MAINSTAGE 2025-2026
Hal; Single L
Kathryn Ricketts
Photo: Marilyn Horn
HAL
Hal sports a beige fortrel jacket embellished with brown braid and boasting a hand-embroidered emblem claiming him as a Regina exhibition dignitary. This outfit is accompanied by a hat blazoned with a bronze bull. Hal’s voice is amplified at times by a terrible crackling mic as he delivers a range of stories in the form of an auctioneer, a square dance caller and an Agribition announcer: “going once, going twice, gone!” Hal disrupts the expected content delivered with his bad jokes and announcements and somehow creates a tender attention and tension in a tribute to particular lives lived. Eulogies often sum up a person’s life in the most quantifiable and comparative way; I liken it to auctioneers outlining the qualities and traits of their livestock in a highly competitive market. Even when laid to rest, we fall into the trope of “must do better”. Through a range of dance/theatre and vocal improvisations, Hal finds the heart in eulogies and stories of loss, journeying from this quantitative summary to what really matters about those remembered. Three stories are woven together through Hal who reminds us that stories never exist on a neutral ground but rather are infused by our own lived experiences and values. A bittersweet humor is laced throughout this dance/theatre piece that promises to entertain and deeply touch audiences.
Music collage: from Loscil, DJ Sound Effects, Brian Eno, Square Dance Heroes, Spa & Spa & Franz Schubert, Pink Floyd, Wolf Rock Band, Ólafur Arnolds and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Kathryn Ricketts
Kathryn Ricketts, PhD, is a Full Professor and lead of Dance/Arts Ed in the Education Department at the University of Regina and is now working from Vancouver through on line course offerings. For the past 40 years Ricketts has been researching and practicing dance and visual arts performing and teaching throughout Europe, South America, Africa, Australia and Canada. Ricketts has articulated the methodology Embodied Poetic Narrative which is focused on developing individual and collective ‘voice’ through poetic performances and writing with vulnerable populations using artifacts and personal narratives. She has 4 performative research characters which she performs regularly.
I am an improvisor and inhabit characters for a long period of time (LUG is 20 years old). My characters become a kind of kinaesthetic conduit for the stories of others. Sometimes these are stories that have been silenced and/or never been told. In this way, my practice-based research works as a catalyst for community building within an emancipatory process. All four of my characters echo themes of displacement, migration, belonging, arrivals, departures, restitution and atonement. I have been dancing these characters for 20 years and each time I perform is different, as each presentation is a structured improvisation in direct response to context and conditions. The character I am proposing in this application is Hal. Typically, my performances end with conversation with the audience and the storytelling continues as well as nurturing a kind of performance literacy. I like offering community workshops adjunct to my performances in writing and movement.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
I am interested in cultivating dynamic spaces with imaginative and playful ways of fostering individualized voices and fortifying community structures. I have been privileged to work in a vast range of contexts with many arts based and interdisciplinary collaborations and I am outlining parts of this work below under the heading Performative Scholarship.
My performative research involves inhabiting characters for a long period of time (LUG is 15 years old). They act as a kinaesthetic conduit for the stories of others, stories that have been silenced and/or never been told. These characters become a catalyst for community building within an emancipatory process.
LUG with a full-length overcoat, felt hat and weighted by aged leather suitcases dances stories of arrivals, departures and the liminal spaces between surfacing stories of belonging and isolation. https://youtu.be/jXFS2GnvvsA, https://youtu.be/bTmlCjr1i68 Remington, an anthropomorphized bird inhabits an austere prairie-soaked landscape of sound and video. Provoking important conversations around identity, land, place, migration and belonging. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4x3fnt8ha9j7k8z/2021_landing_kathryn.mp4?dl=0
Rufus, a tired clown in an oversized 3-piece suit, calls attention to the natality in dissonance and error, reminding us not only of the value but the necessity of failure and risk taking. https://youtu.be/XTJbMWGM13w?t=665 All characters echo themes of displacement, migration, belonging, arrivals, departures, restitution and atonement.
