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#CdnCult Times; Volume 6, Edition 3: REFUGEES

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Nothing is easier than talking to people who are like you, about things you both agree on. Easy peasy. It’s the differences that make things difficult. More difference leads to more difficulty.

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are like me and work in the arts generally, and maybe the theatre specifically. We probably have different tastes in theatre, enjoy different plays, prefer different formats. But can we agree that art can serve a purpose in the quotidien and is not inherently external to everyday life?

It’s probably the hang-over from 8 years of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government that makes me feel like I have to justify the usefulness of my chosen profession: theatre. Art. It’s definitely that same hang-over that leads me to asses our work on a spectrum of “usefulness” to begin with. Whatever happened to art for art’s sake?

Enter PM Justin Trudeau and his government’s promises to restore funding to the arts, to double the allocation to the Canada Council for the Arts, and to accept 25,000 refugees by December 2015.

Whoa. What?

That’s a lot of people. And chances are, that many people making new homes across the country, and the networks that are being established to support them, mean your and my everyday life could very well mean encountering and engaging with individuals who are refugees or their sponsors.

So what does that mean for us, as artists?

In the June edition of #cdncult, Raoul Baneja proposed that the Toronto theatre community collectively sponsor a refugee family. This kind of banding together is happening in cities across Canada. So in this issue, Baneja proposes a specific way that Canadian artists can welcome and support those refugee who might also be artists.

MT Space Artistic Direct Majdi Bou-Matar takes this challenge a step further. While coordinating and meeting with recent arrivals, Bou-Matar poses the key question many of us are asking: at a time of great need, are the efforts and resources we are pouring into art-making well placed?

Lastly, writer and community organizer mia amir writes about the ethics of working with refugees and their stories. Whose stories are told? What is our responsibility to fact, authenticity and ownership?

Finally, if you find yourself moved to help refugee families settling in Canada, but don’t know how, below are some places to start. This list is by no means exhaustive, so send us any updates and we’ll add them.

If you’re interested in learning more about Canadian immigration policy, check out:

Adrienne Wong & Michael Wheeler
Co-Editors: #CdnCult V6E3

Renderrabbits 01 – Rotoscoping From Video to Animation

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Hey everybody! I’m working on an animated film about the One Yellow Rabbit performance ensemble called “Renderrabbits”. It’s a series of animated portraits of the Rabbits I am creating using a method called “rotoscoping”. Here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films.[1][2] Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope. Although this device was eventually replaced by computers, the process is still referred to as rotoscoping. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping

In December of 2014 I shot some intimate screen tests of Denise Clarke, Andy Curtis, and Blake Brooker to use as rotoscope material to work with, and I have been going thru the Rabbits’ archives to find shots from their 30+ year history to animate as well. Additionally I have been pulling home movies, YouTube videos, and found footage to get material to create portraits of the late Richard McDowell and Michael Green – I was not able to film my own tests of these artists before they passed away. RIP, dudes. You are certainly missed.

The film is going to premiere as a visual-only installation at the 2016 High Performance Rodeo. In the spring of 2016 I will be working with Calgary artist and musician Kenna Burima to add a soundtrack and turn it into a final film that I hope to send to film festivals around the world. The National Film Board is supporting the project through its Filmmaker Assistance Program. The project was originally started as an exhibition in the Calgary Arts Commons’ Lightbox Studio in January and February 2015.

***

This past week I have been experimenting with a purely digital method of rotoscoping. The animations I made previously for this project were all done directly on paper using a complicated method of projecting still frames onto an animation table in the studio. Tbh I am more comfortable working on my hackintosh at home – I draw faster using a tablet and having an undo button is much more convenient than a dirty eraser smudging up my pages.

