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Work Life Balance

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Free childcare offered for some Belfry Theatre performances. Screen capture from Belfry Theatre website.

Much is being discussed about life work balance. I would not be so foolish as to take an opposing view on the necessity of our industry (not just the theatre—but the entire performing arts community) finding pathways to a better point of balance. I will however write about the direction of some of the discussions happening. The discussion seems to be focusing on five-day weeks and shorter days as a panacea for providing life work balance.

Presuming that we are not seeking less rehearsal / development / exploration time for the art, we would then be talking about extended engagement periods. Not a bad way to go—(finances aside)—if you are in a major centre where your creative team live.

Belfry Theatre, Victoria BC

For rural, remote communities, and for smaller cities, extended rehearsal time may in fact add strains to life—especially family life. My company currently engages actors for eight week contracts to complete roughly 120 hours of rehearsal, another approximately 20 hours of tech rehearsals and 31 performances.

We are on an island, and while we are a small city with a decent number of talented professionals locally, we also rely pretty extensively on a national talent pool. Out-of-town artists are required to be away from their principal residence for an extended period of time. Presuming again that we want to maintain an average of 40 hours or so a week in rehearsal time, would we (and others like us) then ask actors to be away from home for even longer stretches of time?

Moving away from rehearsals and overall contract length, I would like to also offer that a presumption that we could accomplish the same impact with audiences in a five day week rather than a six day week, also offers some challenges. While it is possible that my company could reach the same number of audience members most of the time with fewer performances; the data we have does show that for many of our shows we would not.

In the age of ticket sales needing to draw a majority (or at least significant portion) of our revenues, how do we find ways of paying are artists better? Which I believe plays a really significant part in providing life-work balance. Which day do we give up to ensure we reach the community we serve? In our case that would likely be Friday and Monday. -not an ideal way of moving to a five day week.

Belfry Family Hootenanny, photo by Erin Macklem.

As artists, as companies, we share a responsibility to our audiences. They too need to be part of the conversation and solution. We rely on them for our livelihood. Perhaps we can reverse the stream of 24/7–365 consumerism. I suppose if anything should attempt it maybe it’s art. However, whether we like it or not, we are part of the consumer society and if we are to affect change we need to find a way to bring our audiences with us.

This is a short, starter conversation. It is a conversation that is particularly important and valuable. In each work day, we should be finding ways to provide the responsiveness to meet the needs of all of us, to have and respond to our life as well as our art. We should be particularly cognisant of the needs of mothers and other primary care givers. I wish I had an answer for improving balance in the lives of our artists and craftspeople. I don’t. But I do know that a single version approach can create as many issues as it solves.

Our current model of how we create the work, how we perform, how we become truly inclusive, and how we continue to move away from the culture of poverty requires dedicated and intensive conversation. That conversation can not start from a perspective of us versus them. It is not an artist against organization issue.

It is also not starting from the intractable position that organizations (and individuals) fall back on—‘we’ve always done it this way’. I believe that it also can not start from a one size fits all response. That the needs of our audiences, our community, our artists, our staff, must all be part of the discussion and solution. That voice must be given to each individual involved, in each process, in each circumstance.

Thought Residency: Luke Reece

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For this final thought, I’m writing it out first, so that I don’t have to do several more takes at it. Someone I love very much is trying to sleep and it’s 1:30 in the morning. I’d like to give her, Caitie, a shout-out for being great. It’s been a long month, and year, but it’s people like her who keep me going through it all. She reminds me to never take myself too seriously, and to find laugher and silliness whenever possible. I think it’s appropriate to end with that.

 

Merry Christmas to everybody out there listening who celebrates that, and happy holidays to everyone, and Happy New Year to those whose New Year starts soon. Had a great conversation with my family about belief systems at the Christmas dinner tonight. And it was, it was nice to hear my aunts like really come together and listen to the different perspectives that people have now on the world. And I dunno it was it was cool to see them just be surprised that there is another way of thinking and that we feel comfortable exploring those ways of thinking.

 

Every Christmas Eve my mother, my sister and I play a card game called Wizard, the last thing we do before bed. And for the last, I dunno, five or so years my sister has won. And uhh before that I was the reigning champ for four years or so, and she won again tonight. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to give a shout-out to my little sister Cassandra, who is not little at all. She’s much taller than I am. For winning again and putting up a good game.

 

So I’ve been doing a lot of these thoughts as one take, which is kind of fun. Sometimes I put songs behind them and I like that. So this is Janet Jackson right now. This year I decided I wanted to rent the Mini Cooper at some point just because I’ve always wanted to drive one and then I got a chance to. And uh it was great— cost me more money than to rent a regular car, but I needed to rent a car anyways and a Mini Cooper was available. I used an app called Turo. You should check it out if you haven’t already. And Mini Coopers are great.

 


I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on 2018 as the year comes to an end, and thinking forward to 2019. And I really liked the resolution they had for this year. And I don’t feel like I’ve quite gotten there yet. So I feel like 2018 is more like a stepping stone to 2019. I’m not going to tell you what that thing is, uh because I don’t have to, and I choose not to.

 


I was really excited this week when I found out that uhh Blue Planet 2 is on Netflix now. Um, and I wanted to watch it on Sunday morning and didn’t get a chance to. And then Sunday night I went home and I kind of claimed that time and watched the first episode of Blue Planet 2… and it’s great! It’s beautiful…Definitely check it out.

 

On the second night back-to-back, on the road, without Kawhi Leonard, Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors 113- 93. They beat the Clippers last night. And, it’s just great to see them really come into form, and play their game, and most importantly they’re having fun. And something I’ve noticed the last couple nights is that the Raptors are having fun. And I think sometimes when things aren’t going our way, or stressed, we forget to have fun and the Raptors are coming out of a slump by enjoying what they do. And that’s important.

 

The shift key on the left side of my keyboard – so the main one – is currently jammed, which makes it difficult to uh type with capital letters unless you use ‘capital…lock’—I’ve never—wow, ‘caps lock’. I’ve never called it ‘capital lock’ before but I guess—you know what I mean. Or, you use the other shift key which just feels weird. So, you really need to find those key moments for capital letters…If you know what I mean.

 


When my sister and I were were uh 5 and 8 years old we watched a show called Life’s Animal Miracles. It was just actually called Animal Miracles, but it was on the Life Network, and uh it had aired for three years and hosted by Alan Thicke, and it showed stories of animals being miraculous, saving lives, helping people get through tough times situations. But it’s pretty intense for an eight-year-old to watch. Dog dies. First episode. Just a heads up.

