May I Take Your Arm?

Partners

Creators:
Alex Bulmer, Co-Creator & Performer
Anna Camilleri, Co-Creator & Production Designer
Tristan R. Whiston, Co-Creator & Sound Composition/Dramaturgy
Katie Yealland, Co-Creator & Videographer/Live Video Animation

Collaborators: 
Wy Joung Kou, Website Designer
Becky Gold, Creative Access Support & Livestream Audio Description
Charles Ketchabaw, Audio Field Recording

Partners: 
STEPS
The Bloor Annex BIA
The Fire and Rescue Team
Theatre Passe Muraille
Common Boots Theatre
National Arts Centre, English Theatre Collaborations Unit
FOLDA (Festival of Live Digital Art)

2018 - 2024
Toronto and Kingston, Ontario; Vancouver, British Columbia; Online

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An interdependent, multidisciplinary experience, Blind artist Alex Bulmer takes the arm of people in her new neighbourhood. Together, they walk, listen, and share stories – an architecture of place emerges through multi-sensory moving-portraits that consider the past, illuminate the present, and evoke possible futures.

Originally created in 2018 as a live, interactive, performance, May I Take Your Arm? was re-imagined in 2020 as a livestream presentation for Spider Web Performance’s Festival of Live Digital Art, and reimagined again in 2021 as a mainstage 7-part multidisciplinary follow-at-home experience co-produced by Theatre Passe Muraille and ReDefine Arts. A purpose built website acted as a navigation map for audiences to experience the work in their own homes, in their own time and pace. Additional features of the show included a series of 200 limited-edition accordion books designed by Anna Camilleri that were mailed as a tactile accompaniment to experience the show, as well as multiple synchronous listening stage events.

From September 2023 to June 2024, May I Take Your Arm? co-creators Alex Bulmer, Anna Camilleri and Tristan R. Whiston worked with STEPS to develop The Bloor Annex BIA Accessibility Project, a pilot placemaking project that focuses on accessibility, examining how art can promote inclusion and enhance accessibility in public spaces. By adapting the "May I Take Your Arm?" project model within The Bloor Annex BIA in Toronto, Bulmer, Camilleri and Whiston collaborated to create recorded walks/talks, publicly accessible audio compositions, and an exterior tactile map.

May I Take Your Arm? presentations include FOLDA (Festival of Live Digital Art) livestream (2020), Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Kingston, ON (2019), Theatre and Accessibility in a Digital World Symposium, BMO Theatre, Vancouver (2019), Cahoots Theatre, Toronto, ON (2018), and Festival of Original Theatre, Equity and Diversity in Performance, University of Toronto (2019). May I Take Your Arm? was part of the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Collaborations Unit (2019) and elements from May I Take Your Arm? were presented by Theatre Passe Muraille’s Beyond Walls program (2021).

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Other media

  • An artist with sandy blonde hair puts her hands on the edge of a cut out tree trunk. Atop the tree trunk is a miniature representation of a park, with cut out paper people in different colours and tiny trees. The image has been treated with a filter, giving it a smooth, brush stroke-like texture and warm yellow glow.

    May I Take Your Arm? at FOLDA Festival of Live Digital Art, 2019. Photo and digital illustration by Anna Camilleri.

  • A cameraperson points their camera at an artist on the ground beside them. On the wall in front of them both, live camera footage is projected showing a close up of the artist’s hands, touching tiny paper sailboats. She blows on the sailboats. The image has been treated with a filter, giving it a smooth, brush stroke-like texture and blue glow, creating an “underwater” feel to the image.

    May I Take Your Arm? at FOLDA Festival of Live Digital Art, 2019. Photo and digital illustration by Anna Camilleri.

  • Close-up photo of a tiny hand crafted outdoor environment. A paper cut out person wearing a bow tie and holding a white cane stands at the end of a pedestrian bridge.

    May I Take Your Arm? at Cahoots Theatre, Toronto, ON, 2018. Photo by Zoe Gemelli.

  • Projected onto a wall in golden yellow light is a close-up shot of a miniature cemetery entrance gate and trees, which have been crafted out of various materials. A set of hands reach into the shot, touching the tops of the trees.

    May I Take Your Arm? at Cahoots Theatre, Toronto, ON, 2018. Photo by Zoe Gemelli.

  • Handmade accordion book. The book is sitting upright and contains found natural materials, ribbon, cutouts, and collaged materials. The image has been treated with a filter, giving it a smooth, brush stroke-like texture and warm yellow glow.

    May I Take Your Arm? Accordion Book, 2021. Photo and digital illustration by Anna Camilleri.

  • A close-up shot of an artist is projected onto a wall in a low-lit space. The artist holds a ball wrapped in twine, close to her face. In front of the wall is a small table with a miniature garden on it in a spotlight. The image has been treated with a filter, giving it a smooth, brush stroke-like texture and blue glow.

    May I Take Your Arm? at BMO Theatre Centre, 2019. Photo and digital illustration by Anna Camilleri.

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