So a year and a half ago I starred in this amazing short film with a great director by the name of Mark Pariselli. The film is called “AFTER” and it is screening at the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto on May 26^th. Here are the details if you are able to go see it.

Toronto premiere of ‘After’ at Inside Out

(Wed May 26 @ 7:15 pm - Isabel Bader Theatre).

Tickets are still available.

http://www.insideout.on.ca/20/program_details.php?id=3

How to get tickets:

1. Online: http://www.insideout.on.ca/20/buy.php

2. Over the Phone: 416.967.1528

3. In Person: 2 Carlton St., West Mezzanine (past elevators, through glass doors on the right)

Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend because I’m still out in Halifax until May 31^st. Here is the link to the article that was printed in FAB Magazine last week.

http://www.fabmagazine.com/full_frontal/index.html

Enjoy!

So I feel like I’m throwing links around like candy at a parade lately…but here is another one.  This is the article that was written for Xtra Magazine here in Toronto.  I quite like it.  Especially the part about how amazing my Mom was!!!!!! And how I’m described as “a lanky red head with a sweet smile”.  Will I ever get away from being described as “lanky”?  LOL  Too funny!

http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Gay_dancer_channels_his_grief_for_new_show-8336.aspx

Enjoy!

Kristi Frank and I just had an awesome radio interview for Grief: Another Common Bond over at U of T with Evidance Radio. It was definitely an early Sunday morning, having to be there by 9:00AM, with our game faces on and trying to look awake. It was so much fun, we both felt really awake afterwards. The interview was about 15 minutes long and they will be putting it on their website soon in Podcast form. I’ve put the link below so when it is up you can all go listen to it. It’s the one on Sunday, March 7^th, 2010. Hope you enjoy it!

http://evidanceradio.com/home/podcasts

Hey friends! So on my Birthday, last Wednesday, February 10^th, I got to do one of the coolest things ever! I got to be a part of this HUGE 150 dancer Flash Mob for Virgin Mobile at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto. Faye was choreographing it. We spent 3 hours working on the choreography and timing out the umbrella opening…which didn’t go so well, but thanks to the magic of EDITING, it looks pretty amazing. Oh, did I mention because it was my Birthday I got to start it!!!!! (well I actually asked Faye if I could). And I got to yell “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY” at the beginning and scare all the people around me. Well you can’t hear it on the video…Oh Well. Here’s the link! Enjoy guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx40wK8Z3_I

Well guys! Here it is. The official ad for “Grief: Another Common Bond”. I’m ridiculously excited that we are creating this show and all these thoughts and ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since October are finally coming to life. I’ve taken a lot of elements of what I have been through in the past 3 years with Granny and then Mom passing away and have created “ART” LOL. Write what you know…right?! This is going to be a very special show. I do hope that you can all come and see it!

Thank you once again to everyone who has made donations to help fund this project. I just want to give a quick shout out to a few of them: The Dance Connection, JCB Dance Works, Interplay School of Dance, the Staff at McKitrick School, the Community of The Battlefords, and my brother, David.

Conceived and lead by Faye Rauw and Matthew Armet,

this unique show experience focuses on four individuals unique struggles with grief, using dance, song and live music.

Featuring

Faye Rauw, Matthew Armet

Caitlin Goguen, Danny Lawn

With

Natalie Krill, Kristi Frank

David Light, Stephanie Rutherford

Kalie Hunter, Lindsay Kramer

Nicole Norsworthy, Adam Sergison

Live Music by: Eva Miller, Kraig Waye

Lighting Design by: Wade Gamble

4 Shows Only:

Saturday, March 13 - 8PM

Sunday, March 14 - 2PM/8PM

Monday, March 15 - 8PM

Winchester Street Theatre (80 Winchester Street)

Toronto, Ontario

Tickets $25

For payment by Mastercard/Visa call 416-832-9395

For more Information message Matthew Armet on FB

or email him at matthew_armet@hotmail.com

I hope that you will come and share this very special show experience with all of us!

*This is a CAEA Approved Co-op*

Hey Everyone!

I know I’ve been M.I.A. this fall.  Toronto is getting cold and beautiful (well hopefully soon, once the snow finally comes).  I’ve been keeping very busy.  This project is the thing that’s keeping me the busiest.  Faye Rauw and I are collaborating to create an amazing show experience.  The show will consist mainly of dance, but will also use live music and song to tell the stories of four individuals unique struggles with grief.  We are holding a workshop here in Toronto on Dec. 15.  All the info is listed below.  Faye and I are so extremely excited about this project and we can’t wait to share our stories with all of you.  Hope to see you at the workshop!  (or at least in the audience in March).

