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A question of standards

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I often seek out rigourous physical training.   I like to push myself to the brink – I may be a bit of a clench-jawed, throbbing veins junkie.  Holding myself to that physical standard while painful in the moment is intensely gratifying.  This state however, is difficult to achieve on my own.  I like to push myself amongst a group.  There is a palpable quality that exists within a community of people; personal boundaries of possibilities are emphatically stretched in the company of others.

I recently had the torturous privilege of taking a Suzuki workshop. While physically challenging, it wasn’t the bodily rigour that stretched me.  What sent me reeling was the demand that I be Perfect.  This is not something we are often asked to be.   Perfect – from the moment I entered the room.  There was no moment to warm up into the training, no chance to learn and make mistakes.  The invitation, or rather the demand was that I be an Expert.  To demand more of myself than I thought I could achieve.

Counter to the common philosophy espoused in this cultural climate of forgiveness and ‘do your best and move forward’, which I am accustomed to, this call to arms was an affront.  When creating or teaching, I admittedly infuse each process with (too much?) forgiveness; boundaries are permeable and the offer presented is the accepted impulse and we go with it.  Creation comes from quiet listening, playing and never fearing the wrong answer because there is no right answer.

This workshop assaulted and insulted all of these individualist ideas of just ‘doing what I could’.  It demanded that I set the bar at the tiptop – for myself and for my peers.

However, once there was silent communal agreement in the room that this was a demand to be met, the wattage of the room sparked and increased immeasurably.  And we strove with fierce attention, to be perfect.

zoe community imageThere was great power in the communal raising of standards.

This experience, this shift in pedagogical standards has me thinking about the standards we hold ourselves account to in … life.  Big question.  What if, collectively, we demanded that we be Perfect?

It seems we are falling victim to shifting standards.  Services decrease or are frozen and our health care system provides less care.  While we subscribe to a self defined democratic system, voting strategies leave massive portions of the population unaccounted for and silenced. On account of this, standards imperceptibly shift as we expect (and demand) less and less. We become placated by comparison and standards of “good enough”.

So I go back to this workshop and see the power of merely thinking, collectively, be perfect.  This is our only chance.  Collective Life and Death.  Why do we settle for good enough?

This morning, President Obama announced that he has chosen openly gay delegates to represent the USA in the Sochi Olympics (CTV).  While he is sending a message, does it send out the message of perfection?  And will the rest of the international community now hang their opposition to the Russian homophobia on Obama’s action and retire without voicing strong objection?  What if the entire global community demanded perfection of itself and of Russia?  This is a question of perfection in ethics, but a low bar has been set by an international leader will that standard will now be challenged?

How might this frame of mind shift the ecology of the theatre community?  A united theatrical community exists, but I wonder if our faltering set of standards is product of a prevailing individualism, where we are no longer, supportively, called to account by our peers?  I want to demand of myself that I be perfect.  Create each piece of theatre like it is my last.  Infuse each performance I attend with the importance it deserves.  Demand that the system we exist in serve the needs of the community and invite the community into the process.

I also question how our standards impact criticism. When reviews of excellence are doled out generously, are we not lowering our standards by rating the notable as excellent?  While we all appreciate support and praise, is the standard for creation being held up in context of the world we live in?  In-depth analysis and evaluation within cultural context will do greater service to our standard of creation than praise.  Artistically, cost may be high to demand such rigour and we may all suffer from less favourable reviews but perhaps more in-depth analysis.  This is one example of being held to account, which may raise help raise the bar.

I often wonder if our united sense of struggle precludes us from demanding excellence from our peers and from ourselves on account of mere survival.  Would a collective shift in attention from struggle to superiority hit the refresh button?  Self-imposed rigor and excellence are needed to spark higher wattage.  I propose it is possible.  If individually we are tasked with perfection, perhaps then we will create a community of excellence.

Learning From Verbatim

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Home...Victoria StreetsListening to people talk fascinates me. Pregnant pauses. Rapidly repeated words. Ums and Ahs. These chunks of verbal gold are just the tip of the iceberg. Original turns of phrase. Complex argument structures. Personal emotional stories. As a journalist and theatre artist I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how people talk, and of course, what they say. Several years ago I decided to take a year and formalize this infatuation. I enrolled in graduate school to study one of the undisputed territories where journalism and the theatre overlap: something called “verbatim theatre”. What started as the pursuit of truly capturing the spoken word has offered opportunities far greater than I could have ever imagined.

Verbatim theatre, as I now know, is a term for making plays out of transcripts. Transcripts of interviews, trials, or public hearings. Very much like documentary films, there is a wide spectrum of what could be called “verbatim” plays – ranging from those mixing verbatim material and creative license (such as Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon) to plays combining verbatim material and commentary (such as Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project’s The Laramie Project) to plays using strictly words spoken by a given community (such as Andrew Kushnir and Project:Humanity’s The Middle Place).

British theatre scholar Derek Paget first coined the term “verbatim theatre” in a 1987 journal article. Paget was writing his thesis on the form, explaining it had been around in various forms since the 1960s, and was a direct product of the portable tape recorder. For the first time, anyone could become an interviewer, investigating and presenting issues they were passionate about. Paget wrote that verbatim theatre empowered those normally disempowered, adding voices to public debate and “seeking to extend the space left by the ‘official’ recording and reporting media.” He concluded however, that because it was extremely time consuming to collect and transcribe interview material, there was not a lot of hope for the future of the medium. Paget was right. But he was also wrong.

