Yellowknife (Oct 22/04) - Lots of people have tread the boards of the NACC stage but not that many can say they have slept on it.

Darha Phillpot did last Friday night. In the middle of NACC's creation festival, bushed from hours spent choreographing new dance works, she curled up on a mat in the corner with a blanket and dozed off.

"I had some odd dreams," she said.

It wasn't that comfortable and she eventually moved to the couch in the green room.

Phillpot was one of several dancers, playwrights and musicians who spent 24 hours last weekend coming up with new works.

Ben Nind, the executive and artistic director at NACC, said the festival "exceeded all expectations."

"I figured we'd get maybe 10 people if we were lucky," he said.

Instead each venue drew its own steady stream of artists: some a trickle, others a flood.

What Nind called "a slew" of highland dancers flowed through NACC on Saturday, creating two new pieces of choreography and boosting the total number of participating dancers to 21.

Seven playwrights set up shop in the Yk Actors' Studio and seven musicians jammed in the Church of Christ. Then on Sunday night, the artists presented a New Works Cabaret onstage at NACC.

Pushing the deadline

Unlike Phillpot, most of the participants took a break overnight to go home and sleep. Erica Tesar worked on her script "The Dream" at the Actors Studio until 1:30 a.m. before heading home for some shut eye.

By 3 p.m. Saturday, she was typing away, in the home stretch of her project. At her side were the remains of the previous night's glass of wine, a thermos of coffee and a pack of gum. The script she was working on is the first in a series of short plays she plans to write on social issues.

"It's about a young girl who's having a baby as we speak," said Tesar, glancing at her handwritten notes.

She enjoyed the collaborative nature of the event and the motivation of having a deadline.

"It's been an interesting process," she said. "You don't often make the commitment to shut down your life and just do it."

"The Dream" was one of seven new one-act plays presented at the cabaret.

Fellow playwright Nind came up with a piece called "The Brooker Dilemma." Nind conceived seven scenes, speculating what went on in George Bush's head during the 11 minutes he sat in a classroom listening to a story about a goat after being informed of the World Trade Center attacks.

Nind was heavily influenced by a book he was reading about surrealist Salvador Dali. Stage directions called for clowns, ceramic dogs and a very flexible woman wearing high boots.

"And if you ask real nice, Ben will explain that play to you," Chris Foreman told the audience after its reading on Sunday night.

Foreman's one act play, featuring three strangers on a train striking up a conversation about a Northern boomtown, closed off the first act.

Time for some new tunes

Music formed the entire second half of the cabaret. Musicians warmed up their songwriting muscles Friday night at the church by passing around a song called Strange Bedfellows, to which everyone contributed a line.

"It's Leonard Cohen-ish," said Chic Callas of the finished product. "It doesn't make any sense."

The music crew gave birth to eight more-coherent songs before the weekend was through.