Tin Can Collective preparing for first production in Yellowknife

A new multidisciplinary performance collective in Yellowknife is preparing for its first production.

The Tin Can Collective – made up of Kacie Hall, Sophie Rivers and Gwenan Guillas Letain – formed following a workshop that Hall and Rivers hosted in the city last year.

“We kind-of saw a gap in the theatre scene in Yellowknife, which we’re looking to fill,” Rivers said of the new collective.

“We’re a women-run team, small but mighty, and we’re really just looking to make new work here and use different, maybe non-traditional forms of making theatre.”

Rivers said there are great existing community theatre organizations in Yellowknife that put on sold-out shows.

The Tin Can Collective is a semi-professional theatre company that is working to get more funding to become a professional theatre company, she said. It aims to put on original productions and offer professional development and educational opportunities for artists.

“We’re just adding to the industry here,” Rivers said. “The goal is to connect Yellowknife performing arts to the wider Canadian industry.”

Degrees of Separation

The collective is now preparing for its first on-stage production, inspired by Yellowknife artist Alison McCreesh’s graphic novel Degrees of Separation.

From 2024: Inside Alison McCreesh’s Degrees of Separation

Rivers said Guillas Letain brought the idea of adapting the book to the 2024 devised theatre workshop. (Devised theatre, Rivers said, is a collaborative method of creating a performance piece from an idea or source material.)

“It’s a great source to work from,” Rivers said of McCreesh’s book, adding it can be interpreted through different media.

The collective now has a workable script and plans to hold auditions for performers to join the cast.

Rivers said the show will involve movement, animation, text and puppetry with music composed by Grace Clark.

“I think the multidisciplinary aspect really helps tell the story and in a cool way,” she said. “I hope [the audience] can feel connected to the story and immersed in it.”

McCreesh, who is not involved in the production, said it’s “exciting” that her work is being adapted for the stage.

“Comics are notoriously sort-of time-consuming and a bit tedious to create,” she said. “You work on these things for years and years and it’s nice to know that they get to live on, and in different ways.”

McCreesh added she loves the show’s “cross-pollination between local artists.”

“I like the idea of different artists influencing each other or building on each other’s work,” she said. “I think that’s a really nice thing.”

Degrees of Separation documents a decade of McCreesh’s life in the North. She described it as an introduction to the diversity of the North as well as a phase of her life in her 20s.

Lofty ambitions

The Tin Can Collective is inviting people interested in auditioning for the show to fill out its online form.

Degrees of Separation is expected to take the stage at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre in Yellowknife on March 28.

Rivers said in the future, the collective hopes to tour the show elsewhere in Canada.

“We have lofty ambitions, but I’m pretty optimistic that people will connect to the show and it’ll go far,” she said.

“When you get all these different artists together, it becomes a really special thing and I think the show has that kind-of magic to it.”