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4 First Steps Toward an Ethical Representation of Queer Bodies Onstage

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Clayton Pettet performing “Art School Stole My Virginity” (photo by Willow Garms)

In October of 2014, 19-year-old gay student Clayton Pettet, a virgin, announced he would perform live sex with a man as part of a performance interrogating the heteronormative and societally constructed concept of virginity. The piece, “Art School Stole My Virginity,” sold out, sparking a viral media firestorm that raged somewhere between an erupting volcano and a collapsing sun. But when the spectators arrived, the performance was not what they anticipated.

As Pettet explains, and as tweets about the event show, the vast majority of the audience had come to witness a queer body being penetrated rather than a work of performance art. The queer body in performance is often a site of fascination for heterosexual folks. This fetishism stems from a view of queer bodies and queer sex as “other” and is felt twofold by queer bodies that are also racialized. Pettet’s intentional decision to replace the act of penetration with acts such as scrubbing the words “ANAL WHORE” off his skin highlighted this voyeuristic interest in the queer body.

As Canadian theatre continues to display a progressive interest in elevating the voices of queer performers, we need to change the way queer bodies are represented onstage. We must avoid positioning the queer body as a site of consumption, particularly when mounting queer stories that highlight sexual (in)experience or changes to the body.

Here are four steps toward creating equitable and non-fetishistic representations of queer bodies and queer stories on the stage.

An image from the performance of “Art School Stole My Virginity” (photo by Willow Garms)

1. Interrogate the narratives laid out for your queer characters. When making theatre as an ally, look closely at what kinds of stories you are sharing and why.

In 2014, Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times theatre mounted Outside, a play about a young boy named Daniel who is forced to change schools because of homophobic bullying. Both onstage and in the world in which we live, homophobia often involves intense trauma, but it’s important that Outside doesn’t end in tragedy for Daniel’s character.

The sensationalism of trauma may sell tickets, but it can ultimately harm the community you are representing. Tragedy must be represented, but these narratives have become expected by heterosexual audiences, who may find it easier to understand the oppressed queer body as a site of violence than the idea of a vicarious, vibrant, living queer identity. Watching queer characters live joyfully subverts the cultural norm and shows much more compassion toward queer audiences.

2. Question how you represent queer intimacy. Questions about how someone enjoys intimacy with a partner and what sexual organ they have are completely inappropriate, but queer people frequently face these questions from cisgender and heterosexual individuals, who feel entitled to the answers. Queer sex and naked queer bodies are a site of fascination for non-queer audiences.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre performing “Outside” (still taken from teaser trailer)

Queer intimacy onstage, in film and television, is represented wildly differently from heterosexual intimacy. Queer performers are often either desexualized—which removes their sexual agency and shames queer sexual desire—or oversexualized—which caters to the interested voyeurism of the audience.

In Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, a queer-coded character named Tink takes a bullet for the male object of his affection, Strat, and dies in his arms. Despite Strat’s repeated proclamations that the two of them are soulmates, as Tink dies Strat only kisses him chastely on the forehead.

This kiss on disappointed queer audiences, and skirted an opportunity to present open queer sexuality. However, more overt representation onstage often involves queer actors performing extended intimate scenes.

Representing queer sexuality should not be taboo, but heterosexual directors must compare how heterosexual love is represented in the same story. If your queer couple only makes out while your straight couple is permitted to kiss more tenderly, interrogate why.

Aran MacRae as Tink in Bat Out Of Hell (credit specular)

3. Normalize diversity among the queer performers you hire. Ongoing misrepresentation of queer characters posits a young, white, thin, attractive, cis, male body as the only queer body. The understanding of queer bodies as “other” is reinforced when heterosexual audiences repeatedly encounter this sensationalized body onstage, rather than a more authentic array of body types, ages, and skin colours.

Fetishization involves a fascination with a particular set of features, coded with cultural ideas that we perpetuate through media and storytelling. To avoid fetishizing individuals, we must understand that these ideas have been developed by one homogenous group. All white, all thin, or all straight casts, for example, are inaccurate reflections of our world, and yet they are rampant in theatre. We must move toward a world that respects all body types and understands there is an amazing array of diverse ways to be queer. In doing so we strive for a future where all bodies are accepted, and sensationalism will no longer occur.

4. A final step toward empowering representation is to listen to queer voices: when we share our own stories, others don’t get to feel entitled to them. As Canadian Theatre moves toward inclusivity, it is not enough to produce queer narratives onstage without considering the consequences of poor representation. It is crucial that we make theatre for queer audiences, and that we make theatre that ethically, compassionately, and productively reproduces the vibrant scope of their lives. In doing so, we create space in the theatre world for undiluted representations of difference, ushering new and vibrant stories onto the stage while empowering queer theatre practitioners of the future.

Teaching Wildness

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DanceMachine by Su-Feh Lee, photo by Trung Dung Nguyen courtesy of Festival Trans-Ameriques.

The practice of dance and theatre is full of non-consensual shit, and it begins in the training.

In 2012 I started a conversation called Talking, Thinking, Dancing Body because I longed to discuss dance and performance without ignoring the world it happens in. One of the recurring themes that come up at these conversations, currently facilitated by Justine Chambers and Sadira Rodrigues, is the ongoing sense of powerlessness amongst artists: unhappiness about working conditions, the lack of consent culture in classes and rehearsal rooms, coercion as a strategy to gain compliance.

