Selfconscious Productions Brings CANADA HUB to Edinburgh Fringe

The producers of Counting Sheep, the hit visceral political theatre piece that stormed Edinburgh Fringe in 2016, are back to present a vital and relevant season of theatre and contemporary performance from across Canada. The 70th Anniversary Edinburgh Fringe runs Aug 4 - 28, 2017.

King's Hall will be home to Canada Hub, presented by Selfconscious Productions as part of the award-winning Summerhall and Aurora Nova programmes for 2017. Canada Hub comes to Edinburgh in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts and with support from the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom and British Council Canada.

"I'm thrilled to be returning to Edinburgh Fringe" says Michael Rubenfeld, Artistic Producer of Selfconscious Productions and curator of Canada Hub. "Our success with Counting Sheep last year solidified that Edinburgh Fringe is the most important English-language festival in the world, and I am proud to be partnering with such incredible companies to present this ground-breaking showcase for Canadian theatre artists"

"We're so proud to be a partner in the Canada Hub at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.", adds Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council "Our artists' unique and electrifying performances make powerful statements on identity, gender, ethnicity, relationships in a digital world, and other issues that fascinate and shape us in the 21st century. "

The Canada Hub line-up will include five productions that will sit alongside an evolving live art performance.

DECLARATION: Rematriation is an exploration of Indigenous Canadian identity presented by ARTICLE 11. The creator is an Indigenous performance company led by Tara Beagan and Andy Moro. Visitors can take in a performance and watch it grow and evolve in response to the artists' involvement in the world's largest arts festival happening on their doorstep. ARTICLE 11 will be joined by Canadian Indigenous Artists Lee Maracle, Santee Smith and Christa Couture as well as other artists from across the festival collaborating including Hot Brown Honey.

In theatre, Mouthpiece explores the conflict within one modern woman's head. The show comes to Edinburgh following a critically-acclaimed Canadian tour, and most recently, a presentation in Los Angeles hosted by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster. Playing physically and musically with women's voices, thoughts, opinions and place in society, Mouthpiece, created and performed by Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken, is an electrifying piece of theatre. Jodie Foster said the show left her speechless: "Mouthpiece touches on every part of the female experience from birth to death using dance, music, wicked humour with just a bathtub for scenery. It's impossible to describe and truly unforgettable."

With audiences limited to just 30 per show, Foreign Radical rings darkly true in the year of the 'Muslim Ban.' Toying with themes of trust and Islamophobia, the audience enters a room where they are asked a series of questions and are expected to answer truthfully. Created by Tim Carlson and Jeremy Waller of Vancouver's Theatre Conspiracy, Foreign Radical is a radical game of secrets that keep the audience on the move and where answering questions will determine their fate.

Hardly needing introduction, the personal assistant in so many of our pockets, Siri takes to the stage in an eponymous one-woman show. Using actual interactions between the iPhone software and a human, Laurence Dauphinais and Maxime Carbonneau have created a show that highlights the deep divide between AI (Artificial Intelligence) and us, not to mention the striking similarities. The piece hinges on Laurence's exploration of her own "programming", as one of Canada's first "test-tube" (in vitro) babies.

From two of Montreal's most celebrated artists - Thus Spoke... combines two pillars of identity: movement and speech in a gripping mix of theatre, dance and existential pop. Choreographer Frédérick Gravel and writer Étienne Lepage have created a piece in which four performers playfully wrestle the system in this rock and roll harangue of the human experience. Inspired by everything from Nietszche to Hendrix, Thus Spoke... is a charmingly philosophical piece of theatre.

Returning to the Fringe, Halifax's 2b theatre company (Edinburgh Herald Angel Award) presents Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, a gig-cum-theatre piece which at first blush is a four piece band - yet quickly becomes an invigorating deconstruction of our inability to talk about immigration. Old Stock is created by Canadian folk-hero Ben Caplan, director Christian Barry and Canada's most celebrated playwright, Hannah Moscovitch. The story is based on the true journey of Moscovitch's great-grandparents, Romanian Jews who immigrated to Canada almost a century ago. Caplan plays the mysterious emcee in this examination of the refugee experience, intricately woven with a love story. This piece runs the gamut from humorously dark folktale to high-energy concert.

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