asses.masses by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim

A multimedia performance game about labour, revolution and donkeys.
​Attended November 2019 at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, AB.
Created and produced by: Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim.
Dramaturgy: Laurel Green.
Created with financial and developmental support from the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, the Theatre Centre, Canada Council for the Arts and the Embassy of Canada to Argentina and Paraguay.
Asses.masses is a solo multimedia theatre performance for multiple players about sharing the load of revolution.

Equus asinus - the ass, the donkey - has played a central role in religion, colonialism, warfare, and the economics of almost every major civilization since its domestication over 5000 years ago. It has symbolized everything from power, strength, and stupidity, to wisdom, piousness, and fertility. In recent years, however, the utility of the ass has been made superfluous in post-Industrial societies and the animal is being ‘transitioned’ to produce other forms of value. In light of these transitions, the contemporary status of the ass presents a particularly potent context for understanding the state of labour in our current era, as well as a reminder of the deeply anthropocentric features of philosophies of labour and emancipation.
Every night, a new audience seizes the means of production (a controller) and plays as a herd of out of work asses protesting to get their old jobs back amidst rapid advances in new technologies. Cheeky and participatory, asses.masses digs deep into digital play, contemporary performance culture, and the obsolescence of the manual labourer.
asses.masses trailer from Milton Lim.
Presentations
  • Upcoming: The Theatre Centre, Toronto ON. Aug 23-Sept 5, 2021.
  • Buenos Aires International Festival (FIBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina. ​March 2-4, 2021. 
  • Cancelled: GlogauAIR, Berlin, Germany. Oct-Dec, 2020. 
  • Cancelled: rEvolver Festival, Vancouver BC. May 2020. 
  • Cancelled: UNO Fest, Victoria BC. May 2020. 
  • Rotary Art Centre, Kelowna BC. Feb 28, 2020. 
  • Darling Foundry, Montreal QC. Jan 9, 2020. 
  • Digital Summit, Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff AB. Nov 22, 2019. 
  • To the AWE, Calgary AB. Nov 20, 2019. 
  • soft/WALL/studs, Singapore. July 31, 2019. 
  • Risk/Reward Festival for New Performance, Portland OR, USA. June 28-30, 2019. 
  • Creation Residency, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Burnaby BC. Dec 1-10, 2018.