 

Some people like to call attention to the fact that I am a Toronto Raptor’s fan even more so than I do. I think part of that is because it’s somehow looked upon as a strange thing that as a theater creator that I enjoy sports. I’ve been playing sports all my life and that because of that I am a passionate sports fan. And I think that there are things to be learned from the way that sports bring people together in the way that theatre does as well. And the game I was at tonight was celebrating what would have been the hundredth birthday of Nelson Mandela and seeing everybody celebrate that together was beautiful.

 

Today I made a comment about a high ceiling, I said “You could fly a helicopter in here”, and then someone challenged whether or not the propellers would actually fit. It’s nice to have people call into question your hyperboles when it’s just a little too plausible. Also, today I learned that it’s easy to stop overextending yourself when there is nothing left to extend. Uhh not on the same topic- the anti-Doras happen on June 16th in Toronto. Save the date. I was told by a peer that my last thought was rambley – and I don’t think that’s a word.

 

So the Raps lost by three points to the Denver Nuggets this evening. I was happily in a theatre at the time, but when I came out of the theatre I learned that they uhh they missed 9 free throws, and lost by three. So, you know, you don’t have to know basketball you just need to know math to figure that one out. Umm I learned some new things about Pokémon Go tonight. There is an app that you can use to properly appraise your Pokémon. But instead of doing that I should probably prepare for a poetry feature I have Saturday night.

New Ways To Fail: Yvette Nolan on Queen Seraphina at Saskatoon’s Sum Theatre

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“This Is Our Land” Performers (clockwise) Michael Martin, Chris Dodd, Krystle Pederson, Haley Brown
Photo by Ehjae Chan.

On July 2, 2018, Saskatoon’s Sum Theatre launched its sixth annual Theatre in the Park (TITP) with Queen Seraphina and the Land of Vertebraat, the story of a land where everyone is disabled, and therefore everything must be accessible.

The first three years of TITP had featured well-known, family friendly stories – Alice, Pied Piper and Hercules. In year four, addressing a desire to engage other sectors of the community, Artistic Director Joel Bernbaum and the company adapted Métis author Maria Campbell’s Little Badger and the Fire Spirit, and in year five, the Syrian folk tale The Lion and the Woodcutter. In 2017, Joel decided the show would focus on disability.

Sum commissioned Adam Pottle, an award-winning poet, novelist, and emerging playwright to write the summer show. I had served as dramaturg on Adam’s first play, Ultrasound, about deafness and Deaf culture. Cahoots Theatre’s 2016 premiere had required a huge outlay of additional resources: two deaf actors; American Sign Language interpreters throughout development to production; surtitles developed along with the text. In the process, Cahoots created the Deaf Artists & Theatres Toolkit, a resource for other artists and theatres who want to work together on a project that included deaf artists or had as its focus Deaf culture.  

Heldegarde casts a spell. Performers: Megan Zong, Kristel Harder, Lancelot Knight, Krystle Pederson, Michael Martin, Chris Dodd and 25 children. Photo by Ehjae Chan.

While the DATT offered some tools for the production of Seraphina, it did not address the host of new challenges the company faced. In my role as dramaturg, I found myself dramaturging not just the text, the staging, and the production elements, but the process (and in my head, I hear Kugler telling me, “Yvette, it’s always about the process”).

Like Queen Seraphina, actor Haley Brown uses a wheelchair, and although Haley participated in  the development of the play from the beginning, generously consulting on the design of the set, we still kept discovering new ways to fail.

Evgenia Mikhaylova’s set featured a series of huge ramps in a rough figure 8 shape, but instead of being a continuous surface, the ramps were planked, like a boardwalk. For someone who uses a wheelchair, each gap between each plank offers resistance. Joel notes, “We had Haley and Chris (Dodd) and Michael (Martin), our three disabled artists, in the development workshop… we talked specifically with Haley about width of ramps, we talked about slope of ramps, and she went back to California and we forgot to consult or we neglected to consult about materials… as someone who does not wheel – I walk – when I was told by the builder that they were going to be boards right next to each other, I thought that makes sense, that’s fine and it never once occurred to me that that would be a big deal for someone who wheels.”

Further, the ramps had beautifully smooth edges, which was aesthetically very pleasing, but hazardous. What we needed instead was some kind of border rim so that the actor could feel if she was at the edge of the ramp and in danger of going right over.  

Frustrations mounted. Everyone had been working so hard to make the work in a good way, and still there were gaps. How does an organization know what it doesn’t know? “ You make mistakes,” Joel says. “I’m glad we screwed up, otherwise we wouldn’t have learned. That’s how we know what we don’t know. It would be nice if it got a little less personal and a little less labour intensive… We’re all on the same team here…  Is there a way at the top of the process that we could know everyone’s needs so that we could best meet everyone’s needs?”

“No more ramps. No more Braille. No more hand language.” Performers L-R: Lancelot Knight, Kristel Harder, Krystal Pederson, Haley Brown, Michael Martin, J.R. Hewison, Megan Zong and ASL interpreter Rosalie Wishlow. Photo by Ehjae Chan.

One of the difficulties in working across culture is that one is often expected to be the cultural informant, to represent. During the fraught time, as the production crew worked to address the challenges with the set, I talked with Haley about that expectation. “I was just putting so much pressure on myself to do that,” she told me. “I didn’t know what anyone else’s experience or awareness was… I was like, ‘oh is this brand new for everyone? am I going to be the only one to bring up these issues?’ I worried that I was the only one in the room thinking about my disabled friends who are blind or who are hard of hearing and don’t speak sign language, or who are wheelchair users and can’t get out of their chair to push their chair across the grass…?”

Haley suggests hiring an access coordinator, which would reduce the pressure on the disabled performer to identify the gaps and suggest solutions, and would also make dealing with the challenges “a little less personal,” as Joel desires, but again raises the issue of resources. Queen Seraphina enjoyed huge support from the funders (including a Canada Council Sector and Innovation Development grant to train ASL interpreters for theatre), sponsors, and community groups, but the very act assembling the resources was a Herculean task. How does the company prioritize?

I too have responsibility, as the dramaturg, for not being able to foresee how the obstacles were going to manifest, but I too cannot know what I do not know, and cultural sensitivity is a process, not a product. We worked through it, with the generosity and patience of all involved, but these are not easy conversations, and some theatres and some artists may not be willing to invest the time and energy into having them.

