Endure is a unique outdoor theatre performance that encourages active participation.
Athletic outdoor theatre hits the city
Whether you’ve run an entire marathon or haven’t even made it around the block endurance is not strictly synonymous with athletics. Everyone endures something in their life and the upcoming production of ENDURE proves exactly that.
Melanie Jones creator artist and producer is bringing ENDURE to Eau Claire Market for its Canadian debut and the start of the show’s western Canadian tour.
The show is a unique variety of immersive outdoor theatre that will take audiences on an incredible journey. It has been named one of the New York Times picks for summer theatre following a sold-out and extended world premiere in Brooklyn N.Y. ENDURE has garnered immense critical acclaim which Jones says she’s beyond delighted about.
“This is kind of a part of Stage 1 of ENDURE and I’m super delighted we sold out our Calgary shows” says Jones who spent the majority of her childhood in Calgary. “This is really the beginning so if this is the beginning then I’m super-pumped about where we’re headed.”
It is important to Jones that the show resonates on a human level reflecting a long race in relation to a human lifetime not just focusing on endurance sport. ENDURE explores two story lines. One focuses on a marathon race with the traditional start and finish lines and the other focuses on a woman’s journey to reach the starting line. Jones’s goal is to mesh the arts — enjoying and theatre community with the athletic community.
“I think it’s a testament to the piece that it speaks to both communities and it brings them both together” she says. “The point really is that everybody is enduring something and that unites us all.”
To experience ENDURE audience members purchase tickets online and are sent an email with instructions to download an audio file to their MP3 player. This acts as a personal soundtrack for each participant and includes a mix of spoken dialogue blended with original music by Sweden’s Christine Owman.
Participants bring their MP3 players to the “starting line” at Eau Claire Market are checked in and given a race number before following Jones on a journey as she performs the show. (Non-runners don’t be scared as no actual running takes place.)
With that said Jones herself became an avid runner following an arm injury that prevented her from practicing yoga which she had diligently participated in for six days a week. She was invited to go on a 12-kilometre run by co-workers for her first experience.
“I almost walked away but I just wanted to see if I could do it. I was able to run the 12 kilometres and that was a revelation” she says.
From there Jones was hooked. She completed a half-marathon then a full marathon and finally the Canadian Ironman which sparked her inspiration to create ENDURE.
“It was a huge process of transformation. At that time that was the hardest thing I’d ever heard of so I had no reason to believe I could complete it” says Jones who moved to New York in March.
She says when she was in the Big Apple on her own she spent countless hours on a bike or running and she experienced every human emotion.
“I’d be enraged one moment and then I’d be in bliss the next and then I’d be in despair and there’s boredom and there’s everything” she says. “The metaphor for a long race being the human lifetime kind of emerged from that.”
She hopes sharing her experience will open a dialogue between the arts and athletics communities about joining together and finding common ground. Immersive theatre is a complete departure from the traditional and it encourages audiences to step outside of their comfort zones.
“Once you take away the convention of ‘You sit here and I’ll perform there’ then we’re all just people together having to trust each other and making a creative experience together” says Jones. “I think that’s powerful stuff.”
Jones says art is meant to bring people together and she hopes to do that with this unconventional intimate experience.
“How better to do that than to remove all the conventions and just be humans in a space together.”