Sadira Rodrigues and Justine Chambers, facilitators for The Talking Thinking Dancing Body

Along with this comes the acknowledgement that the training of young artists is often based on coercion, bullying and shaming. That our training institutions require, demand even, compliance. In dance training, this compliance is further underlined by silencing the dancer: through aesthetics, through practice.

So if an artist has spent their entire lives learning that saying yes or being silent is the way to success and survival while training, how then do we expect them to speak up and say “no” to shitty conditions, to abuse, to sexual assault in the workplace?

The reality of being a professional dance artist or theatre-maker is that most of us move fluidly between our roles as performer, director, teacher, student, individual and institution. And at some or many points in our lives, we have all been bystanders to injustice and abuse. Following this, it doesn’t take much to realize that if something is not right in our milieu, we are all complicit in it.

As with most systemic problems, this is not because we are inherently bad creatures. We have just been socialized, trained to shut up and endure. A child says “no” and that “no” is often met with displeasure, judgement or exile (“Go to your room”). Along with this lesson is the lesson that to be free of this tyranny, we become tyrants ourselves. We tell ourselves we are nice tyrants. Benevolent leaders. But as is evident in current world news, it is too easy to be delusional.

Last year, I initiated Teaching Wildness because I wanted an alternative, and I knew I wasn’t alone. I invited teachers, and those interested in the conversation, to come together as peers to share ideas, strategies and questions around nurturing consent culture in class and studios.

How might we “teach to transgress”, as bell hooks says.

The title Teaching Wildness comes from Sadira Rodrigues’ permaculture-inspired question: how do we plant for wildness, for an ecosystem that is vibrant and resilient in its diversity?

Over half a dozen meetings last year, teachers and facilitators from various fields gathered to talk and share stories across disciplines. From dance to BDSM, from teachers teaching in academic institutions to teachers working in virtual reality. Some of the questions we grappled with each time were:

What does consent look like in class?

What is the alternative to compliance as the default value?

What does it mean to teach your students how to say “no”?

The Things I Carry by Su-Feh Lee. Photo by Thum Chia Chieh.

The conversations around these questions often pointed to not just what we might do FOR our students, but also how we might undo the habits of control and tyranny within our own bodies. Following are some of my takeaways from these meetings. In brackets, I have put the names of people from whom these ideas came, when I remember it clearly.

The opposite of compliance is not non-compliance, but agency. (Sadira Rodrigues)

One size fits one: all bodies are different and learn differently. How can a teacher acknowledge this? (Jan Derbyshire)

What does WORK look like and can we recognize and acknowledge all the ways it shows up? (Alana Gerecke)

Can we strive for BRAVE spaces, not just SAFE spaces? (Jan Derbyshire)

A simple way to encourage “no” as the beginning of a nuanced relationship between two people is: “Thank you for saying ‘no’”. (Addie Tahl)

The teacher as model: can we not model exhaustion and burnout for our students? Can we model vulnerability as strength? (Natalie Tin Yin Gan)

How can we say “no” to one another and still be WITH each other? If I say a student can say “no”, can I follow that up with real acceptance of that “no”, or will I be triggered myself into my own fears of abandonment and judgement? (me)

Rules for The Dance Machine

If we believe that dance (insert any artform you want here) is capable of taking on complex matters, then we must learn to speak about dance in relation to complex matters. We must learn to speak about our bodies in relation to complex matters, and we must learn to speak the truth of our bodies.

As a teacher of somatic approaches to voice and movement, I spend a lot of time bringing people’s attention to the sensation of gravity and to their breath: to be in the question of how our bodies are affected by the things that most people take for granted.

But our bodies are also affected by other invisible things. They are affected by our relationship to power and hegemony, to patriarchy, to white supremacy. We each carry complex histories which may contain trauma, loss, rage, grief alongside more pleasant sensations like joy and love.

As an artist who works with my body as my instrument, I feel a responsibility to understand the full range of my instrument. As a teacher and choreographer, I feel the responsibility to create a space where it is possible for the whole instrument to be present. This must include all the things that give us pleasure as well as the things that make us uncomfortable: Our yesses and our no’s. And we must learn to negotiate for the intimacy that we want, not endure an intimacy that is imposed upon us.

This seems important not just for life but also for art. Because, as the great teacher Linda Putnam says, “We are paid to lie, but in order to lie well, we must live in the truth”.

Holding a Monster

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A couple weeks ago I downloaded an app that tracks how much time I spend on my phone. Among the many ways in which I fear I am constantly failing myself and everyone around me, I worry about that a lot. I worry that I’m not present enough. I am ashamed of ever appearing like I’d rather be somewhere else. The app lets you set a maximum amount of time you’re allowed per day, otherwise it will send you guilting, sad-face-emoji notifications reminding you how much of your life you’re wasting. I deleted my social media apps – easy. It doesn’t count time spent listening to music or podcasts. It was fine.

And then the whole thing happened. My phone blew up right away – I’m in Toronto doing a residency, but I live in Vancouver and everyone on the West Coast wanted to know what the hell was going on. But days have gone by now. It’s not about information or gossip, or trying to provide some kind of context. It’s not about what’s happening here. It’s about what has already happened, in offices and rehearsal rooms past and present. It’s about what has become painfully immediate. I burn through my battery, metaphorically and literally. My stupid app continues to send me sad-face-emojis, as I send text after text, email, phone calls. Fuck off, I think. This isn’t me wasting my life. This is triage.