The company of Queen Seraphina and the Land of Vertebraat. Photo by Ehjae Chan.

For Sum Theatre, though, it was worth it because “if we don’t do it, it doesn’t happen.” Haley confirms this: “When Joel proposed it to me… he made it really difficult to say no to as a job, a paid professional gig with this wonderful company… but the idea – I almost said no just because I’ve never seen anything like it… I’ve never had an opportunity like this, and I don’t necessarily foresee ever having one again …”

Joel hopes that Sum Theatre’s model will allow other Saskatchewan theatres to imagine themselves hiring a disabled actor, making a production more accessible. He is currently pursuing funding to support a cross-sector accessibility initiative. But it’s not just about changing the theatres, it’s also changing the community.

“We have to move away from consumers and move into participants and if we are participants in the experience, we are all in it together and if we are all in it together that means when you show up to the show and see there is a touch tour available, even if there are no blind people accessing the touch tour that night, then you are thinking as a sighted person, ‘wow there’s blind people in my community’ and then you are thinking about being more inclusive just by that so we are actually doing the work even when no one is accessing the service.”

“I am so beyond impressed with Joel and others who are putting in that kind of work and that kind of love,” Haley says. “The word that is so strong for me in my experience with Sum is ‘humility’. I can stretch to have more humility and more generosity about how I participate in this – if it’s any good it’s complicated – if it’s doing any work it’s gonna be complicated.”

Enough

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Next stop: community rallying for better work conditions. Photo by Adrienne Wong.

In a Facebook post on November 13, my friend and recent Siminovitch Prize winner Marcus Youssef asks,

Why does it seem inevitable that theatre professionals should work six days (48 hours) a week with no overtime? How does it allow people to do good work, care for their children, nurture their personal lives and connections to people outside of our art form (which I argue leads to better work)?

This culture of overwork is reinforced by collective agreements that stretch the limits of labour law with 6-day weeks and days that allow working ten hours out of twelve in one 24-hour period. These are the professional standards for onstage workers, and the expectations for offstage workers like stage management are equally if not more burdensome.

Stage management are considered employees and are therefore somewhat protected by labour law, but let’s think realistically about the logistics of some members of a team working within labour standards and coordinating contract workers who are not protected by those same laws?  

Let’s break it down.

The average work day during rehearsal for an actor who is a member of Canadian Actors Equity is eight hours. This does not include any time required to execute physical, vocal, emotional or mental warm-ups to prevent injury and promote excellent work. Lunch (60 minutes) and breaks (five minutes for each one hour, totalling 20 minutes) are paid, but generally contractors stay onsite.

Stage management and directors work the same hours, and in addition, arrive early to prepare or have meetings with other artists.

Let me ask you: how effectively is your time used in the rehearsal room between 3:30-6:00pm?

None of this time takes into account preparation. The hours of memorizing and running lines at home. Researching a role. Working on physical and vocal choices. Considering motivation, objectives, and strategies for each fucking word you utter.

So with six hours and 40 minutes of active work-time in the room and paid breaks, I suppose we are better off than, say, fast food employees. When I worked 8 hour shifts at A&W my wage was calculated hourly and my lunch hour and breaks were unpaid.

There are obvious differences between working at A&W and rehearsing and performing a play. One involves integrating intelligence, imagination, physical agility, memory and heart. The other… does not. Nor does it require hours of preparation.

Say it again for the folks in the back. Photo by May4th is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

This is not to argue that working at A&W is an easy job or does not merit a living wage.

Rather this is an argument for the people who design, agree-upon, implement, and enforce the labour standards applied to live theatre to consider the very real impacts of exhaustion, chronic stress, and long-term anxiety on the workers (AKA: artists), never mind the product of their labour (AKA: the art).

The work suffers.

The. Work. Suffers.

I write this as a freelancer, the mother and primary caregiver for two kids, who right now is so fucking tired that I can barely string these words together.

Do not ask me to make art right now. I can’t. I’ve tried. My imagination doesn’t fire in this state without very specific measures in place: childcare, five hour day, mental health breaks, and generous collaborators. All of my intelligence, instinct, and imagination is wrapped up in solving the problem of making it through the day without yelling (much) and figuring out the menu for three meals and two snacks.

The conditions I describe above shouldn’t be considered special requests. They should be the baseline.

Parents and caregivers aren’t the only people affected by these work conditions—though let’s all take a moment to send some love to the solo parents. Consider the artists whose bodies and minds need more rest than is allowed by our training and work systems that mistake endurance for rigour.

The realities of 21st century dramaturgy in Canada. Photo by Adrienne Wong.

Recent work to improve accessibility and inclusion practices in theatre have to led to (many) great things, including adopting the practice of identifying what each participant needs to do their best work in the room at the beginning of a process—and then filling those needs. Most people think this applies to artists and workers who need time and space to cope with medication schedules, physical or mental limitations. BUT ISN’T THAT ALL OF US? We all have limitations. We all need rest and space to be our best selves in the room.

There is a whiff of classism in all of this, too. The way the work conditions are organized right now privileges workers who can afford to be broke, folks who have family (chosen or otherwise) who can support this economically irrational choice. This in turn makes participation in this fucked up system impossible for people for whom artistic expression is less integral than day-to-day subsistence and the long-term sustainability of themselves and the folks they are responsible for and to. These artists represent a broad range of intersecting demographics that include age, ability, socio-economic background, race, mother-tongue, among others. The work conditions we accept and promote in the arts actively inhibit these people from participating, which in turn impacts whose voice is heard, in addition to the very quality of the work created.

Photo from Left of Liberal FB Group.

There are other industries with comparable work conditions: any entrepreneur starting a new business can attest to long days and low pay. These workers are in control of their work environments, and can make choices to prioritize other aspects of their lives.

In our industry, where mental, emotional, and literal acrobatics are required for performance and rehearsal, we’ve bought into the idea that we, like any other factory line worker, can work for eight hours in a row, six days a week. We have signed agreements that endorse these work conditions as though they promote creativity and art-making.

So what can we do?

We can add these very real concerns to the table during labour negotiations.

We can advocate for childcare on site where we work, and childcare stipends when that’s not possible.

We can advocate for shorter work days when negotiating contracts.

We can advocate for ever-increasing flexibility and freedom to self-determine rehearsal schedules based on the needs of the artists engaged in the projects.

When we sit as members of assessment committees, we can actively support artists and producers who include childcare, shorter rehearsal days and weeks in the budgets for our project proposals when applying to arts funders. 

