Kelly McInnes and Arash Khakpour – Vines Artists
Arash and Kelly both created new works in Vines 2015 and have been performing them in other festivals throughout the year. They are now bringing their more explored works back for Vines 2016.

How has Vines served your artistic practice and where else have you performed the works you presented last year?

Kelly McInnes: 
ArtsWells 2015 + 2016, SKAMpede 2016, Festival in Publik Space
The earth stage aspect of the festival pushed me to create for this specific space. It was important to me not to just bring something that could be performed in a theatre and transfer it to the park, but to explore how I can connect my work with nature, a public space and let this aspect of it inspire me to create. If it hadn’t been for my involvement in last years festival I don’t think I would have created ree-wahyld.
Arash Khakpour: 
Vines Art Festival gave me the platform and encouraged me to create for the festival rather than bringing existing work and presenting it at the festival. So I decided to do a show for one audience member at a time. I was inspired by the natural qualities and history of the park, which helped me develop the content for the work. I used a semi-private area of the park with trees around it. This opportunity challenged me as a creator. It excited me. By being exposed to new parameters I was able to create something different than I normally would in a site-specific setting. Through Vines I also connected to Christian Vistan (Vancouver based Visual artist). Christian and I decided to work together more closely for recreation of Booth Connection. We performed the piece at the rEvolver Festival in May 2016.

How has your piece grown since last year and what made you want to perform it again this year?

Kelly McInnes:
It’s been a really interesting piece to create as it changes so much each time it is performed in a new space. There’s been alot of things that have grown – our characters, clarity of concept, dynamic range, sound. I’ve been working with sound artist Roxanne Nesbitt this time round which is an invaluable addition to the work. I’m interested to perform the work as an hour-long durational performance in which the audience encounters ree-wahyld in their journey through the park. Vines has given me the opportunity to experiment with this performance format.
Arash Khakpour:
Booth Connection was created to be performed at Trout Lake Park, however at the rEvolver festival we had to perform it in an alcove downstairs of the Cultch theatre. We had to recreate the piece for an indoor space and that gave us more information about the potential of the piece. It showed us that the piece can be taken to very different environments but that causes the piece to change drastically in order to be integrated into the space. With this information in mind and having a new performer (Diego Romero), I am looking forward to develop the piece further thematically in the space that it was first created.