Almost thirty years later verbatim theatre is thriving. By the time I was writing my thesis on verbatim theatre’s relationship to journalism, there were several examples on the Canadian Theatre scene alone of powerful and popular verbatim theatre productions. Oonagh Duncan’s Talk Thirty To Me – about aging. Annabel Soutar’s SEEDS – about a Saskatchewan farmer’s fight against big business. Andrew Kushnir and Project:Humanity’s The Middle Place – about shelter youth. Among others, these examples show the appeal of the real. The theatre is a place where we come to imagine, and to believe in lies. But it can also be a place where we come together to hear real people speak their truths.

I was curious how we could innovate on the art form. How could the world of journalism help grow this very journalistic theatre practice? When the Belfry Theatre’s Michael Shamata contacted me about the possibility of applying my research, I was immediately interested in the subject matter. Homelessness. As a theatre school student in Victoria I remember walking home from downtown and being shocked by the number of people sleeping on the streets. Michael said he wanted to address this pertinent issue on stage. We quickly agreed that verbatim theatre would be a perfect vehicle for this dialogue, and that our project would take a holistic look at homelessness in Victoria. Instead of focusing only on homeless people (who of course would be a crucial part of the story), we would interview the entire community. Homeless people, housed people, children, teenagers, senior citizens, lawyers, doctors, police officers and others. After all, homelessness is an issue involving and affecting the entire city.

Home...MICThis was no simple task. The secret ingredient was time. For over two years, I spent time with the community. I visited schools, shopping malls, shelters, churches, jails, and offices. I helped deliver early morning coffee to people sleeping outside, played pool with youth at shelters, stood on street corners and knocked on doors in random neighborhoods. Almost every person I talked to had something to say about the issue of homelessness. I was consistently humbled by how open all of these strangers were with their stories. Interviews ranged from five minutes to five hours. The words were all spoken so differently, but what was said was always fascinating. It was a life changing experience. Over and over again my assumptions about this issue were shattered. There is no use trying to predict what is happening inside someone’s head. It is crucial that we have conversations.

After over five hundred interviews, we were left with a fantastic problem: way too much material for a play. A faithful team of transcribers turned hundreds of hours of recordings into thousands of pages of transcripts. We worked tirelessly to accurately record the stories, with all their pauses, laughs and inflections. Interview transcripts were read aloud by actors, and carefully edited for brevity, without altering meaning. A citizen of Victoria speaks every word in Home Is a Beautiful Word. I made every effort to reconnect with the original interview sources so they could approve the way their interview was being presented. I did follow up interviews, asking people to pose questions as well as answer them. I then took those questions, and posed them, verbatim, to members of our community, empowering sources to ask questions and creating a dialogue between people that may not ever otherwise meet, except for their exchanges onstage.

And here’s where theatre scholar Paget was right in more ways than one. When he wrote that verbatim theatre empowered those normally disempowered, he was ahead of his time. Yes, this type of community-based theatre gives voice to people often ignored by the traditional media, but it also invites entire communities to participate in a play. Instead of being treated as consumers, our audiences are empowered to live our plays with us.

I’m proud the Belfry Theatre is providing large blocks of pay-what-you-can tickets for every single performance of Home Is a Beautiful Word, making this experience accessible to all. Additionally after every show, the Belfry staff and artists from the community host Afterplay – a facilitated discussion allowing the audience the opportunity to debrief their experience with the play.

In the end, I’m grateful my learning has extended far past the spoken word. I’ve learned about the power of taking time and asking good questions. I’ve gained a great appreciation for the diversity and strength of my fellow human beings. And I’ve realised it is in our best interest as theatre artists to remove boundaries between art and audience engagement. When done to their full potential, they are one and the same.

A Gay Heritage Moment

By
Patrick Conner

Last Saturday, I was at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre to see The Gay Heritage Project. After a great night in the theatre, I was talking with Paul Dunn, one of the three creator/performers, about the show’s intentions. It has a wide title that could hold a number of things in its embrace. While in discussion with Paul – I was moved by a memory of his brilliance and delicacy in productions of Robin Fulford’s Steel Kiss and Gulag that I directed in rep while Artistic Director at Buddies.

Throughout the performance my mind spiralled out to so many moments that were touched on, or acted as springboard to, my own heritage construction.  Ultimately I settled on the feeling that the creators’ shared wish was to make love to the audience, because I felt better as I left the theatre than I did when I arrived. This seemed to line up with what Paul felt they were doing with the show too. I felt held by their desire to celebrate and uncover materials (matter) of a shared gay heritage. I also felt jostled by the nature of heritage and its essential ephemera, especially as it pertains to largely non-procreative family trees.

I saw the show on Saturday December 7, 2013. It was a year to the day that Patrick Conner, one of the giants in my life, died. I wish I could say that I planned this memorializing event or even that I recognized it while sitting in the theatre. But as with the imperfection of real narrative in conversation with wished for narrative, I only realized this the next day. Moments are easy to miss.

Patrick had been ill for about 6 months and succumbed, in the middle of the night, in the company of his mother and his husband, Andrew, to the ravages of liver cancer. I still can’t believe that he’s not here: that we did not – for example – get the chance to talk about our responses to The Gay Heritage Project. We both knew so many of the people in the audience that night and would have had much to talk about regarding the unstoppable energy of the show’s creators. And too, we would have shared an admittedly quite strange pride about director Ashlie Corcoran’s connection to Kingston, and her commitment to The Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque. We would have had a lively time following that Saturday night performance –no doubt. What a difference a year makes.