We don’t need to be this tired all the time. We don’t need to sacrifice our family and personal lives. We can lead fulfilling lives outside of our work. We can create work conditions that promote the inclusion of artists from a broad range of intersecting communities.

But we need to do it together.

Why Not Co-ops?

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If theatres are anti-capitalist they Should become co-ops? Photo by charles roderick is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

To save the world from what Avi Lewis describes as “capitalist planetary suicide”, theatre companies should become co-ops. Theatre is not charity. It is work. In its abstract form, of course it’s art, but in economic terms, it is the product of labour, valued by the communities who consume it, and produced by a class of (in my opinion) undervalued and exploited workers. Our labour generates an enormous amount of wealth within secondary and tertiary economies, and we don’t see a penny of that profit. What’s more, most of the workers who make art are shades of anti-capitalist at this point in history, so why are theatres captive of a business model that support a capitalist economy when other options exist?

As we all know from the moment we turn 18 and decide we’re going to open our own theatre company to produce that awesome Fringe play that will make us famous, every theatre in Canada is forced to choose between two economic models: for or not for profit. While the NFP model releases us from a mandate geared exclusively to the benefit of corporate shareholders, it comes with many strings attached, the most insidious being that we are trapped inside a constant cycle of having to prove that our work provides justifiable benefits to society. In a constant drive for increased donors, government funding and foundation grants, we have no choice but to market our work within the paradigm of Christian charity.

The work of fundraising detracts from, and contorts our art making. The unspoken deception at the heart of this, is that we’re successful as fundraisers not when we’ve demonstrated our worth to society, but when we’ve demonstrated our worth to wealthy patrons, who, in spite of being bewilderingly oblivious to it, are deeply complicit and dependent on the corporate capitalist paradigm that is generating the inequality that our plays decry.

We are earnest in our desires to change the hearts and minds of our neighbours through storytelling. I, in no way abuse that work when I say the tax break a private developer will get from donating to a large NFP Theatre will be used to evict low-income families far faster than our plays about those evicted street kids will create the kind of political will necessary to expropriate the developers. Moreover, the taxes that corporation doesn’t pay would otherwise be used to house low-income people (perhaps in housing co-ops!).  This is the math that keeps charities humming along while the world burns ever faster.

Tommy Douglas standing under a CCF billboard shortly after his election. Photo from Saskatchewan Archives Board.

Good news, fellow socialist thespians! Co-ops have existed as one of the most sustainable and socially responsible economic models since industrialization. Every business can become a member and/or worker co-op. Co-ops are owned by the people who benefit from them. Internal democracy is a core principal. Workers seize control over the product of their labour (Hi Marx!), and no one (not even the bank) turns a profit that goes into offshore accounts, third mansions or pipeline expansions.

Some artistic production companies have adopted this model in Canada, including visual art, radio and filmmaking co-ops. I believe theatres can too! I believe that the communities we genuinely want to support and influence can become members of these co-ops. As well, I think if we force our professional associations and unions to take on this task, we can convince the granters, beginning with Canada Council for the Arts, to give us grants along with NFP theatres. CRA would also have to acknowledge us, although in many ways the tax laws that apply to co-ops may be more appropriate for artists than the tax laws that govern charities.

It bears saying again: Theatre is not charity.

Another exciting lure is that the federal government invests in co-op startups, and co-operative banks are more than happy to give loans to other co-ops. They do so not because co-ops are charitable, but because they have proven their fiscal worth to society many times over hundreds of years. Co-ops are far better at withstanding recessions and stock collapses, and the wealth they generate benefits local economies and is quickly seen again by governments. It’s taxed. We call it: “The solidarity economy”.

My friend, the brilliant, anti-capitalist writer and activist, Dru Oja Jay, writes that “co-ops represent billions of dollars that have been effectively taken from profits for banks and handed to people, often some of the most disadvantaged.” He goes on to describe that they pay their workers a bit more, they use sustainable, ethically sourced materials and labour from other co-ops and they pay below market rent, subsidized by the funders. They invest what could otherwise be spent on fundraising in the product they create or the workers they support.

Once robust co-ops (banks, housing co-ops, agro/food co-ops… Basically every industry seems to have co-ops except Canadian theatres) start to turn profit, which they do remarkably quickly, they have the option to reinvest their surplus in other co-op enterprises that benefit society. I see theatres pitching themselves here in order to secure more startup capital directly from other industries. Which is what NFPs do, of course. They just call it charity.  Some arts producing co-ops sell a second tier of membership to the people in neighbourhoods they work in. The entire community then becomes a partial owner, and is given a democratic voice in the operations of a theatre. How wondrous and beautiful is that dream? 

Co-ops fundamentally threaten and disturb capitalist imperatives, where charity does not. Charity, at its best, treats the symptoms and victims of capitalism with unsustainable compassion.  Due to the Christian origin of charity, which values handouts as a means to become closer to God and to demonstrate virtue, it must exist outside the economy in order to be exceptional. 

Cartoon by Mr. Fish. https://www.clowncrack.com/about/.

To quote Dru again: “The main line of accountability in a lot of non-profits is from their upper-level staff and board to their funders. Decision making is formally conducted by the aforementioned leadership, but these folks have to keep funders’ priorities in mind all the time. Cooperative structures and business models, by contrast, tend to align the creation of value with the needs of members, and gives those members the power to make decisions. A worker co-op gives decision making power to the workers, and a housing co-op gives power to the people who pay the rent.”

For co-ops, social justice is intrinsic to the business model, not a justification for fundraising. The co-op is built on the value of the work itself. If we believe our work is inherently mutually beneficial to workers and people alike, then why not co-ops?  If the communities we claim to serve are members of our co-op would we have to constantly prove that we are serving their needs or would their literal ownership of the company take care of that? 

My last, and admittedly strategic, pitch for why theatres should be co-ops, is because it would bust the narrative that we are people who write stories about justice and give us a way to become that justice. The co-op movement mutually supports all kinds of social justice solidarity movements. These theatres would gain us immediate membership in national and global anti-capitalist movement building, simply by adopting a different, more sustainable business model. Artists would have opportunities to learn so much just by showing up. In short, this is how theatres can be part of the revolution.  

Wait a minute, are we the bad guys?

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Made in Canada. Photo by kris krüg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

As a Canadian who lives in the UK, whenever I confirm that my accent is not American, a bit of friendly banter ensues.  People love Canada. I’m not used to be being ashamed of my country in an international context. This year, that’s changed.

