‘Painter and the Lake’ blends music, dance, and live painting

Baker Miller Pink is back with its most interdisciplinary show yet.

The Painter and the Lake blends live painting, dance, music, and text into a single stage experience.

As a multidisciplinary company, Baker Miller Pink develops inventive collisions between art forms. In this production, a canvas is painted live on stage alongside choreography, a newly composed score, and a fresh script.

The Painter and the Lake features visual artist Darien Darius, dancer and choreographer Samantha Ketsa, with music production and composition by Greg Wilson. Because the piece is fully collaborative, every artist has been involved earlier and more directly than in a traditional theatre process.

Director and playwright Cayley Wreggitt says it is the most interdisciplinary work Baker Miller Pink has attempted so far, even with the company’s long-standing mandate to cross artistic boundaries.

“We’re very excited about all the elements of dance that are a big part of the storytelling of the piece,” she says.

Bringing that many disciplines together changes how rehearsals work. Wreggitt says the team had to build in specific runs to account for the logistics of live creation.

“We did a wet paint run just to make sure Sam doesn’t get paint in her hair as she’s twirling around.”

The story itself is personal for Wreggitt. It centres on Peter, a down-on-his-luck painter played by Darien Darius, who retreats to Kananaskis Country in search of inspiration. He finds it in corporeal form. Lillian Lake, played by Samantha Ketsa, appears as his muse. In contrast is his well-meaning but practical sibling Spencer, played by Mira Maschmeyer, who wants Peter to pursue a “real” paying job.

That tension, Wreggitt says, comes from lived experience.

“I remember meeting someone who I was like, ‘I’m doing a theater degree, I’m going to be a professional theater artist,’” she says. “And she kept being like, ‘OK, but like, what grade are you going to teach?’”

As the run continues, the same canvas remains on stage, evolving night after night as new layers are added during each performance.

The Painter and the Lake runs April 12 to 15 at Vertigo Studio Theatre.

Tickets are available here.