Welcome to the final Edition of Volume 2 of #CdnCult Times. It’s been a wild ride, and we are enthused by and grateful for all of the contributions from writers are readers alike. Stay tuned for a revamped approach to Volume 3 starting in late April.
This week, we explore the importance of space and creativity, but it might as well be called ‘The Good News Edition’. It focuses on incredible triumphs in the theatrical landscape: Stage Manager Lois Dawson reflects on everything that has been made possible by the creation of Progress Lab 1422 in Vancouver, I celebrate the opening of The Theatre Centre in Toronto, and the final conversation from our Geographic Corespondents considers creative space across the country.
Theatre in Canada has a lot of challenges, but this edition suggests we have the skill and passion to overcome them.
Muriel Miguel in The Unnatural and Accidental Women, Native Earth Performing Arts, 2004. photo: Nir Bareket
I was lucky enough to spend some time with Muriel Miguel this past week in Vancouver. Over the course of four days, I saw her perform excerpts from her one-woman show Red Mother as part of the Raven Spirit Dance gala, participated in a two-hour workshop with her on storyweaving at the Dance Centre, and heard her speak about her life’s work in a retrospective at SFU.
Muriel is one of my artistic elders. Her work with Spiderwoman Theater, North America’s oldest feminist Native theatre, has informed my work over the years. I have learned storyweaving from Muriel’s artistic descendents, Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble and students from Centre for Indigenous Theatre who benefit from Muriel’s teaching every year, but her workshop at the Dance Centre was the first time I have had the opportunity to learn directly from Muriel herself.
But as Muriel said in her retrospective, “I’m old”. Listening to her recounting of her journey is full of names like Joseph Chaikin, Uta Hagen, La MaMa. When Muriel talks about teaching, about modeling, she uses words like generous, and humility.
I have had great difficulty in my life, personal and professional, finding elders. For many reasons, we have had a hard time healing, and that retardation has kept us from “eldering up”. In my experience, very often those who identify most loudly and proudly as elders are the very ones I avoid. As Darrell Dennis’ hero Simon Douglas says in Tales of an Urban Indian, there’s a “difference between being an elder, and just being old.”
This lacuna prompted me to begin early in my life to strive to be the elder I would like to become. Therapists used to encourage us to nurture our inner child; me, I am working to cultivate my inner elder, and I have in the past few years been encouraging my colleagues and peers to do the same. Many of us almost young, but many of us are also only the second generation of what is a fairly young contemporary practice, and our elders are starting to pass on.
What is an elder but a keeper of knowledge for a community? What is an elder but someone who has experienced much, and over time examined her experience, tempering it with contemplation and reason, someone who has the patience to listen, the generosity to advise without rancour, to eschew judgment in favour of useful, astute observation, someone who can recognize the potential of another, and put her knowledge into the service of helping that other achieve.
We do all this work in theatre to make sense of the world, to ask the big questions: To be or not to be? Has god really abandoned the world, as the Angel in Perestroika suggests? What is the real cost of the Montreal Massacre? Should Tommy Taylor really Have Stayed Home? Is it possible after the environmental disasters, after the genocides, after our own rapacity, to make a new creation story, together, the way Toad and Lily do in A History of Breathing? [1]
We do all this work in the theatre to unearth the connections, illuminate them. We do this work to make sense of where we have been, and where we are going, not just for ourselves, but for all our communities. Does it not make sense then that all that making sense should extend outwards?
And yes, I know that some will make the argument of art for art’s sake, others the argument for art as entertainment, but as I age, I feel the pressure of time, and I have not got the time to just make art, or to merely entertain. I agree with the Coeur d’Alene writer Sherman Alexie who has said that Native folk do not have the luxury of just making art, because of our responsibility to the ancestors. Too many stories to tell that have been invisible or buried or twisted beyond recognition, too many lessons to be learned and passed on.
But I don’t think that this is only Indigenous artists’ bailiwick. I look around me and see many of my colleagues making work that asks the same questions I am asking, trying to make sense of the world in which we find ourselves together.
