Change is the only category all three of this edition’s posts are categorized under. This is because SpiderWebShow is changing.
The biggest change is the addition of Neworld Theatre as a producer as Adrienne Wong joins the show as Artistic Associate and Head Researcher. We are excited to collaborate with an artist ideally suited to push the boundaries of what this site can facilitate and her initial thoughts on this development can be found in her first article to the site.
Meanwhile, Old Hands (we’ve been around since October) Sarah Garton Stanley and I are also thirsting for change. Stanley expands upon this desire with allusions to an ancient Greek parable, while I go straight for the nuts and bolts of where Praxis has been and where it’s going.
Welcome to Volume 2 where change is the name of the game and we couldn’t be happier about it.
When we met a year ago to discuss SpiderWebShow, before it had a name or URL, there were some core things we wanted to achieve guided by a desire to both enhance and channel performance chatter and to develop new spaces where creators could make and show their work. Here’s what’s happened so far:
Regular Weekly Editions of #CdnCult Times have begun to establish it as a way to talk about theatre in Canada.
The early beginnings of centering this discussion around the #cdncult hashtag.
Weekly YouTube Commissions by theatre artists have begun to create a living online archive of work by theatre creators.
Maps with visual representations of artists making work in Collaboration with The English Theatre at the NAC, and a “Makers Map” of anyone who has contributed to the site with links to their SpiderWebBio including social media tools.
This was the video we made to explain The Commissions this summer before they launched.
A good start but we want the site to do more.
We want it to be a home for experimentation and a theatre of online theatres. A (newly dimensioned) place (space, URLs where?) where digital performance can be conceived and performed. A site that is both necessary and novel. A home for ideas and concepts that have not, and may never, be proven.
We suspect this new space will occur somewhere at the intersection of what is live, and how performance can integrate with online tools to explore the fundamentals of live-ness the internet presents.
“what we are facing is the notion of a live performance. There is a parallel with the music industry. The way technology evolved over the last ten years totally imploded the model of the music industry. The business model was created with selling CD’s. It was about selling a format and the live performance was just a means to an end. Now with easy access of that format, they had to reinvent, trying to use the Internet to give more value to live performances. It’s true for music and social change. “
National Theatre School CEO Simon Brault, interviewed this weekend in The Charlebois Post.
survey service
This tenth edition of the #CdnCult Times is the final of our first volume (V01E10). The first edition of the second edition (V02E01) will be back after the holiday season on January 14. The Commissions (2.0) will be back that week with a new one on January 16.
As we look ahead to the upcoming second season of The SpiderWebShow we hope achieve three things:
1) Build on the successes of the first season by continuing to be a meeting place for online theatrical expression.
2) Become a venue for new and exciting experiments with performance and online integration.
3) Make an announcement that we think will have big impact on the above
Are you creating theatre that requires online integration? This post is an open call with no deadline to let us know about what you think should/could be here.
The DCH is an arm of the government in power. That was true under the Liberals and PC’s when it was used to promote “Canadian” culture abroad and in Quebec. (oh for the ¿golden age? of Separatism and Cold War.) This direct relationship is why the move to arms-length funding is historically so important. For all the work to be done on public funding systems, the arms-length nature is integral to having an arts culture that can be outside the direct influence of government ministers.1 The idea that the arts might have a role to play in democracy other than cheerleading or distraction is contained in this idea.
I disagree vehemently about the governments policy and ideology (see below) but I can’t feign surprise at DCH not supporting Rhubarb.
Policy beats politics
Rhubarb didn’t have their funding cut (a thing we can protest) – they applied,unsuccessfully, for a project grant (a thing that artists do all the time.)
A shift in policy to support “community” is hard to argue against. All across the arts we’re seeing moves for “engagement” and a focus on participation and an articulated relationship with “community.”2 It is difficult and unpopular to argue publicly for the need for governments to fund things that only benefit a relatively small group of people. That’s what back room lobbyists are for.
Quiet policy change is Harper’s preferred method of politics, because it doesn’t look like politics until it’s too late.