The concept of ‘holding space’ was first introduced to me a few years ago – I can’t remember who it was that did, nor can I figure out who to credit the concept to (another failure, but onwards, I guess?), but it I felt like a term I’d been looking for all my life. I believe, so strongly, in holding space. It feels like something that I and the people in my life do reflexively, and it feels like if I have a higher purpose or whatever, that would be it. Holding space – allowing someone a moment, a place to be fully themselves, to give them permission to be exactly where they are – it’s a renewable source of energy. I hold space for my friend, who is then able to hold space for her parent, who is able to hold space for their sister – onwards. It is an essential practice for any community, particular one under stress or in transformation. My friends, my colleagues, flood my screen with pain as fresh as the day it was created. I hold them as best I can.

I am drowning in duty, in holding space, when I finally text a friend (there’s another few minutes added to the fucking app’s timer) for help and she comes over right away. She, too, needs some space. She’s anxious, eyes darting, body moving non-stop. We unplug, go to a pool and float, move our bodies in the water, try to talk about anything else but it always circles back to: what do we do next? I always pride myself on being able to ‘take it’, to hold it all. It’s probably some jock bullshit I’ve inherited from the old boys club – being proud of how much I can take, where really I should be proud of how little I’m willing to.

Monster. I keep hearing that word, monster. It’s apt. I will not rob anyone of their language, their reaction, their emotions. But it doesn’t feel right for me. To me, ‘monster’ implicates that person as an other. I wish it were that tidy. It elevates the person, paints them as a sort of Jekyll and Hyde nightmare hiding in plain sight. 

I see it more as a plague. Monsters are made in the ugly mirror-image of holding space, the circles now poisoned – I am monstrous to you, so you become monstrous to someone else, and so on. Monsters are made by permissions, both taken without consent and freely granted by others. Knowingly or unknowing, we hold space for monstrousness. Even those of us who control such a small corner of our kingdom are drawn to recreating the conditions where monstrousness thrives, and then wonder what that dark patch growing on our bodies might be.

But no matter how it happened, we deserve justice. And some monsters are undeniable. So we react. We rush towards proclamatory sentences about “men” and “women,” forgetting, for now, that we are supposed to be in the process of destroying the exact binaries that polarize and toxify us and started this whole damn mess.

Because what if everyone is, or could be, monstrous?

I felt a profound, nameless reaction to a testimony I heard in which an actor said that they knew that by smiling and laughing along with their harassment, they would be judged in the eyes of their colleagues. Let’s be clear – the blame in this situation is on the harasser. But the idea of someone being alone, right in front of everyone – that is what makes us keep our secrets. I felt desolate, hearing that. I wanted to hold this person in my arms, look them in the eye and tell them that I’d never judge. But I don’t know. This sounds like the kind of monstrous I could have been. 

My fucking app keeps sending me sad emojis as I respond to text after text, email after email, phone calls from friends. The wound is fresh, and it’s immediate, and it’s all consuming, and there’s no break because life is work and work is life and it’s on the TV the radio the twitter the facebook the breakroom the company newsletter the text messages the phone calls the emails and I hear the words “I can’t sleep” and “it’s like it’s happening again” and “maybe the monster was me.”

Now is the time to hold each other up. Whether it’s with flat palms on shoulder blades, “I got you” or tight fist shaking scruff of the neck, “Do better. Be better.” 

I wanted to write some neat fucking listicle about how indie artists/companies can stop abuse, but I can’t be linear right now. I’m tired, distracted, all my energy is going into holding space and spitting out this bad taste in my mouth and wondering how much monstrousness I just swallowed because someone told me to, or because it was easier, or it felt necessary. I don’t know. I have seen monstrousness and had it used against me, and those moments feel fresh and terrifying. But I don’t want to feel blameless right now. I want to know that I tried my absolute best and failed, sometimes. That there is a fight that’s in my power to win.

My arms shake but I hold the space. Triage. Penance. Love.

I’m over my time limit for today. ☹

5 Ways Not to Be a Creep

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Sexual harassment is as much about sex as racism is about race.

In both cases, what we’re really talking about is power. Who has it, who doesn’t, and who feels compelled to dominate.

Layers of organizational dysfunction revealed last week within one of Canada’s most impressive theatre companies is the latest in what feels like a torrent of women (and men, but mostly women) daylighting horrible sexual misconduct by professional colleagues. The #metoo movement reveals the ubiquity of these experiences. It would seem we are swimming in contaminated water.

Why all the bad behaviour?

There must be some dopamine rush that is triggered when one elicits a response from someone, seeing them pushed off balance by something you’ve done, or frozen like a fearful animal. I can see how, if one were powerless, the rush of causing something to happen would be seductive, alluring. 

And yet it’s the people with the power who are being accused.

My theater training at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts seems anomalous because our teachers spoke openly of the “monsters” in the work. There are directors (or teachers even, gag me with a spoon), they warned us, who will abuse the vulnerability inherent in training as an actor. They will desire you, your body, your allegiance, your devotion. Beware.