We must all of us “elder up”, recognize how we are connected to those who came before and those who are yet to come, and our responsibility to the knowledge we have been gifted.
[1]Hamlet, William Shakespeare; Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika, Tony Kushner; The December Man, Colleen Murphy; You Should Have Stayed Home, Tommy Taylor; A History of Breathing, Daniel Macdonald.
Simon Fraser University’s production of The Cold War. Deneh Thompson (Pierre Sevigny) & Kiki Al Rahmani (John Diefenbaker)
As a teenager, I always hated Canadian history. When I got to university, I enrolled in a Canadian history class and realized that, yup – still hated it. To me, Canada’s history was a long, boring tale of mosquitoes, beavers and old men. This all changed when I started studying theatre at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Up until this point I had never realized just how young Canada’s theatre scene is.
While reading plays for a class on Canadian theatre, I began realizing that almost all of the Canadian playwrights we were studying were not only still alive, but still actively creating art. These superstars of Canadian theatre (can you be a superstar in Canada?) who were responsible for creating Canada’s theatrical traditions were all around me. I was no longer studying historical Canadian figures who only lived on in my history books, but could walk right up to my theatrical elders and shake their hands. Or at least get tickets to their shows. We would study instrumental artists such as Michel Lepage, Ronnie Burkett, Marie Clements, etc, and then I would open the newspaper the next day and see their latest show coming to town.
One such experience of working with my theatrical elders was working on our Spring 2014 Mainstage production of Michael Hollingsworth’s the Cold War. A group of us spent the fall preparing for the show by studying Hollingsworth and VideoCabaret’s jaw-dropping 21 play cycle on the history of Canada, the History of the Village of Small Huts. To help understand the history and politics in Hollingsworth’s plays, we also studied some of the work of Canada’s first poet laureate, George Bowering, including Stone Country: An Unauthorized History of Canada and Egotists and Autocrats.
It was incredibly exciting to be working on this project and using the work of these two legendary Canadian figures. But I have to say it – at first, I was terrified. I was asked to dramaturg the production by the director, DD Kugler. Kugler, who has google search results that include a video titled “On Teaching Excellence” and an Encyclopedia of Canadian Theatre entry that lists major theatre companies in over half of Canada’s provinces and territories. Dramaturging for one of the most accomplished dramaturgs in Canada? Of course I’ll do it! I’ll just be over in the corner in the fetal position…
Sarah Berenstein (Associate Director), Steffi Munshaw (Dramaturg
What I learned in this show, and what I should have known already, is that the elders of Canadian theatre are some of the most loving and supportive people around. They are incredibly passionate about art and much of that passion manifests itself in encouraging the next generation, my generation, to join them. Throughout the process of working on the Cold War, we would receive updated script edits from Hollingsworth in Toronto (who was working on his own remount of one of the plays in his cycle, Trudeau and the FLQ). We also had a visit from Bowering who came to see our show.
I think what inspired me the most about this experience was working with Kugler, who valued everything I had to say as if I was (gasp!) a peer and not a student. Kugler often says “I may not have knowledge, but I have experience”. I find this a very important attitude to have; all we can ever do is bring our own experience to the table. It doesn’t matter if your experience is that of an elder with a resume long enough to fill a section in the Encyclopedia of Canadian Theatre, or that of a student just about to begin their career.
Recently, I overheard Kugler say to a student the other day, “my ignorance has never kept me from having an opinion!” While he meant it in jest, it’s another reminder that just because one might not be knowledgeable on a subject doesn’t mean that they can’t contribute to the conversation.
These thought are being jotted down while not playing “pet shop” with my 5-year-old daughter – so I apologize for the dashes – the rambling – the fragments – its hard to concentrate. I suggest if you are still reading this, to read it fast – let it skip along. If you do that I’ll try to hunt down the typos. Pet Shop. I can’t tell what pet shop is exactly, other than it involves hiding under a laundry basket and talking to oneself. Pet Shop makes me think of my own increasing tendency to talk to myself – a new and embarrassing habit I usually try to cover up by pretending I was singing.