For a week this September, the London Theatre Consortium, consisting of the Young Vic, the Royal Court, Battersea Arts Centre, the Donmar and the Almeida, each sent a different artist to Hawkwood College for a week long seminar on Climate Change.  Over the course of this very intense week, we were exposed to a series of speakers who explained the urgency of what’s happening to the planet, and how good human beings have become at pretending it isn’t happening.

I recognised myself in this pretending. I primarily went to the lab not because I saw myself as an environmentally motivated artist, but because I was invited to go by the Royal Court.  I spent the first two days desperately trying to hold the information at arm’s length – to see it as an artistic catalyst as opposed to a vortex we’re all slowly falling into. I feared that if I really accepted what I was learning into my heart and mind, I would… I don’t know…

Need to change everything?  

Never sleep again?  

I wouldn’t have necessarily predicted that I would become repulsed by the country that I called home.  

Much of what we learned on the lab you’ve likely heard before.  

The Paris Climate Summit was largely a failure – too little too late – made worse by the fact that most of the countries who desperately need to “stick to the plan” are not meeting their targets, not to mention Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal.  

Ocean levels are rising, we’re on an express route to the global temperature going up by more than 2 degrees in the next two decades, which will make the planet as we know it largely unimaginable.  

Climate Change is an intersectional issue, tied up with racism, sexism, colonialism, human rights, refugees, and global inequity.  

Changing faces of the arctic. Photo by Ian Mackenzie is licensed under CC0 Creative Commons.

What shook me to my core, however, was the irrefutable realisation around just how much of this Canada is disproportionately responsible for.

Most of the worst climate offenders in the world are rich nations in the North.  Because of some sick cosmic justice (also known as science) – the North is where the impact of these actions will take longest to manifest. Meanwhile, emissions from Northern countries threaten to eradicate smaller, poorer countries along the equator within the next ten years.  Countries who are not really putting carbon emissions into the atmosphere because their economies are small and developing will disappear because of the actions of larger, richer nations, like ours.

Think of the world as one big apartment building.  

The people in the penthouse throw massive parties every night.  The people in the rest of the building don’t – they eat in. Yet somehow the mess from the penthouse only ever appears in the smaller, quieter apartments, even though their tenants don’t attend the parties.  Their apartments are filling up with the penthouse’s junk, and when the penthouse revellers do pass by that mess, they find themselves thinking, “There’s no way that the consequences of my actions are going to another part of the building.”  

Nations are constructs, not finite places.  The world as one planet, as one finite place that billions of human beings inhabit together, is a fact.  The middle of the planet is paying the price for the actions of the top of the planet. The penthouse is trashing the entire building, and Canada is one of three countries partying hardest, loudest and longest.

On the penultimate day of the lab, a human rights lawyer named Polly Higgins spoke with us.  She told us about a road trip she’d taken with a first nations friend of hers in Western Canada this summer where her friend described the Wendigo to Polly – a mythical Algonquin monster that is greedy and eats everything in sight, until eventually it consumes itself.  She warned Polly that in Western Canada they would travel through “the belly of the Wendigo.”

Canada is the 9th highest contributor to carbon emissions in the world.  And per capita, we are the third highest contributor.

I’m just going to let that sink in for a moment.  

There are 195 countries in the world.  

We are 3rd per capita, 9th overall.  That’s very high. It’s higher overall than Saudi Arabia.  It’s higher than the United Kingdom. It’s higher than Brazil, who are destroying the Amazon.  While Amanda Zimm proudly declared that we ought to “Recycle, Reduce and Reuse” on the 90s show Ready or Not, our country was actively destroying the rest of the world, selling most of its environmentally minded citizens on distractions rooted in individualism like composting and recycling programmes.

Melting ice. Photo by Eric Wüstenhagen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Canada’s climate damage does not stop with Carbon Emissions.  If you haven’t looked into what fracking actually is (fracturing deep rock formations) and the numerous instances where it poisoned groundwater and vulnerable communities, created earthquakes and a host of other unfixable problems if it goes wrong, not only in Canada but throughout the world, you should.  That’s without mentioning the oil sands, or the arctic, or our government celebrating the opportunity to do business with Brazil’s new president when he logs the Amazon, or how our judicial system coludes with big businesses all over the world to protect them from having to face up to the consequences of ecocide.  

(To give just one example, in April of this year an Ontario court proudly overturned a case that Ecuadorian villagers spent decades fighting against Chevron.  This was for environmental damage that caused widespread cancer in their community.)

It’s no coincidence that Canada’s Wendigo targets areas populated by Indigenous people for most of its climate atrocities.  Many conservative voters see these populations’ eye witness accounts of the damage as an “Indigenous issue” – unfixable because of the country’s unpayable colonial debt that those particular voters have no interest in attempting to address.  Those voters, unempathetic as they are, do need to know – This is both an Indigenous issue and the entire world’s issue. Our government has spent decades propping up our economy on big industries that will make their grandchildren’s lives unimaginable.  

(Recently my 9 year old nephew asked me what Climate Change was.  When I explained it, he started to cry. I told him hopeful things.  Things that felt a lot like lies. I have to try to make the things I told him true.  And I can’t try to make them true, until I ask that we all really start pointing our fingers in the right direction.)

I’m darkly reminded of a Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch, set in the second world war, where they look at each other’s uniforms and notice they both have a skull and crossbones on their hats, then look at each other incredulously and say, “Wait a minute, are we the bad guys?”

It’s time to face facts.  As far as the climate goes, we have been the bad guys for decades.  So what can we do?

As theatre makers we can tell people.  We can do our research, look into it, tell people we know, ask them to look into it, and as citizens and artists, make work and action and waves that hold our governments accountable for what’s really happening, while there’s still time.  

I may be ashamed of my country, but I have faith in its people.

 

Thought Residency: Susanna Fournier

By


Just when you thought nothing else could happen your creative team and you decide to radically alter the production and your cat keeps you up til 5am with sudden health failure. I started this month thinking about risk, and I return to it now. My creative team and I, less than a week before opening, are shifting to a new gesture. Radically strange, totally unknown. All I know is it feels imperative. The production is asserting itself to us. We listen or we don’t. We are choosing to listen. We are going on the ride. We are going into the dark. My cat is at home and hanging on. I might not sleep again til January, my body feels numb, my heart feels open and I am shockingly alive. The key is risk.

