Yellowknife (July 09/04) - Rene Bourque has a story to tell about the Yukon Storytelling Festival in Whitehorse.

The Yellowknife actress, along with Chic Callas, performed the Stuck in a Snowbank play The Ballad of Isabel Gunn there two weekends ago.

Actress Rene Bourque poses outside Javaroma in a T-shirt she bought for a buck at a Yellowknife garage sale a few years ago. "Tiny Ptarmigan Pterror" has become her nickname at theatre school in Edmonton. - Jennifer Geens/NNSL photo

Whitehorse was hot. Bourque had to dig through her suitcase and change in the airport bathroom to cope with the 35C heat.

It was so hot during their performance in the First Nations tent that Bourque watched as the audience slumped in their seats and began looking off in different directions.

But Bourque persevered in her drive to keep their attention. After all, last summer she battled barking dogs and motorboats while performing the play on Ndilo.

After it was all over, Bourque was startled when the Whitehorse group gave her a standing ovation.

"They were listening, after all," said Bourque. "Even if they weren't always physically engaged."

Bourque is now playing at the NWT legislative assembly this week, and this time, she is competing against planes. The stage seems to be under the airport flight path.

Bourque, 28, attends the University of Alberta's theatre program, working towards her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In the summer, she puts her lessons to practical use as part of the Stuck in a Snowbank theatre company.

She's lucky. Other students in her class can't find summer acting work -- they audition for companies down south, but don't get parts.

"Ben (Nind, Stuck in a Snowbank founder) has invested a lot in me," said Bourque. "It's wonderful."

Bourque's strength as an actress is her ability to connect with an audience. She said she learned a lot from watching other performers at the Whitehorse festival engage their listeners not through becoming a character, but by creating imagery so vivid, "it takes you away."

Inviting the audience

However, the most common criticism she hears from her instructors at university is that she's "using too much storytelling."

"Storytelling's not even taught in classical theatre," she said.

"Pretending there's no one there is the hardest thing. It's supposed to make you naturalistic. But with storytelling it's all about inviting the audience in. How are you supposed to invite the audience in without acknowledging that they're there?"

The Ballad of Isabel Gunn is a poem written by Stephen Scobie about a Scottish woman who followed her lover into the service of the Hudson's Bay Company by disguising herself as a man.

Coming back to the play after a year hiatus has changed her approach.

"This year, because I have the words (down), it's about painting the story," she said. "I feel it a lot stronger."

Bourque is looking forward to her third year at university, and to being "on top of the totem pole," even if for a brief time.

"The first years glorify you," she said. "Guest directors spoil you. People buy season tickets to the Timms Centre. You're treated like professionals."

After graduation, Bourque and her classmates will be back at the bottom of the totem pole as they work to establish themselves in the professional theatre world.

Bourque knows that will likely mean leaving Yellowknife, but she is optimistic about her future.

She also believes strongly in bringing theatre to the NWT communities, and was happy to have had the chance to perform the play last week at the Open Sky Festival in Fort Simpson.

"Whitehorse was a great place to learn, but Fort Simpson was the huge success for me," she said.

"To have 30 people come and be interested in it was wonderful."