HONOURED TO BE A PART OF THINGS AT THIS FESTIVAL!!!

I took the following text from the Magnetic North Theatre Festival website: http://www.magneticnorthfestival.ca/

About MNTF:
The Magnetic North Theatre Festival is the premiere festival of new Canadian theatre. Like the Magnetic North Pole itself, the festival moves around the country, treating Canadians to excellence in English theatre from across Canada. Magnetic North gives us the opportunity to share our stories, to interpret our history and our times, and to explore how we see the world.

ARTISTIC VISION
The Magnetic North Theatre Festival is dedicated to presenting some of the best of Canada’s touring theatre and providing that work with a sufficient showcase to launch into the world. This means that the festival seeks to present audiences with a snapshot of current artistic practice, one that celebrates the maturity and diversity of Canadian theatre. The festival is especially interested in presenting the work of companies who have evolved an aesthetic or working style that distinguishes them and moves the art form forward.

Essential to its mandate are the twin goals of strengthening and encouraging the promotion of Canadian theatre within Canada and promoting Canadian theatre to international markets; both of these goals seek to provide new economic opportunity for theatre professionals. Providing the work programmed with a springboard to the wider community, means that the festival focuses a major part of its efforts on attracting presenters and producers from across Canada and around the world so that the work presented in the festival can build national and international tours as a result of its efforts.

FOR MORE ON THE MAGNETIC NORTH THEATRE FESTIVAL CUT AND PASTE THE LINK:

http://www.magneticnorthfestival.ca/

She’s so relaxed, genuine and warm. I admire her a lot, and I love what she says about natural beauties.

First of all, I just want to say that I think it is fabulous that these awesome companies would be so bold as to align themselves with a transsexual artist as well as independant theatre. I am hoping that more and more corporate sponsors will support and profit from their associations with queer artists or any theatre artist for that matter.

Benefits Cosmetics is the official make-up sponsor for I was Barbie. I will be wearing their stuff onstage every night, and for much longer. It’s beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Givenchy Hot Couture will be the official fragrance of I Was Barbie. I’ve always loved Givenchy’s fragrances so this is a special one!

…and finally Dermaglow is going to be handling all of my skin care needs this summer leading up to and including the run of I was Barbie. (very important during the stress of a show!)

I am so proud of these visionary companies for their generous contributions, for realizing that live performance art is worth sponsoring, and that art is very very glamourous!

I was Barbie goes up next at the SummerWorks Theatre Festival August 5-15, Theatre Passe Muraille backspace

Theatre La Chapell just announced their official 2010-11 theatre season. I’m very excited to bring The Silicone Diaries there in December (2010). Theatre La Chapelle is a beautiful theatre, and they are known for showcasing the best in avante gard theatre, dance and music in Montreal.

To check out their website CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING:

http://lachapelle.org/

BELOW IS THEIR PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THE SILICONE DIARIES:

The Silicone Diaries is a full, frank and fierce exploration of the contradictions associated with the quest for beauty, balanced by an intimate and spiritual account of Arsenault’s adventures in plastic surgery. According to Arsenault, “Beauty is something some women are lucky to be born with. Beauty is supposed to be natural, but if you weren’t lucky enough to be born with it then you’re called superficial for pursuing it.” This is the variable for her exploration, as she seeks to define the perceived difference between “inner and outer beauty, realness and fakeness.” Along the way, Arsenault proves an engaging raconteur chronicling everything from life as a web cam girl to black market injections, and a “Crying Game-style” collision with rocker Tommy Lee.

Nina Arsenault came to prominence as a columnist for Fab Magazine. Her widely-read column documented her transitioning and laid the foundation for her future performance work. The script for the production of The Silicone Diaries will be published in an anthology of queer plays by Borealis Press. In 2009, Arsenault sold out Canadian queer festivals, We’re Funny That Way, Buddies’ Sexy Pride and Halifax’s Queer Acts Festival with her hilarious solo I Was Barbie. Arsenault’s television appearances have included The Jon Dore Show (Comedy Network), Kink (Showcase), Train 48 (Global) and Fashion Television. Across Canada through her many appearances, articles and performances, Arsenault is garnering accolades and exposure as a unique Canadian artist.

Thie following is from the Toronto Star. To view the article on their site CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING LINK:

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/822008–sexy-transsexual-nina-arsenault-on-life-art-and-her-penis

by Jim Rankin, Staff Reporter (photos also by Jim Rankin)

This won’t be a narrative about a girl trapped inside the body of an awkward boy from Beamsville, who went through 60 plastic surgeries and cosmetic procedures to transform her body into Jessica Rabbit with a penis she remains rather attached to.

Nina Arsenault — whose critically-acclaimed autobiographical play, The Silicone Diaries, will brighten stages this fall and next year in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa — decided a while back that she was tired of others telling the story of her journey to “reclaim” her body.

Yes, beginning in 1999, she embarked on a long, painful, and at times scary metamorphosis that included risky surgeries and illegal silicone injections.

But, sitting behind a desk at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, dressed in a clingy, low-cut black top, leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings, the 36-year-old former sex worker, writer, lecturer and performer with two postgraduate degrees in theatre and playwriting prefers not to dwell on that.

Arsenault is in demand these days. Pride celebrations are around the corner. She’ll be hosting parties, including a prom for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and questioning queers.

She will also take to the stage at the upcoming IdeaCity conference of big minds in Toronto, and tell her story.

