T Erin Gruber
Erin is an artist working professionally as a visual storyteller. She collaborates with directors, builders, performers and technicians to bring experiences to audiences across Canada. She is committed to combining the powers of visual communication with the passion and emotion of live performance and public installation. The projects that excite her most connect her core values of human compassion, empathetic awakening and joyful experience with the public- the community of people she strives to serve. She is a proven specialist in the field of integrating projected media elements into public space and live theatrical performance and this passion was born of her discovery that she could move as a designer. The application of her internal rhythm, balance and passion for engagement to her visual and technical skill sets became the doorway to the niche that continues to fulfill and ignite her professional identity.
T. Erin Gruber is an award-winning designer with experience in set, lighting, costume and projected media design for the theatre and public art applications. She is a graduate with distinction of the BFA Theatre Design program at the University of Alberta and works across Canada and around the world. What excites her most about working in multidisciplinary art is collaboration and conversation with generous, passionate minds. She has twice spearheaded the development and production of brand new independent collective-theatre creations working with and leading large teams of interdisciplinary artists to create public performances for the Edmonton Int’l Fringe Festival (Dark in a Sunlit Room, 2011 and ECHOES, 2012). She is also a founding member of the ShowStages video collective, a group that strives to question and expand the boundaries of projected media’s application in art and theatre.
Accolades
Her work has recently received awards at the International Festival for Monodrama and Mime in Belgrade, Serbia and also toured to Herceg Novi, Montenegro. She was just recently chosen as one of only four select artists to exhibit her work at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Space and Design (2019). Her design work has been previously been exhibited in the Canadian pavilion at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Space and Design (2015) and in the University of Alberta Museums Galleries at Enterprise Square (2015). She is also frequently engaged to lead workshops and teach aspects of projection design by associations and post secondary institutions (CITT, Red Deer College, University of Lethbridge, University of Alberta).
Projects
Her most recent theatre projects include: Easter Island (Set, Projection and Lighting Designer, Verb Theatre, Betty Mitchell Award Nominations), Bears and Minosis (Environment Designer, Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts and Punctuate Theatre, Dora Mavor Moore Nominations for Lighting and Video Design), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Set, Lighting and Costume Design, Citadel Theatre and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Sterling Award for Lighting Design), and Café Daughter (Production Design, Workshop West Playwright’s Theatre, Canada Scene Festival, NAC) to name a select few.
BEARS
BEARS is a uniquely Canadian story that spans a huge territory of our western landscape. Following the journey of a man turning into a bear as he flees from Alberta to British Columbia’s coast we encounter the politics of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, Indigeneity in our First Nations people, personal loss and transformation and the unique design challenge of presenting this all with a sonic backdrop of powerful electronic beats. Using colour, visual cacophony and surgical precision the visual environment of BEARS represents a three year artistic development achieved.
Cafe Daughter
Cafe Daughter is the moving coming of age story of a half Chinese, half Cree girl who is now a real life Canadian Senator. Conceptually the story of our protagonist seems incomplete- we abandon the path of presenting our solo performer onstage in a naturalistic setting, and choose instead to immerse her in the spiritual and emotional landscape of her life influenced subconsciously by her heritage. Creating a parallel spirit landscape in the world of projected imagery we embody the spirit of our protagonist’s ghostly mother. We are able to connect the real life events of this story with the inner experience of a bereaved, excluded and ultimately heroic girl becoming a woman of impact in her society.
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