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Volcano Theatre is an international, award-winning theatre company based in Toronto.
They create art that is at once stylistically and socially modern, and vividly accessible and entertaining - a combination that makes for great theatre.
Their work explores identity, politics, history - all the ingredients that make up the world today - from the internationally informed perspective of 21st century Canada. They create art by synthesising styles and skills from across art forms, genres, and geographic boundaries; assembling local, national, and international artists in one of the world's most dynamic cultural hubs to craft compelling stories.
Led by Artistic Director Ross Manson, Volcano has been a vital contributor to Toronto's theatre scene for almost twenty years and continues to redefine what it means to produce outward-looking, innovative theatre. They state about their philosophy the following.
“Art does otherness well. Art is all about presenting the impossible-to-understand. It doesn't seek to reduce the impossible; it seeks to distil it. A painter puts perception itself onto a flat surface with coloured oil. A poet uses language to get around and behind the limits of language. A composer creates sounds that haunt us. A dancer models space in a way that, unaccountably, moves the space within us. An actor seems to be a window onto a whole reality we never considered before, or have been intensely curious to explore, perhaps without even knowing why. If they do it well, we soak it up. David Brooks writes that human affairs are complex before which science and analysis simply stand mute. But Art does complexity well. Because Art doesn't seek to explain - it seeks to reveal.”
“ But, then, even with good Art, even assuming complexity is revealed, and otherness is distilled, what changes? Nothing much. Art is hard to get right, and not many people bother with it, most of the time. And artists react to this reality with different strategies, sometimes with anger, or sometimes with a desire to please. But, as Jø Stromgren says, "provocation most often leads to rejection and cuddling leads nowhere, but in between, there are many ways of tricking people to see, admit and reflect upon uncomfortable and important issues.”
“So we try to find the in-between. The way in. We don't hope for much, but that the sponge soaks up something useful, something humane. That the fly lands on the right nose. That something changes, somewhere, for the better.”
THE TEAM
Ross Manson, Artistic Director
Meredith Potter, General Manager
Meaghan Davis, Associate Producer
Ginger Scott, Metcalf Foundation Arts Management Intern
251 Crawford Street
Toronto, ON M6J 2V7
CANADA
Telephone: 416-538-4436
Fax: 416-538-5619
info@volcano.ca
http://www.volcano.ca/index.php
Here I a video reflect some of their work.