What: Group Therapy
When: Tuesday, Feb. 19, 8
p.m.
Where: The Path Gallery
Tickets: $10
More exciting than Jerry
Springer and Oprah?
That’s a tall order
considering the amount of entertainment value the boob tube turns up on loser
boyfriends failing lie detector tests and thirteen years old who want to get
pregnant.
What is it about these human
spectacles that have millions upon millions clicking onto their shows?
The Vicious Circle, a.k.a.
the Whistler Writers’ Group, has fallen privy to the secret and intends to
exploit the love of watching people wear their lives on a screen, with the
sixth annual Literary Leanings storytelling event, aptly named Group Therapy on
Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. at the Path Gallery.
“Lisa (Richardson) and I had
lunch one day,” organizer Stella Harvey began while mirthfully explaining the
inspiration behind this year’s event.
“We were talking about our
mothers.”
She laughs with the kind of
knowing chuckle that always accompanies the rolling of your eyes.
“And out of the blue, this
came from it.”
Mothers and therapy go hand
in hand like pen and paper. Writers often scribble from the dark caverns of
their subconscious, unleashing their childhood, their adulthood and their cat
scruffy all into one sentence.
“Writing often typifies your
life experiences,” says Harvey, who as an author understands the idea of ink purging
all too well.
So what are these Vicious
Circle guests going to purge all over audiences – anything but a dry read with
an author hiding behind the pages of a book.
Like Springer, this literary
event is all about performance and entertainment although Harvey promises there
will be no need for bouncers.
Who knows though? When you
are inviting Oni the Haitian Sensation a.k.a. The Godmother of Canadian Slam,
anything can happen. After receiving rave reviews at her Whistler debut
performance at the Whistler Writers Festival last September, organizers just
had to ask this internationally recognized poet back. This “shit-disturber” and
HIV advocate is the first black woman to have her poetry published in Ottawa.
The director of Canada’s first National Poetry Slam and the Canadian Spoken
Wordlympics has also performed for the Governor General.
“She’s larger than life,”
Harvey said. “A lot of her stuff is set to rap.”
Opinions, rhythm, wordplay
and even musical beats will keep local tattlers on stage, company. Stephen
Vogler, author of Top of the Pass and voted Best Writer in Whistler, will hook
up with rhythm man Rajan Das for an unusual wordplay reading.
Nothing is normal about this
line up. Author Ivan E Coyote takes great pride in being anything but the usual
white bread and butter. The Alaska native spins entertaining yarns that will
have you rolling down a steep slope in a tracker tire with three friends while
time turns to slow motion as your mother screams after you in protest. She
brought down the house at last year’s Postcard Jam, and with more than five
books to her credit, this performance writer is never short on material.
“She hits all the notes in
terms of people’s lives,” Harvey says. “She’s a storyteller and a performer.”
Are you getting this? Performance,
not bed time story to put you to sleep and even if you try (remember authors
always have books they can throw around and with all of those rough copies
tossed in the basket, they’ve got pretty stellar aim too), recent Whistler
transplant Grant Stoddard will shock with his stories of offering himself up as
man-bait at a hardcore gay bar to attending an elite orgy – as if there wasn’t
any other kind. The author of Working Stiff – not even going there – will make
audiences blush while Gregory Scofield will slow things down with his heartfelt
tale.
Tracing his maternal ancestry
back five generations from the Red River Settlement to Manitoba, Scofield
published an acclaimed collection of poetry last year about his quest to
discover the identity of his mysterious father, who he discovered to be Jewish.
Add to the mix his sexual identity as a gay many, and he’ll cover everything
from heartbreak to hilarity.
Ms. Hilarity Rebecca Wood
Barrett will take up the talking stick – all new mothers have to have a sense
of humour. The local television producer promises to cross over multiple
genres.
The goal of the evening is to
break as many traditional norms as possible. After all isn’t that what all-good
Group Therapy – with balcony seating – is all about?
Tickets for this naked
display of emotion and people’s lives are $10.
So turn off Springer, get out
and try something new.
Just a hint, reading
performances are a bit like exercise. It might take a little will power to get
in the door, but once you are, boy does it feel good.