When we train as artists, we are asked to be open, to feel things, to respond to others, and to show all this to a room of strangers. If your training ensemble was like mine, you might have developed a culture that was more permissive of sexual frankness. Then you might have transferred the permissiveness and safety you had with your ensemble to your work group. Then people start making jokes, haha, don’t be that way it’s just a joke. So you grew a thick skin to navigate the professional world that surrounds the artistic practice. And somehow you manage to acrobatically leap from locker room talk to naked, vulnerable soul and it’s bullshit and no one gets paid enough to deal with what it does to your psyche.

Traci Lords spitting truth in John Waters’ Cry Baby

So I buy my own drinks. I’m careful about accepting rides home, about being alone with men, talking about projects over dinner and drinks (“oh! It’s just the two of us?”). And I never ever go up to someone’s hotel room alone unless I want to fuck.

But all this advice is defensive. It puts the onus on the potential victims NOT TO BE VICTIMS. As if we can preemptively counsel away their trauma.

Abuse of Power in Black and White

So while we’re teaching the next generation of artists how to stand up to predators and where to seek help if they run into trouble, at the same time trying to inspire bravery and vulnerability in their work, how about this: let’s also teach the next generation (and this generation for that matter) how NOT to be creepy creepers.

Here’s a list:

  1. KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF. This is so elementary. I’ve been telling my kids this for years and they’ve only been around for five. NOTE: this rule applies to all body parts.
  2. PRIVATE PARTS ARE PRIVATE. You must ask for and receive permission to show your genitals to another person.
  3. CONSENT. Your yoga teacher should ask for consent before they make a physical adjustment and so should you. When you are directing scenes or working with others’ bodies try these phrases:
    “I’m going to touch your shoulder, is that ok?”
    “May I demonstrate?”
  4. DON’T TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES. Keep your observations for your morning pages or diary or process journal or whatever. Things like “you look beautiful”, “you’ve lost weight”, “my your legs/breasts/ankles/whatever are gorgeous/soft/sexy/whatever” have no place in a professional context, which is what a rehearsal room is.
  5. KEEP FEELINGS OF DESIRE OUT OF THE WORKPLACE. If you are someone’s boss or supervisor, if you are older or more experienced, you wield power. Chances are NO they don’t feel the same way you do and YES now things are awkward and NO they probably won’t say anything because (let’s say it together) YOU HAVE THE POWER. Your desire is not their problem, it’s yours. So deal with it. Yourself.
  6. BONUS: SEX JOKES ARE NOT FUNNY. People might laugh, but trust me on this. Not funny.
Closing the curtain on the creepy dude in Wedding Singer

If you are worried that this is you, it might be. I, too, have used my sexuality to pressure and manipulate as a collaborator. And while women wield sexuality differently than men, the behaviour is still manipulative and unacceptable. We can change.

If you think this is all bullshit, then it is you. It’s you, pal.

Call it political correctness, call it being overly sensitive, call it the feminization of the workplace, I don’t care. I see no problem with a world where people honour each other’s boundaries and put meticulous effort into building trust and inspiring consensus among a group of intelligent, trained, and articulate artists. Not out of fear of getting caught, but out of respect.

That work is difficult. Sexual harassment—any form of bullying and coercion—is a short cut. Sure, you might “get people to do what you want” by exerting your will and authority, but it’s still bad behaviour. And the slow-motion, overly-public implosion of Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre shows that bad behaviour is damaging to the humanity at the very core of our art-form. It’s also bad for business.

Thought Residency: Corey Payette

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This is my 14th thought. Well anyone who has ever worked on a show with me or created a show with me know that I’m terrible with endings. So I don’t have a plan for how to say goodbye only to say that it has been a real treat to spend a month putting my thoughts down and thinking of whatever and having a virtual space to share it. I’ve been on a whole journey all month, all over, and now I’m home, and I feel like I’ve shared some good thoughts and some frivolous thoughts. I just want to leave you all with love so share love everyone. Take care.

This is my… oh… I didn’t even look at what thought it was. It is my 13th thought. Wow, 13. Well my thought for today is about how we stand on the shoulders of those who comes before to accomplish everything we do in life. That someone has opened that door for us, someone has already paved the road you get to walk on and that’s really really hitting me today. In whatever way forward we go, that someone has laid the path. 13th thought, there it is.

Its January 25th and this is my twelfth thought.

So the other day I was jogging down the street, it was like a downhill part of the street, and the sidewalk isn’t well maintained, so there’s all these big grooves that pup up. Anyway, point being, my foot hit one of these grooves and I launched into the air, and fell flat on my chest and face and arms. And cut up all my hands and elbows and everything. But my first thought after I tripped and knew I was going down was “I hope no one is seeing this.” And I think that tells a lot about just.. well me. but also where our brains go when those things happen.

Its January 24th and this is my eleventh thought.

So I was thinking about how people want to jump into the skins of different cultures to have a different experience. I was watching this video of people from Germany where they have these Native American villages, where they dress up as Native Americans and live in this very stereotypical olden times. And its problematic in many ways but theres also something about it that builds empathy if it is truthful and if the people are opening up their minds and hearts to the ways of these people. And at least acknowledging the knowledge and strength that they held. I think that’s what we need right now is a bit more empathy.

 

Its January 23rd and this is my tenth thought.

So what I’ve been thinking about is that sometimes writing or music turns a corner after it has been really bad for a while. So I was writing this song for a show and for months, I kid you not, whenever I would sit down at the piano I would play the same little patterns and record it because like “Oh this is a great song I could use it in the future”. But it never got realized and by the end it was this nagging thing that was like “Oh will you just leave me alone and let me write other things”. But then two days ago I finally finished that song and it is like my brain has opened up and I can think of other creative things.

