{"id":106193,"date":"2024-07-23T16:03:04","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T20:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=106193"},"modified":"2024-08-01T09:38:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T13:38:29","slug":"scoop-art-time-ensemble-announces-cast-creative-team-world-premiere-sankofa-soldiers-tale-retold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2024\/07\/23\/scoop-art-time-ensemble-announces-cast-creative-team-world-premiere-sankofa-soldiers-tale-retold\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SCOOP | Art Of Time Ensemble Announces Cast & Creative Team For World Premiere Of Sankofa: The Soldier\u2019s Tale Retold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cast
Cast and creative team from the opera Sankofa: Diego Matamoros, Titilope Sonuga, Andrew Burashko & Tawiah M\u2019carthy (Photo: John Lauener)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stravinsky\u2019s The Soldier\u2019s Tale gets a modern reworking with a new libretto and award-winning cast and creative team in what will be the final production for Toronto\u2019s Art of Time Ensemble<\/a>. Sankofa: The Soldier\u2019s Tale Retold will be presented by Art of Time in association with The Royal Conservatory\u2019s Glenn Gould School and Koffler Arts.<\/p>\n

The world premiere premiere production will feature a new libretto by poet Titilope Sonuga<\/strong>, and Tawiah M\u2019carthy<\/strong> will direct. Performances will run from October 24 to 27, 2024 in the Harbourfront Centre Theatre.<\/p>\n

Andrew Burashko<\/strong>, Artistic Director, Art of Time Ensemble comments, \u201cI believe in this project with all my heart. Re-envisioning Stravinsky’s score with a new narrative and staging that speaks directly to one of the most pressing social and political movements of today allows for new ownership, new authorship, and new audiences. It is an important and opportune moment for such creative and radical experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sankofa: The Soldier\u2019s Tale Retold<\/h2>\n

According to Stravinsky\u2019s notes, the work is to be \u201clue, jou\u00e9e et dans\u00e9e\u201d (read, played, and danced) by three actors, one or more dancers, and an instrumental septet. The music for the opera was composed for clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, percussion, violin and double bass, and will be performed by seven musicians from the Glenn Gould School.<\/p>\n

The original libretto was written by Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, based on Alexander Afanasyev\u2019s story The Runaway Soldier and the Devil.<\/p>\n

Titilope\u2019s new libretto tells the story of a soldier who\u2019s trying to enlist in the army during WWI, set into the real history of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canada\u2019s only battalion of Black soldiers to serve during the conflict. The Soldier in this story, as in the original, is set up for a battles of wits with the Devil, but what\u2019s new is a resilience born of struggling against racism and erasure.<\/p>\n

The Sankofa bird serves as a symbol; the word sankofa comes from the Ghanaian Twi language, meaning to retrieve something that was forgotten. The poetic libretto blends future and past, looking at history in a realistic light, while still allowing for a better future.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic
Graphic courtesy of Art of Time Ensemble<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cast & Creatives<\/h3>\n

Librettist Titilope Sonuga<\/strong> is a poet, playwright and performer, the author of three poetry collections: Down to Earth (2011), Abscess (2014), and This Is How We Disappear (2019), and two spoken word albums, Mother Tongue (2011) and Swim (2019). She has written three plays: The Six, Naked, and Ada the Country (a musical). As a performer, she played a lead role as an actor in the hit Nigerian television series Gidi Up. She was named the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton in 2021-2023.<\/p>\n

Ghanaian-Canadian actor, playwright and director Tawiah M\u2019carthy<\/strong> studied theatre at York University, and has worked with Toronto\u2019s SummerWorks Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and the English Theatre Ensemble at the\u00a0National Arts Centre, among others. He has directed productions for Canadian Stage \/ Obsidian Theatre, the Stratford Festival, and Young People\u2019s Theatre.<\/p>\n

The cast features:<\/p>\n