Welcoming a Dynamic Duo of Associate Artistic Directors
Sep 8, 2020
CROW'S THEATRE ANNOUNCES MARIE FARSI AND ROUVAN SILOGIX AS THE COMPANY'S NEW ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTORS!
We are thrilled to announce that two accomplished theatre creators and emerging arts leaders will be joining Crow's Theatre's team this fall. Marie Farsi will be returning to Crow's to take on the new role of Associate Artistic Director - Artistic Programs. Rouvan Silogix, will be joining in the role of Associate Artistic Director - New Play, Media Projects and Artist Development. They will work with the Crow's team on our existing and soon-to-be-announced initiatives, as well as help shape future programming for the organization.
Both directors have worked closely with Crow's over the last few years and share a passion for contemporary and classical work, as well as for devised theatre.
“The addition of Marie and Rouvan celebrates the growth and strength of our artists, and will enrich the future of our communities.” - Sherrie Johnson, Executive Director
“Both Marie and Rouvan have been treasured collaborators, artistic co-conspirators, and have been part of the Crow’s family. As part of the artistic leadership team at Crow’s, they will play a key part in how we navigate the challenges and opportunities of the pandemic time, as well as preparing the way for the return of live theatre at Streetcar Crowsnest.” – Chris Abraham, Artistic Director
*These new appointments were made possible through a generous anonymous donation
MARIE FARSI
Marie re-joins the company after having spent time as Crow’s Associate AD in the 2018/19 season. Most recently, Marie directed last season’s award-winning production of Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet in the Scotiabank Community Studio. Currently Marie is is creating a new piece of theatre as part of a series of short plays staged in unconventional and outdoor settings for tiny audiences. The first experiment of the kind with live performance, Nos Repaires will be presented across the city of Vancouver (Théâtre La Seizième).
She is completing her first short film called Prométhée, a poem about resilience and the reclamation of the natural order, told through stop-motion mixing origami puppets, cut-outs, objects and pixilation.
“I’m thrilled to be coming back to Crow’s, and to re-connect with our community and audiences. I miss the theatre as a space dedicated to the irreplaceable acts of gathering and story-telling - two essential things to think about to feel more deeply about the world we live in. My focus will be to re-imagine our spaces - physical and online - for artists to create and offer unique live experiences to local audiences.”
Marie is a theatre director and producer primarily focused on the creation of new work. She is the founding co-artistic director of the formally experimental company Babelle Theatre in Vancouver.
Her theatrical interests are broad from staging classical texts to sketch comedy to contemporary puppetry to musicals to radically intimate performance installations. As a freelancer, she has directed for and collaborated with some of the country’s most exciting companies such as Crow’s Theatre, Théâtre La Seizième, the Stratford Festival, Axis Theatre, Neworld, Rumble Theatre and Porte-Parole.
ROUVAN SILOGIX
Rouvan Silogix began his association with Crow's as a finalist for the 2019 RBC rising Star Emerging Director Prize, and served as assistant director on last season's production of Julius Caesar. Rouvan comes to Crow's Theatre after a stint at Toronto's Mammalian Diving Reflex as an Associate Producer & Associate Artist, and Factory Theatre as a Writer-In-Development. Alongside his work as an Associate Director for Crow's, Rouvan will also be a Creator-In-Residence on two new plays thanks to support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Art Council. One play explores the intersection of quantum physics and Sufi-mysticism, and the other examines our sociopolitical context through a comedy-of-manners kaleidoscope.
"I'm extremely excited to be in a position to create space and opportunity for fellow artists to do what we all love - creating, engaging, and connecting art with the human soul - in all the progressive ways, shapes and forms our present & future possibilities can manifest themselves in. The future is more hopeful and exciting than what’s passed. ‘Creativity takes courage’ (Matisse)”
Rouvan Silogix is an immigrant Pakistani-Tanzanian award-winning writer, director, performer, and classical pianist. He is Artistic Director of Theatre ARTaud, a surrealist theatre collective run entirely by artists of color. Prior to immigrating to Canada, he worked professionally in New York City and Karachi, Pakistan.
Rouvan’s theatrical interests are rooted in artistic form; and merging classical forms & philosophy with contemporary lyricism & social politics. He has a strong passion for literature, having worked on reimagining the works of Kafka, Camus, Dostoevsky, Rumi, Virginia Woolf, and others to the theatrical realm.
In Toronto, his work has seen the stages of Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies In Bad Times, The Theatre Centre, Factory Theatre, SummerWorks Performance Festival, Next Stage Festival among others. In NY he worked with The Brooklyn Lyceum, Ugly Rhino NYC, Neo-Futurists; In Karachi, Pakistan he was a Resident Artists and the National Academy of Performing Arts working under Pakistani-icon Zia Mohyuddin. He is a Toronto Arts Foundation winner.
Marie Farsi Headshot by Rachael King Johnson
Ghost Quartet Image by Dahlia Katz
Movements 1&2 (Babelle Theatre) with Nadeem Phillip and Naomi Vogt, design and photo by Lukas Engelhardt
Portrait of Rumi image - Photographer: Zohair Raza (In Photo: Ali Junejo; “Portrait of Rumi” by Rouvan Silogix, DadaDali Arts, National Academy of Performing Arts, Karachi, Pakistan 2013)
The Man on a Black Horse image - Photographer: Rafeh Mahmud (In Photo: Meher Jaffri, Rouvan Silogix, Ali Junejo; “The Man on a Black Horse” by Rouvan Silogix, T2F, The Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan 2013)