A tribute to pioneer animator Norman McLaren, this production bridges the gap between performance and documentary filmmaking. McLaren once said that if he hadn’t been a filmmaker, he would have been a choreographer. Norman uses movement – of light, images, the body – to connect to McLaren’s creative world.

Peter is a dancer obsessed with the movement running through McLaren’s films. He visits the offices of the National Film Board of Canada, where McLaren worked for most of his life. His goal: to gain a greater understanding of this creative genius’ sources of inspiration. To do so, Peter literally enters the films, interacting with them through dance and dialogue.

Peter also screens interviews made with people who knew McLaren and his work. These witnesses materialize out of thin air, appearing onstage to guide Peter in his exploration, sharing their impressions of and feelings for the filmmaker. A selection of about 30 works from McLaren’s corpus, some of them never released, accompany the interviews.

Most of the images and music featured in Norman are taken from McLaren’s work, and are fully covered in the show’s credits.