film, River of No Return.

Edmonton Journal – February 1, 2004.   “I’m Standing Here Before You,” a new solo piece by Edmonton’s veteran choreographer and dancer Brian Webb, “was profoundly influenced by his authentic movement studies with Tedi Tafel, a choreographer and instructor at Montreal’s National Theatre School who taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts this past summer.”