Patrick was there at the beginning of my career. He was in the very first major directorial success I had; Chicago and he starred in Kennedy’s Children, in my 1st theatre: The Baby Grand. Both of these were in Kingston. I am from Montreal, spent many years in Toronto, a few in Vancouver and a year in Paris, but I now live there, in Kingston (and Ottawa too). While Patrick claimed Kingston as where he was from (and he was born there) but as a one year old,  he with his family moved to Sackville, New Brunswick, and though the family returned to Kingston, Patrick spent the balance of his adult life in Toronto.

This is important because Toronto has a hole in it where a Patrick used to be. I cannot be the only one missing his remarks on recent Rob Fordian events. Nor, I’m sure, am I the only one missing his dry rejoinders about all manner of incivility surrounding us at every turn. His response – for example – to the Sochi Olympics is missing from the front lines, or his well-structured outrage to the demise of public transit, indeed his legendary critique of (pick any show and imagine a moment) is leaving me devoid of a bon mot that I would traditionally have recounted from his lips to your ears.

Also there are the shows he would have been in and directed this year. And the next film he likely would have directed. Add to this the inroads he would have made with organics and sustainability and the bitching he would have done about how – in his view – each of his successes, (things like the green roof at The Big Carrot) were not being followed through on, in the exact and precise way that he would have wanted. In short there is a lot of loss and a lot of missing. And the hole that was left behind is, on certain days extremely large, and on others very small, and on all days, impossible to hold or to grasp.

About three weeks before Patrick died, Andrew and I pulled out pictures and the three of us looked at them together. Patrick was very ill by this point. In one of the pictures we saw a young shiny Patrick in a rehearsal hall with a couple of well-known Canadian actors (by “well known” I mean to people working in the theatre) and Patrick made a comment about how – in the future – the two actors would be named and he would be referred to as “unknown”. It was then and there that the idea for the Patrick Conner Award was born. In an unusual chain of events, I was able to float the idea by Andrew, to see if he felt it was something Patrick would approve of, and then from there I was able to ask Andy to speak with Patrick about it. I do not know what was said but I do know that Patrick knew that this was going to happen and this was very important to me.

I saw Patrick one more time after the decision was made to move forward with the award. It was less than a week before he died. It was an extraordinary evening filled with strength and weakness and one of the most beautiful performances by a extraordinary man of what it is to cheat death through a determination to prove our powers just one more time. And it was a night that I was able to share many of the words that I had only the courage to use because it was so close to the end. We talked about the award. Or at least I said it would happen. And it has.

The Patrick Conner Awards were launched shortly following Patrick’s death and last August we celebrated the inaugural recipients, Estelle Shook and James Davis. The winners are making huge contributions to both the performing arts and sustainability and were each awarded $2500.00. The ceremony was held on the Green Roof at The Big Carrot. The committee, for which I serve as chair, is made up of a wide and beautiful group of people who share both a love for Patrick and a desire to see the world shaped in a way that was important to him.

The next deadline for submission is March 10, 2014 (again without purpose, this landed serendipitously on Patrick’s birthday) and the 2nd Awards Ceremony will be held on August 18, 2014. Information regarding the award can be found here

Imagined Canada

By , and

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Laakkuluk: Does living in Canada as an artist make you responsible for how Canada is being imagined?

Matthew: The answer is yes. This is more of a citizen question really.

Laakkuluk: Ha ha ha! Now Sarah and Michael know they shouldn’t ask us yes/no questions

Matthew: And I was thinking about this before the question arrived, so maybe this process of chatting is sinking into the bones or something.

Laakkuluk: interesting! What do you mean by citizenship?

Matthew: I was sitting in a restaurant looking at people. The way one people watches and I was thinking that these are average people. And by that I mean they are just normal, probably good-hearted people who do or don’t engage with the arts. And likely not with the kind of alternative to the mainstream stuff we/ Skam sometimes do. And I wished they would all engage, because they are responsible for how the arts are imagined in Canada

Amy: I guess by not engaging with the arts you mean not producing art or thinking consciously about it?

Matthew: Yes, not producing or engaging/ consuming/ supporting.

Amy: I think about the music of a place, the crafts of a place, the theatre and visual art. Artists for the most part, or I think at least, reflect their experience, what they see, hear, or eat for that matter. This is reflected in their art. So I don’t know if we are responsible, but I think artists do reflect who we are, how we live, what we do, and that does leave impressions on the world as to who we are. Does that make sense?

Matthew: Sure.

Laakkuluk: I think that as artists we both help create and challenge popular culture which kind of goes back to our conversation about artists as activists. I think that no matter what, “Canada” is going to be shaped by popular culture. and it is our job to explore the extra-ordinary – outside of popular culture.

Matthew: Can either of you think of irresponsible artists who don’t imagine Canada well?

Laakkuluk: I think more of the irresponsibility of curators and galleries more than the artists.

Amy: Ah, I understand that Laakkuluk. I never thought about an irresponsible artist! Judgement?

Matthew: Judgement is ingrained in our jury systems.

The Rooms ,St. John’s NL. On each of the three panels the heading is “This is our place” each representing an exhibit in the Gallery.

Amy: Yes, judgement is in our jury systems. Our audience judge us and decide something about our work. They like, they don’t like, what it is, what it represents. This is sometimes how we know a successful artist or piece of art.

Matthew: Yes, Amy, to a degree. But I expect we all know artists we feel should be more “successful” in the public eye.