Fayez1 Productions presents

“GRIEF: Another Common Bond”

WORKSHOP DATE: Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009

TIME: Sign Up and Warm Up start at 11:30AM.  Dance Call at 12:00PM

LOCATION: Interplay School Of Dance

250 Davisville, 5^th Floor

(Exit at Davisville Subway Station.  Walk east on Davisville to Mount Pleasant.  250 Davisville is on the North East corner of Davisville and Mount Pleasant.)

Seeking mature, strong, versatile dancers.  We are looking to collaborate as a whole unit, using everyone’s passionate ideas and creative choreography skills.

Faye Rauw (AMELIA; HAIRSPRAY; CHICAGO; MTV’s Dancing with the Hosts; performance with Helix Dance Project-RAIN; choreographer of Nunsense II, Billy Bishop Goes to War) and Matthew Armet (Graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts; High School Musical: On Stage, Canadian Premier; Peter Pan (Elgin); HDYSAPL Maria? (CBC); Fiest) are creating a unique show experience, which will focus on four individuals unique struggles with grief, using dance, song and live music.  The cast will include 4 leads (2 males, 2 females) plus ensemble dancers.

Performances will be early March.

Hi friends. Ok! I know….I’m a huge slacker. I haven’t written since June 25^th. I’m awful. But in my defense not a whole lot in my performing career has gone on this summer, besides getting awesome new headshots, shot by Ian Brown. I did have an awesome summer though! I had some good auditions here in Toronto during July. Haven’t received good news from any of them yet, but you never know.

I think I’ll give you a quick briefing on my trip home to Saskatchewan. Alrighty…. So on August 9^th I flew home to Sask. I spent the first 4 days back teaching and taking class at my old studio, The Dance Connection. The 4 day event was their annual Summer School. I had a blast!!! It was great to get to dance with all of my old friends, well all the younger ones at least. Those Juniors are so grown up and old now. Most of them are in grade 12 this year. CRAZY! I feel old. WOW!

After that wonderful week of dancing, where I hurt in places I forgot could hurt, I just bummed around for a week or so. Visited everyone and checked out my old house. Which looks amazing, by the way. The people who bought it did such an awesome job to it! Later in the month I got into the crazy parts. WEDDINGS! Ok who decided that a bunch of my friends could all get married at the same time?!!!! LOL. I had Tamara’s wedding first, but not before having her Bachelorette party the weekend before, in Saskatoon. It was unreal! Great times with a bunch of my girlfriends from high school. Her and Taylor’s wedding the next weekend was great. It was such a fun service, complete with an old English Minister who could barely read and who muttered funny things all the way through the service. Then we had the reception in a wicked barn just outside of town. That’s right….I wore a bow tie to a barn dance. Take that SASK! Toronto style was definitely in the hood! LOL So many things wrong with that statement. I’m so funny.

The following Saturday, Sept 5^th, my longtime best friend, dance partner, and half of the “Old Married Couple”, Daylan, got married in Battleford to her wonderful (now) husband, Ryan. I was lucky enough to be “told”, not “asked”, to sing at her wedding. I got to perform with Dianne Gryba, my first singing teacher. We sang “One Hand, One Heart” and Micheal Buble’s “Everything” during the service. They both looked beautiful, the wedding party looked beautiful….I wore another BOW TIE and looked super cute. Yes…how could I forget…the outfit wouldn’t have been complete without the dress shorts. Thank you Club Monaco (hopefully someday a blog endorsement like that will get me paid a lot of money). And I finished off the weekend with a wonderful time out at Donnie’s cottage at the lake with Joey (who had flown in for the wedding). Complete with TUBBING! (which I had bruised ribs and a foot from.)

I’ve been back in Toronto now since September 8^th. I’ve been back working at my Zipcar Street Team job and a few catering shifts at TIFF, and am just waiting for some auditions to come into my life soon, so that I can perform again. I’m quite eager for a stage lately! Thanks for reading guys. Sorry for the speraticness of this post…

PS This blog posting was brought to you by the word “WONDERFUL”!