 

This week feels like the calm before the storm. Quiet but intense. I’m having a hard time getting things done. I’m pacing, disorganized, unable to focus, feel on high alert, bitten all my nails. It took me about 3 hours to get dressed today. I have the strong desire to flee. Brendan Healy recently talked to me about a Vincent Miller book, “A Crisis of Presence” I haven’t read it yet, the title is enough for me right now. Fight of flight. I do both. When it feels really hard to be present, when my fear is very very very high, I know the fight is with myself – to stay. Stay in this moment, don’t disassociate, don’t flee, don’t look away. We open next week.

 

Unpopular tension. I will fight for labour reform in the arts making sector. It’s an important fight that will benefit a lot of people. But I’m not sure it will change the culture of labour we live in. And I’m pretty sure it won’t change me. I started out with certain privileges, and then continued to make some pretty hard life choices and large sacrifices– that support my ability to funnel additional time, energy, and probably a lot of my sanity, into my work practice. Given the culture we live in, and the sheer nature of time on deck, I receive more benefits and opportunities because of this. So, labour reform will benefit many, but I’m not sure it will level the playing field. Is that what people think it will do?

 

Content Warning: Pessimism. Whereas yesterday I was trying to task myself with the meditation “What if where I am is what I need?” today I feel like if one more person brings up the idea of structuring a work/life balance I’m gonna punch them in the face because ultimately our arts sector, and the whole–really all the sectors–exist within neo-liberalism which has already completely destroyed and eroded the idea that the human being could be for anything other than just the extraction of pure labour.

 

Challenging myself to remember Deborah Hay, I challenge everyone to remember Deborah Hay, this morning, and always, with the question (ask yourself, as she would ask you – perhaps) “What if where I am, is what I need?” What if where I am, is what I need? What if where I am, is what I need.

 


I’m currently pan frying eggs because to be an independent artist means multi-tasking every minute of the day, or at least it does for me, and I’m thinking of the old proverb …when the student is ready the teacher arrives. When I think about the massive, total upheaval just about every aspect of my life is going through right now: personal risk, artistic risk, family upheaval, sense of self, emotional stability – all that pretty up in the air I think about how right now my two greatest teachers are fear and faith.

 

When was the last time you saw a dangerous piece of art? ted witzel, a long-time collaborator of mine, was asked this yesterday and then he asked me. It’s pretty rare in my experience. I want processes of making art to be safe but I don’t want art to be “safe”. A lot of people have called my work triggering. I write about power and its abuses, so this comes with the territory. I write towards reclamation. Part of healing is confronting the wound. I try to make artistic containers where we can be braver together. Safe art doesn’t ask me to confront anything – it doesn’t invite me to remember how brave I can be. And bravery, like hope, is something – I think – we have to practice.

 

Capacity. What is it, where do you find it, and how much do you have? What do you do when you need more? What do you do when you blow out the gas tank? What’s the connection between capacity and forgiveness? Capacity and sustainability? Capacity and self awareness? Capacity and threshold? Capacity and adrenaline? I’ve lived most of my life (and all of my career) over capacity. I know my reasons, I’m curious about yours. What’s the cost? The reward? Is it “worth” it? What are you looking for? How will you know when you’ve “found” it?

 

I’m thinking about how one way or another pain must find a way to express. I just spent 7 and a half hours in a psychiatric emergency ward with someone I love very much who is currently experiencing psychosis. His pain …forced its way to the surface. He needed to go somewhere where he could scream and rant in order to birth this pain, and I realize that’s why I make theatre.

 

I’m thinking about feeling feelings. I became displaced this summer — I lost my home & most of my possessions over a 3 month period of …well…hell. I haven’t had time to feel the feelings that come with this – grief and rage – the way I normally would…by writing.  Looking back, I think I became a writer because I didn’t know how to feel my feelings and writing created a space where I could experience them in the imagined bodies of others. But then again I come from WASPS – we feel safer experiencing our feelings as long as someone else is feeling them for us.

 

I’m currently rehearsing a text I began 8 years ago after marathon watching dog training shows. What struck me was that the people needed more training that the dogs. Anxious people, anxious dogs. Inactive people, hyper-active dogs. I watched the owner’s discomfort when told they’d need to assert themselves and create a social hierarchy so the dogs know who is in charge. Dogs don’t want democracy – it makes them panic, get depressed, or become violent. Whereas people seem to feel this way with or without democracy.

 

Like many people, most of my life I wanted to believe I was taking risks without having to experience any of the pretty horrifying emotions that come with actual risk. I was a full blown perfectionist til I was 29 and perfectionism doesn’t allow for risk because it doesn’t allow for failure. Like mass culture, I was all about the rhetoric of risk, but not the practice. Lately there’s a lot of counter rhetoric around permitting failure – and I wonder how much, like risk, we talk about this while furiously making sure it never happens to us.

 

There was a textile work on the ceiling of the drama room at my highschool that showed a group of people encircling the words “THE KEY IS RISK”. I remember staring at that wanting to be really good at taking risks – especially if they were KEY — but not really knowing what that meant or if I was. Right now I’m currently taking the biggest artistic and personal risks of my life – and what I’m thinking about is not that motto but the circle of people surrounding it. The more I risk the more I need people around me willing to risk holding space for risk.  

YYC in Flux

By
Emiko Muraki presenting findings on the future of YYC’s Theatre Sector.

It’s been a turbulent year for Calgary theatre—and that’s being generous.

From 2017-2018, the Calgary arts community has been beset by funding cutbacks in private donations and public grants, sudden radical shifts brought about by the #MeToo movement, losses in arts journalism including the decision by PostMedia to cease publication of Swerve Magazine, and stunning social media frenzies around Alberta Theatre Projects and Theatre Junction Grand.

Operating in these challenges, arts organizations are grasping for ways to change, but before they truly begin that work, there has to be a foundational work to build upon. Mark Hopkins and Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre (SAB) decided to start the conversation by hosting “Theatre in Flux: a forum about our future”.

Hopkins referred to the current economic and social environment in his intro on September 9, when representatives from Calgary’s theatre companies gathered in the Vertigo Studio to hear from panelists and presenters on where their community might be headed.

The arts are going through growing pains, with new voices calling for greater representation for people of colour on stage and off, along with subscription models becoming a possible thing of the past. In the shadow of a rapidly evolving global geo-political reality (largely tilted towards the rise of alt-right fascism), theatres are also searching their souls for how to tackle sensitive topics and issues. Do artists charge headlong into controversy, like the cast of Hamilton reading Mike Pence a personal message? Or, like Robert LePage, do they simply shrug off the criticisms of politically active audience members and critics, seeking new audiences that agree with the messages they want on stage?