 

This is January 18th and this is my ninth thought.
I wondered how long it would take me to talk about collaboration but I’m going to start now. I think that I have become a better collaborator as I’ve collaborated with more people and they’ve taught me how to be a better collaborator. I think that when I was younger I wasn’t very good at it and I was kind of bull headed and tried to get my way on things without looking at a bigger picture. And I think I definitely still have moments today where I do that, even though I try not to. But I think that because of the people I’ve had the chance to collaborate with they’ve made it where that’s not really our way of working and we don’t have to work that way because we’re open and we listen to each other.

t’s January 17th and this is my eighth thought.

I think that I’m a bit afraid of my thought today because I think its unpopular but I’m just going to ask it as a question instead. Why would it be so bad for people to record theatre performances? What makes theatre any different than a concert, a live concert where people are filming the whole show of music and lighting and set and everything. What is different about theatre? Other than the fact that it distracts the performers, yes. But that’s just cultural, we can change, we can make that a part of our culture that we film theatre so that it can be shared. And that it can hopefully inspire more people to see it. Wait, that was supposed to be a question.

 

It’s January 16th and this is my seventh thought.

I think that I struggle with calling myself a writer or composer or anything where I’m having to create something because I don’t find the process to be all that easy. I also don’t find it to be all that enjoyable. In the process of doing it I find it to be frustrating sometimes and painful. Its later on where I start to enjoy it. It’s the fine tuning and the editing and the crafting after its at a certain point I can begin to appreciate it and enjoy some of it. But in the early stages it is like pulling teeth.

 

This is Thursday January 11th and this is my sixth thought.

I’ve been going to some modern art museums here in New York City and I’ve decided that I think I like about 20% of what I see, the rest of it I’m indifferent to. But I wonder why in theatre we hold a higher bar that like everyone needs to like it. Or there needs to be some sort of consensus and that the response is like, you know, we want people to feel connected to it in a really deep and meaningful way. But in visual art or other art mediums that’s not the case and that’s ok. So why can’t we just believe and hope that we’ll be that 20% for whatever audience who comes to see our work?

 

This is Wednesday January 10th, and this is my Fifth thought.

Today, I’m in New York City pitching at the ISPA conference. I’m pitching Children of God, its a musical that I premiered last year in Vancouver and in Ottawa. And my thought for today is how even after you’ve created a show and produced that show, and feel that you know everything about that show, that you really don’t know everything and that you can never know everything. And so, as I prepare to pitch, and get ready for this sort of weird process of art-selling. I think about how much I really know about the work and what people actually need to hear to believe in it.

 

This my fourth thought.

I think this has probably been on a lot of people’s minds lately if you are following what has been happening in Toronto with Soulpepper. But I have been thinking about how grateful I am to Hannah Miller, Patricia Fagan, Diana Bentley and Kristin Booth for their bravery in the last week in coming forward and speaking up for what they know is the truth. I think that the next generations will owe them an enormous dept for their courage and bravery. That’s my thought for today.

 

It’s January 4, 2018 and this is my third thought.

You guys, tomorrow is my birthday. My birthday is January 5, I’m turning 31… I think… yes… 31? No, yes I’ve already turned 30. I always have this problem of not actually knowing what year, and I always have to do the math to get there. No… you know, it is. I’m turning 31. (Laughs) Umm… I don’t feel 31 but I also don’t feel younger than that are older than that, sort of like I feel a bit ageless but I’m excited for the day. And I think because when your birthday is so close to the holiday season like Christmas and New Year’s, like my family has always tried to make a big deal out of my birthday. But, that’s the day. And it’s tomorrow. So… happy birthday.

 

Today is January 3, 2018 and this is my second thought. 

Immediately after sending my first thought, my next thought was how unoriginal I was. And how I was talking about creativity and yet my first thought that I was sharing had a lack of it. So I thought my second thought would be about fear and doubt. I think it’s interesting how our thoughts turn to the negative and how these sort of, vampires creep in and try to suck away the joy and love from our creativity. And so… ya, from title show, they used to say “die vampire die”, and that’s what I think about those negative thoughts… so unoriginal or not, here they are.

 

Hi, this is Corey it’s January 2, 2018 and this is my first thought.

I’m always thinking about ways to be more creative and how to carve out time for creativity even in the smallest way. I think that’s what I’m going to try to get better at, is planning for creativity and making space for it in my day. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this and it sounds like it’s successful, it sounds like it’s a better way of doing it than like thinking that the time will make itself available. But maybe when you actually write it down and like, you know, be a grown-up about it and actually make time for it that it will actually happen. And maybe it won’t! And maybe I’ll find out just like every other resolution that it didn’t turn out the way that I thought it would. I think making time for creativity kind of keeps me sane so that’s my thought for today.

All right, happy new year everyone!

Thought Residency: Adrienne Wong

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Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017 with three thoughts for the end of the year and this is number three.

YOU.

You are the person who is listening to this right now. Maybe you’re my Mom, maybe you’re my sisters, maybe you’re my friends, maybe you don’t know me from a pile of potatoes.

You are so important to me. You are the reason that I make anything, that I get anything done. Because I think of the moment that you receive it. I think of the delight! I know these last three not been very delightful, but the delight! The delight! Of… surprise, of discovery.

