Vancouver's Amanda Sum combines pop-up books, music in New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert

The genre-mashing artist’s new work celebrates introverts, awkwardness

By Gail Johnson

Amanda Sum, New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert. Photo by Reagan Jade

The Cultch presents Theatre Replacement’s New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert at the Historic Theatre from May 11 to 13 at 7:30 pm and May 14 at 4 pm as part of the 2023 Femme Festival

THERE’S MORE TO multidisciplinary performer Amanda Sum’s preparation for New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert than rehearsing songs off of her indie-pop album of the same name. She will also be making, by hand, individualized paper pop-up books for every single member of the audience, each one personally dedicated and signed, to silently read together. In other words, this isn’t your typical live-music show.

Sum describes the event as “part pop-up book, part performance”.

“As each audience member comes in, I will greet you and give you a book with your name on it,” the affable artist says in a phone interview with Stir. “Everyone knows I’ve touched it and gifted it to you. I think this is a show where I get to know you and you get to know me. And so we go into the theatre and read it together and see what comes out of it. Then it all unfolds from there.

“Collective silent reading is awkward,” she adds. “I remember those times in school doing silent reading in class and wondering if everyone was on the same page, who’s faster, and who’s looking at me. But I’m excited about this awkwardness.”

New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert is the culmination of Sum’s two-year role as Theatre Replacement's COLLIDER artist in residence. For the commission, she first created the pop-up book version of the album in an attempt to completely de-digitize the songs. She presented in-development iterations of the work at PushOFF in 2021 and 2022. For the pandemic-era virtual performance, the books were hand-delivered or mailed to people all over the Lower Mainland and beyond; one book was sent to Ireland, and another to made its way to London, England. Audiences all tuned in at the same time, a welcome experience during the era of social isolation and physical distancing.  “To me, it felt like people were together in a way,” Sum says. “That such a disconnected time, and the book was for people to experience at home, by themselves, knowing that people around the world were doing it at the same time.”

As an actor, Amanda’s recent credits include four seasons of Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto, The Cultch’s do you want what i have got? a craigslist cantata, rice& beans’ Chicken Girl, and The Wolves (With A Spoon/Rumble/Pacific).

As a musician, she sometimes folds jazz or alternative folk into her indie-pop sound. Her video for “Different Than Before”, directed by Mayumi Yoshida, was nominated for a 2022 Juno award for Music Video of the Year and won the SXSW Music Video Jury Award. All of her recordings were made with an all-female production and engineering team and feature an all-Asian female band, in keeping with her commitment to champion under-represented artists. 

Directed by Theatre Replacement artistic director Maiko Yamamoto, New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert, meanwhile, with its unconventional structure featuring silent reading as the backbone, aligns with her cross-disciplinary approach. She likes melding genres, preferring not to be pigeonholed into any particular category.

“I like the confusion on that,” Sum says. “A lot of people in different parts of my life will have seen me do different kinds of work. Some solely know me as an actor, some solely as a musician; some people know me through SFU and that theatre-creation and -devising background. I think that all of those facets of me are true and are separate. This is going to be a show where people see a different side of me.”  

The show features songs from her album as well as new tracks that she has written specifically for it. The way Sum puts it, New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert prioritizes introvertedness and celebrates awkwardness.

“I know I do theatre and I’m exposed to an extent, but quite often as a person in my personality I’m quite inward,” she says. “I think I’m quite outgoing, but I’m quite introverted. Close friends of mine know I’m very social but I like being by myself a lot. I’m very aware of my kind of outward persona for people who’ve seen me onstage. In this show, people will come to see who I really am. It’s pretty true to me.

“It’s a show that people who are introverted will have a nice time relishing,” she adds. “You’re in the company of many other people having their own experience.”

And as for that prep making all those pop-up books? It has certainly been time- and labour-intensive, but Sum has enjoyed every moment.

"‘If this character was a cake, what would she look like?’”

“I like crafting,” she says. “I like the mundaneness and the kind of monotony of doing a repeated task; it kind of gets meditative. Michael’s used to be my go-to store.” 

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