I figure I speak my thoughts out loud when I can no longer sort them inside my own brain – when I have too much going on – when I can no longer compartmentalize or prioritize and the important thoughts are forced to crawl out and wave their arms around in front of me. My daughter is doing this under her laundry basket. The rules of pet shop seem pretty involved – too big for her skull – so she speaks them out loud. Makes them visible in the space around her. Creates a space so she can create perspective. Something adults reserve for conversations with other people… or typing.
A couple years ago, Theatre Replacement, a company I run with Maiko Yamamoto, set up a weekly project called Movie Group, where we met with people over the age of 65 to watch a bunch of movies made between 1965 and 1975. A time when the participants would have been 18-30 years old and made up the primary movie going demographic according to consumer stats site we found.
The intention of Movie Group was to spend time watching the films with these people and then have conversations – to see how a time-based medium could generate a larger space for thought inside a group. We recorded the conversations with the intention of creating a performance from the verbatim texts but the desire for a finished product disappeared fast. What developed over our 16 or so weeks together was too intimate – too personal. Repeating it would have been crass and disrespectful to we had found together – a magical pressureless space. What we did in the end was show bits of the movies and talk for about an hour – enough to be evidence of what we had been up to, but not so long as to assume that what we found in our little room was designed for anyone other than us.
The filmmaking from that era is pretty spectacular – massive performances wound into small stories. Turns out this leads to good conversation. The Graduate (watch it just for the last scene… and Anne Bancroft) drew out our various experiences in childrearing – and of being children. Midnight Cowboy sparked confessions about “our own personal Miami’s” or – dream situations to live. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, watch the film and while you’re there fall in love with Jon Voight – so young, so innocent and so much more badass than his daughter Angelina Jolie could ever be. Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller led us to thoughts around place – about belonging – about decisions to leave the town you were born which for this group included small town BC, Ottawa, Burnaby, Saskatoon, Northern England and Hong Kong.
photo: Maiko Bae Yamamoto
The Graduate drove us deep into fashion. At one point we all brought in photographs of ourselves from that period. Maiko and I were only babies but still we were all so well framed and posed. In the case of Sylvia who had grown up in Hong Kong, her photos were studio shots, and this led to a long conversation about how the act of photography has become so flippant, a throw-away as opposed to an archiving of a something significant. I argued for quantity. They insisted on quality. We brought in more photos to illustrate the point. But this was not a debate over which era was the better. Rarely did the point of age ever come up in conversation. We were cross-referencing perspective across generations.
Our Englishman in residence Michael was keen on us watching A Man for All Seasons, the story of Thomas More refusing to annul the marriage of Henry the VIII. This, our only non-American film, sparked a days long conversation on the idea of the hero. Pretty much all the US films we had watched depicted unreliable protagonists. We determined, correctly or incorrectly, and without a touch of Wikipedia, that this era of American film-making marked the rise of the anti-hero, usually depicted by shortish men (glorious Mr. Voight excluded) working deep inside the Method. The reasons seemed pretty clear – Charles Manson and his family had effectively killed the hippie dream, Kent State had shaken the country, Viet Nam was raging, civil rights kept stumbling and filmmakers were subsequently making films that reflected an embarrassed nation. Kind of like the mumble core, multiple losers and troubled superheroes of the 2000’s. Were these theories sound? Didn’t matter. They were collectively determined, they felt right, and that made them sound enough for the moment.
We entered the project hypothesizing that the experience of people re-watching something first watched 40 years ago might trigger a bunch of personal memories we would cherry pick and then structure on stage. That didn’t happen exactly – certainly not within our wavering scientific method. What Movie Group did create was a zone for cross-generational perspective – something I unfortunately never make time for unless, like this, it can be disguised as work.
So, Pet Shop. I gave my 5-year-old two dimes that I had in my pocket and she crawled out from under the basket wearing a cat suit complete with tail and ears. She rubbed against my leg and bit my foot, which was nice.
The role of elders in our theatrical ecosystem gets extensive exploration in this week’s edition.