Later this summer, at Theatre Passe Muraille, she’s scheduled to perform i was Barbie, another autobiographical play that riffs on a real-life gig she had to “represent a doll accused of f—–g up the body images of millions of little girls.”

As she put it in an email, it’s a “spiritual portrait of a glittery, digitally-commodified, plastic world from the point of view of a silicone transsexual who represents Barbie at her official birthday party and the opening night of Fashion Week . . . shades of Andy Warhol.”

Yes, she can write.

Her days consist of workouts, voice training with singer Fides Krucker and writing with mentor and collaborator Judith Rudakoff. She works out of her downtown apartment, where she oversees her publicity, right down to the cropping and airbrushing of photos that appear on her website. She likes, she says, to have the final say on everything, a prerogative she has borrowed from Madonna.

So, rather than a narrative, a Q&A followed by a photo shoot orchestrated by Arsenault seems appropriate for a woman who describes herself as a queer artist, and her body as a queer art object.

Q: You’re not the kind of model that sits back and lets the photographer call the shots?

A: No. I see myself more as an auteur. I like to be the subject of the work, but also the creator of the work. As transsexuals, there’s just been so many documentaries about us and they’re usually put together by non-transgendered people. The emphasis is always to make us palatable to whatever audience that’s being spoken to.

Q: How have people tried to make you more palatable?

A: No. 1, they try to make you less sexual. Less sexy.

Q: How is that possible?

A: I’ll take that as a compliment. Sometimes, I’ve done things for a newspaper where they’ll say, ‘We can’t print that photo. It’s too sexual.’ It’s just something about the way my lips are, or there’s maybe cleavage in it. And my response is always that people can get this online now — provocative, naked photos. I think that print media is really behind that way. Another way of making someone who is queer palatable to a normative mass audience is to pathologize them. It’s to say that the things that are different about them, the things that are unique about them, it must be because that person’s f—-d up. Certainly, I’ve been accused of that — it’s dysmorphia, intense perfectionism or narcissism. I always refuse to accept those perspectives on my life. I think it’s very important not to listen to your detractors.

Q: At what point did it become art for you, the transforming of your body? Yes, there´s more…. »

The interview is in two parts (below), and it’s about 20 minutes long. Cynthia Loyst and I chat about my transformations, straight men who are attracted to transsexuals and about my upcoming play I was Barbie at SummerWorks 2010. Brendan Healy, my director and the Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre joins us later in the interview, too!

The show originally aired on Friday, June 4th. Big thanks to Star Network and CP24 for having us on, and for supporting queer performance!

I will be speaking at Moses Znaimer’s ideaCity 2010. They’ve just announced the full list of presenters.

I will be talking about a blasphemous topic: Woman as Art Object.

Check out all the speakers at the following web address:

http://www.ideacityonline.com/presenters/2010

(the following text from their site ideacityonline.com)

What is ideaCity?
50 Presenters, 3 Legendary Parties, a Ton of Inspiration
ideaCity, also known as ‘Canada’s Premiere Meeting of the Minds’, is an eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists.

Fifty of the planet’s brightest minds converge on Toronto each June to speak to a highly engaged audience. Only 700 are privileged to attend.

Produced and presented by Moses Znaimer, ideaCity is not themed around any one topic, issue or business. There are no scripted speeches or, breakout or parallel sessions. Rather, everyone is in one place and in on the same narrative.

With extra-long schmooze breaks between sessions, and legendary parties each night, attendees have had an unprecedented opportunity to mingle with such notable speakers as Conrad Black, Barbara Gowdy, Michael Ignatieff, Douglas Coupland, Pamela Wallin, Pete Seeger, Robert Kennedy Jr., John Ralston Saul, Daniel Libeskind, Clayton Ruby, Romeo Dallaire and the late Peter Jennings.

Special thanks to Michael Pihach for helping me create the image and to Dan Vernon for the poster design.

FYI-
PSi is a professional association founded in 1997 to promote communication and exchange between scholars and practitioners working in the field of performance. The organisation has staged numerous international conference and festival gatherings that have moved between the discourse and practice of performance. PSi conferences have been held across the U.S.A. and the U.K. and in Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, and Croatia.

for more info check out their website http://psi16.com/

This performance is directed by Brendan Healy and dramaturged by Judith Rudakoff.

I am very happy to have Shoppers Drug Mart (King and Peter location)come on board for this summer’s production of i was Barbie (Aug 5-15th, Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, SummerWorks Festival).

I am also going to be working with Shoppers on a charity event at the end of July that will highlight some of their make-up lines (Dior, Smashbox) as well as my performance art. The event is called Extreme Beauty, and I’ll have more details soon.

Also, anyone who buys make-up at the store after July 15th will get a flyer in their bag about I was Barbie.

Thanks to Shopper’s Drug Mart for supporting independant theatre and avant garde art. With this partnership I am looking forward to an exciting mix of business, art and glamour!

(design by Stéphane Monnet)

We had the general meeting for SummerWorks 2010 yesterday. Very exciting stuff.

Everyone working on i was Barbie 2.0 knew that the Theatre Passe Muraille backspace is where we want the performance to happen. We’re very happy to work in that space.

i was Barbie 2.0 is being performed at SummerWorks Theatre Festival Aug 5-15th.

I will be performing an excerpt the night of the launch party, and maybe giving out some special Barbie cupcakes, too. The launch party is on Saturday, May 5th, 2010. Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A Ossington Ave, doors open at 8pm.