Laakkuluk: of course there are individual artists that perpetuate colonialism, racism, misogyny that are a part of the Canadian fabric but I find that it is the people that group together artists into projects – books, shows, galleries and whatnot that can amplify “irresponsible” imaginings of Canada.

Amy: What is an example of irresponsible imaginings of Canada? The seal hunt comes to mind. Are we talking something like that? Misunderstanding?

Laakkuluk: That’s a good example of misunderstanding

Matthew: Not artistic, but yes, a good egg.

Amy: But the images that come from the seal hunt, sometimes are art. They are media for sure. Is media an art?

Laakkuluk: maybe media is popular culture.

Matthew: When I think of irresponsible imagining I think more of projects that fail rather than artists. So sometimes a project does not succeed and that is difficult. Audiences are let down and fellow artists are let down. I think this is more about performance than visual art. If the painting does not work, one can choose not to display it, but generally the theatre piece does not stop once in motion, even if on a track for long-term development. Part of our responsibility has to be learning to recognize when the process is not working.

Laakkuluk: That makes me think about this play I read about in Edmonton about the Robert Pickton murders. A lot of people in Aboriginal communities were distraught that the play was written, directed and acted with out any Aboriginal people whereas in reality, most of Pickton’s victims were disenfranchised Aboriginal women.

Amy: I guess that certainly says something about our country! Trying to portray that story without an aboriginal voice!

Matthew: Seems an obvious oversight. The subject matter requires huge responsibility. Something like that is too big for me.

Amy: Yes, if you take that on as an artist that is a huge responsibility. Puts me in mind of the movie about Polytechnique in Montreal.

Laakkuluk: It was also very controversial because as an audience member you basically watch a snuff/murder on stage.

Matthew: ew.

Laakkuluk: it is artistic to watch such horrifying violence?

Matthew: Not in my mind.

Amy: horriying. That is a very good question Laakkuluk.

I would be too fearful to go see it, but that is not to say, it should not be said.

Matthew: Depicting the murder for entertainment sake, or financial gain?

Amy: Do you believe it is for entertainment or financial? Maybe an artist needed to tell it for some other reason? or do you believe this stuff should be kept to diary?

Laakkuluk: so as the chat develops, I think we are saying that there is responsibility in how we make art.

Amy: Yes. That is a good way to say it Laakkuluk.

Matthew: I do see merit in examining the state of mind of victim and perpetrator but it is not for me.

Laakkuluk: I think there are so many different ways of approaching that story that have more integrity.

Matthew: Yes, I think it was David Oyie who, at a conference, said that the feeling of going to an opening night and seeing a show that misses its mark leaves you with the feeling that the artists have ‘broken the code’.

Laakkuluk: The code of touching someone with a deeper understanding?

Matthew: I take that to mean not delivering the goods, a good show.

Amy: Interesting. But don’t we all fail sometimes?

Laakkuluk: Yes we all fail – and it’s frustrating.

Matthew: Yes, we fail.

Amy: Laakkuluk, the show you speak of, did you see it?

Laakkuluk: I didn’t see the show and I don’t think I could, but I read about it.

Amy: I could not see it either. So, who does go see that?  Art then is a big responsibility.

Matthew: The responsibility lies in maintaining high standards for oneself. Being able to speak clearly to why something failed, too.

Laakkuluk: I like Matthew’s definition of artistic responsibility.

Web slinging

Matthew: Makes me think I’ll send in a photo of Spiderman.

Amy: As theatre artists our standards are always high and we are our own worst critics. When is it ever ready? Opening night, whether it be or not!

Matthew: With Great art comes great responsibility.

Laakkuluk: ha ha. I think you should wear a Spiderman mask and have a picture taken of yourself. a Spiderman selfie!

Matthew: Oh yeah, I’ll get right on that.

Amy: Have we answered the big world question?

Matthew: Yes, the answer is yes.

Laakkuluk: I agree – we started off with yes and discussed yes and ended up with yes.

Matthew: Hey, Really nice chatting and meeting you two.

Laakkuluk: It’s been wonderful! Thanks so much!

Matthew: Thanks Sarah and Michael, too.

Amy: Ditto!

 

#CdnCult Times; Volume 1, Edition 9

By

Imagination and remembering take centre stage this week. How do we create and remember what no longer exists or never did?

Each post touches on some profound and difficult questions facing artists and their responsibility to create and interpret a collective memory and understanding.

Sarah Garton Stanley finds The Gay Heritage Project an impetus to remember her specific heritage with Patrick Conner, our Geographic Correspondent touch on (amongst other things) the controversial topic of staging The Robert Pickton murders, Joel Bernbaum writes on how stories of homelessness can reach the stage through verbatim theatre.

To my mind, imagination is about the future while remembering is about the past. Imagination can keep our past in the present. Remembering can keep our imagination rooted in the here and now. It is all ephemeral – cause this is theatre.

Michael Wheeler
Editor-in-Chief: #CdnCult Times

A Modest Proposal for a Better Way to Brand Theatre

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empty seatsI’m a bad interview; I’ve learnt this now, from sad experience, a frosty November morning spent at Theatre Ontario’s offices at 401 Richmond, where I’d attempted with varied degrees of success to affect the folksy, unbuttoned erudition of what we might imagine characters in a Sorkin screenplay to sound like, my feigned patois unraveling after only three questions, flop sweat beading on brow and philtrum.  I was interviewing for a seat on TO’s Youth Advisory Committee, and after yammering at some length on a possible program to get young people to go to the theatre, I was asked, point-blank:

“How would you assess the demand for such a program?”