”Elder Up” writes Yvette Nolan,who connects elders to arts who are asking hard questions; SFU theatre student Steffi Munshaw goes full-elder, dramaturging a play by Michael Hollingsworth for director DD Kugler; and Theatre Replacement Co-AD James Long has been watching movies with 65-year-olds and staging their conversations about them.
In all, it speaks to a relatively healthy discourse and relationship between generations. The revolution against the gerontocracy may be referred to committee for further study.
Episode 6 of the SWSpodcast, where in your co-hosts Adrienne and Jacob talk about how Jacob’s show went at the Rhubarb Festival and then are joined by Nathan Medd to discuss the intricacies of messaging for large organizations, the relationship between research and development and product, and how to effect change – or if its even worth trying. iTunes | RSS
We also play a thought from SpiderWebShow.ca Resident Thinker for the month of February: Guillermo Verdecchia.
Listen to more HERE
I started tweeting in 2010. The National Theatre School of Canada, of which I am CEO, was about to celebrate its 50th anniversary and our communications department thought it would be important for me to open a Twitter account for the occasion.
At the same time, my essay Le FACTEUR C – L’Avenir passe par la culture (Les Éditions Voix parallèles), and its English translation, No culture, No future (Cormorant Books), was getting much public and media attention. As a consequence, I was requested to speak on numerous occasions at international arts conferences and forums. I quickly realized that Twitter was a great way to exchange and to get ideas circulating within the arts community in Canada and abroad.
My Twitter account grew quickly. Some 12,500 tweets later, I now have over 4,000 followers and I make a habit of tweeting several times a day. I tweet almost exclusively on the state and future of the arts, its value and its place in society.
I see myself as a conduit for content – articles, essays, blog posts or conference notes – which I personally find significant. I tweet to disseminate the information which helps feed the global conversation about the state of the arts. I sometimes tweet content with which I may not entirely be in agreement, but I communicate it anyway because I consider it important to further the debate on certain innovative views and ideas.
My Twitter feed is a mix of both French and English. As a rule, I first tweet in the language of the content I am passing along. If the article is in English and I feel it’s pertinent, I might then write another tweet in French on the subject for my Francophone followers. I find that it’s only then that they tend to retweet it and vice versa for Anglophones. It also happens that my followers translate my tweets as they retweet them to their own community.
I would never limit myself to using one language on Twitter. I also don’t translate my tweets systematically because I work in co-lingual organizations. The National Theatre School has both a French and an English section and for the past ten years, I have been vice chair of the Canada Council.
As far as translations go, I try to make sure that my own speeches are available in both English and French, i.e. on the Canada Council’s website.
A few of my other tweeting rules include rarely talking about my personal life, with the exception of some weekend activities. And if I see a show or an exhibit, I will mention that I am there, but I never criticize it on Twitter afterwards. I also never engage in tweet fights: Twitter is not a place to argue. Because of my role at the Canada Council and at the National Theatre School, I have a duty to show some reserve, so I never engage in partisan politics on social media.
The tone of my tweets ranges from factual to philosophical and sociological. I never use sarcasm and rarely humour, but I do like to follow people who excel in those genres.
I myself follow about 650 people: journalists, columnists, researchers and influential decision makers. I choose to follow someone because I know I will learn something by doing so but I am weary of people who tweet too much. I think a ratio of three tweets per follower is good; ten tweets per follower or more turns me off: it’s an indicator of lack of substance.
My first tweets are between 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. They are mostly news items from Europe – I’m a constant reader of The Guardian’s Culture section and I follow, among others, the cultural policy watch Twitter account @cultureveille. My second round of tweets occurs around 7 p.m. with primarily Canadian content.
Twitter is an essential part of my day and of the way I connect to the world. I absolutely love it!
[Matthew wrote: Hello folks, I am so sorry I missed the chat. I shall edit- as penance.]
Amy: Great photo. I’m jealous you always have the first and great photos!
Laakkuluk: ha ha – I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ham it up
Amy: Was gong to take a photo of my iphone with my ipad!