There are many dedicated animation programs to use for this work – Toon Boom, TVPaint, Manga Studio, etc. – but I am most comfortable using Photoshop (I know all the keyboard shortcuts already). I created my previous film Renderfriends in Photoshop using a very laborious method, but I have recently been learning to use the Animation/Timeline features to make the process much easier. Video layers, bruh! Plus, the custom brushes you can use in Photoshop blows the other programs out of the water – the quality of line is much more organic, and it’s remarkably easy to simulate natural media, such as watercolors or pencils, without worrying about how the vector algorithms the other programs use will render your drawings.

So this past week I have been working on a digital test of Richard McDowell, from his wedding video to Zadie, to see how the Photoshop animation method would turn out.

Step 01: The Original Video

renderrabbits---rico-takes-a-shot-raw

(Note: this is a .GIF, the actual video isn’t this low-res)

I go through the videos and find a 3-10 second clip I want to animate. I look for a clip that shows the “essence” of the Rabbit, preferably them in a candid situation, looking directly at the camera, with some sort of gesture or expression. I then convert the clip in After Effects to the right resolution and frame-rate with which to animate.

Step 02: Rotoscope, 1st pass

renderrabbits---rico-takes-a-shot-rough

Next I import the processed footage into Photoshop and trace the whole video, frame-by-frame, somewhat loosely, to get the quality of the motion and expression. I’m not being that careful about consistency on the 1st pass – look at the hands and arm, how it wiggles around! The inconsistent line-weight! This source video isn’t great quality, there is a lot of camera shake and blurs. I have to decide if I want to roll with it, or interpret the frames to make it clearer. This round I embraced the blurs and camera shake to see what it would look like when played back. What does a camera blur look like when rendered in rough pencil? Sort of like this. That first smear is rough, the end one is way better.

I am finding with this method, there isn’t a 1:1 relationship between the original video and the animation. I have to tweak or massage expressions/movements/etc to make it “read”; each animation requires a certain amount of interpretation on my part. PLUS (and this is a biggie) the frame-rates of the original videos are usually all over the place before I convert them (20fps, 29.95 fps, 23.95 fps converted to 12fps or 24fps), so sometimes there are dropped frames which make the animation look a bit stilted or jerky if I don’t smooth it out.

I’ll watch the loop and look for things to fix in the 2nd pass. Usually the 2nd half of the loop is stronger than the 1st just because I get used to drawing the subject by then, and my hands have warmed up, so going back to the 1st half and cleaning up is necessary anyway.

Step 03: Fix up the animation, 2nd pass

renderrabbits---rico-takes-a-shot

Notice this one doesn’t sync up with the other two? That’s because I added some frames at the beginning to make the first smear a bit smoother. It’s about a 1/3 of a second longer than the original.

So for this pass I clean up any inconsistencies (redraw the hands and arm), fix expressions, completely redraw sloppy frames, redraw the intro smear to make it read more as an animation independent of the source video. Any secondary drawings or animation I draw on the 2nd pass – add the hair, make the liquid in the shotglass more dynamic. I also added some colour on this pass  just to see what it would look like.

The thing I love about doing this in Photoshop is that I can work with layers. So I can use the first pass, add a “fix” layer on top of it, and selectively erase stuff and add the new drawings on top without having to completely redraw each frame. Or I can add a “color” layer to add the yellow, or add pencil shading, or just work on the liquid in the shotglass, etc. and if I don’t like it I can just turn that layer off, or erase it and start again without deleting the rest of the drawing on that frame.

Here’s a shot of what it looks like working in Photoshop:

Screen Shot 2015-11-16 at 3.08.07 PM

Anyway, back to it! I’ll be posting more process shots over the next couple months. Thanks for reading!

Tristan D. Lalla

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#CdnCult Times; Volume 6, Edition 2: HALIFAX

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In the spirit of an online magazine that aspires to be National in scope and participation, this edition reaches east to consider the artists and theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Unsurprisingly, each of these articles responds in a different way to the economic reality of being a theatre-maker in Halifax. As Karen Gross notes in her article, there are exactly five theatre companies on operating funding in the city. Many are willing to do lots with little.