…Whereupon, having no lucid answer, I devolved into inarticulate grunts and rudimentary hand gestures. Later, slogging my way up Spadina, the question’s brisance having wiped the sun from morning’s glory, I began to wonder why, exactly, didn’t I have an answer prepared?  The question, you’ll agree, is not thoroughly difficult.

Except, actually, when I parse it out, the thing just seems more and more removed and weird and unanswerable. Why need we assess the demand at all, necessarily? Isn’t our job (at least in part) as artists, theatre producers, whatever, to create demand for our work, not just to react to it?

One of the clichés of business that commercial enterprises have internalized very well and artists have – in my experience – understood very poorly is that markets are not found – they are made. Particularly if you do challenging, non-commercial stuff, the consolation that your play will “Find its audience” is standard fare. There is little talk – and fewer resources – to actively build an audience base ex nihilo.

Yet, this is what businesses do all the time. Before Canada Goose began manufacturing their revolting parkas, no one needed or even wanted an expensive ski jacket made from bits of dead animal. There was not a deficit of coffee in the world before Starbucks’s cancerous growth. In a post-industrial society, the commodity itself is replaced by brand; people don’t buy things, they buy identities, they buy access to a putative community to assuage the soul’s emptiness.  For producers, money is not spent on the product – which in most cases can be outsourced to cheap labour – but on highly sophisticated communication strategies that target consumers and whisper promises of a happier life for which the product itself is merely a convenient semion.

Before I go further in this vein, let’s recall a salient warning from CanStage Artistic Director Matthew Jocelyn, from his 2012 eulogy to the Vancouver Playhouse:

…the Vancouver Playhouse remained a “company,” forced to rent its…performance space and justify its existence through commercial success. The term “company,” though used widely in the theatre business, unwittingly and perversely infers [sic] a likeness to the private sector.

Notwithstanding that I agree that conflating theatre with commercial enterprise is “perverse,” I don’t see how this should prevent us from appropriating the private sector’s most potent tools – effective branding and communications. Moreover, I don’t see how this necessarily prevents us from repositioning theatres as community institutions, rather than entertainment companies.

Theatre will probably never have the money or people-power to implement a marketing strategy as powerful as Starbucks’s – but neither does it need to. Theatre is, as Jocelyn remarked, a community-based enterprise, and even theatres with huge, international reputations still ultimately have identity conferred on them by their respective cities or nations (is there anyone who would argue that the RSC is not a distinctly English institution, or that the MET’s fame can be winnowed from NYC’s general mythology?).

The most obvious impediment to a highly sophisticated, creative, and targeted branding/marketing campaign is the utter lack of disposable funds – theatres simply don’t have the resources to create the multi-tier communications platforms such an endeavor would require, platforms that include everything from significant online presences to billboards to direct community outreach in the form of volunteers; creating apps and web ads and public events. These are hard to do well; harder still to develop an overall brand that affects people.

As a poultice to this dilemma we can look to precedents in other countries; between 2009 and 2011, for example, the UK government – through the Arts Council of England – ran a program called A Night Less Ordinary. The program set aside half a million free tickets to theatres all over the country for audiences aged 26 and under. Discounted or free tickets are something that almost every theatre does – where A Night Less Ordinary differed was that it was a third-party branding apparatus which took the burden of marketing off of the theatres – what was sold was not necessarily the individual shows (except on, as hinted supra, the local level), but the program itself. The celebrity endorsements – from Dame Judy Dench, Keira Knightly etc. – were for A Night Less Ordinary qua program, not for the RSC, or Covent Garden.

By acting as a synecdochic brand for a large number of theatres, the program was able to attract audience members (80 000 children and young people who attended 400 000 times, 8.9% of which had never been to the theatre before) without putting overmuch strain on each theatre individually – many of which would have had literally zero marketing capacity.

A Night Less Ordinary was far from perfect – for one thing, in some cases the program couldn’t cover the full cost of a ticket, leaving the individual theatres out of pocket. This is obviously problematic. We might also debate whether, in Canada, a national-rollout such as the one in the UK is going to be the best or most efficient means of doing this (my feeling is probably not.) But the crux and ethos of the thing seems sound.

An audience development program, operated by a third party and with a third-party brand, has the potential to cost theatres less, give them a bigger audience base, and open up the theatre community which you and I (probably) know and love to individuals who likely don’t even know it exists.  Though our instinct is to turn to government for funds in this respect, given the current political climate, I see far more potential in corporate sponsorship; especially if the program were directed at young people, if I were RBC or TD or CIBC you can bet that the opportunity to have my brand attached to a thing that’s hitting a market just at the age where they’re looking for a bank would be uniquely interesting to me.

That, anyway, is my modest proposal. We live, we’re told, in tough times; there is much talk of audiences’ defection, and Heritage Canada’s recent decision to refuse the Rhubarb! Festival’s annual grant is, I think, emblematic of quite a lot. As theatre creators, consumers, and lovers, our work must be proactive – we must make our audiences, because they will not be “found.”

On being Canadian, making work in Australia and touring it back to Canada

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2013 SUPER DISCOUNT PRODUCTION IMAGE 5
Back to Back Theatre, Super Discount (2013. Image: Jeff Busby

I hail from Edmonton where my first job in theatre was with Catalyst Theatre. For the past decade I have been Executive Producer of Australia’s Back to Back Theatre. Our works small metal objects and Ganesh Versus the Third Reich have toured internationally extensively including to Canada.

In 2003, when I started with Back to Back Theatre I had never produced a theatre company before but the work is exceptional so it seemed logical to me that it should tour. It may sound odd, but this is in part because I am Canadian.

