​​​​Cathia Pagotto

Blooper/trailer/cut scenes

The explorer

creation and direction

​assistant director: Jen Cressey

music by: Julian Stein

Photos by Tristan Brand

On May 19, 1845 Sir John Franklin embarked on an expedition to the Arctic that was the best prepared in the history of exploration. On board was a crew of 129 hardy navy seamen, 3 years worth of food, 1,700 books, and supplies to meet every imaginable need. Less than a year later, Franklin and his ship disappeared.
 
The Explorer is a new theatre piece that used Franklin, and life aboard his ill-fated ship, as a window into the world of the Arctic, a place that lives, for the most part, in our imaginations: the mythic edge of the world, a place of awe-inspiring vastness, brutality, and mystery.
 
Created by Pagotto and the student collective, The Explorer is told through images, movement, sound and environment: a narrative installation, with scenes that are tableaux vivants, moving dioramas, and lyrical pieces of performance art. The use of text is minimal, one element of many.

Concordia University, 2011