In collaboration with Saskatoon Opera.
A Small Talk Opera explores a unique and vital form of communication that helps to provide a foundation for the future possibilities of deeper conversations.

What is a meaningful gesture? It is significant because it looks like one? What about the ones that you don’t know the shape of? Like an insightful story but spoken in a foreign language. What does a meaningful conversation look like? What if the ones talking don’t speak at all? At times it is hard to recognize one. It may seem empty, but in its emptiness, it offers more space for things to explore their shapes. An improvisational dance needs more room to make mistakes. And sometimes those turn into gestures you know and love- a ritual, a part of identity, a friendship, a shared journey or simply an acknowledgement for the rhythms in sync. A space that seems empty provides a common ground for those meaningful gestures to appear, whatever shape they may be. Allowing for them to happen is a seed that may grow later.

The speech of social bonding rather than communication through information exchange. The social function of speech that depends on the context and environmental cues, Small talk, emphasizes social function and everyday patterns and negotiates relationships as a vital social mediator.