What a week.  Well sort of.  LOL!  Let’s start with Sunday…shall we.  So Sunday I spent the day in a pool.  Yes!  It was a gorgeous hot day and I got to be in a pool doing a photo shoot all afternoon.  This amazing photographer, Meaghan Ogilvie, needed another boy dancer/model to shoot for her exhibit that is coming up at an art gallery here in Toronto.  So I spent the afternoon with all sorts of ridiculous fabric wrapped all around me underwater, I had wicked dark eye makeup on (all waterproof) and some pretty crazy eye goggles as well.  I only almost drowned twice.  So lesson learned…never put a bunch of fabric around your legs, arms and neck and then try to shoot underwater in the deep end because when you come up you get material over your face so you can’t breathe…oh yeah…plus you can’t swim, so you are tangled and dying.  It was slightly traumatic.  I did swallow some chlorine water, but I’m all right.  I made it to the edge we changed up the ideas and fabrics and went back at it.  I don’t have permission to post any of the pictures yet, but as soon as I do I’ll post a couple back onto this post.  So stay tuned for that.

So the rest of the week involved an interview for the Zip Car Street Team, on Tuesday.  Which went really well…and I have another final interview tomorrow afternoon.  So fingers crossed for having a fun job for the summer.

Wednesday had me at an IKEA commercial audition.  Ok…now commercial auditions are some of the funniest things ever.  You rarely ever need “talent”…it’s just what you look like on camera and if they like you are not…CAN YOU BE A PERSON?  LOL So at this IKEA audition I was called in for the “Bike Messenger”.  All I had to do was go into the little casting room with 4 other people, stand in a line and one at a time (on camera) say your name and what agency you are with (which is called slating) and then for 20 seconds talk about what you are going to do for the summer.  I rambled on about having just arrived back in Toronto from Halifax and enjoying the weather now and then heading home to Saskatchewan in August for 3 weddings. Which I believed was followed by “So I should probably start buying presents soon.”  But I wish I had said, “So I need this job so I CAN BUY presents.”  LOL PS Side Note….coming home August 9^th to September 8^th.  The flights are booked!

Yesterday afternoon I went to “Every Little Step”, the A Chorus Line documentary, with the beautiful Elena Juatco.  It was amazing.  I loved watching every little part of it…I really loved the old audio from the recording that Michael made while he was trying to get stories from actual performers so that he could create the show.  AMAZING.  If you haven’t seen it…YOU MUST GO!  It’s one of the best things I’ve seen in the theatre in a long time.  Well until Harry Potter 6 next month!  WOOHOOO

Then last night…I hope some of you watched the “10 Marias, 1 Year Later” special on CBC.  I sure did watch it to see how all my girls looked and what they had to say about the show.  If any of you watched you would have noticed the beautiful replay of the close-up shot of Elicia (the winner) and Chad McNamara and I looking fierce at the end of her “Cabaret” number, which we shot last July.  AMAZING!  It was a great documentary so I hope you caught it…if not…hopefully they will replay it sometime this summer. 

Then today involved two auditions.  This morning Wade and I headed out to an Interac commercial audition.  You know the ones where the little armored truck drives around people’s feet while they shop.  So we were both called in for the “stock boy” at the grocery store.  We went in one at a time and had to put on a big yellow work apron and use the broom and dust pan to sweep the carpet for about 2 minutes while they took a bunch of different close-ups and wide shots of us.  Hilarious.  I went to an audition looking all clean and proper in a cute light blue polo shirt and had to sweep the carpet LOL.  God I love commercial auditions. 

The second audition was for a new dance movie called “Turn The Beat Around”.  We had a great one hour-long dance call.  Tre Armstrong, one of the judges from SYTYCD Canada, was the choreographer.  It was a good funky/jazzy/hip hop combo.  But we learned it in about 15 minutes and then were put into groups of 5 to do it for the camera.  So my turn comes up and I happen to be in the same group as my new friend Jess (who is crazy tall and blonde and gorgeous), so we have to improv for a bit at the beginning before the combo starts and after as well.  OK…so I hate improving.  I always feel like such a knob.  I’m great with choreo, but improving is not my strongest suit at all.  So Jess and I decide to start dancing with each other.  She does an amazing back bend while I hold her (total amazing fluke) because what came next was another back bend, and I was totally off balance and then we were both on the ground.  Which then turned into rolling around and trying to look sexy and we got back up and went right back to where we were.  HILARIOUS!  I want the video just to see that!  I’m sure it was the most ungraceful thing ever!  Oh and I forgot to mention that it was 39 degrees in Toronto today and we had crazy thunderstorms at Noon today.  So the studio we were in was so crazy hot.  We were sweating before be even got into the room or even moved.  The group before us had warmed it up quite nicely…and I felt horrible for the group after us, which included a lot of my HSM friends.  Poor guys.  It was like HOT YOGA x10.  I swear…my heart hasn’t beat that hard for a long time!  MEGA MIX included.  LOL

That’s all for now.  I’m sure I’ll have more next week!