Why Not Theatre and Harbourfront Centre Present MOBY DICK

Why Not Theatre has announced that it has partnered with Harbourfront Centre to present a wildly-original theatrical adaptation of Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick, by innovative French-Norwegian puppetry company, Plexus Polaire. Moby Dick will be presented over three performances on December 13, 15 and 16 at the Fleck Dance Theatre as part of Harbourfront Centre's fifth annual Festival of Cool. The Toronto presentation, made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts and Nordic Bridges initiative, will be the play's Ontario premiere and final stop on a Canadian tour that includes appearances at Casteliers (Montreal) and Le Diamont (Quebec City).

"We are delighted to bring Plexus Polaire to Canada," said Why Not Theatre Founder and Co-Artistic Director, Ravi Jain. The company is forging a new path in the world of puppet theatre. The work is so unique and breathtaking; it's of a scale and inventiveness we rarely get a chance to see. I'm so excited for Toronto audiences to experience this magical storytelling!"

Hailed by critics as 'a creation of great poetic power, melancholic, visually stunning' and 'a dark and powerful philosophical tale,' Plexus Polaire's Moby Dick is a unique theatrical adaptation of Melville's 'wonderful beast of a book,' featuring seven actors, fifty puppets, video-projections, a 'drowned' orchestra and a whale-sized whale. "This is the magic of a total show. Not to be missed," exclaimed Vivant Mag.

In describing the inspiration for Moby Dick, director/creator Yngvild Aspeli said, "My grandfather was a sailor. He had a naked woman tattooed on his upper arm, and I remember him as a smell of tar and tobacco. He came from an island on the west-coast of Norway, a tiny harbor filled with foreign ships and languages, fishermen, sailors and children waiting for fathers who never came home from the sea... I like how the sea somehow draws invisible lines between the different corners of the world; how it creates points of connection. How, facing this force of nature, we are all the same. And no-one captures the battle between man and nature like Herman Melville in Moby Dick."

Yngvild Aspeli is an award-winning director, actress, puppeteer and puppet-maker known for her innovative use of life-sized puppets, combined with live actors, immersive soundscapes and arresting visual elements. Aspeli studied at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières. With her French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire, she has created and directed six shows: Signals (2011), Opera Opaque (2013), Ashes (2014), Chambre noire (2017), Moby Dick (2020) and Dracula (2022). She is currently working on an adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House that will premiere in Autumn 2023.

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