So, for 2018, I dedicate it to you. Everything we make. It’s for you

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017. I have three thoughts for the end of the year and it’s about darkness.

Um. Blech. I don’t like thinking about darkness. It’s enough to drive me towards my addictions: alcohol, social media, season 2 of The Crown.

So for the next year I want to embrace it. To wrap it around me like a cloak, like a badge of honour and know that while darkness doesn’t make me unique in any way, or special, um… that it does make like kind of interesting.

And I hope to teach my children that darkness is ok, and that it’s how we manage it. How we find the light.

Hi this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow December 2017. These are three thoughts for the end of the year. One. Solitude. (Laughs)

Do we seek it out, or is it thrust upon us, like greatness? And is it like the seasons, turning and changing our perceptions of it?

In a way I think solitude is like water. That it feeds the growth inside, but too much of it can flood our selves away. So, right now I’m hiding in my basement (laughs) trying to complete my thoughts for a new year and wishing for solitude, but just the right amount.

See you tomorrow.

This is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

I’m thinking– I don’t want to start them this way! (laughs) I’m thinking that I don’t want to start about what I’m thinking about. Because uh, of course I’m thinking about it! It’s a thought residency. Blah! Boring!

So I guess I’m thinking about being obvious and is being obvious always the… wrong thing to do? Is it sometimes helpful to be obvious? To just, like, put it out there so that everybody knows what it is that you’re thinking about and it’s not a surprise to anyone?

Maybe.

Maybe if we were all just a little more obvious um… things would run more smoothly. The problem is that my thoughts are not always even obvious to me. So here I was trying to think about remembering and then I think about being obvious and… that seems to be the way the brain works: are these non-linear tracks.

Good morning, this is Adrienne Wong thought resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

Let’s talk about agreement and conflict. Um… Is agreement necessary to making art–with collaborators?

I guess, ultimately, you do have to agree on what’s going to happen in the space of time that you call the performance. Or do you? Um. What does it mean if a piece has a part in it that you don’t want to have be there? Is that ok? Uh… And how does the piece hold that disagree with – among the collaborators?

I don’t– gosh I don’t really have an answer to that. That’s just a, like, living question. Um.

I think it could be pretty interesting to have discord, because conflict is drama. Right?

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong. Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

I am… forgetting things lately. Uh. Maybe it’s not so much lately, but I certainly have noticed it more. Um. So… here I have forgotten to do this thought and I’m… thinking about why I forgot. Because isn’t it said that we remember the things that are important to us. So maybe this… thinking isn’t important to me? Or maybe in the list of priorities it comes in after… making lunches, shoveling the sidewalk, getting the kids to the places that they need to do, and showing up for my collaborator on a workshop day. Maybe that’s enough to remember.

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow – December 2017.

I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to work harder, to be more efficient—to work smarter, not harder—and get better at what I do and that’s really hard because I can’t always explain to other people (nevermind myself) what it is exactly that I do. So how does one get better at something kinda unnameable.

Of course, of course, of course the answer is that I make these things, that I make these shows. But what I am really trying to do, I think, is, uh, peel away a layer, or be vulnerable, um, or kind of just present create these opportunities for people to be present with each other. And in order to get better doing that, I guess I have to get better at being present. Which seems a bit like a paradox.

Oup! I’m over time. Talk to you next week.

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017 with Thought Number 5.

Right now I’m thinking about deadlines. I’m late submitting this thought aaand it seems like I am late with pretty much everything these days: late getting to meetings, making supper, getting to bed, etcetera, etcetera…

Uhh… And yet at the same time I have to admit deadlines are pretty important to me. To help me get things done. Um. Some people talk about how they can’t write if they feel like there’s a deadline looming, whereas I’m the exact opposite: unless I have a deadline looming I can’t really seem to get anything done.

Because I need to know that someone, somewhere is going to read the thing or see it. Um. Otherwise why say it?

That’s Thought Number 5. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident December 2017. This is Thought #4.

Right now, I’m thinking about community. Uhh… And how hard it is to make stuff if you don’t…  have it! Um. (laugh)

Who are you making this thing for? Who’s gonna watch it? Who’s gonna want to see it? Who’s gonna listen? But moreover who’s going to be the one to… help you… think. Uh…

I truly believe that we are not just individual people. That our brains actually are networked through other brains and they function better when we’re connected to other people, and through this larger process of collective thinking come to moments of epiphany or inspiration or whatever you want to call them.

So… I’m thinking about how important my community is to me.

I think that’s about a minute (click) so uh… oh! I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye!

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

Let’s talk about gifts because after all, tis the season.

I remember, when I was a kid, my Mom teaching me how to choose a gift for another person. She taught me to think about what the person might like and then to find that thing. And so even though I don’t really like all the buying and spending and spending and buying and consuming that comes along with the holiday season, there is something to the practice of considering what might give another person joy and then giving them that.

This, too, is an art form

Ok, that’s enough. See you next week.

Hi, it’s me, Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident, December 2017 with my second thought.

It’s 8:30pm and I’m finally sitting still. After a long day. And it makes me wonder: do you take a break every day?

I don’t.

And… that makes me wonder: do I even know how to relax anymore? Do I even know what I like to do to relax? Everything I can think of… that I like to do… has to do with work: cooking, reading, watching certain shows, reading certain books.So I guess I’d have to say that the thing I like to do to relax… is nothing. That’s not so bad.

