Flooded, Toronto. Photo credit: Ara Glenn-Johanson
NORTH AMERICA
is the performance group headed by Ara Glenn-Johanson and Matthew Milo. We make performance for audiences who seek the pleasures and curiosities of people being together. We’re invested in connection, collaboration, complexity, unexpected outcomes, and that spark of energy that passes between people when they come together in the flesh.
We love a theater but often present our work in other types of venues. We value virtuosity but also see what’s special in the everyday. We love theatricality but often keep it simple. We enjoy a story but rarely tell one ‘cause it’s usually just in the way.
We care about what bodies can do as well as what is meaningful and what is possible when a group of people share space. As we work, we seek to carve out what is genuine and essential to an idea or person or moment. And with care and attention, we then attempt to bring our audiences into this experience and encourage the whole room — audience and performers alike — to revel in it.
“intoxicating...they demand attention revelling in the laughter and their sexual allure. The games and battles may be abstract, but we have been promised “pelvic ridiculousness” and there is a lot of thrusting and gyrating, turning posteriors into booty treasure.”
“beautiful, funny, and intense...There is something childlike and pure and raw about their dynamic, something we don’t often see in this isolated yet playful form. And their energy is infectious…an experience, something in which to immerse oneself, and then come up for air.”
