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What’s Fair?

By
Cast of Brief Encounters 21, Photo by Kyla Bailey

In the arts, we love fairness.

We talk endlessly about what it is, and are outraged when we feel it isn’t enacted as we believe it should be. We have developed complex systems of committees, juries, and boards to ensure that fairness reigns. We recruit experts (artistic and administrative) to evaluate. We use systems based in math, weighted results, and spreadsheets and we engage impartial facilitators to oversee processes. These systems are designed with the idea that if the gate is unbiased and those who want to get through it work hard enough, our resources will be shared appropriately. These days in the arts, fairness is about what is on paper and due diligence to our systems – it is a performance of fairness.

Ever increasingly I find work in service of the arts in contention with this idea of fairness. I have spent the past handful of years listening to understand the needs of Indigenous, POC, and women-identified artists and arts leaders. I have seen and heard that where the current system fails these artists is in their sense of belonging. If we as a sector are dedicated to fairness, we must stop performing fairness and work in a model where fairness is felt. It is incredibly challenging to belong to a system that you don’t feel is fair, isn’t designed for you, and has inherent contradictions. For fairness to be felt, we need to look at leadership models that create a sense of belonging and humanize each other, creating  reciprocal relationships of accountability.

“True service is not a relationship between an expert and a problem; it is far more genuine than that. It is a relationship between people who bring the full resources of their combined humanity to the table and share them generously. Service goes beyond expertise. Service is another way of life”

– Rachel Naomi Remen, MD.

Capitalism

Capitalism teaches us if we work hard enough, we will succeed. Our successes are the result of this hard work and our success will trickle down for the benefit of others. Capitalism is founded on the belief that it is fair and that everyone has an equal chance at success if they work for it. In capitalism, success looks like growth, an increase in wealth and accolades. Fairness is about how you distribute the products of that success. This focus on growth works against belonging and community accountability as it encourages competition. Capitalism doesn’t want us to be transparent with each other about how we got what we got and what we do with it.

Charity

Organizational charity was designed by capitalists to offset their personal profits and to find ways to incentivizing charitable giving by reducing taxation. They had a philanthropic agenda and altruistic concern for the well-being of society, assuming a role as patrons. A patron is someone who supports with resources, takes one under their favour or protection, and lends their influential support to advance the interests of someone.

In charitable organizations, we largely evaluate based on statistics: number of audience, money spent directly on the art, low administrative expenses, low cost to raise a dollar,  etc. We evaluate leadership based on these numbers and invest in order  to increase these gains. Leadership based on belonging is harder to measure: it takes years to evaluate its effect and is time consuming. We don’t like to take risks with philanthropic dollars.

I am suggesting that change occurs more readily when working the system and subverting it from within. To do that work, arts leaders need more agency in the processes they create a shared sense of belonging within the system. This sense of belonging must be predicated on belonging to each other and not an evaluative patron. Our current requirement to perform paper-based fairness holds this back and sets an expectation that belonging comes from the systems that determine if we get the resources or not.

When I started out as an arts administrator, I was taught that organizations are like boxes and as their staff it was our job to caretake these boxes, under the supervision and guidance of the volunteer board of directors investedin our philanthropic agenda. I treated the many organizations was involved in  in that way – we discussed changing the colour of the boxes or how to repair corners that had been broken and put various policies or procedures into place that ensure that the next caretakers of these boxes would understand how they were built and had been adjusted or cared for over the years.

These days, I prefer to see the organization like a coat. A coat without a body is a pile of fabric on the floor. A coat needs a form to inhabit it and just like in fashion, we do not all wear coats the same way, nor do we care for our coats in the same way. Seeing organizations as coats allows us to celebrate the person in the coat and the finesse with which they wear it. Our systems teach us to not celebrate the individual.  The box metaphor is undermining those who have dedicated their lives to leadership in the arts by externalizing their work.

Seeing organizations as boxes that we care for puts the leadership of that box in the background, as a caretaker. This role of temporary caretaker is detrimental and I see it as a major reason that many of my peers have left the arts or taken positions in larger institutions. Leaders can go for years feeling invisible =in a culture that cares for the organization and not the person(s) behind it. If we instead shifted our cultural focus to the individual leaders who are making change supported by a community, these individuals would be bolstered and their ideas and actions would be reinforced, leading to longer careers with bigger changes in the communities they work within.

I have seen in my own work how powerful it can be to invest in an artist over an extended period of time. My work has focused on individualized, focused career coaching with folks who are tenacious, driven, lost, and often at wits end. My work as a coach with Scaffold in Vancouver is a way to work with artists by providing producing support, networking, information and resource sharing, life coaching, external accountability, creative community and bridging to institutions. At Generator in Toronto, we invest deeply in a few artists and devoting hours of time, training and coaching.

Three cohorts of Artist Producer Training Program gathered on a boat (August 2017)

The cost of this investment is significant, but the benefits are vast. With both programs, the individuals have stronger skills, a clearer sense of what they don’t know, and the confidence to push their careers forward. We are creating communities of competent and confident artists who understand the risks and challenges of a career in the arts and how to offset them.

This kind of work is a shift toward a model that has high expenses and low statistics. It doesn’t perform fairness as it is traditionally measured. This kind of work is about being in service to a community and being held accountable by that community. It serves a few, serves them well, selects them specifically – creating a sense of belonging by investing deeply and opening pathways to systems that have excluded historically. The model serves the individual, not the organization. In ten years, the artists that Scaffold and Generator have invested in will be leaders. They will know the systems, understand how to use them, have communities based in belonging and accountability. They will make changes we can’t imagine.

Change will come with the freedom to support and generate the communities that will alter the sector. These communities will feel like the system is fair and will hold their leaders to account when these investments aren’t working. This work is dismantling the structures we inherited.

The arts game is rigged for the settler. As a settler, I know this game. I’ve played it well. I can take what I know and help guide Indigenous, POC and women-identified artists through the system, point out the small cracks in the walls, act as a guide by translating documents and application forms and identifying beaurcracts sensitve to their cause.  To support independent artists in finding ways to make art outside the currently prescribed modes you have to know the rules to break them and you need to belong to something to have the resilience to survive.