In 1975 I came home from my first day of kindergarten telling my parents (both Anglophones) that at my school we spoke French and that it was a whole different of way of thinking, of seeing the world. I went on to do a degree in Russian and French, studied and lived in Marseille and Moscow and a few other places. I had a rather vague idea that one should have an international life and landed eventually in Australia.

Back to Back Theatre is a ruthlessly contemporary theatre company. We set out to make work that is unlike anything that has ever been seen before, that is unfamiliar but feels inherently human. The company is based in the post-industrial regional centre of Geelong (near Melbourne) and all our work is written and performed by an ensemble of actors who nominate themselves as being perceived to have intellectual disabilities. “Who woulda thunk it?” someone once said to me, “that this company would tour?” That this was an unlikely combination did thankfully not occur to me.

What does it mean for me to play a role in bringing this work to Canada? Of course, I feel the great honour that this represents, that significant resources are provided, that audiences witness and bring the work into being through their attention and complicity.

I conjur parallels: grand distances and extreme (albeit diametrically opposed) climates, nations with violent colonial histories, a relationship to but some kind of healthy distance from European theatrical canon. In Ganesh Versus the Third Reich we asked ourselves: can a small theatre company from Geelong represent a Hindu deity on stage, re-write European and Asiatic history, taking in the Holocaust and the T4 program? If this group of creators can’t fictionalise such ideas, who can? Driven by an ensemble of artists with intellectual disabilities, Back to Back is perfectly placed to comment on the social, cultural, ethical and value-based structures that define the ‘majority’. If you are an outsider, it is sometimes easier to see with greater clarity.

Back to Back Theatre, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich (2011). Image: Jeff Busby

So I like the idea that one needs distance and dislocation in order to see things properly. But I’m envious too of something that I have missed out on through being an immigrant: of a seemingly rather old-fashioned way of being of people who live their whole lives in the same valley. I begin to think about vast countries that are of course not homogenous but made up of thousands and thousands of very specific communities. And here – it might be Natimuk or it might be Trois-Rivières – an artist or a group of artists identify and pursue what interests them and hope that this will thus be of interest to others. The work that resonates is not at all vaguely international but rather determinedly and beautifully specific.

And then, if the work is good – and there are many ways of being so – let us hope that this work can be seen by a fine audience, in living rooms or on the street, on a screen or on a wide and generous stage in some faraway place. We should all be so lucky to witness this collective generosity.

Coda: Back to Back Theatre just made a show called Super Discount. It ends with a snow storm. Here it is, with love to the cold white north from the far dry south and with a nod to Trudeau and a bilingual heritage which I value deeply.

 

Studium and Punctums

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2013-11-21 17.04.15

The last two weeks of November have been remarkable. The scope of our interests and requirements at the NAC is vast. Our first task is to support and strengthen the national cultural condition, by familiarizing ourselves, in all manner of ways, with the breadth of talent and perspectives existing within Canada’s borders. In other words: connecting with “the amazing” and fostering relationships that will ensure that “the amazing” makes its way to our stages at the NAC. The second task is to put us into conversation with other parts of the world: in other words, making sure the traffic signals are working on a two-way street of international work.

Last spring, Jillian Keiley and I, invited Blake Brooker  – one of the collective members of Calgary’s One Yellow Rabbit – to join us in Ottawa. Our intention was to spend a couple of days with Blake interrogating our process for decision-making at the NAC, and to help us to clarify and shape our goals. The time was well spent and was heightened by Blake’s introduction to the notion of “The Punctum”. So helpful was this as an organizing principle, that we have since labelled our annual planning retreat as The Punctum.

Why Punctum? … A little on the provenance of the punctum brought to you by Wikipedia

From Roland Barthes 1980 Camera Lucida:

“The book developed twin concepts of studium and punctum; studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it.”

For me the over-arching studium has been about exoticism. This unusual two weeks has left me asking: What is an exotic life? What is an exotic place? Is exoticism a bad word? I draw no conclusions, instead I offer some links to follow.

Why Exoticism? … A 3-point shot on ways the word can be considered:

Wikipedia:  Essay on Exoticism: an aesthetics of diversity, “…possessing both aesthetic and ontological value, while using it to uncover a significant cultural “otherness”.

mrcurly.blogspot.com: “Exoticism is diametrically opposed to nationalism… Where nationalism seeks to praise that which is known and familiar, that which is not the other, exoticism performs the opposite process by praising what is unfamiliar simply by virtue of its difference… Whatever the case may be for nationalism, there is a paradox at the heart of exoticism, because exoticism is a value judgment based on ignorance.”

And finally onto Georgia O’Keefe: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”

Playwright and composer, Nick Carpenter, recently wrote to say: “Oddly enough, it is Fort Mac that feels the most foreign…” and after having been there I completely agree. But I return to the Roland Barthes notion of the Punctum(s) to bring order to my travel chaos.

What follows then is a Punctum link travelogue told in 6 cities.