Laakkuluk: Or a picture of you checking your iphone while cooking supper?
Amy: Checking my iphone [while] making supper is only normal! Texting my daughter to see if she’s coming home to eat with us!
Laakkuluk: Isn’t that sort of answering the question at hand though?
Amy: Yes, our sense of place in the world, or in our family. About Art? I wonder if technology is used too much in live theatre now. Sometimes it just gets on my nerves… Sometimes I love it though. But it seems like cheating to be putting a lot of film in live theatre!
Laakkuluk: I know what you mean. It can either be really beautiful and appropriate or far too gimmicky. Where’s our main man on the west coast?
Amy: HMMMM, Matthew Where are you!!!! (echo echo) I haven’t seen any emails from him.
Laakkuluk: No – he hasn’t responded at all. Wonder if he’s under the weather, or travelling.
[Matthew’s note: No, I was in a government office.]
Laakkuluk: We’re having a “summit” on the spoken word this weekend
Amy: Ah, yes, the poets are arriving. Exciting. Will they all be using their ipads and laptops…technologies…word processors.
Laakkuluk: Definitely the young ones. We’re going to be learning about looping pedals over the weekend. The elders will just be using their incredible intellects to tell their stories! Most of my work starts off as a poetry exercise.
Amy: Wish I could be there for that. I just sent Matthew an email to see if he’s coming.
[Editor’s note: I am not coming.]
Amy: Oh, that’s an interesting way to start a project. Like you articulate it in words, poetry.
Laakkuluk: Yes – that’s usually what happens – words and poetry come first
Amy: I would love to come there. I would love to be out on the skidoos and the food. YUM! Is that how most artists there work? Start with poetry? Hand written or on a computer?
Laakkuluk: I think that’s something we’re going to explore this weekend. I use both. My dad used to talk about hunters he was friends with that couldn’t start their day without composing a poem.
Amy: Yes I know some writers who find a better connection when they handwrite. Oh that is amazing. How beautiful.
Laakkuluk: What romantics, eh?
Laakkuluk: How do you start your projects?
Amy: How do I start? An idea, a character first usually. I find the character then write in her/his voice. But I do it on computer. When I try to write artistically by hand I get very messy and big. So it is more productive on the computer. But to create the character after it is written, I like to be on my feet or in a chair depending on what the character is doing and be oral, speak out loud, find the voice, etc.
Laakkuluk: Like a personality who then starts a story?
Amy: Yes a personality who tells their story somehow.
Laakkuluk: There’s a need to move around to develop characters isn’t there, and then settle down in a chair to get their story out.
Amy: I wrote a piece, an old lady and realized a long time after I created her voice and her accent that I was channelling my grandmother! Amazing
Laakkuluk: Wow – did you feel connected to her after you realized that?
Amy: Connected? It was a revelation really. The character’s name is Ida, and her husband’s name is Gus. Much later I realized my aunt and uncle are Gus and Ida. Things come from the subconscious obviously! From our own real stories, roots, without even trying. I am sure that is true for your art, yes?
Laakkuluk: We move in cycles of recognition and repetition and the art is in making it your own
Amy: Explain.
Laakkuluk: A little while ago, my mother gave me a picture of me at the age of six or so, wearing a Greenlandic national costume and we put it next to a picture of my own daughter wearing the same outfit. The pattern of sameness and difference between the two of us was so touching. We recognize ourselves in the past and in the future and we do it over again, but in our own manner.
Amy: The grandmother I emulate was an actor in her own right in her time. In concerts!
Laakkuluk: It seems like technology and increasing technology use doesn’t really change this pattern of recognition.
Amy: Not yet. What about the next generation I wonder.
Laakkuluk: Did you hear the CBC piece on how all the screen time we get is rewiring kids’ brains?
Amy: I did not catch it all, but yes, I have been hearing that buzz around me. I always have CBC on somewhere! So, do you think your children’s art will be highly influenced by technology?
Laakkuluk: I’m sure my children will use technology in ways I never imagined.