Ideas for this article came from a variety of sources besides my experience, I want to acknowledge some of the individuals who helped me form these ideas: Cole Alvis, Claire Love Wilson, Joel Klein, Rachel Penny, Nikki Shaffeeullah, Ruthie Luff, Chiamaka G. Ugwu, Andrea Scott, Michael Wheeler, and the others whose ideas wove so deeply into mine I have forgotten where they started. Rachel Naomi’s quote is from the essay “Belonging” in the book “My Grandfather’s Blessings” by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD.

The Last Indie Theatre Artist

By
Kingston indie co Cellar Door Project rehearsing Tall Ghosts & Bad Weather (2015) in a cemetery. Photo by Angela Maxwell.

This article is written by the only working indie theatre artist in Kingston.

There used to be two of us but he spends most of his time in Toronto these days. We’ve got three professional theatre companies, resources out the wazoo, experienced mentors that are generous with their time, but for the life of me, I can’t find collaborators.

Being an indie artist is different than being a theatre student or an artist with an established career. Most indie artists are recently graduated, employed in joe jobs, and at least in my experience, the work is quick and dirty. It’s mounted wherever there is room and as a result the work is, as Kelli Fox put it in her SpiderWebShow Thought Residency, “risk-perverse”. I’m not worried about losing subscribers or offending an audience because my articulation of my practice is being strung together live as I’m creating. If I’m not working in a bar, coffee shop, or book-store, I’m working contracts in theatre administration to pay the bills.

I’ve spent the better part of my professional life on the VIA corridor. Because Kingston’s major theatre, The Grand, only sees between 3-5 theatre shows in a year, I spend most weekends on a plane, train, or automobile in order to engage with live performance in a bigger city. I’m not always seeking shows in big houses, but I’m seeking things I haven’t seen before. Although there is loads of work being done in Kingston by students and community theatre groups, it’s no surprise that if I’m trying to catch theatre that is new or nationally recognized, I have to drive at least two and a half hours to see it.

Don’t get me wrong, from all accounts Kingston is a great community to settle in as an artist. The downtown is mighty charming, housing is affordable, and audiences are eager to support things that are homegrown. For a small city there are more music and theatre festivals than we know what to do with, and as of recently, we’ve established a stop on the Fringe circuit. It’s clear we’ve got the resources and the rooms, we just need people in town to fill them.

But I think the secret might be getting out. SpiderWebShow Artistic Director and Toronto Dad Michael Wheeler is relocating to Kingston with Zoe Sweet, Fevergraph’s moving-and-shaking Artistic Director. Musical Stage is workshopping a new Fringe musical at the Thousand Island Playhouse and this year, the city will host SpiderWebShow’s festival of live digital Art in a new $72 million dollar performance facility, the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.         

The Concert Hall at Kingston’s Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. Photo from N45 Architecture.

Although these initiatives are real markers of how this community will participate more vibrantly in the #cdncult community moving forward, how are emerging and indie artists invited to engage with them in a city that is taking big steps for big ideas with big money? Arts communities in small city centres are expanding with professional theatre artists leaving Toronto, but it is vital that indie artists from the community get in on the ground. As Kingston arts workers invest in endeavours that attract nationally recognized artists, supporting indie energy will ensure locally produced work is also considered when presenters and programmers are looking to fill a million dollar facility. 

In small cities, this “indie energy” is integral to developing a vibrant arts community that is sustainable, accessible, and diverse in artist, audience, worldview, and form.

As Kingston seems to be starting from scratch in our development of an indie theatre scene, unless we continue to provide opportunities for local artists to make a go at it, our stages will be solely populated by mid-career artists touring in from out of town. In Toronto, indie companies premiere pieces in storefronts to be eventually gobbled up by mid-size professional companies like Factory or Soulpepper. This model could be a useful one to adopt in places like Kingston as well.

Chasse-Galerie, produced by Toronto’s KABIN Theatre/Storefront eventually ended up mainstage at Soulpepper. Photo by John Gundy.

Artists in similar sized cities are hopeful for a local indie arts renaissance. In Michael Kras’ Intermission article “The Rise of Hamilton (the City not the Musical)”, he credits the Hamilton Fringe for igniting an indie movement in the old Steeltown, acknowledging that, like Kingston, as established artists flee the big smoke to smaller cities in the periphery, outreach initiatives elevate local voices. Two years ago, Pam Patel wrote about Kitchener-Waterloo’s experience with redevelopment in the arts community. When she first moved to KW, the indie style of producing meant that there were “fewer restrictions on what could or couldn’t happen in a venue” and as sensibilities redeveloped, Patel worried about the artist’s role in gentrification and the loss of the “cool, hip” feel of an arts community that didn’t have any rules.

Although we are in early days, it’s clear our fledgling indie community is affecting cultural planning. After all, the Kick & Push Festival, our “alternative theatre festival” was founded because Kingston-based indie artists were interested in staging work in non-traditional spaces. However, as the festival continues to grow, there is a lack of local content. Theatre Kingston’s young Storefront Fringe Festival is taking on this challenge, providing a stage for any kind of creator to make a play and keep the box office, resulting in ad-hoc collectives with professional interests starting to pop up in town.

I know I am looking at the beginning of something. As innovators turn to the limestone city to set up shop,  I want to be a part of encouraging a local indie scene that shapes major programming and contributes to Kingston’s cultural identity. As festivals and venues start planning their seasons, I hope we can complement the nationally known with the locally grown.  

Cellar Door Project’s New & Used ft Hannah Komlodi, Audrey Sturino, and I making a play in a record store. Photo by Akhil Dua.

Biting the Hand that Feeds Us

By
Government of Canada Public Funding graphic pays it forward

As questions concerning the origin(s) of funding become more and more politicized—i.e. #divest—do we not need to start reflecting deeper on where the money we use to make so much of our theatre and performance in Canada comes from?

I’ve just finished an MFA degree in Vancouver. Now graduated, my peers and I are starting to pursue public funding through municipal, provincial, and federal arts councils to support our work. Like in most MFA programs, we spent a great deal of time discussing the ways we conceptualize the public (as an agent, as a site, as a multiplicity, etc.), but we did not once discuss within the context of our art education the relationship our art could have with the public via the interface of taxation.

So let’s talk about public funding and its relationship to artists.

Public funding in Canada is the funding collected through the taxation of the Canadian people by Canadian governmental bodies. People are taxed for their incomes, their property, and the use of their wealth. Once collected, the funding is redistributed to a variety of services, including arts agencies—municipal, provincial, federal. These agencies then redistribute the funding to artists. Thanks to our government and the public’s taxation, public funding is, and will continue to be, the means of most of our productions.

Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire (1969) caused public outrage when purchased by the National Gallery of Canada for $1.8 million.

Even though our Prime Minister has increased Canadian arts funding (the most recent budgets stating commitments of $1.9 billion in 2016 and $1.8 billion in 2017), the relationship artists have to the public through public funding, remains the same.

Our public funding seems ‘neutral’ in that we do not need to moralize our art practices in relation to the public when we receive it. Our public funding begs no special debts or treatment in the process of our art making. Public funding for artists does not restrict the usage of the funding for a specific public good; rather, public funding for artists assumes the art will, by virtue of strengthening cultural practices, benefit the public. So once a grant has been granted, the funding arrives as a cheque in the mail no different than any other work payment. Art, like much else, can happen without answering to the origins of its capital.

I am not saying this ‘neutrality’ is a bad thing. It helps many of us work and think outside of boxes and expectations. Nobody wants a top-down system in which we’re told to make certain kinds of art by a government (#socialistrealism).

Boris Eremeevich Vladimirski, Roses for Stalin, 1949. Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 141 cm.

But, with respect to the public, the ‘neutral’ mask given to the public through taxation makes the great patron of our country’s artists a highly abstracted body. In the niche of contemporary Canadian art, sometimes it feels like the public is everyone and sometimes it feels like the public is only those who care about the art—only those who buy tickets (on top of their tax deductions).

This is really important. Despite ostensibly coming from the taxes of the public as a whole, our art (like a federal highway in another province or a teacher in another city) is not something every member of the public takes advantage of—nor should be forced to. Inherent to our debts to the public is a certain exclusiveness—by region as much as personal interests. There is no the public.

So given both the ‘neutrality’ of our relationship with the public and the practical restrictions of collapsing Canadians into singular public identities (all Canadians, all Vancouverites, all Nova Scotians), can we really say that receiving public funding equals having public support?

I don’t think so.

I also don’t think an artist’s desire for public funding from government granting agencies is quite so easily reduced to “we want public funding to make our artworks because we believe (some) people will be impacted positively by them” or “we want public funding (with its neutrality) to make our artworks” or “we want public funding (because we don’t want to work joe jobs).”

These desires for public funding likely form a spectrum that we slide along more than fixed positions. Linking these positions is the fact that any desire for public funding collected through taxes is a desire for government patronage as opposed to a public patronage that does not involve the government, such as support directly from fandom, box office, and/or fundraiser-based funds.

Government patronage can, through the concept of democratic representation, still be ultimately attributed to a people who chose someone who chose someone who chose someone to make a decision for them. But as we know, governments are not their people, and so a qualitative difference remains between an artist with government patronage and one with public patronage that does not involve the government. A distinction is especially palpable between both of these categories and an artist with no patronage at all.

So if getting funding from the government doesn’t really give an artist a direct relationship to ‘the public’ who produces that funding, what does the artist get with their public funding?

“Can I Have A Grant” by Mr. Fish. Buy the t-shirt! www.clowncrack.com

One thing they get is status. The patronage of an arts council, their brand and name, forms a significant class status marker within the Canadian artmaking community. That marker means little to people outside of our own art communities and little more to public audiences attending our works. It is also not a marker many artists seem to respect at the level of how it is acquired—we all ‘adjust’ our words and numbers on grants, don’t we?—The status we receive however, along with the funding, is nevertheless something we artists can use, and do use, to construct classes within our community.

Public funding explicitly marks who has government patronage and who does not. It also marks whose patronage and status can beget more patronage and more status in the future.

On the one hand, you could argue that because so many of our experiences in Canada are funded by the public’s taxes, interrogating our relationship with public funding seems a bit disingenuous. And it is. We are very lucky in this country to be able to simply apply for money and make terrible—or great—art if we get it.

At the same time, however, we are artists, and I think that such an identity presumes that we should not do things, such as relate to money, the same way others do. This could be a gross moralizing of the artist, but I have a hunch most of us already do perceive money differently from venture capitalists (who don’t invest in our trade), and most of us tend to carry a certain ‘refuse-to-question-the-value-of-public-funding’ attitude.

There’s just more “value” to public funding than can be measured in CAD.

Thought Residency: Kelli Fox

By

Hi. It’s Kelli again, it’s February 28th and this is Thought #12. My final thought for you for February. Thanks, Sarah, for inviting me to do this, it’s been the most extraordinary and eye opening experience to have this responsibility to you all three times a week, to share my thoughts. I’m honoured to have been asked. I began this month talking about the depression I was in the midst of, so I want to end this month talking about the depression that I am now rising out of. This is what they call Season Affective Disorder, and for anybody who’s ever doubted it, that’s a thing. That’s a real thing. I and hundreds of thousands of other people who live in northern climes contend with this every single year. And every single year it takes me by surprise, and every single year I am laid indescribably low by it, and every single year through some mysterious process that I am not really in control of it begins to lift. As the light returns to the sky, and as the warmth returns to the air. And it doesn’t hurt to be busy, and to be engaged, as I am now, in projects that I am passionate about, and it really doesn’t hurt to be … to find myself now, back in Calgary. Which, for my money, as I just finally discovered at this late date last year, is one of the warmest and most beautiful theatre communities in this country, and I’m delighted to be here. And, um …. I think, it’s important that we remember, those of us who contend with this, because when you’re in the midst of it, it’s really hard, but it’s important to remember, that it will pass. The light will return, the spring will come. Hang on. And as a very dear, and very smart friend of mine once said to me …. Fresh air and forward motion, it’ll cure everything. I believe that’s true.

 

Hi there, it’s Kelli, it’s February 27, and it’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’ve just realized that I spent my whole day yesterday so buried in a Hamlet edit that I forgot all about you! The good news is, life is incredibly busy, and there are lots of projects on the go, and uh … I find myself once again apologizing. So I’m sorry, I hope your February has been fantastic, mine certainly has. Heading into my last week on Lonely Diner rehearsal, and loving the company here in Calgary, and enjoying things. Here comes the spring! Yeah! Depression lifts.

