Review: Helen Walkley’s John Gives Shape to Absence

The Dance Current

Helen Walkley’s John opens casually and carefully, with the house lights up. Billy Marchenski sits cross-legged on the ground, playing, rather mindfully, a game of solitaire. Josh Martin perches on a wooden chair, absently looking over a stack of papers on a wooden box. It could be a family get-together, or a regular Wednesday night. In the background, an echoey and sparse soundscore adds an apprehensive edge to the scene.

John is a personal, moving work about Walkley’s brother who went missing from Vancouver in 1969, never to be heard from again….