Dustin Harvey considers a more entrepreneurial approach to the arts and the promise and pitfalls this holds. Gordon White explores how he ended up in Halifax, and why he has chosen to stay, despite declining economic impetus. Karen Gross expands on the opportunities and challenges particular to audience outreach.

Welcome to SpiderWebShow and #CdnCult Halifax. We have resisted marine references thus far, but happy to have you aboard.

Exporting Nova Scotia

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Audience watching City In Stereo, photo by Mel Hattie

I am eight floors up, sitting at a round banquet table adorned with white linen, eating a rustic-looking oat cake I was told is amazing.  It is.  In front of me is a placemat for my coffee cup, letter pressed with the words ‘East Coaster’. ‘You are all my winners,’ I overhear one of the project leaders say as we are about to get started.

Going around the room there are approximately a dozen other people including musicians, novelists, soap makers, crafts people, and fashion clothing producers. We are part of a focus group hosted by Nova Scotia Business Inc. in the World Trade Centre in downtown Halifax. All of us in the room were invited to give input on how this new 2 million dollar fund will be spent when it becomes public in March 2016.

Prior to the meeting we were all asked to imagine ourselves in the future.  ‘Please relax, and close your eyes’, was the instruction.  ‘Imagine you are at the end of 2025… about 10 years from now. You’re enjoying a conversation with a mentor, or a trusted business associate, or a close friend – someone you haven’t minded sharing your frustrations, dreams and goals for growing your business outside of Nova Scotia. You’re feeling pretty happy and satisfied, because you realize that over the last year you had actually arrived where you wanted to be a decade earlier. What is it that you’ve achieved?’

I pause to think for a moment.

Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI) is the private-sector led business development agency of Nova Scotia.  The Nova Scotia Government created a new fund for NSBI to focus on export development within sectors of the creative economy.  NSBI’s mandate is to attract global investment, to create new jobs across the province and to work with companies in all communities to be more successful exporters.

I came into working with NSBI last November when I participated in a Trade Mission to Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands. That opportunity emerged from the work I was doing as Industry Producer with Magnetic North Theatre Festival in 2014 when it was in Halifax.  I oversaw the international export buyers program at Magnetic North, which was funded by The Atlantic Canadian Opportunities Agency (ACOA). ACOA along with NSBI lead a European trade mission every fall, and in our Magnetic North wrap up meetings with ACOA I proposed I go along for the experience. Rarely are non-profits invited, and almost never theatre makers.  So, I lucked into it you could say.

About ten years ago I was lucky to not be sued by the Beckett Estate.  My friend Elling Lien and I created a parody of Waiting For Godot using wind-up toys, which we called Winding Up Godot.  We performed it one night to a limited capacity of fifteen. It was a sort of dark joke on how unsustainable theatre is, and where we place the measures of success.  What emerged on a deeper level were questions about the commodification of the human experience, and privatization of public space.

The conversation in the World Trade room makes me think about the gap between art and business. It makes me think about the forces that compel us to become more entrepreneurial.

The facilitator is handing out some sheets of paper.  She asks us to turn our attention to the barriers we face getting us to that 2025 achievement we all envision for ourselves.  The sheet placed in front of me is filled with photo thumbnails like a menu and I am going to point to the thing I want. Some people in the room are choosing a photo of a bunch of surgeons working on a patient, some an open road, some a child eating a brownie, someone a menacing great white shark.  It’s all looking pretty good, and then I notice the image of the grim reaper.

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Chad Dembski in Farewell, photo by Tim Matheson

Recently, Nova Scotians were urged to choose an image for the future. Released in February 2014 by the OneNS commission, a document produced by Ray Ivany put out an urgent call to action under the title: ‘Now or Never’. Its conclusion: Nova Scotia must change its direction in a dynamic way or else it’s headed for irreparable harm based on present demographics and economic realities.