 

Hi, it’s Kelli again, it’s February 22, and this is thought # 10. And, ok, this is a little weird, little random, but here goes. I happen to have a somewhat famous sibling. And about 30 years ago there was an event involving myself, and this famous sibling, and the National Enquirer. And weirdly, randomly, the National Enquirer has been in touch with my agent, and let her know that they would like to re-visit that piece, they’d like to follow up on the lies they told 30 years ago, and they’d like to know if I would like to contribute a few thoughts. The short answer to that is no. Thank you. No. But it’s had me thinking all day about the fact that that event was the beginning for me, that planted a seed of my deep, deep distrust of celebrity culture. It’s a large part of the reason that I chose to remain in Canada, on stage, where I could just do my work and not have any of those weird distractions. But more importantly than that, there’s a thing about celebrity culture that really makes me kind of puke. I can’t stand the fact that people can’t seem to be in a room with someone who was on television, and be themselves. I can’t stand the fact that a little bit of celebrity profile seems to add extra weight, and probity, and value to every word that drops out of a persons mouth. That culture put Donald Trump in office in the United States. And I would hazard a guess that that culture played a large part in putting Justin Trudeau in office in Canada. Celebrity culture is not our friend, and we have to get over it. That’s what I ‘m thinking about today.

 

Hi, it’s Kelli Fox again, it’s February 21st, and this is thought # 9.

And today, I really can’t stop thinking about those kids in Florida. I  can’t stop thinking about their bravery, and their unbelievable strength, in the face of political apathy, and obstruction, and obstinacy from the adults around them. I’m so, so impressed with them. And today I learned something about them that I didn’t know before which is that they mostly know each other through the theatre group at their school. Those kids are artists. And it kind of kills me …. but it affirms something that, of course, we all know. The theatre, the arts, teach empathy. They’re vital in our schools. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

 

Hi, it’s Kelli again, it’s February 18th and this is thought #8.

And thought # 8 is about this amazing little thing I got to witness this afternoon. I’ve always heard about Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, but I’ve never been able to see anything there, and I saw a play this afternoon … at Noon … an hour long. It was a play, really at bottom it was a play about coming out, it was also a little bit a play about culture clash, very much a play about family, full of heart, full of love, and depth, and hilarious. and about an hour long …. and, I swear to god, people leave their office buildings, all these towers in downtown Calgary, and they come down there, and they look for a different kind of nutrition on their lunch break. And I think that’s amazing! And I congratulate Calgary for making that happen, and I congratulate Calgarians for keeping it alive.

Hi. It’s Kelli again, it’s February 15th and this is thought #7, and what I am thinking about today, what I’m wondering about today, is whether or not there is any such thing as social progress. I found myself in rehearsal today, listening to the words coming out of Al Capone’s mouth in the play, and for all the world, all I could hear was Donald Trump. It was extraordinary. I was a teenager, and a young woman, in the late 70’s, early 80’s, and I knew for certain that I lived in a different world than my mother had. I grew up in a different world, even than my older sisters. And what all of us knew for sure was that we were never going back to that old world. The forward march of social progress was irreversible, and irresistible, and we were embracing it. And sometime around the late 90’s, turn of the century you just started to feel this pull, this drag on that forward progress, and then that drag began to feel like an actual reversal. And now we live in a world where Donald Trump is President of the United States, and it just makes me think, what have we been doing for the last hundred years? We’ve circled right back around. Is there any such thing as social progress?

 

Hi. It’s Kelli Fox, again. February 14th.

Valentines Day. I’m not going to talk about that. That’s not going to be thought # 6. Thought # 6 is about beginnings. We started rehearsal yesterday for my next project which is Lonely Diner at Vertigo Theatre in Calgary. And, oh there is something about beginnings, man. There is something about a blank slate, a clean fresh white sheet of paper, an empty room with a bunch of people, some words on a page, some tape on the floor, a few scattered props and bits of furniture around the room, and out of that we are going to begin to build a story. And that is exciting. That’s a great day. I always love this day. So that’s what I’m thinking about.

 

It’s early in the morning on February 13th, it’s Kelli Fox, and this is Thought Residency #5.  And I guess this morning it’s all about focus. I flew to Calgary on the weekend, I’m about to start rehearsal today, it’s my sister’s birthday today, and it’s all been a bit um … distracting and overwhelming, and I forgot to put this together for you. Um, because my focus is a bit chaotic and askew. I guess that’s what I’m thinking about this morning. Pulling it together.

 

Hi, it’s Kelli again, it’s February 8th today, and this is Thought #4.

Which today is all about light. The light, the light, that creeps just earlier, and just a little earlier, and just a little earlier every morning into my room, and it let’s me know that spring is just around the corner, and even though I’m on the prairie and everything is still frozen solid here, and it will be for  …  …..  weeks, it’s gonna be ok, because the light is coming. The light is coming. And it just has a way of turning everything. Praise to the Light. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

 

Hi, it’s February 7, it’s Kelli Fox again, and this is thought #3.

So, I was at the theatre yesterday morning for the first day of rehearsal for the company of US. New Canadian musical, everybody’s pumped, tons of excitement in the room. And Wes Pearce, the designer, was giving his presentation, he’s talking about how they got where they got with it, and he just happened to mention, in passing, that this project might push some boundaries for some people here. He didn’t make a big statement, but he reminded everyone that what they were about to embark on was risky, and it was like everyone’s nerve endings came alive. There was this kind of collective inhalation of kind of giddy, terrified anticipation, because, of course, it’s what we all live for. Our work might matter enough to cause a bit of a stir in town, get people talking, get them angry, or get them animated. Alternatively,  we could bore them. But we don’t know until we take the risk, and for some reason, for a lot of us, the scarier the proposition, the bigger the risk, the more irresistible the challenge. I’ve heard so many of my friends say, “I had to say yes, it scared the crap out of me.” It’s like the opposite of risk aversion. Risk perversion. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

 

It’s February 6th. It’s Kelli Fox, and this is thought #2 for my February Thought Residency. And today I’m thinking about time.

I’m thinking about time as a commodity, as the most valuable commodity we have, each of us, in life, but also, … we, as artists.

Once we’ve begged, borrowed, or stolen whatever it takes to make our art, that will speak our truth (and let’s not forget that is what it is that matters), once we’ve bought that time, we have a responsibility about how we use that time. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

 

Hi. This is Kelli Fox.

It’s February 1st and this is the beginning of my Thought Residency and here’s my first thought. Um … I’ve been thinking a lot this past couple of weeks about the healing power of our work. As I make my way through another dark Canadian winter and battle the depression that hits me every year at this time, I am grateful for the studio that I go into every night right now, and the guys that I’m working with on this project that’s teaching me things, and stretching my own practice, and healing me, inside, every time I go into the studio. And I’m grateful for that. That’s my thought today.