This work often entails extensive collaborations with musicians, digital artists, graphic artists, film makers and actors.
In the past few years, I have created two full evening performances which entailed several residencies with several collaborators both here in Regina and in Vancouver for the creative process. I have also created 3 short films with my LUG character which have toured both National and International festivals.
I am now incorporating more voice work and text in my movement work with my two full length shows Hal; Single L and The Chair (a reimagining of Ionesco’s the Chairs) In this way I am experimenting with play and characters as I explore source material as a springboard for creatively personal renderings both as a performer, director, collaborator and facilitator moving between performances, dialogue and workshops.
Performances and Exhibitions 2018 - 2024
Solo Dance
Dance performance of three solos Ottawa Dance Directive 2024
Collage
Dance creation with Ottawa School of Dance and Saskatchewan Youth Ballet 2024
Where Do We Go from Here?
Dance creation with Association of Integrated Dance, Denmark 2023 -
The Chairs (Ionesco)Performance with Darcey Callison 2023 -
Meet Hal Performance with Joan BentsenDeer and Rabbits Studio, Denmark 2023
Full evening performance with Ian Campbell
Art Gallery of Regina, In Response to Memories of the Sun 2023
The Things We Think With
Parallel Gallery Exhibition, curator and artist 2023
Loft Events (exhibitions and performances) 2015 - Land(ing)
New Dance Horizons Prairie Circuit and Blue Prints 2025 -Gallery 222
Ongoing exhibitions in the Faculty of Education 2018 - Land(ing), Garden Plots, and Blomster
On Cue Performance Hub produced performance, Regina 2022Arrivals and Departures; Remembered Moving Stories
Virtual performance/workshop - International Dance Studies - Vancouver 2022
Braiding Sweet Intentions Through Mentorship and FriendshipPoetry readings, paper presentation – Cape Town, South Africa Joseph Naytowhow and Kathryn Ricketts 2022
BlomsterPerformance - xCoAx 2022 – Coimbra, Portugal & Rome, Italy 2022
ArrivalsPerformance with on Cue and FADA Dance & Youth ballet of Saskatchewan 2022
COVID Lug #3International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation Festival Conference 2022
3 POP up performances with On Cue Performance HubProject Sam, Regina Stories and Rufus
Ian Campbell, Dr. Stacey Bliss, Dr. Ken McDonald and Dr. Terry Sefton 2022
Blomster
Virtual Performance- Generative Art – Rome, Italy 2021
Remington and RufusSecret Garden Performances, New Dance Horizons 2021
LUG with friends10 Nights of Gong at the AGR/Neil Balkwill Centre
Dr. Kathryn Ricketts, Dr. Stacy Bliss, Dr. Andrew Stewart, Dr. Rebecca Cainnes 2021
COVID LUGS 1 & 2 (film)Generative Art Conference
Dr. Kathryn Ricketts, Scott Morgan, Dr. Arne Eigenfeldt https://youtu.be/jXFS2GnvvsA, https://youtu.be/bTmlCjr1i68 2019 & 2020
COVID LUGS 1 & 2 (film)International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation Festival Conference
Dr. Kathryn Ricketts, Scott Morgan 2019 & 2020
(Un) AuthorizedGoldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU
Dr. Kathryn Ricketts, Dr. Arne Eigenfeld 2019
Land(ing)Shadbolt Centre for the Arts
Kathryn Ricketts, Scott Morgan, Ian McDonald 2018
Project Created by: Kathryn Ricketts
Key Artistic Collaborators: Kathryn Ricketts (performer)with mentors Gwenyth Dobie, William Mackwood, Joan Bentsen and Nicola Visser
Performance type: THIS WORK IS BUILT FOR THEATRE
How do you define this work: Dance/Theatre includes dancing ,singing and storytelling within a character
Length of performance: 55 MIN
Audience type: General Audience
General Technical Requirements: Simple lighting, sound system, one small bench, I provide the props
Required amount of time for tech set up: 3 hours
Alternative Venues: This piece could be in a black box theatre or an unconventional space such as a community hall.