As Hopkins aptly observed early on in the event, “Frankly, we’re not going to get to everything… I’m hoping this is going to be the first—or not even the first—one in a continuity of ongoing conversations.”

This is without doubt the only fair lens to apply to SAB’s Theatre in Flux event; a first or one of many in a series of gatherings that perhaps can help the performing arts world understand where it is, where it came from, and where it might need to go. Indeed, the scheduled agenda was just that: a series of conversations and conversation starters, with panelists and presenters. In many cases, these segments did have the impression of being very “raw,” like the first steps in a recipe, but with only some mild clues as to what is being cooked up.

Valerie Planche, Duval Lang, and Sharon Pollock provide context for the flux.

Take, for instance, Emiko Muraki, until recently employed at the Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA), who presented the early findings of a recent questionnaire—one of the first of its kind conducted in the community—on equity and diversity reporting in the arts. As she intimated at the beginning of her presentation, Muraki cautioned that the findings were not altogether surprising, not yet refined by thorough analysis, and did not include arts workers outside of theatre, and of those theatre companies only those organizations funded by Calgary Arts Development were represented. Reporting was voluntary, not mandatory, and relied on organizations either completing the survey on behalf of all of their employees, or asking employees to complete and submit the survey themselves.

What’s important, however, is that this questionnaire was undertaken at all. While the data paints an at-best incomplete and flawed snapshot of the Calgary arts community, it nevertheless shows that across every breakdown, Calgary’s theatres do not employ a significant number of people of colour.

Studies like this are vital to the future actions of arts organizations. The foundational importance of CADA’s study is validating voices that say more representation is needed. It is all well and good for organizations to pay lip service to the progressive attitudes of inclusion with token roles for people of colour on or offstage, but it is far more important to nail down both how to address the issue and why it is important. This, then, would be how the conversation should proceed from this particular “first,” to a place of responding to the now-validated concerns of artists of colour.

“Firsts” has a double meaning for the panelists who made up the next segment of the evening, “Theatre in Context,” featuring Valerie Planche, Duval Lang, and Sharon Pollock. Together these three artists represented some of Calgary’s first generation of professional theatre makers. Calgary, and many other Canadian cities, have a comparatively short history of professional performing arts when weighed against the lengthy histories of America, Europe, and Asia. In Calgary’s case the professional companies trace their origins back only 50-60 years years, depending on how far into the amateur side of societies you go. This panel is, in fact, an opportunity: to have a conversation bridging the current generation’s concerns with the concerns of those artists who are now well-established or even are retiring. Another first.

For the second group of panelists, Jenna Rodgers, Justin Many Fingers, and Stafford Arima, “first” is a term for pioneering in their respective fields. Arima is Theatre Calgary’s first person of colour to hold the Artistic Director’s seat. Many Fingers is the youngest artistic leader in Making Treaty 7’s history. And Rodgers and her company Chromatic Theatre are currently tracking YYC Theatre Stats, a first for accountability and reporting in the city’s makeup (going beyond the depth of CADA’s groundwork). As was aptly observed by Rodgers during the panel, simply putting together a panel entirely composed of people of colour is something of a rarity. Hearing the perspectives of people directly involved in topics of representation isn’t just useful, it’s absolutely necessary.

Jenna Rodgers, Justin Many Fingers, and Stafford Arima speak to representation in the YYC Theatre Sector.

So the question, then, is this: from “first conversation” where do you go next?

A two-hour discussion trying to cover all of these issues is only ever going to scratch surface. Yet fundamentally, one cannot address a problem without first identifying which problems exist. Hopkins is right that this forum is “part of a continuity,” though in this case the ongoing continuity would be to take the broad situation and focus in on the specific. From firsts, there must be action. From the greater picture, there must be small, intimate details.

For SAB’s event, these details came at the end, in a series of slides read out by Hopkins. “Pay living wages.” “Offer feedback. Receive feedback.” “Have a workplace harassment policy.” These items blazed by in under 10 minutes, compared to the lengthy, 30+ minute panel discussions. Unfortunately, the brevity of this final presentation undercut its importance: that from conversation we must pivot to action.

Perhaps it’s impatient to expect said action to come quickly. That may, in fact, be the forum’s greatest achievement: creating hunger for more conversation, more action, and more firsts.

Thought Residency: Jacob Wren

By

Day 14

(Malmö)

Yesterday I was worrying I needed praise from an audience in order to keep me going. But today I think there might be another way of looking at it: that maybe the work we’re doing is useful and valuable to at least a few people, and therefore the situation is not so much about me, but mainly about them. It feels presumptuous for me to assume this, and also like there’s no real way for me to know. I can listen to what people tell me about the work but, for some reason, in the end, I feel there might be no way for me to know.

 

Day 13

(Malmö)

So this past weekend we premiered our new show. And the audience reaction was very, very positive. People said it inspired them to think about their own work, to keep going with their own work when they were thinking of quitting. I was surprised how positive the audience was about it. And it makes me wonder if that kind of praise is the main thing that keeps me going. And if there’s anything wrong with that.

 

Day 12

(Malmö)

As I get older I’m pretty sure I’m becoming more isolated, more socially isolated. Which is strange because, in a way what I really want from art, what I need for it to be meaningful, has a lot to do with interconnectedness, in culture, in society, in life, with feeling we’re all connected or that everything is connected. In a way what I’m looking for is the opposite of being isolated. And still somehow I’m going in the wrong direction.

 

Day 11

(Malmö)

So when I travel the jet lag often triggers my insomnia. And last night I was lying awake and I had something almost like an epiphany about what I’ve been trying to say here. And it was so simple and stupid, in a way I almost find it embarrassing, but it was something like: what I have to do is focus on why I’m making the work, and what makes it meaningful for me, and stop worrying about how many people are going to see it and what they’re going to think. 

Day 10

(Malmö)

So now I’m in Malmö, Sweden. We arrived here today. I’m completely jetlagged, completely exhausted. We premier a new show on Friday, a show we’ve been working on for two years. And… it’s very strange… I’m still making shows. All I do is question it, but at the same time I’m doing it anyway.

 

Day 9

(Montreal)

And then there’s this song title I remember from being a teenager. It’s a song by Deja Voodoo and the song was called: How Can I Miss You If You Don’t Go Away. And I’ve been doing project after project, one after another, for the past thirty years. Always projects on the go. Yeah and if I stop I wonder… I guess I fear that no one will miss me at all. Maybe that’s what it’s about.