Hello this is Adrienne Wong. I am the SpiderWebShow thought resident for December 2017.

I’m in my car right now. I’ve just picked up a wood rasp from my friend. I’m borrowing it so that my father-in-common-law (who’s visiting right now) can help us with our drawers in the kitchen. Make them less sticky.

I’ve traded two cans of Coke Zero and two slices of black forest cape–cake, although I don’t expect to get those things back.

It makes me think how the barter economy is pretty swell. Uhh. Especially for things that you don’t need for very long. Things you might need for a theatre show, for example. So I wonder how that barter economy can work in our favour as theatre makers.

In kind donations are one thing but is there some kind of Bunz Trading Zone for theatre? That’s it for now. I’ll have another thought tomorrow. I hope.

Thought Residency: Michael Wheeler

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I’ve been reading a lot about how automation is going to change the nature of work – that it won’t just be factories, but it will be lawyers and accountants, and even doctors. So much of what humans do as work currently will be automated through robots and algorithms. And then the question is what do we do with our time? Now that our bodies are not required to generate capital. And, uh , i don’t know: Make plays, start the revolution?

Is there anything more anachronistic than the Royal family? Who cares about this wedding? Why do we care? Why do we allow this family to be on our money, to avoid paying taxes, to have to sign our laws? What have they done? They’ve accumulated wealth. They do not adhere to any democratic principles and yet we place them at the top of our society.

Let’s evolve as a people. Let’s take agency into our own hands. Let’s abolish the monarchy and have a Republic in our lifetime. It’s time.

If the reason a society should support artwork is that it is an economic driver that contributes to a creative economy, if we were to determine that art did not drive the economy, should we then not have art?

Hear that sound? Hear that sound? That’s the Fisher Price, I don’t know, “bounce and play” I’m gonna call it. Anyhow, this thought is about being a parent and how before I was one I was sure that it would be hard because how would I get any work done with all the diapers and the no sleeping and carrying and bouncing and uhh it is really hard to get work done but not for those reasons. Mostly because Noa, my daughter, is so darn cute that I can’t imagine why I would do any work when she’s around. So that’s why I have to leave the house actually.

One of the things that’s different about being Canadian than American is we celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Much earlier. Mid-October. This means there’s no breaks between Mid-October and Christmas. We go straight. No holidays. No nothin. Just workin. Hard. Dark. Days. Gettin it. Done.

I first joined Twitter in December of 2011. Since they I have made, apparently 19.2 thousand tweets. And all those little messages that I have sent out into the universe have reshaped how I use language. In particular, how I can be brief in making my point. Now that Twitter has doubled the character limit to 280, I imagine this will shape again the way that I use language to express myself, aaand I hope I don’t become more long-winded.

A recurring concept in the arts is: Entrepreneurship. How can artists be Entrepreneurs? And one one hand i think that’s a really amazing idea, and in particular that artists can control their own destiny by being entrepreneurs that make their own work. And on the other hand, the idea that art should be profit-driven is antithetical to what makes it valuable.

Many aspects of a personality combine to create a single self. I’ve been contemplatiing this in relation to basketball-playing Mike, who is loud, often aggressive and mm, rehearsal director Mike who is a listener, collaborative and not ever yelling at anyone that I can recall. Ah and they both feel like me, and I like both those people, but which one is the real me? I think the both are.

This is Michael Wheeler and this is Thought #3.

My students at Queen’s University are beginning a process of creating scenes through CdnStudio. They have the benefit of actually rehearsing those scenes in person with each other first, before they start creating across distance.

I’m curious to see how this changes the creative process in comparison to something like our production of The Revolutions which used the technology to create a work where artists from a cross the country collaborated with each other without ever being in the same space.

Seems like being able to meet each other in the same space will change things.

 

This Michael Wheeler and this is Thought #2.

I’ve been thinking today about Progress Lab in Vancouver and how it is home to both Marcus Youssef, who is the most recent winner of the Siminovitch Prize and also The Electric Company and Kim Collier, also a winner of The Siminovitch Prize.

And how that space was created by a bunch of artists who came together and figured out how to pool their resources to give them the infrastructure they needed to explore their craft, before anyone had won any Siminovitch Prizes. And ah, it just reminds me that working together you can achieve a lot of things.

 

This is Michael Wheeler and this is Thought #1.

I’ve been thinking a lot about branded content lately, and how newspapers and magazines now offer theatres the opportunity to purchase the coverage they used to receive for free from journalists and their publications.

And that the model, the business model that supports the media, is suffering is so much that now you buy what used to be, omm, news.

And that that is bad for art, because then news, in the art world, is about the people, who can pay for it.

Living a Digital Connection: Reflecting on The Revolutions

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Artists in Kingston, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in The Revolutions. Photo by Mariah Horner.

I recently signed on as an actor in SpiderWebShow’s The Revolutions, to help a passionate collection of thinkers, technical wizards and artists test a prototype for a new, digital, theatre delivery system.

Their long-term goal, it seems to me, is to enable actors in various, separate locations to play together, “live”, in front of live audiences. Given the current, mind-boggling pace of technological development, this dream may be ready for prime time sooner than one might think.

The play at the centre of the project, The Revolutions, by Rhiannon Collett, was performed, simultaneously, by six actors located in four cities (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Kingston).