4 First Steps Toward an Ethical Representation of Queer Bodies Onstage

By
Clayton Pettet performing “Art School Stole My Virginity” (photo by Willow Garms)

In October of 2014, 19-year-old gay student Clayton Pettet, a virgin, announced he would perform live sex with a man as part of a performance interrogating the heteronormative and societally constructed concept of virginity. The piece, “Art School Stole My Virginity,” sold out, sparking a viral media firestorm that raged somewhere between an erupting volcano and a collapsing sun. But when the spectators arrived, the performance was not what they anticipated.

As Pettet explains, and as tweets about the event show, the vast majority of the audience had come to witness a queer body being penetrated rather than a work of performance art. The queer body in performance is often a site of fascination for heterosexual folks. This fetishism stems from a view of queer bodies and queer sex as “other” and is felt twofold by queer bodies that are also racialized. Pettet’s intentional decision to replace the act of penetration with acts such as scrubbing the words “ANAL WHORE” off his skin highlighted this voyeuristic interest in the queer body.

As Canadian theatre continues to display a progressive interest in elevating the voices of queer performers, we need to change the way queer bodies are represented onstage. We must avoid positioning the queer body as a site of consumption, particularly when mounting queer stories that highlight sexual (in)experience or changes to the body.

Here are four steps toward creating equitable and non-fetishistic representations of queer bodies and queer stories on the stage.

An image from the performance of “Art School Stole My Virginity” (photo by Willow Garms)

1. Interrogate the narratives laid out for your queer characters. When making theatre as an ally, look closely at what kinds of stories you are sharing and why.

In 2014, Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times theatre mounted Outside, a play about a young boy named Daniel who is forced to change schools because of homophobic bullying. Both onstage and in the world in which we live, homophobia often involves intense trauma, but it’s important that Outside doesn’t end in tragedy for Daniel’s character.

The sensationalism of trauma may sell tickets, but it can ultimately harm the community you are representing. Tragedy must be represented, but these narratives have become expected by heterosexual audiences, who may find it easier to understand the oppressed queer body as a site of violence than the idea of a vicarious, vibrant, living queer identity. Watching queer characters live joyfully subverts the cultural norm and shows much more compassion toward queer audiences.

2. Question how you represent queer intimacy. Questions about how someone enjoys intimacy with a partner and what sexual organ they have are completely inappropriate, but queer people frequently face these questions from cisgender and heterosexual individuals, who feel entitled to the answers. Queer sex and naked queer bodies are a site of fascination for non-queer audiences.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre performing “Outside” (still taken from teaser trailer)

Queer intimacy onstage, in film and television, is represented wildly differently from heterosexual intimacy. Queer performers are often either desexualized—which removes their sexual agency and shames queer sexual desire—or oversexualized—which caters to the interested voyeurism of the audience.

In Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, a queer-coded character named Tink takes a bullet for the male object of his affection, Strat, and dies in his arms. Despite Strat’s repeated proclamations that the two of them are soulmates, as Tink dies Strat only kisses him chastely on the forehead.

This kiss on disappointed queer audiences, and skirted an opportunity to present open queer sexuality. However, more overt representation onstage often involves queer actors performing extended intimate scenes.

Representing queer sexuality should not be taboo, but heterosexual directors must compare how heterosexual love is represented in the same story. If your queer couple only makes out while your straight couple is permitted to kiss more tenderly, interrogate why.

Aran MacRae as Tink in Bat Out Of Hell (credit specular)

3. Normalize diversity among the queer performers you hire. Ongoing misrepresentation of queer characters posits a young, white, thin, attractive, cis, male body as the only queer body. The understanding of queer bodies as “other” is reinforced when heterosexual audiences repeatedly encounter this sensationalized body onstage, rather than a more authentic array of body types, ages, and skin colours.

Fetishization involves a fascination with a particular set of features, coded with cultural ideas that we perpetuate through media and storytelling. To avoid fetishizing individuals, we must understand that these ideas have been developed by one homogenous group. All white, all thin, or all straight casts, for example, are inaccurate reflections of our world, and yet they are rampant in theatre. We must move toward a world that respects all body types and understands there is an amazing array of diverse ways to be queer. In doing so we strive for a future where all bodies are accepted, and sensationalism will no longer occur.

4. A final step toward empowering representation is to listen to queer voices: when we share our own stories, others don’t get to feel entitled to them. As Canadian Theatre moves toward inclusivity, it is not enough to produce queer narratives onstage without considering the consequences of poor representation. It is crucial that we make theatre for queer audiences, and that we make theatre that ethically, compassionately, and productively reproduces the vibrant scope of their lives. In doing so, we create space in the theatre world for undiluted representations of difference, ushering new and vibrant stories onto the stage while empowering queer theatre practitioners of the future.

Teaching Wildness

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DanceMachine by Su-Feh Lee, photo by Trung Dung Nguyen courtesy of Festival Trans-Ameriques.

The practice of dance and theatre is full of non-consensual shit, and it begins in the training.

In 2012 I started a conversation called Talking, Thinking, Dancing Body because I longed to discuss dance and performance without ignoring the world it happens in. One of the recurring themes that come up at these conversations, currently facilitated by Justine Chambers and Sadira Rodrigues, is the ongoing sense of powerlessness amongst artists: unhappiness about working conditions, the lack of consent culture in classes and rehearsal rooms, coercion as a strategy to gain compliance.

Sadira Rodrigues and Justine Chambers, facilitators for The Talking Thinking Dancing Body

Along with this comes the acknowledgement that the training of young artists is often based on coercion, bullying and shaming. That our training institutions require, demand even, compliance. In dance training, this compliance is further underlined by silencing the dancer: through aesthetics, through practice.

So if an artist has spent their entire lives learning that saying yes or being silent is the way to success and survival while training, how then do we expect them to speak up and say “no” to shitty conditions, to abuse, to sexual assault in the workplace?

The reality of being a professional dance artist or theatre-maker is that most of us move fluidly between our roles as performer, director, teacher, student, individual and institution. And at some or many points in our lives, we have all been bystanders to injustice and abuse. Following this, it doesn’t take much to realize that if something is not right in our milieu, we are all complicit in it.

