The final moments before the theatre curtain rises — and falls — are captured in a new exhibit at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre that opens Saturday.
Theatre Theatre, an installation that runs until Oct. 30, collects four video works that describe the space for a stage performer just as he or she starts and ends a show.
Deborah Edmeades presents her 2014 piece titled This (and this and this…), which detail a pair of hands manipulating a series of imaginary objects in a theatrical training exercise — with the background and object changing colour.
In Adad Hannah’s The Sculptor from this year, a sculptor is at work with the figure paused and poised in real time. Like with Edmeades’ series, the subjects change colour.
Oliver Husain’s Purfled Promises (2009) opens on a closed curtain while Proscenium by Carol Sawyer was filmed on the boards of the now-demolished Pantages Theatre in Vancouver.
“Theatre Theatre takes the theatrical curtain as its starting point,” said curator Gregory Elgstrand, the visual arts manager at Evergreen, a facility that next week marks its 20th season. “In the theatre, prior to a performance, the curtain hides from the view of the spectator the material facts of a performance: actors, props, sets, etc., or, in other words, it obscures the scene of the action.
“The spaces behind or in front of a closed curtain are spaces of anticipation about what is to come once the curtain is raised,” he said.
• The opening reception for Theatre Theatre is Sept. 10 from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Art Gallery at Evergreen (1205 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam).
