Elaine Weryshko
Elaine Weryshko (she/her) is a physical theatre artist and practitioner of modern live performance space from Calgary/Mohkínstsis. Her medium is a poetic body, she writes for it in a practice-based out of extensive training in Lecoq physical theatre (mask, clown, puppetry, chorus) and contemporary dance/movement devising methods. She writes, performs, produces, designs and ambushes live events for large-scale shows in alternative spaces all over Alberta. Typical projects are inspired for choruses and large gatherings, searching for storytelling from performers of all forms and confidences, reinvigorate group catharsis on and off the stage.
ARTISTIC DECLARATION :
I am a brain that is melted down into Flesh, into Blood, to Bones, the Guts, the Skin…. I am a body of pleasure and tragedy, as are you. I believe in that connection.
Elaine is interested in creating work that is unimaginable. Inspired through a visceral live honesty to keep pushing the collision of genres between a spectacle and the intimate, personal and political, viewer and participant. Ultimately, as an artist, she wants audiences to be provoked and forced to examine their role in the presentation. They must determine their place as supporters, mockers posers or subjects. Her work combines text, music and choreography to build scenes that set up ideas, images and relationships – and then destroy them.
Elaine is the Educational Co-Director at the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry, co-creator of, to the AWE, a reoccurring risk-based performance series in Calgary and producer of The WunderBriefs series at the Animated Objects Festival. In the past she has worked with or presented at: The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Alberta Gallery of Art, Mile Zero Dance, Sage Theatre, Springboard Performance, Alberta Gallery of Art, Swallow A Bicycle, Theatre Junction, the Pacitti Company (UK), The Invisible Dog (NYC), and mentored with immersive theatre giant PunchDrunk in their London production A Drowned Man. She has trained around the world at: The London International School of Performing Arts, Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theatre, The Manitoulin Conservatory for Creation and Performance and with the SITI Company NYC Summer Viewpoints Intensive.