As with most systemic problems, this is not because we are inherently bad creatures. We have just been socialized, trained to shut up and endure. A child says “no” and that “no” is often met with displeasure, judgement or exile (“Go to your room”). Along with this lesson is the lesson that to be free of this tyranny, we become tyrants ourselves. We tell ourselves we are nice tyrants. Benevolent leaders. But as is evident in current world news, it is too easy to be delusional.

Last year, I initiated Teaching Wildness because I wanted an alternative, and I knew I wasn’t alone. I invited teachers, and those interested in the conversation, to come together as peers to share ideas, strategies and questions around nurturing consent culture in class and studios.

How might we “teach to transgress”, as bell hooks says.

The title Teaching Wildness comes from Sadira Rodrigues’ permaculture-inspired question: how do we plant for wildness, for an ecosystem that is vibrant and resilient in its diversity?

Over half a dozen meetings last year, teachers and facilitators from various fields gathered to talk and share stories across disciplines. From dance to BDSM, from teachers teaching in academic institutions to teachers working in virtual reality. Some of the questions we grappled with each time were:

What does consent look like in class?

What is the alternative to compliance as the default value?

What does it mean to teach your students how to say “no”?

The Things I Carry by Su-Feh Lee. Photo by Thum Chia Chieh.

The conversations around these questions often pointed to not just what we might do FOR our students, but also how we might undo the habits of control and tyranny within our own bodies. Following are some of my takeaways from these meetings. In brackets, I have put the names of people from whom these ideas came, when I remember it clearly.

The opposite of compliance is not non-compliance, but agency. (Sadira Rodrigues)

One size fits one: all bodies are different and learn differently. How can a teacher acknowledge this? (Jan Derbyshire)

What does WORK look like and can we recognize and acknowledge all the ways it shows up? (Alana Gerecke)

Can we strive for BRAVE spaces, not just SAFE spaces? (Jan Derbyshire)

A simple way to encourage “no” as the beginning of a nuanced relationship between two people is: “Thank you for saying ‘no’”. (Addie Tahl)

The teacher as model: can we not model exhaustion and burnout for our students? Can we model vulnerability as strength? (Natalie Tin Yin Gan)

How can we say “no” to one another and still be WITH each other? If I say a student can say “no”, can I follow that up with real acceptance of that “no”, or will I be triggered myself into my own fears of abandonment and judgement? (me)

Rules for The Dance Machine

If we believe that dance (insert any artform you want here) is capable of taking on complex matters, then we must learn to speak about dance in relation to complex matters. We must learn to speak about our bodies in relation to complex matters, and we must learn to speak the truth of our bodies.

As a teacher of somatic approaches to voice and movement, I spend a lot of time bringing people’s attention to the sensation of gravity and to their breath: to be in the question of how our bodies are affected by the things that most people take for granted.

But our bodies are also affected by other invisible things. They are affected by our relationship to power and hegemony, to patriarchy, to white supremacy. We each carry complex histories which may contain trauma, loss, rage, grief alongside more pleasant sensations like joy and love.

As an artist who works with my body as my instrument, I feel a responsibility to understand the full range of my instrument. As a teacher and choreographer, I feel the responsibility to create a space where it is possible for the whole instrument to be present. This must include all the things that give us pleasure as well as the things that make us uncomfortable: Our yesses and our no’s. And we must learn to negotiate for the intimacy that we want, not endure an intimacy that is imposed upon us.

This seems important not just for life but also for art. Because, as the great teacher Linda Putnam says, “We are paid to lie, but in order to lie well, we must live in the truth”.

Holding a Monster

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A couple weeks ago I downloaded an app that tracks how much time I spend on my phone. Among the many ways in which I fear I am constantly failing myself and everyone around me, I worry about that a lot. I worry that I’m not present enough. I am ashamed of ever appearing like I’d rather be somewhere else. The app lets you set a maximum amount of time you’re allowed per day, otherwise it will send you guilting, sad-face-emoji notifications reminding you how much of your life you’re wasting. I deleted my social media apps – easy. It doesn’t count time spent listening to music or podcasts. It was fine.

And then the whole thing happened. My phone blew up right away – I’m in Toronto doing a residency, but I live in Vancouver and everyone on the West Coast wanted to know what the hell was going on. But days have gone by now. It’s not about information or gossip, or trying to provide some kind of context. It’s not about what’s happening here. It’s about what has already happened, in offices and rehearsal rooms past and present. It’s about what has become painfully immediate. I burn through my battery, metaphorically and literally. My stupid app continues to send me sad-face-emojis, as I send text after text, email, phone calls. Fuck off, I think. This isn’t me wasting my life. This is triage.

The concept of ‘holding space’ was first introduced to me a few years ago – I can’t remember who it was that did, nor can I figure out who to credit the concept to (another failure, but onwards, I guess?), but it I felt like a term I’d been looking for all my life. I believe, so strongly, in holding space. It feels like something that I and the people in my life do reflexively, and it feels like if I have a higher purpose or whatever, that would be it. Holding space – allowing someone a moment, a place to be fully themselves, to give them permission to be exactly where they are – it’s a renewable source of energy. I hold space for my friend, who is then able to hold space for her parent, who is able to hold space for their sister – onwards. It is an essential practice for any community, particular one under stress or in transformation. My friends, my colleagues, flood my screen with pain as fresh as the day it was created. I hold them as best I can.

I am drowning in duty, in holding space, when I finally text a friend (there’s another few minutes added to the fucking app’s timer) for help and she comes over right away. She, too, needs some space. She’s anxious, eyes darting, body moving non-stop. We unplug, go to a pool and float, move our bodies in the water, try to talk about anything else but it always circles back to: what do we do next? I always pride myself on being able to ‘take it’, to hold it all. It’s probably some jock bullshit I’ve inherited from the old boys club – being proud of how much I can take, where really I should be proud of how little I’m willing to.

Monster. I keep hearing that word, monster. It’s apt. I will not rob anyone of their language, their reaction, their emotions. But it doesn’t feel right for me. To me, ‘monster’ implicates that person as an other. I wish it were that tidy. It elevates the person, paints them as a sort of Jekyll and Hyde nightmare hiding in plain sight. 

I see it more as a plague. Monsters are made in the ugly mirror-image of holding space, the circles now poisoned – I am monstrous to you, so you become monstrous to someone else, and so on. Monsters are made by permissions, both taken without consent and freely granted by others. Knowingly or unknowing, we hold space for monstrousness. Even those of us who control such a small corner of our kingdom are drawn to recreating the conditions where monstrousness thrives, and then wonder what that dark patch growing on our bodies might be.