While the three actors in Kingston were physically present in front of the live audience, the other three actors and their performances were delivered to Kingston via internet, projected on a single screen. At certain magical moments it appeared that all actors existed together in the same place at the same time. Throughout, audiences were able to choose to view the goings-on of the life-sized actors actually in front of them, or experience all six blended together on the big screen.

Imagine a theatre where actors and spectators from a dozen—a hundred—a thousand—different places around the world are brought together in one place without actually needing, physically, to be there. Suppose they can look each other in the eye, listen, speak to one another, breathe and play together. All live, all in real time, all in three dimensions. Eventually, given enough data, participants at such gatherings might even be able to touch, taste, smell each other.

Jim Garrard and Anne Hardcastle in Kingston. Photo by Mariah Horner.

Based on my experience on the project, I believe this is the kind of theatre environment these artists are aiming for. Already, they can magically combine two-dimensional, moving images of actors and audiences in separate cities, making it appear as though they are all together in the same physical space.

For the present, however, this new use of technology cannot make the fundamental living connection between actor and actor, actor and audience that theatre depends upon. It’s not yet possible for actors to look at each other, bounce off each other, feel the audience breathe and be moved as one. It’s not yet possible for this technology to deliver live theatrical content as plausibly as actors can to an audience assembled around a campfire or pageant wagon; in a park, town square or purpose-built theatre; or storefront, historic site, elevator, moving train or subway car—for example.

To me, “theatre” signifies both an art form that specializes in narrative content (story) and the physical space in which the art is presented live to an audience (place).

In the case of The Revolutions, the play/story/content is relatively straight-forward. As worthy as it is, it would fit comfortably in a traditional theatre space. As would the actors’ performances.

What is potentially marvelous and revolutionary here is the nature of the theatre space/place/delivery system that SpiderWebShow envisions. However, if and when this new playpen in cyberspace becomes fully functional, what effect will it have on the stories human beings seem to need to tell each other face-to-face? What adverse, unintended consequences might there be?

Invention of the axe meant raised stages: more people could see the actors. Electricity meant more people could hear them, still see them after dark. Film meant exchanging theatrical immediacy for portability in time and space. “Live” television restored immediacy, but replaced storytelling with journalism, spectacle and games.

Artists in Kingston, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal digitally performing in The Revolutions. Photo by Mariah Horner.

Over the centuries, in the face of developing technologies, the essential nature of stories hasn’t changed much—heroes and villains; beginning, middle, end; conflict, suspense, surprise; rising action, climax, resolution; order restored, lesson learned; and so forth. Changes in the social order have made the stories we tell less about kings and queens, more about ordinary humans; but, the fundamentals haven’t changed.

Artists are restless creatures, impulsively responsive to the changing world around them. They don’t want to sit forever, telling stories around some tribal campfire. Immutable story elements, solidly rooted—as they are—in human nature, can be seen as barriers to invention. It can be more fun to tinker with the medium than to imagine new stories to be told in old ways.

Right now, the world is overwhelmed and obsessed with digital technologies. There is barely an obstacle in the way of any actor wishing to communicate instantly in “real time” with any other willing spectator in the world.

One danger is, that altered media and new technologies often thrive best on trivial content. Ancient myths and enduring archetypes get shunted aside in favour of ersatz opinion, topical issues, gossip, viral misinformation, anonymous malice, contempt for art and grace. Authentic shared experience disappears into the cybersphere.

Authentic stories—especially those imagined and told by artists—connect us. Such stories nourish the human soul, place it in a universe of time and space. If artists are tempted to invent new media to tell stories, let them be sure story and art don’t get lost in the process.

Podcast: Creating in CdnStudio

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Join host Camila Diaz-Varela as she explores the process of creating The Revolutions this past September at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston. If you’d like to hear more, listen to our first podcast in the series Starting the Revolution. 

What is CdnStudio and how does it work? If Christine is rehearsing in Vancouver in the morning and Maddie is rehearsing in Toronto in the afternoon, how do the rules of rehearsal change? What’s it like rehearsing with artists you cannot see and cannot touch?

 

Podcast: Starting The Revolutions

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The Revolutions Family Photo

Today SpiderWebShow is two weeks into a hybrid digital live performance rehearsal process for The Revolutions. Artists at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston, Ontario are collaborating on a performance that includes improvised dinner conversations, monologues and scenes in ‘digital space’ where performers in Kingston act with live performers in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

This approach is made possible by a technology we have developed called CdnStudio, which combines green screen technology and live streaming to create a single screen and audio feed for performers to interact in across distance. Each satellite studio contains one actor and one coordinator who performs in an empty room. (Thanks for hosting us Boca del Lupo at Progress Lab in Vancouver, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal in their new home, and our AD’s dining room in Toronto.) Each is communicating with stage management and each other over Slack.

An added digital element of our creative process is a series of three podcasts about making the show by Toronto CdnStudio Coordinator Camila Diaz Varela. We have always been challenged by process based blog posts about creation, but the audio medium seems better suited to a fulsome discussion of ideas and processes underpinning creation. Below is the first of three, please let us know what you think and if you have any ideas where we should go from here using #TheRevolutions.

The Revolutions is made possible by The Kingston Arts Council, The City of Kingston, Canada Council for the Arts, and The Dan School of Music and Drama at Queen’s University.

 


 

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