 

Day 8

(Montreal)

I feel the kind of regrets I’ve been talking about here, suggest that I think I should have made more progress, that I think there was something to get. And yet I keep telling myself, I don’t think there’s anything to get. I don’t think money or success or praise were going to make me any happier. But still, I want to find some positive way to keep on being an artist. Something that feels more generous. Something where I’m not actually trying to move forward.

 

Day 7

(Montreal)

A few years ago I wrote a story called Past, Present, Future, Etc. And I sometimes think about that “etcetera.” As in, I mean, what comes after the future? I feel this might be one kind of solution: a different way of thinking about time. Thinking about time without progress, without growth. There’s nowhere to get to, and therefore there’s nothing to leave behind.

 

Day 6

(Montreal)

“I took some time off in my forties to try to get better at what I do.” Why am I so obsessed with this quote, why do I find it so hard to imagine myself taking time off, trying to get better? Why can’t I even imagine what better is? Maybe the thing I imagine most is quitting art to become an activist. That seems what we really need today: less artists, more activists. But I don’t think I can do it.

 

Day 5

(Montreal)

I often say that all my work is about the relationship between art and politics. But now that I’m looking back, that I’m really looking back at what I’ve done, I actually wonder if it’s more about how little art can do in the face of overwhelming political problems. And that also makes me realize how much I want art to do, how much desire I have for art to change things.

 

Day 4

(Montreal)

Of course, while I’m worried about being “washed up,” the rest of the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. I mean we all know the list: fascism, environmental degradation, the continuing violence of patriarchy, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, so much more. And when I say I’m feeling “washed up,” I mean, I also mean I feel like I’m in mourning for my life. But I wonder: am I in mourning for my life or am I actually in mourning for the world?

 

Day 3

(Montreal)

And then there was another quote, it was apparently something Dr. Dre said to Eminem – I guess I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about Hip Hop, I don’t know if that’s okay – but apparently what Dr. Dre said to Eminem is: “You have to work really hard to get it, and they you have to work even harder to maintain it.” And I’ve been thinking a lot about this, I mean, is that really what I want to do? Am I really interested in trying to maintain something?

 

Day 2

(Montreal)

There was a quote I heard about a year ago. It’s a quote from the Hip Hop producer NO I.D. But actually he’s quoting Quincy Jones. And the quote is: “I took some time off in my forties to try to get better at what I do.” And I really tried to imagine what that would be like, if I were to take some time off in my forties to try to get better at what I do. I mean, I can’t even imagine it. What would that feel like?

 

Day 1

(Montreal)

So lately what I’ve been feeling, ah, is quite “washed up.” And I don’t talk about it very much, I feel a lot of shame around this feeling, I feel perhaps feeling “washed up” is a kind of privilege. And also, I mean, no one really wants to hear about it. But… I thought maybe if I only talk about it for thirty seconds every day, I mean, you can talk about anything for thirty seconds a day. So I thought I would try that.

Search Terms

By

This is the ninth and final in a series of articles capturing the planned conversations and discussions at the inaugural Festival of Live Digital Art (foldA), in Kingston ON, June 19-June 21, 2018. Adrienne Wong wraps up the series. 

B.Rich gives us the words to wrap up foldA 2018. Photo by Naseem Loloie.

I don’t bookmark sites on the internet anymore. I don’t need the title of the article you read, nor do I need you to email me the link to that video you mentioned just now. Just tell me the search terms and I’ll find it myself in seconds.

In case you missed foldA, this page, right here, is your round-up of reportage from the inaugural festival, held this past June 2018 at the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts in Kingston Ontario.

Dr. Shelley Katz of the Symphonova with live instruments and a digital orchestra. Photo by Naseem Loloie.

You can catch a taste of the conversations that happened by dialing up HowlRounds’ livestreams here and here, but sometimes it’s useful to hear about what your friends and colleagues saw and thought.

  • Inclusive design researcher Colin Clark discusses how co-design and how sticking to “the way we do things around here” stifles true innovation and change.
  • Madison Lymer asks if disruption is possible given how the current pace of change resists settling into a status quo after hearing Andrew D’Cruz and Donna-Michelle St Bernard talk about disruption.
  • The aesthetics and opportunities of translating a podcast into a book into a live performance are considered by Signy Lynch in her article about Jesse Brown’s Canadaland live show, directed by SWS Performance’s AD Michael Wheeler.
  • Bluemouth Inc AD Stephen O’Connell confronts his discomfort with the digital and how our bodies are expanding with the use of technologies.
  • Patrick Blenkarn interrogates how reality and theatre intersect and what it means to him to “resist the algorithm”.
  • PlayME Theatre’s Chris Tolley unpacks what it means to be an early adopter of new technologies and if a theatre with no actors is going too far.
  • Milton Lim (mentioned in Chris Tolley’s article, above) unpacks some of the implications of combining the art and digital tech worlds, zeroing in on the limitations of the not-for-profit structures to support innovation and offering some possible solutions.
  • And then there are the people who run the shows. Rose Plotek asks how the front line technicians and performers are supported in the use of new technologies and what this says about the way work is made.

These articles not only form a record of who was there and what they talked about in these structured conversations, but they also seek to capture what thinking those discussions prompted in some of our colleagues and friends.

Adrienne Wong moderates a conversation with Podcast People (L-R) Chris Tolley, Falen Johnson, Leah Simone-Bowen, and Michael Kruse. Photo by Naseem Loloie.

Moreover, they serve as enticingly incomplete evidence of the beginning of something new and special: a festival dedicated to experimentation and liveness; to URL and IRL; to holding space for artists who are wrestling with what it means to be alive now, when information and connection are so easily acquired.

Internet technologies are inextricably intertwined with our everyday lives. The mechanisms to share high quality audio visual information are becoming easier to use and cheaper to acquire. This will inevitably change how we engage with event, liveness, and gatherings.

This past Saturday afternoon I attended the workshop presentation of a new musical livestreamed from Toronto. Earlier the same day, I attended my spouse’s convocation ceremony livestreamed from Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The keynote speaker, Fernando Reimers, Ed.D., spoke to how internet technologies have changed the way people gain knowledge and skills, and that it was of critical importance that the school engage with this change.

The same is true for those of us in the art and business of live performance. The internet is a powerful web of information connecting us – literally – by our fingertips.

foldA is about understanding how we as performance makers are are contending with these facts.

The internet is my living room. The internet is my water cooler. The internet is my library. The internet is my shopping mall. The internet is my movie theatre.

The theatre is my theatre.

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