But no matter how it happened, we deserve justice. And some monsters are undeniable. So we react. We rush towards proclamatory sentences about “men” and “women,” forgetting, for now, that we are supposed to be in the process of destroying the exact binaries that polarize and toxify us and started this whole damn mess.

Because what if everyone is, or could be, monstrous?

I felt a profound, nameless reaction to a testimony I heard in which an actor said that they knew that by smiling and laughing along with their harassment, they would be judged in the eyes of their colleagues. Let’s be clear – the blame in this situation is on the harasser. But the idea of someone being alone, right in front of everyone – that is what makes us keep our secrets. I felt desolate, hearing that. I wanted to hold this person in my arms, look them in the eye and tell them that I’d never judge. But I don’t know. This sounds like the kind of monstrous I could have been. 

My fucking app keeps sending me sad emojis as I respond to text after text, email after email, phone calls from friends. The wound is fresh, and it’s immediate, and it’s all consuming, and there’s no break because life is work and work is life and it’s on the TV the radio the twitter the facebook the breakroom the company newsletter the text messages the phone calls the emails and I hear the words “I can’t sleep” and “it’s like it’s happening again” and “maybe the monster was me.”

Now is the time to hold each other up. Whether it’s with flat palms on shoulder blades, “I got you” or tight fist shaking scruff of the neck, “Do better. Be better.” 

I wanted to write some neat fucking listicle about how indie artists/companies can stop abuse, but I can’t be linear right now. I’m tired, distracted, all my energy is going into holding space and spitting out this bad taste in my mouth and wondering how much monstrousness I just swallowed because someone told me to, or because it was easier, or it felt necessary. I don’t know. I have seen monstrousness and had it used against me, and those moments feel fresh and terrifying. But I don’t want to feel blameless right now. I want to know that I tried my absolute best and failed, sometimes. That there is a fight that’s in my power to win.

My arms shake but I hold the space. Triage. Penance. Love.

I’m over my time limit for today. ☹

5 Ways Not to Be a Creep

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Sexual harassment is as much about sex as racism is about race.

In both cases, what we’re really talking about is power. Who has it, who doesn’t, and who feels compelled to dominate.

Layers of organizational dysfunction revealed last week within one of Canada’s most impressive theatre companies is the latest in what feels like a torrent of women (and men, but mostly women) daylighting horrible sexual misconduct by professional colleagues. The #metoo movement reveals the ubiquity of these experiences. It would seem we are swimming in contaminated water.

Why all the bad behaviour?

There must be some dopamine rush that is triggered when one elicits a response from someone, seeing them pushed off balance by something you’ve done, or frozen like a fearful animal. I can see how, if one were powerless, the rush of causing something to happen would be seductive, alluring. 

And yet it’s the people with the power who are being accused.

My theater training at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts seems anomalous because our teachers spoke openly of the “monsters” in the work. There are directors (or teachers even, gag me with a spoon), they warned us, who will abuse the vulnerability inherent in training as an actor. They will desire you, your body, your allegiance, your devotion. Beware.

When we train as artists, we are asked to be open, to feel things, to respond to others, and to show all this to a room of strangers. If your training ensemble was like mine, you might have developed a culture that was more permissive of sexual frankness. Then you might have transferred the permissiveness and safety you had with your ensemble to your work group. Then people start making jokes, haha, don’t be that way it’s just a joke. So you grew a thick skin to navigate the professional world that surrounds the artistic practice. And somehow you manage to acrobatically leap from locker room talk to naked, vulnerable soul and it’s bullshit and no one gets paid enough to deal with what it does to your psyche.

Traci Lords spitting truth in John Waters’ Cry Baby

So I buy my own drinks. I’m careful about accepting rides home, about being alone with men, talking about projects over dinner and drinks (“oh! It’s just the two of us?”). And I never ever go up to someone’s hotel room alone unless I want to fuck.

But all this advice is defensive. It puts the onus on the potential victims NOT TO BE VICTIMS. As if we can preemptively counsel away their trauma.

Abuse of Power in Black and White

So while we’re teaching the next generation of artists how to stand up to predators and where to seek help if they run into trouble, at the same time trying to inspire bravery and vulnerability in their work, how about this: let’s also teach the next generation (and this generation for that matter) how NOT to be creepy creepers.

Here’s a list:

  1. KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF. This is so elementary. I’ve been telling my kids this for years and they’ve only been around for five. NOTE: this rule applies to all body parts.
  2. PRIVATE PARTS ARE PRIVATE. You must ask for and receive permission to show your genitals to another person.
  3. CONSENT. Your yoga teacher should ask for consent before they make a physical adjustment and so should you. When you are directing scenes or working with others’ bodies try these phrases:
    “I’m going to touch your shoulder, is that ok?”
    “May I demonstrate?”
  4. DON’T TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES. Keep your observations for your morning pages or diary or process journal or whatever. Things like “you look beautiful”, “you’ve lost weight”, “my your legs/breasts/ankles/whatever are gorgeous/soft/sexy/whatever” have no place in a professional context, which is what a rehearsal room is.
  5. KEEP FEELINGS OF DESIRE OUT OF THE WORKPLACE. If you are someone’s boss or supervisor, if you are older or more experienced, you wield power. Chances are NO they don’t feel the same way you do and YES now things are awkward and NO they probably won’t say anything because (let’s say it together) YOU HAVE THE POWER. Your desire is not their problem, it’s yours. So deal with it. Yourself.
  6. BONUS: SEX JOKES ARE NOT FUNNY. People might laugh, but trust me on this. Not funny.
Closing the curtain on the creepy dude in Wedding Singer

If you are worried that this is you, it might be. I, too, have used my sexuality to pressure and manipulate as a collaborator. And while women wield sexuality differently than men, the behaviour is still manipulative and unacceptable. We can change.

If you think this is all bullshit, then it is you. It’s you, pal.

Call it political correctness, call it being overly sensitive, call it the feminization of the workplace, I don’t care. I see no problem with a world where people honour each other’s boundaries and put meticulous effort into building trust and inspiring consensus among a group of intelligent, trained, and articulate artists. Not out of fear of getting caught, but out of respect.