Nova Scotians need to be more optimistic, more united and therefore move away from outdated reliance on government.   “Without trying to raise panic bells, we are sounding a version of an alarm. We think we are teetering on the brink and it is that combination of demography and economy of potentially a long-term inexorable slide,” said Ray Ivany.

I take a look down at the page and I choose the picture of a landscape with two hands framing it as if it were a shot in a movie. I explain that for me the image I chose is about framing the authentic beauty of a place, about capturing a fleeting moment.

In the past four years I presented work as Secret Theatre in Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland and throughout Canada. Secret Theatre’s work is hyper-local in content and uses processes that are less conventional and more demanding. I believe exporting this work abroad is actualizing the deeper artistic goal to connect local conversations to global communities.

In 2025, I will be 48. Raised on a philosophy that you should go where the work is, friends who started families and some who have bought houses are talking about moving away. Some already have. What will I have achieved that enables me to stay?

We are now in a moment when Nova Scotia is seeking to redefine the roles artists by exploring forms that are not fixed in government, but instead take root in principles of production and distribution, which are more economically driven.

The inherent danger is cultivating a practice for the sake of consumption. The crucial issue is the manner in which art is commodified and how that changes the art and culture of this place. Could we be looking at the de-artificiation of art, or an industry that cheats its consumers of what it promises?   Authentic culture replaced by a culture of sameness.

As the meeting wraps up, business cards are exchanged, and I grab an oatcake for the road.

Why Do I Stay Here?

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Photo: “Ivor Johnson’s Neighbours” by Charlie Rhindress, Ship’s Company Theatre, 2009. Clockwise left to right: Gordon Patrick White, Frank Mackay, Amy Stewart and Deb Allen.

My name is Gordon Patrick White, and I am an actor from Newfoundland. When I graduated university at 24, I planned to work my way across the country, and decide where I wanted to live when I got to BC.

I got as far as Toronto and turned around.

There were a lot of reasons. I was very headstrong, very green, and thought I would take the city by storm. I wasn’t prepared for Toronto. Hundreds of people were showing up to the same auditions. I was surprised by the racism and ignorance I encountered. I did not even have a job or a place to live. I got an offer to go back to Newfoundland, and I didn’t return to the “big city” for a long time.

I lived out of a suitcase for 3 years. I kept landing in Halifax and the Nova Scotia area. I worked with a lot of talented people, good people. I saw work from some of the theatre companies: Ship’s Company, Festival Antigonish, Two Planks and a Passion, and more. I hung around the Atlantic Fringe Festival, which had a vibrant, fun energy. Halifax is the home of Neptune Theatre, the biggest theatre company in the Atlantic Provinces. At the time, there was a booming TV and film industry. The theatre community was warm and welcoming. Halifax was just big enough, and not too big. It was affordable. And Nova Scotia still had the ocean, something I didn’t realize I would miss.

Today, I see things differently.

Rents in the city have soared bringing them closer to other major cities in the country, but the wages are still low. Downtown is filled with closed buildings and others waiting to be torn down to make condos. I see people struggling to make ends meet. So their spending for an evening out has gone down.

The theatres are also struggling to make ends meet. Audiences are down everywhere, the costs to produce are getting higher, and the funding has not increased. Rehearsal times get shorter, casts get smaller, the run – and even the season – shrink.

This year, the Liberal provincial government has drastically cut its film tax credit. An industry that had built itself up to a national success story is now in a tailspin. The government has shown a huge lack of awareness of how the arts industry works. Without a competitive tax credit, many TV and film projects that were planning to shoot here have moved on to other parts of the country. The opportunities for casts and crews go with them. People are leaving. They are selling homes, leaving loved ones, sadly having to walk away from a city they helped shape, and a community they love. This ripple affect permeates through all walks of life in Nova Scotia, especially the theatre community.