Amy: How about your art? Do you use technology to create it?
Laakkuluk: I definitely do not use as much technology as my collaborators, but I suppose that’s why we collaborate – I add something and they add something.
Amy: I love to collaborate when making art. I like to work like that. Collectively. I like to feed off others, and vice versa, I like to think!
Laakkuluk: it’s the best way of making art – collaborating!
Amy: My daughter says our generation have no problem solving skills because when something goes wrong with the computer we back away and yell and jump up and down!
Laakkuluk: I remember thinking the same with my dad and the VCR and the “oven that emits radiation” as he called it.
Amy: A friend of mine in Stephenville, she’s French, she called it the miracle wave!
Laakkuluk: ha ha – good one!We do not have one collaborator named Matthew, whatsoever it seems.
Amy: I KNOW! What’s up with that/him, I wonder. I hope he is ok.
[Matthew’s note: I’m fine.]
Laakkuluk: Has he emailed us back at all?
Amy: But for you, dance, partners are so wonderful.
Laakkuluk: Yes – definitely!
Amy: No. no word from Matthew. Strange. Now I’m worried
[Matthew’s note: Ah, thanks.]
Amy: Talk about how you create dance with partners. Do you ever use technology there?
Laakkuluk: We use sound effects to make soundscapes and music
Amy: Soundscapes from computers or from live sounds?
Laakkuluk: We also use lighting and projections to make the scenes
Amy: Yes, I can see that
Laakkuluk: Mostly live sounds it seems over the years but we’ve worked with recorded sound too. When you start playing around with live throat singing – with reverb and alterations it can get very spooky and surreal.
Amy: Yes. I would love to see that. Experience it. I have seen throat singers move me to tears. I have also seen some who do not. Sorry to say!
Laakkuluk: The good ones are so lovely
Amy: Do you think we talked about technology, our art and how it has influenced our sense of place?
Laakkuluk: Yes – I think we really did touch on the subject. I like how we talked about how our brains and art-making use names and characters from our families and pasts to make sense in the present.
[Matthew’s note: Oops. I think I cut some of that.]
Amy: Yeah. It ultimately comes from the heart and psyche!
Laakkuluk: And that we seem to collaborate in this process of repetition and recognition to use technology to emphasize the heart and psyche.
My 16 month-old son plays with his Gramma in Calgary via Skype.
We live in wired times.
On the table as I write this there is one laptop, an iPad and an iPhone. Another laptop plays the NHL “outdoor” classic in the living room. Another iPhone lights up with banter from the westcoast via text message.
All this technology makes it possible for my son to know his grandparents. To hear their voices and play games of pee-a-boo and patty-cake. And as a freelancer from home with a small kid – the computers and wireless and video chats makes work possible. I have meetings every day with collaborators living all over the country from my kitchen. Family, friends and colleagues visit me every day and when they “leave” all I need to do is close the laptop. There are no dishes.
All this web-based technology collapses geographic space between people. It’s not perfect. But it does trick my brain into thinking that I’m there with you – or you are here with me – or we are somewhere in the middle. Together. When my collaborator answers my video call and his image comes up, I feel as though I’ve opened the door to another room in my own house. The wall of framed photos behind his head are familiar and homey.
This, to me, is the great strength of online technology: to bring people together. Just like the theatre brings audience and artists into one space. Except that, online, the spaces we inhabit together are virtual spaces – quantum spaces – built of ones and zeros, and the intention of our consciousnesses reaching out towards each other. Inside the radically malleable black box of online theatre, anything can happen – so long as you know how to write the code.
The work we are doing in the Experiments wing of the SpiderWebShow just barely scratches the surface of what I sense is possible for theatrical storytelling online. Each piece of content is contemplating the question: what happens when theatre makers’ sensibilities are expressed using online tools?
SAHTheatre – first meeting of the #SAHTheatre team via Google Hang-Out, (from left) Emelia Symington Fedy, Adrienne Wong, Caitlin Murphy, and the Dread Pirate Michael Wheeler. Arrrr.