Sydney – 4 days – The Big Punctum: THE BATS

  1. 2013-11-20 10.03.53Belvoir Watching Hamlet after 24 hours of travel, and being blown away by young director Simon Stone and designer and Belvoir AD Ralph Mayer
  2. Sydney Theatre Company  The long hall. A full 5-minute inside stroll from road to water (and the theatres) on gorgeous plank flooring with the pictorial history of the company’s work on the walls as you walk (Insert picture”2)
  3. Sydney Opera House Because of its construction history and nationally minded ideals it reminded me of our National Arts Centre
  4. The Cake Man A seminal work by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company
  5. Carriageworks See how a vibrant performance community works with 87, 188 square feet.
  6. Meeting Tanja Farman because Tina Rasmussen @cultureshark tweeted that we should while at Carriageworks and Tanja was in the building!
  7. Meeting producer Fenn Gordon because Sherrie Johnson @sherriejohnson brokered an introduction from her hotel room in Indonesia
  8. Meeting Merindah Donnelly Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Program Officer for the Australia Arts Council because Fenn picked up her cell phone and Merindah was able make it through the pouring rain to meet us a French Café.
  9. Losing my Iphone in a cab and getting it back
  10. We did go the beach. It rained. We left the beach. It stopped.

Melbourne – 1 night – The Big Punctum: PUBLIC ART EVERYWHERE

  1. Going Nowhere Festival. An active conversation on staying home and civic sustainability in the arts
  2. The Federation Bells So, so beautiful
  3. The Malthouse We saw Back to Back theatre’s new show Super Discount here. It was another gorgeous venue.
  4. Public wifi in the lit up night sky of a Manhattan-esque sky-scape
  5. Breakfast with “indigenous theatre royalty”. Two people referred to Rachael Maza of Ilbijerri in this way. A deep appreciation for her brilliance and what her father – before her – did to bring indigenous works to the stages in Australia.
  6. Running to catch up to a runner who had dropped his wallet. Sounded like he was from Canada when he thanked me.
  7. Melbourne, like Sydney, is a massive city. Much bigger than Toronto. It really surprised me. Especially in Melbourne it moved at a Manhattan pace

Vancouver – 6 hours – The Big Punctum: DOUBLE SUNDAY

  1. Meeting in the airport with Corey Payette between time and space (Sydney and Winnipeg and a repeating Sunday due to crossing the international dateline)

Winnipeg – 3 days – The Big Punctum: THE SNOW

  1. 2013-11-28 19.42.35Boon Burger. The most excellent Vegan Burger Bar.
  2. PTE Still amazed that the theatre is in a shopping mall and even more amazed by how well designed the theatre and the theatre spaces are within it
  3. Nobody looks at you funny when you zip up your arctic parka to get ready to go outside
  4. Seeing Hirsh at RMTC
  5. Camilla Holland’s daughter is in the Christmas Show at RMTC!
  6. Alan Williams, one of the true stars in the firmament of the 80’s in the Toronto Theatre Scene, and now dwelling in the UK, was also in attendance for the preview performance of Hirsch
  7. A lovely meal with Steven Shipper and a too brief but great hello with Bob Metcalfe
  8. Two excellent days of General Auditions for NAC

Fort McMurray – 1 night – The Big Punctum: THE BOOT CLEANER 

  1. The Keyano Theatre. A space where Catalyst Theatre one of Canada’s pre-eminent creation based companies has – for the past 6 years – been invited to make work
  2. Seeing their brand new and very exciting Vigilante – Catalyst Theatre
  3. Music in the lunch restaurant at the Fort Mac Hotel brought me back to all my heartaches… over yam fries and salad.
  4. Seeing the marks on the land when flying in.

2013-11-29 19.31.53Calgary – 12 days– The Big Punctum: 20 YEARS

  1. Opening of the 20th year of Stephen Hair playing Scrooge at Theatre Calgary
  2. Seeing Graham Percy in As You Like It this summer at Two Planks and a Passion in Nova Scotia and as “The Ghost of Christmas Present” in Calgary
  3. Attending a reading of a new play by Ghost River Theatre in a beautiful home on a Saturday afternoon where I drank pea soup from a cup.
  4. Talking to Vicki Stroich, new ED of ATP about surfing
  5. Having a coffee with Michael Green (Making Treaty 7 and OYR) and in a conversation about transformation, he pulls out his fake tooth to show a gaping hole. And he tells us that the tooth that had been there: “just slipped out”.

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#CdnCult Times; Volume 1, Edition 8

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Canadian theatre gets its Anglo-cultural exchange on in this volume as Australia’s Back to Back theatre comes back to Canada ,while Canada’s NAC heads for a a world-wind tour of Sidney and Melbourne.

Meanwhile recent Toronto’s Fringe New Play contest winner Alexander Offord looks to London, England for a model that could help build, not just find new audiences.

What is there to be learned from the artistic practices and infrastructure of other Constitutional Monarchies that Queen Elizabeth II reigns over? Australia, England and English Canada are all steeped in a tradition that enshrined the primacy of  the works and value system for drama generated in Britain.

They’re all now fighting to create an arts infrastructure that is relevant to a multicultural society. But just like Shakespeare, we all remain the vassals of the Regent – so some things remain a constant, regardless of merit in our democratic and forward-thinking societies.

Michael Wheeler
Editor-in-Chief: #CdnCult Times

Geographic Correspondents: What is Leadership?

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Laakkuluk's children. "From left to right: Igimaq (my son), Baabi (a little girl named after my father as well as her own great-grandfather), Akutaq (my daughter) and Viivi Iqaluk (my friend's daughter, who's birth I attended)."

Amy: I like the topic of leadership. I look for it everywhere. Leadership!

Matthew: All I can think about with this topic is Rob Ford. Ugh

Amy: heeheeheeheee

Laakkuluk: I just shuddered.

Amy: I feel so sorry for him. I know I should not, but my heart breaks.

Matthew: And then I was thinking…What if one of our theatre leaders behaved like that? Like if Jill Keiley was on crack and came out and said it. OK, I got that out of my system.

