Troublemakers
A Video Ballad by Maria Dunn about the history of working people in Alberta during the first half of the twentieth century.
During her 2001 residency with the Edmonton and District Labour Council, singer songwriter [and Juno Award nominee] Maria Dunn composed songs for many key events in Alberta’s early Labour history. This song cycle presented the perfect base for a Labour history multimedia production.
Maria and Don Bouzek began to work in the spring of 2003, shaping the musical material she had written. Initially they decided on a sequence for the songs and identified areas where new songs needed to be created. Don then added character-based narrative incidents to link and introduce the songs. He also generated a DVD of still images to support the music. Maria and Don toured a solo workshop version of the show as an opening act to the Banner show through Saskatoon, Ft. Qu’Appelle, Brandon and Winnipeg. At the end of the tour Maria returned to Edmonton and did a performance with her trio as the closing event for May Week.
The following week Maria and Don did an evaluation of the show with Dave Rogers participating as a guest. As a result of these discussions, Maria added two new songs to the show and revised several others. The DVD component was completely re-created, using new text and professional actors to do the voices. This version of the show premiered to standing ovations at the Alberta Federation of Labour’s school in Jasper at the end of November 2003.
For the next two years, GZP presented a number of performances throughout the province, with additional shows in Yellowknife and Vancouver. Currently, there is a plan to revive the show as part of the AFL centennial in 2012.
In 2004, Maria recorded and released a CD of the songs, entitled We Were Good People.
SCRIPT: Maria Dunn with Don Bouzek
MUSIC: Maria Dunn
Performing Artists: Maria Dunn with [at various times]:
Fiona Coll, Andy Ilig, Terry Morrison, Karen Donaldson-Shepard, Shannon Johnson, Dave Ward
Technical: Mike Tully, Kirsten Mayoh
2012 Troublemakers Tour Dates
May 3 Medicine Hat
May 4 Lethbridge
May 5 Calgary
May 6 Drumheller/ East Coulee
May 7 Olds
June 13 Edmonton (ALHI Conference)
June 16 Edmonton (AFL Centennial Celebration)
August 2 Crowsnest Pass
Photos