The “go out west” idea is a continuous debate to anyone in the Atlantic Provinces. Now, it is even more constant. I have a suitcase; I could leave too. Why do I stay here? In an attempt to answer, let me talk about some of the other things I am seeing here.

First, in a response to the tax credit cut Neptune Theatre painted this on their loading doors:

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This is an attempt to remind the public that while the arts aren’t necessarily like other industries, it is still an industry.

Second: Neptune’s Studio Series this season features co-productions with other companies in the province: Festival Antigonish, Valley Summer Theatre, and DMV Theatre Collective. This is a great programming strategy. The largest Nova Scotian theatre company gets to showcase local talent, and the regional theatre companies get second mountings of their productions (in DMV’s case, first) for the larger audiences that come with a big urban centre. This is a step in the right direction.

Third, the Atlantic Fringe Festival’s funding turn-around during its 25th anniversary year.

In June, the Halifax City Council cut its grant by 40%. The Fringe, under the festival director Thom Fitzgerald, rallied quickly. An IndieGoGo campaign was launched. Fitzgerald and the Fringe board members reached out to remind the public that it is worth celebrating 25 years of Maritime theatre history. Fitzgerald also kept the pressure on City Council, defending the festival and asking them to reconsider. In a letter to council he wrote:

“Our IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign has raised $2,245 from 34 donors in 3 days. […] Don’t let the public’s generosity dissuade you from using public funds to support the festival; every dollar will be used to further the cultural life of our city.”

On September 8th, Fitzgerald announced that the HRM city council not only restored the Atlantic Fringe Festival’s annual grant, but increased it. The change in policy is due, in large part, to the community rallying together to defend the organization.

Why do I stay? This community is why. This community that struggles, fights, scrapes and scrounges for whatever they can get, in an attempt to reach out, to engage, to tell stories. And I am right here with them. I’m here because I love this adopted theatre community of mine.

I want to build a stronger, more vibrant busy community. I want to engage new audiences and work with my peers. I want to engage in a meaningful dialogue about diversity in theatre – here in Nova Scotia and in the rest of Canada.

I want to reach out to the rest of the country to remind them that we are here and, every now and again, art happens.

 

Extending the Invitation

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Stewart Legere in Zuppa Theatre’s Pop-Up Love Party, photo by Mel Hattie

In Halifax, one of the main ways people see theatre is through personal invitation.

Zuppa Theatre’s board gets together before each show to email everyone we collectively know who might like to see a Zuppa show.

Last week, I talked to a fellow board member at the Bus Stop Theatre Cooperative about strategies for selling shows, and he told me his favourite one: giving each member of the team ten or twenty tickets.

Another related experience I had was at a recent dance show organized by Kinetic Studio that was both artistically and strategically genius. They had 20+ three minute acts. That’s a lot of people with friends and fans to invite.

What I am trying to point out is this: there are ways to do outreach that feel personal but don’t involve asking people one by one. Newsletters can be programmed to address each recipient by name. You can record a voicemail message and send it to the cellphone of every person who saw your last show. You can engage large groups by connecting with community leaders.

This all makes sense to me. Theatre makers must place an emphasis on hospitality and individual engagement. Theatre is a gathering. The art only exists when the artist and audience encounter it together.

In Halifax, we have an incredibly warm and welcoming theatre community. People never hesitate to support each other’s shows. Reviewers actively promote local companies. Students and emerging artists connect and collaborate with top established artists. In all of these ways, our community is tight-knit and strong. It’s largely for this reason that personal invitations work so well.

Yet when we think in terms of a “theatre community”; we are saying that there are some people who are on the inside, and some who are not. And so many people are left out. They’re not on our mailing lists or in our social media networks. Sometimes this can be hard to remember. For example: during this election campaign, I had to repeatedly remind myself that there are people in Canada (a lot of them, actually) who vote Conservative. None of them seem to exist in my social world.