I like to perform for audiences under 100 so that a conversation can be managed immediately after the performance. I like to work with the space so if it is a hall and there are windows I would use them. I am moving in bare feet but not jumping so the floor needs to be ‘surface friendly’ for bare feet but does not need to be sprung. Although it would be great to have simple lighting (a few spots and a few lighting changes) it is not necessary. Although I don’t need special access to the space, I like that the audience members, including wheel chair users, have full access. This character is small town prairie fellow so it could fare well in a legion or a town hall. It would be just as interesting in a black box theatre.
The piece does have several sound cues which are on QLab so I would need someone to operate the sound and lights.
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 1
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 1
Availabilities: 2025/26 Season
Project Details
Community Engagement
Community Building: I am interested in amplifying voices that face barriers towards personal agency - mainly through workshops and performances with talk backs even in tents (i.e. The Tent Talks). This is often combined with an intergenerational aspect enabling a bridging of the gaps with forgotten stories, traditions, and rituals. This entails collaborating with translators, social workers, elders, and knowledge keepers.
Auto-Ethnography: Fascinated by the wall of Value Village where discarded objects hang in plastic bags, I have collected many ‘bulging’ bags and used them to launch compelling new narratives. These stories are often rendered through artful and playful exchanges allowing an appreciation of shared writing. I continue to work in disenfranchised communities with this method of storying through objects.
Place Based: Through improvisational encounters I create unique knowledge ecologies. This work results in movement/writing explorations of self in relation to other and rooted in the places and spaces and memories we share in our lives. I have worked with small communities across Canada over the past 15 years through galleries, theatres, community centres, and museums
Recent Community Workshops and Programs
On line and in person writing using junk as a prompter in Canada and Europe
Developing the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Seniors Programming
Paper making and writing workshops on Salt Spring Island
Teacher Training workshop for teachers teaching with and for mixed abilities – Europe
Movement and Improvisation workshops Canada and Europe
I am interested in community workshop that involve writing and movement within stories of loss and grief.
Outreach Activities
Auto-Ethnography: Fascinated by the wall of Value Village where discarded objects hang in plastic bags, I have collected many ‘bulging’ bags and used them to launch compelling new narratives. These stories are often rendered through artful and playful exchanges allowing a reciprocal appreciation of shared meaning making. I continue to work in disenfranchised communities with this method of storying through objects as a metaphoric catalyst.
Trauma Informed Practice Towards Emancipation: I am developing a series of micro credentialed courses towards a certificate in Trauma Informed Teaching with our Canadian Research Chair. Through artful and even playful approaches, I am developing methods to live with and through trauma, grief ,and mental unwellness. To this end I host an annual panel at the International Qualitative Inquiry conference titled Creative Practices Attending to Grief. My character Rufus continues to perform regularly reminding us of the fertility of failure.
Digital Literacies: I am researching the interface between object, actor/dancer, and sound as excited systems, aleatoric frameworks – augmenting and multiplying sound and movement from a variety of source materials. I continue to work with a range of multi-media artists including composers, visual artists and software developers exploring ways to fuse performative improvisational interfaces as a way to provoke conversation and support learning.
Community Building: My research within The Listening Lab is always hinged on the purpose of amplifying voices that face barriers towards personal agency - mainly through workshops and performances with talk backs but also in the form of hosting conferences, symposiums and panels (even in tents i.e. The Tent Talks). I continue to produce Loft Events showcasing grass roots artists, and am in the process of developing a website for artful scholars to exhibit on CSSE’s website as well as continuing to curate U of R, Gallery 222.
Inter-Cultural, Inter-Generational, and Indigenous Knowledges: Much of my work has and continues to be focused on developing a stronger sense of community emphasizing both shared and distinct voices within a range of cultural contexts especially with Indigenous Peoples. This is often combined with an intergenerational aspect enabling a bridging of the gaps with forgotten stories, traditions, and rituals. This often entails collaborating with translators, social workers, elders, and knowledge keepers.