Amy: We have to be so responsible and transparent with the pittance of money we get. One wrong move and we’re axed!

Laakkuluk: I keep thinking something along those lines too. What if any other Canadian than an arrogant, large white man in southern Canada was on crack? But it makes me think again that many MLAs in the Nunavut legislature are infamous too and they still get re-elected from time to time.

Amy: So true Laakkuluk. The lens through which we see it…Yeah, we are a forgiving species? Is that it? Or do we turn a blind eye: are we in denial when that happens?

Matthew: Sure, there remains support for flawed leaders.

Amy: I guess today I thought of leaders close to me who influence me every day.

Matthew: Like the photo you sent?

Laakkuluk: Amy – tell us more about Marlene Cahill.

Amy: Yes. I love that Laakkuluk sent a photo of the children. I thought, of course! Marlene is a person in our community that a lot of artists, theatre artists go to for help with the business side of their companies. She is helpful to many small companies and individual artists. We talk to her about our ideas and hash out how best to bring them to fruition. She does the accounting/bookkeeping for many companies, RCA Theatre included. She also sits on our Board. Rock solid, very dependable and is truly dedicated to the right thing in every situation. I love her! I guess leadership to me is collaboration.  If I am a leader at all it is because I like to hear all sides of the story, so we can make the best decision, sometimes taking bits from all sides. Giving a wide berth.

Laakkuluk: She seems like the kind of leader that supports many people to do what they are good at.

Amy: Yes. Very supportive. And we can trust Marlene. Trust is key as well. Matthew, what’s your take on leadership?

Matthew: Well. I have been a little stumped off the top with this one. I know several leaders in our community and I am having a hard time choosing. I could make a list of qualities, but there is something elusive to good leadership too.

Amy: Matthew, are you a leader, do you think?

Marlene Cahill Matthew: Yes, I am a leader.

Matthew: I am the artistic producer of a company.

Amy: Can you articulate a process of your leadership?

Matthew: Um, sure.

Slight pause in the conversation

Matthew: Sorry- the phone rang there. My lunch date cancelled. I’m back. It was Ian, a potential candidate for a photo this week.

Laakkuluk: Matthew got stood up, stuck with us…

Matthew: happy to be stuck with you, as Huey Lewis would say

Laakkuluk: 😀

Amy: 🙂 I am laughing out loud here!

Matthew: He was a leader of the News.

Amy: and gorgeous too!

Matthew: I definitely prefer to lead by collaboration. But lately that has changed.

Amy: Oh Matthew, that is interesting. What happened that caused a change?

Matthew: My colleagues are new to the company, and younger so more direct leadership is required.

Laakkuluk: Your new colleagues need more mentorship?

Amy: Like delegating tasks?

Matthew: I find myself changing language in emails to be more direct with requests, and asking for collaboration, so yes to both questions.

Amy: I guess with new colleagues you need to find the language that works, gets the results you need, whereas with the last colleagues, you may have had a short hand language?

Matthew: Yes, and encourage their voices and let them develop a shorthand.

Laakkuluk: I get what you mean about leadership being elusive, because it means you need to be adaptive to the group. You need to be able to absorb communication to do it well.

Matthew: Yes, communication is a key to good leadership.

Amy: I guess it is because once good communication happens, everyone knows which direction to move in. Everyone is moving toward the same goal, no confusion.

Amy: Laakkuluk, how do your children lead you? Is that a fair question?

Laakkuluk: Well – I struggled a bit with the question like Matthew at first because of Rob Ford for sure, and the recent Nunavut election. So like Amy, I looked closer to home and came back to a theme that I use a lot. Even in my tattoos. That my life is enveloped by the work of my ancestors and my descendants. Our naming system is based on the idea that souls transfer with names. All the children in that picture are named after beloved elders, including my father and his friends and the oldest of my mother’s cousins. So these kids who are exploring the world as if for the first time again, are actually our elders as well.

Amy: This shines a new light on the circle of life! I love it.

Laakkuluk: Just as much as I loved the old people and learned so much from them when they were alive. I get to love the children as they learn and absorb the world. The little girl that was named after my late father was adopted to a lesbian couple. We like to joke that my dad loved women so much that not only did he came back as a girl, he also has three mothers! His bio-mom and his two adoptive moms!

Ian Rye AerwacolAmy: When first asked the question I did think of our premier, Kathy Dunderdale. I think she is a good leader. She is smart. I just think she has put herself out there at times when members of her cabinet should be taking some of the hard questions. She needs communication people who will protect her, and a cabinet who will protect her. I hope they are working on that internally. Muskrat Falls is very controversial. But the pollution from Holyrood where we get our power now is very bad. Obsolete.

Laakkuluk: I think you may be saying that leadership isn’t just about being the head of a project but also about people believing in that role.

Matthew: Amy, tell us about Muskrat Falls.

Amy: Oh, well, Muskrat Falls is the development of the Lower Churchill Falls for hydroelectric power. Our government is working with the Innu and Inuit to come through their land. It is a very complicated project, and many points of view. The end result would mean the electricity would come across the Strait of Bell Isle down through to the east coast of Newfoundland, and across the Gulf of St Lawrence to Nova Scotia and down the eastern seaboard. It would be clean hydropower. Multi billion dollar project.

Matthew: There is the continued idea that political leadership is fraught with challenges and great scrutiny, as it should be.

Amy: True that. Good summation.

Amy: See you West and North!

Laakkuluk: See you East and West!

Matthew: Always a pleasure. Keep well.

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