Meet the Stones Ensemble: Sarah Murphy-Dyson
May 28, 2018
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling some of the amazing women of Stones. We asked Sarah Murphy-Dyson to talk a bit about her collaboration on the project:
1. Why did you want to collaborate on Stones?
As an artist this piece fulfills almost every artistic inclination and beyond… I have learned to sing Middle Eastern songs in Arabic, I dance, I fight, I mourn, I celebrate, and I get to play many characters.
I was thrilled to be invited in, and it is an honour to be the voices for these silenced women.
As I learn more about stoning and about the stories of the people involved, the more I understand why a light needs to be shone on it.
2. What have you learned from working with this group of creators?
I came in later than most, three of the six women have been collaborating and workshopping with Anita for over four years.
Every person on this team is such a deeply talented artist, it’s inspiring and enriching and fulfilling to come to “work”. It is also perhaps the most collaborative environment I’ve ever been in. Everyone’s voice is heard and respected.
Our different dance backgrounds, cultural and experiential backgrounds, melt together onstage (and off) to become a shared expression of hope and pain and anger, joy, loss and resilience. It is very, very physical, earthy and grounded movement, testing and stretching my modern dance skills to the max! (Working very hard to keep up with these talented, fierce women!)
3. How does this piece resonate with you personally?
Anita talks about violence against women as a spectrum, with stoning, rape and murder at one end… and all the way through to shaming, name calling, derision, which I certainly have experienced and I think most, if not all women have felt at some point in their lives. It connects us all.
4. What do you hope audiences will take away from Stones?
This piece is so hard to encapsulate when people ask about it but I would describe it as a unique, important, and powerful piece that may be challenging in places because of the magnitude and weight of the subject matter, but will also be a fluid, multi-dimensional, entertaining, resonant, night of theatre.
There is dance, acting, live music, spoken word, major fight choreography, projected visuals, ugliness and beauty.
Through these mediums, we are telling the stories of murdered women: their lives, their suffering, their bravery, their pain and their power.
Sarah Murphy-Dyson was a First Soloist with The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, she danced with Pro Arte Danza, Alberta Ballet, and in the North American premiere of Dirty Dancing (Mirvish). As an actor, selected Theatre credits include: her award-winning solo show The Naked Ballerina (various festivals), We The Women (Soulo Festival), five George F. Walker premieres, and Walker’s Fierce in Ottawa this fall. Selected TV /Film credits include: Suits (NBC), 12 Monkeys (SyFy), Off Kilter (CBC), Workin’ Moms (CBC), Isabelle; American Girl Movie (Universal), and the feature film The Dark, that premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2018. Sarah is also a choreographer, coach, director, stunt double, Gemini award winner and mother. She is proud to come from a line of strong women, her great grandmother was a Suffragette, and her mother marched beside her at the Women’s March on Washington. Sarah is honoured to be a part of this very important project.
Stones is a co-production between Aluna Theatre and The Stones Project. Performances run May 26 – June 10, 2018 at Geary Lane Studios, 360 Geary Lane. For more info and tickets, click here.