In addition, for decades arts lobbyists have been been making the economic impact argument, claiming culture and heritage delivered “tangible and measurable results” for a broad civic good. Those of us dissenting from this argument, or even trying to complicate it, were being ideologues and/or paranoid about the political and economic consequences.3 We were asked to sit in the back and not rock the boat.
Again, this decision, and the rest I predict we’ll hear about, comes as no surprise.
The Rhubarb Festival does not fit into the Harper Conservative world view.
When Harper says “Canadians”, queer Toronto is not who he means. Queer Toronto isn’t a community worth supporting. We are not going to vote for him, and the world we want is (or should be) radically different from the one that Harper and Co. desire.
Any blow back will only help with his base who have been convinced by decades of divisive politics that we live in a cultural zero-sum game. The only culture political danger is in Quebec and so the administrative / policy nature of the changes provides cover and little to nothing will be said publicly.
In negotiation, we’re well advised to find mutual shared interest and work towards a solution that benefits all parties.
This is not a negotiation. It is a debate, where multiple sides are appealing to a “third” party (people who vote) to declare a winner. We can be sad about this state of our politics but we shouldn’t be naive about the strategies being used by the other side.
What is to be done?
Democratic reform: Canada needs a new way of electing politicians. Here are someresources. I’m not informed enough to know what is the best way, but we need to force the boys and the batshit old school back rooms of both the NDP and the Liberals to get over themselves and start caring more about the country than power.
Regime Change: While I’m grateful for those able to stomach lobbying Conservatives, I’m not one of them and I have no faith in shared values. While none of the federal parties make me excited these days, Harper needs to go.
How? The big question.
Of course, I don’t know – but the story needs to change. The conservative movement excels at defining the story, of creating the zero-sum scenario and manipulating it to their economic and political advantage.
Arts groups arguing for more arts funding fits perfectly into their story of privilege, waste and entitlement. Artists and art lovers arguing against community programs and changes to a problematic structure fit perfectly too.
I will write to my MP and have written a letter of support about the impact Rhubarb has had on my life (HUGE!) for Buddies – but I am doubtful about the effectiveness of these strategies. They fit into the expected narratively too cleanly to disrupt it.
This post is long enough – proposals can go in the comments and I’d love to have this discussion and plan to write more on populism, art and how those things can become something worth standing behind.
There is of course a slower creep of influence and priority, and this is potentially dangerous, but is a space we can be happy about the pace of change at arts councils. ↩
Community is a word that is almost meaningless now. Much of the time, I’m on the pro-community side of conversations. I’m still working on a populism I can stand behind. There has been a harmful separation between the “real world” and “artists” that has been created by a combination of factors including Reagan/Thatcher culture wars and artists moving to the academy and self-reference for stability and community. For me, this is a situation that needs changing and that change is complex and not the same for any two artists, arts organizations and “communities.” ↩
I’ve been a little obsessed with evaluation these days – about wanting to find a meaningful, helpful and rigorous way to do it. I think a lot of things we’re doing aren’t going very well and that we should have processes to review that and get better. Right now the main evaluation model in the arts is quantitative analysis of numbers of people and money transferring hands. This is not meaningful or helpful for most arts work – or social work for that matter. Something else is needed and we have to be involved in its creation or suffer under the needs of short sighted, idealogical politicians. ↩
This is the final edition of the first volume of The #CdnCult Times. It seems appropriate that each author poses some big questions about what happens now moving forwards.
Sarah Garton Stanley and myself address the question directly by discussing what we hope SpiderWebShow will be and do moving forwards into V2. Jacob Zimmer looks forwards in his post on funding for the Rhubarb Festival and what this means moving forwards in terms of advocacy. Zoe Sweet recounts how a Suzuki workshop challenged her expectations and how that could be extrapolated to how we practice theatre in a way that pushes the medium forwards.
Here we are at the end of 2013 and our first volume looking forwards to new possibilities and new approaches to theatre. Thanks to everyone who has engaged with us so far and we hope you will continue to challenge us to keep our own standards high.
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.
There 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.
Listening 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.
This 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.
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
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.
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.
