SweLL is a queer interdisciplinary performance troupe founded by Anna Camilleri, Ivan E. Coyote and Lyndell Montgomery. Swell is the (re)iteration of TASTE THIS, a Vancouver-based performance troupe Taste This that created and toured four stage works in Canada and the US, between 1995 and 2000, and co-authored Boys Like Her: Transfictions (Press Gang Publishers © 1998) to critical and public acclaim.
After a nine-year hiatus as collaborators and many book, performance, and recorded works to their individual credit, founding members Anna Camilleri, Ivan E. Coyote, and Lyndell Montgomery initiated SweLL for the creation of So The Story Goes, for which they are joined by visual artist Leslie Peters.
The premiere one-off performance of So The Story Goes was presented by the 10th Annual Vancouver Pride in Art Festival on August 2, 2009, to a sold-out, standing ovation house at the Roundhouse Theatre, and made possible by the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. So the Story Goes is an interdisciplinary performance work—all of the parts may stand alone, but they belong together. This artistic hybridity is possible because of authentic artistic connection and friendship forged 15 years ago in the Taste This project.
A lot has changed since Taste This emerged onto the cultural scene, but the issues that the earlier performance project inhabited continue to be relevant—questions of gender, sexuality, desire, culture and class, rural versus city life, and kinship. Home stories. Queer tales. True, except when they’re not. Stories that swell and implode the spaces between cultural institutions and queer landscapes; between female and male; between tightly produced performance and kitchen table talk.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
ANNA CAMILLERI Toronto, Ontario
Anna Camilleri is playwright/performer of two one-woman shows, author I Am a Red Dress, editor of Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts, co-editor of Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity, and writer/director of two CBC radio works. Camilleri has been honoured with numerous recognitions and awards.
IVAN E. COYOTE Vancouver, British Columbia
Ivan E. Coyote has published four short story collections, one novel, two CDs, and has been awarded the Danuta Gleed Award for Close to Spiderman, short listed for two Ferro Grumley awards for Loose End and Bow Grip, and was awarded an American Library Association’s Stonewall award, and a ReLit award for best fiction in 2007.
LYNDELL MONTGOMERY Dalkeith, Ontario
Lyndell Montgomery is a multi-instrumentalist and touring artist who contributed to the Ember Swift Project for 10+ years, and is featured on eight of Ember Swift’s releases. Montgomery has collaborated on recording and live performance projects with Kinnie Starr, Alix Olson, Bitch, Melissa Ferrick, and Miranda Stone, among others.
LESLIE PETERS | Toronto, Ontario | leslie (dot) peters (at) gmail (dot) com
Since 1996, visual artist Leslie Peters has been working in video, and multi-channel installation, as well as curating exhibitions and cultural events. Her works have shown throughout North America and internationally, including exhibitions in Peru, France and Australia. Most recently she exhibited a new body of sculptural work at the Fleishman Gallery.
