CANCELLED: SCHMOPE at Vancouver Fringe Nov 26-Dec 5 2020

CANCELLED DUE TO COVID

ANNOUNCEMENT

Tasha Diamant performs 

Schmope at the Vancouver Fringe

Nov 26-Dec 5 2020

Ticket info https://www.vancouverfringe.com/ticket-info/ 

Program description: Phenomenal woman. Superhero. Schmancer survivor. Brilliant performance artist/improviser/tragicomedian Tasha Diamant uses her naked body+miraculous self to create offerings pushing back against an oppressive culture. Radical vulnerability as medicine. Montreal Fringe creativity award winner 2018.

Times and Place:

Performance Works

1218 Cartwright Street, Granville Island

Vancouver, BC

Thu 26th Nov 7:00-8:15 pm

Fri 27th Nov 9:15-10:30 pm

Sat 28th Nov 4:30-5:45 pm

Sun 29th Nov 7:00-8:15 pm

Thu 3rd Dec 9:15-10:30 pm

Sat 5th Dec 2:00-3:15 pm

"Your work is the most interesting and powerful and important work that I've seen at any Fringe."

–Charles Adrian, creator of Ms. Samantha Mann

"Our winner is a show that isn't comfortable in its contradictions and cares so deeply it just can't give a fuck! Fierce nonchalance and the full power of extreme vulnerability: it challenges everything we believe about theatre and undermines all hierarchies. It is the ultimate feminist act and the ultimate act of fringe."

— Geoff Agombar, Montreal Fringe juror

"You are a role model."

— audience member

"When confronted with work to which I've had a visceral reaction I need to go deep within to confront the part of me that’s mirrored. Although there are many solemn moments, the performance is surprisingly life-affirming, with moments of laughter... Profoundly moving and relevant."

— Janis La Couvée

"The definition of sincerity."

— audience member

Ticket info https://www.vancouverfringe.com/ticket-info/ 

Standing by the cement "Corona" pipes in Squamish, BC, 2019 (pre-Corona virus). Photo by Nicole Gurney.

"Plot" summary:

I start out sitting in the theatre as the audience comes in. Just regular lighting with perhaps a bit of stage lighting as well. I chat with people or not. When the show starts I say a brief intro and remind the audience that I will get naked. I get undressed and put on my Extinction Symbol "outfit," as I have done on the streets many times. I talk about whatever comes to mind, usually about the street activism/performances that I've done. Then eventually I take the Extinction Symbols off and I speak extemporaneously. I discuss: big emotions, extinction, capitalism, colonization, how this is the most destructive culture that has ever existed, fun stuff like that. I share my own challenges with being an adult and mother in this culture. Sometimes I am quiet. People are invited to contribute. No one is asked to do anything.

"Marketing" angles:

I am the first person in the world to stand on the streets naked holding the Extinction Symbol (as confirmed to me by the symbol's creator). The Extinction Symbol was created in 2011 by an anonymous British artist known as ESP. I had been doing monthly naked Vulnerability Vigils in Victoria, holding a sign with the word VULNERABLE (and other words). When I learned about the Extinction Symbol in 2014, I started to hold that. It is now, of course, an international symbol used by activists worldwide. 

I am a Stage 4 cancer survivor (I prefer to identify as a schmancer schmurvivor). I have lived more than 5 years since diagnosis. My doctor says I'm a miracle patient. My cancer is inseparable from who I am and have been as an artist. My ongoing performance art project is called the Human Body Project and, obviously, cancer is part of MY human body project. The connection between how our culture is destructive and brutal and how I feel in my emotions and body is something I've felt since I was a child but only really deeply explored after becoming a mother. I've felt very alone but, you know, what with the casual end of old growth trees, air that is unbreathable from other dying forests, SO MANY SCAPEGOATS and marginalized people, and the global pandemic... more people are finally connecting the SAD FUCKING dots.

If, for some reason, you read about me and think I must identify as libertarian, anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, conservative-leaning, credulous of anything Fox news or Rebel media would cover, or even a nudist, and that appeals to you... you're probably going to be disappointed.

I am also a visual artist and just finished painting a beautiful mural in downtown Victoria.

COVID 19:

For information about Vancouver Fringe's excellent Corona virus precautions here's a link. https://tickets.vancouverfringe.com/