About Us
Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre creates productive discomfort.
We engage with power structures, shining an interrogation light in society’s eyes.
We endanger the eardrums of the status quo by amplifying the voices of outcasts, misfits, diverse communities and artists who face barriers.
We hold ourselves accountable for the discomfort we create, to the communities we encounter, and to ethical working practices.
Art is how we do this. Art is awesome, and fun to make.
We learn and mutate as we engage with different sites, communities and artistic practices.
We don’t just swallow bicycles. We swallow complacency, conventions, problematic issues and sometimes cookies.
History
Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 2006 by Mark Hopkins and Charles Netto. For more than a decade, our main focus was creating original site-specific theatre (in other words, performance in unusual spaces). In 2018, we adopted a new Art Manifesto that guides our work.
The name comes from a quote by playwright Arthur Miller: “a playwright lives in an occupied country. He’s the enemy. And if you can’t live like that, you don’t stay. It’s tough. He’s got to be able to take a whack, and he’s got to swallow bicycles and digest them.”
Our Team
Mark Hopkins
Mark Hopkins is the Artistic Director of Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, which generates productive discomfort through art-making, and an Associate with Human Venture Leadership, which seeks to build our collective capacities to reduce ignorance, error, waste, suffering and injustice.
Mark Hopkins
Artistic Director
Mark Hopkins is the Artistic Director of Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, which generates productive discomfort through art-making, and an Associate with Human Venture Leadership, which seeks to build our collective capacities to reduce ignorance, error, waste, suffering and injustice.
Read full bioMpoe Mogale
Mpoe Mogale is a Black Queer Femme that reigns from Lebowakgomo, South Africa. They are a recent University of Alberta Political Science graduate, where their honours thesis explored the representation of Blackness in Edmonton's Arts community.
Mpoe Mogale
Administrator
Mpoe Mogale is a Black Queer Femme that reigns from Lebowakgomo, South Africa. They are a recent University of Alberta Political Science graduate, where their honours thesis explored the representation of Blackness in Edmonton's Arts community.
Read full bioKris Vanessa Teo Xin-En / 张欣恩
Kris Vanessa Teo Xin-En/张欣恩 (she/her/hers) is a Singaporean-Canadian Chinese theatre artist based in Calgary, Alberta. She graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama.
Kris Vanessa Teo Xin-En / 张欣恩
Outreach Coordinator
Kris Vanessa Teo Xin-En/张欣恩 (she/her/hers) is a Singaporean-Canadian Chinese theatre artist based in Calgary, Alberta. She graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama.
Read full bioBoard of Directors
Eva Verity
Eva Verity
President
Eva Verity is a creative producer and facilitator who has led artistic projects and programs with local communities (children, youth, refugees and senior citizens) in more than 30 cities.
Read full bioAdele Chui
Adele Chui
Board Member
Adele is an engineer from Toronto, working in medical device product development in Calgary.
Read full bio