This weekend we are launching Stay At Home Theatre – an experiment in long-form improvisation performed on Twitter using the hashtag #SAHTheatre.
Anyone who tweets knows that, at it’s best, Twitter is ideal for short, pithy stories – windows into an individual’s every day life. It’s also a format that lends itself to conversational exchange, small eddies of intimacy within an ocean of chatter. With collaborators Caitlin Murphy and Emelia Symington Fedy, we are trying to collect stories from Twitter users who are doing something very difficult, i.e. being artists raising children.
Mainstream media culture focuses on the “mommy wars”, the tensions that exist between a range of different parenting philosophies. It would be easy to use this scenario to create conflict between our online characters (who are us, only pithier). Instead we want to reveal character and relationship through community, collaboration, and mutual support. How intimate the revelations are will depend on each artist (Emelia has already set the bar high with this photo of her breastfeeding a baby goat). We invite other parents to join the conversation using #SAHTheatre.
The SWS Podcast continues, hosted by me and Jacob Zimmer from Small Wooden Shoe. Once a week, Jacob and I hook up microphones to our laptops, meet up on Skype and talk about what we’re thinking about, which often turns out to be theatre, and the theatre community in Canada. We’ve talked about original practices Shakespeare, design-based thinking, contemporary dance in Brooklyn, using surveillance on ourselves, our audiences, our children, and what we think is wrong with the way theatre is practiced in Canada right now. We try to come up with some strategies to make things, if not perfect, then at least better.
The experiment: is anybody listening? (Answer: yes, a few. Maybe more each week? Hard to say.)
Documenting inaugural #SWSpodcast, with Jacob Zimmer. Featuring my kitchen and Jacob’s studio at the Banff Centre.
Jacob and I are interested in cultivating critical dialogue within our community of theatre-makes. Yes, about the work, but also about larger topics like how resources are allocated and who feels silenced and how can we meet ideals for guaranteed minimum wages? We hope the SWS Podcast can play a part in increasing dialogue and deepening the thoughtfulness of what’s being said. We are hoping that, like this guy, if we just start dancing with our shirts off everyone will join in because it just looks like so. much. fun.
And then there are the Sonic Postcards – a collaboration between myself and sound designer/composer Troy Slocum. I recently moved to Ottawa from Vancouver. I send something I miss about Vancouver to Troy, he makes a audio field recording and then Iwrite some narrative and hopefully link everything together. We can send you a sonic postcard, too. Let us know what you miss and where it is. We welcome your input, because frankly, I’m beginning to feel self-conscious about how much of me there is on the Experiments page.
This where you come in.
I invite you to browse our Experiments. Listen to the podcasts and the sonic theatre, read through the twitter feeds. Google “twitter theatre” and “digital art”. Perhaps you’d like to try your hand at one of these forms. Or perhaps your hand is reaching towards a form that hasn’t been named yet.
We have space in the Experiments wing of the SpiderWebShow. We can connect you with Graham Scott, a digital dramaturg / web designer, who can help turn your idea into ones and zeros. We have an established (and growing) network of makers, supporters and readers with whom to share your work. We will only understand how theatre and technology work together by making things and letting them fail or succeed. Join us in these experiments.
Email proposals to me at spiderwebshow@gmail.com, and put “experiment” in the subject line.
In 1999, I took the course, “Computing for arts students” at McGill University. The first assignment, for 5% of my total grade, was to successfully email my professor. I got 5/5.
Fast forward 15 years and I send about 30 of those a day, when I’m not uploading blog posts, tweeting, using Facebook or listening to podcasts. I can’t imagine what the curriculum of that course would be now. (Note to self: Pitch a course to McGill.)
In this edition of #CdnCult Times, our contributors address how technology has become a part of their artistic practice: Simon Brault as an arts leader and advocate, our Geographic Correspondents as artists across Canada, and Adrienne Wong as the director of multiple experiments with technology on this site.
Definitely things are changing. Leave a comment on a post, or tweet with #CdnCult to discuss what this adoption of new technologies means for your connection to the arts.