These blind spots, in the context of audience outreach, can limit the conversations that happen in and around the theatre. When we are surrounded by people who share similar experiences and think the same way we do, we are less likely to question our own assumptions. Connecting with more diverse audiences asks artists to be more rigorous.

Let’s try to imagine how people who are not part of the theatre community might feel about going to see a show. They might not even realize it’s going on. Or maybe they do realize, but they don’t feel welcome. My boyfriend didn’t see much theatre in Halifax before we started dating. I asked him why. He said the independent theatres seem to a lot of people to be “prohibitively cool”, which isn’t, I don’t think, the kind of cool we’re going for.

It makes sense to me. There are lots of events I see posters and ads for that I never even consider attending, mostly because I’ve never been before and it doesn’t seem like a place I would fit in.

But what if a friend asked me to go to a metal concert with them? Or if someone in my community told me they were putting together a group of people to go and see the next roller derby game? Or if a card saying, “You’re Invited” to an upcoming contra dance arrived in my mailbox?

I really think I would go. And if I had a good time, I would probably go again.

KG cdncult - Photo by Mel Hattie
The StART Festival at the Bus Stop Theatre, photo by Mel Hattie

I recently saw my first Symphony Nova Scotia show. It was a collaboration with a favourite local musician, Rich Aucoin. As I sat in the audience this thought actually went through my head: I should subscribe to the Symphony.

As in this case, an invitation to new audiences can come in the form of an artistic collaboration with someone they already know and like (think of 2b’s The God That Comes, which introduces Hawksley Workman fans to the theatre, or Zuppa’s Pop-Up Love Party, which does the same for foodies). It can also happen in outreach, by finding existing networks not yet connected to the theatre community. It can sometimes be as simple as saying; “we’d really like to see you there”.

It’s worth noting that there are many complicated factors I haven’t touched on, including privilege and accessibility, that hugely affect how and whether audiences see theatre. I think that starting with an honest, human approach can be a good first step to listening and learning about other people’s perspectives and challenges.

Building new connections can be really hard. It can be exhausting to reach past the world we’re familiar with. We often don’t do it because we are tired, there’s not enough money, and it is hard enough to reach the people who already know our work.

In Halifax, there are exactly five producing companies on operating funding. Most companies can’t afford to hire administrative staff to focus on outreach activities. It is a huge problem that our theatre companies are not better resourced.

It is also problematic to put outreach at the bottom of our list of priorities. We might think that selling the show is separate from – and less important than – the art. But theatre only exists when people choose to be in the room with us. Inviting lots of people from all different walks of life is a hugely important step we can take towards enriching the work.

I have a lot respect for artists who see everything they do, including the organizational side of things, as being a part of the artistic practice. In Halifax, artists often do their own audience outreach out of necessity. If we see outreach in a social and creative light, maybe we will be excited rather than exhausted by its challenge.

 

Stephanie Yee: Open Waters

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As a performance and installation artist, my interest in audio is about asking questions about who we are as a culture. Storytelling and dialogue are compelling as I consider character and seek out ways to explore interior/intangible environments: I believe that I am who I am because of those around me.

Susan Leblanc: Summertime

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I have had a long-time interest in what our voices can betray about us. How we change it to get what we need and how it changes involuntarily as our emotions shift and change. When my first child was born, I swore to be aware and careful with my voice and now that that child is 3, I am at times pleased, and at other times appalled at the sound of my voice in relation to her. In this residency, I explored the joy and shame of how I relate vocally to my children, and to create a piece that captures our complex and amazing relationships.

Lisa Lipton: SICKNESS ::: Ridin’

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Ridin’ is an experimental sound // noise recording that explores an alternative narration and voice for myself as drummer. The bed track for the sound piece was sourced through recorded drum practices, that became distorted and accentuated with additional dialogue, beats, sound samples, acting as emotional, present responses that were felt and found throughout the residency period.

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