That work is difficult. Sexual harassment—any form of bullying and coercion—is a short cut. Sure, you might “get people to do what you want” by exerting your will and authority, but it’s still bad behaviour. And the slow-motion, overly-public implosion of Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre shows that bad behaviour is damaging to the humanity at the very core of our art-form. It’s also bad for business.

Thought Residency: Corey Payette

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This is my 14th thought. Well anyone who has ever worked on a show with me or created a show with me know that I’m terrible with endings. So I don’t have a plan for how to say goodbye only to say that it has been a real treat to spend a month putting my thoughts down and thinking of whatever and having a virtual space to share it. I’ve been on a whole journey all month, all over, and now I’m home, and I feel like I’ve shared some good thoughts and some frivolous thoughts. I just want to leave you all with love so share love everyone. Take care.

This is my… oh… I didn’t even look at what thought it was. It is my 13th thought. Wow, 13. Well my thought for today is about how we stand on the shoulders of those who comes before to accomplish everything we do in life. That someone has opened that door for us, someone has already paved the road you get to walk on and that’s really really hitting me today. In whatever way forward we go, that someone has laid the path. 13th thought, there it is.

Its January 25th and this is my twelfth thought.

So the other day I was jogging down the street, it was like a downhill part of the street, and the sidewalk isn’t well maintained, so there’s all these big grooves that pup up. Anyway, point being, my foot hit one of these grooves and I launched into the air, and fell flat on my chest and face and arms. And cut up all my hands and elbows and everything. But my first thought after I tripped and knew I was going down was “I hope no one is seeing this.” And I think that tells a lot about just.. well me. but also where our brains go when those things happen.

Its January 24th and this is my eleventh thought.

So I was thinking about how people want to jump into the skins of different cultures to have a different experience. I was watching this video of people from Germany where they have these Native American villages, where they dress up as Native Americans and live in this very stereotypical olden times. And its problematic in many ways but theres also something about it that builds empathy if it is truthful and if the people are opening up their minds and hearts to the ways of these people. And at least acknowledging the knowledge and strength that they held. I think that’s what we need right now is a bit more empathy.

 

Its January 23rd and this is my tenth thought.

So what I’ve been thinking about is that sometimes writing or music turns a corner after it has been really bad for a while. So I was writing this song for a show and for months, I kid you not, whenever I would sit down at the piano I would play the same little patterns and record it because like “Oh this is a great song I could use it in the future”. But it never got realized and by the end it was this nagging thing that was like “Oh will you just leave me alone and let me write other things”. But then two days ago I finally finished that song and it is like my brain has opened up and I can think of other creative things.

 

This is January 18th and this is my ninth thought.
I wondered how long it would take me to talk about collaboration but I’m going to start now. I think that I have become a better collaborator as I’ve collaborated with more people and they’ve taught me how to be a better collaborator. I think that when I was younger I wasn’t very good at it and I was kind of bull headed and tried to get my way on things without looking at a bigger picture. And I think I definitely still have moments today where I do that, even though I try not to. But I think that because of the people I’ve had the chance to collaborate with they’ve made it where that’s not really our way of working and we don’t have to work that way because we’re open and we listen to each other.

t’s January 17th and this is my eighth thought.

I think that I’m a bit afraid of my thought today because I think its unpopular but I’m just going to ask it as a question instead. Why would it be so bad for people to record theatre performances? What makes theatre any different than a concert, a live concert where people are filming the whole show of music and lighting and set and everything. What is different about theatre? Other than the fact that it distracts the performers, yes. But that’s just cultural, we can change, we can make that a part of our culture that we film theatre so that it can be shared. And that it can hopefully inspire more people to see it. Wait, that was supposed to be a question.

 

It’s January 16th and this is my seventh thought.

I think that I struggle with calling myself a writer or composer or anything where I’m having to create something because I don’t find the process to be all that easy. I also don’t find it to be all that enjoyable. In the process of doing it I find it to be frustrating sometimes and painful. Its later on where I start to enjoy it. It’s the fine tuning and the editing and the crafting after its at a certain point I can begin to appreciate it and enjoy some of it. But in the early stages it is like pulling teeth.

 

This is Thursday January 11th and this is my sixth thought.

I’ve been going to some modern art museums here in New York City and I’ve decided that I think I like about 20% of what I see, the rest of it I’m indifferent to. But I wonder why in theatre we hold a higher bar that like everyone needs to like it. Or there needs to be some sort of consensus and that the response is like, you know, we want people to feel connected to it in a really deep and meaningful way. But in visual art or other art mediums that’s not the case and that’s ok. So why can’t we just believe and hope that we’ll be that 20% for whatever audience who comes to see our work?

 

This is Wednesday January 10th, and this is my Fifth thought.

Today, I’m in New York City pitching at the ISPA conference. I’m pitching Children of God, its a musical that I premiered last year in Vancouver and in Ottawa. And my thought for today is how even after you’ve created a show and produced that show, and feel that you know everything about that show, that you really don’t know everything and that you can never know everything. And so, as I prepare to pitch, and get ready for this sort of weird process of art-selling. I think about how much I really know about the work and what people actually need to hear to believe in it.

 

This my fourth thought.

I think this has probably been on a lot of people’s minds lately if you are following what has been happening in Toronto with Soulpepper. But I have been thinking about how grateful I am to Hannah Miller, Patricia Fagan, Diana Bentley and Kristin Booth for their bravery in the last week in coming forward and speaking up for what they know is the truth. I think that the next generations will owe them an enormous dept for their courage and bravery. That’s my thought for today.

 

It’s January 4, 2018 and this is my third thought.

You guys, tomorrow is my birthday. My birthday is January 5, I’m turning 31… I think… yes… 31? No, yes I’ve already turned 30. I always have this problem of not actually knowing what year, and I always have to do the math to get there. No… you know, it is. I’m turning 31. (Laughs) Umm… I don’t feel 31 but I also don’t feel younger than that are older than that, sort of like I feel a bit ageless but I’m excited for the day. And I think because when your birthday is so close to the holiday season like Christmas and New Year’s, like my family has always tried to make a big deal out of my birthday. But, that’s the day. And it’s tomorrow. So… happy birthday.

 

Today is January 3, 2018 and this is my second thought. 

Immediately after sending my first thought, my next thought was how unoriginal I was. And how I was talking about creativity and yet my first thought that I was sharing had a lack of it. So I thought my second thought would be about fear and doubt. I think it’s interesting how our thoughts turn to the negative and how these sort of, vampires creep in and try to suck away the joy and love from our creativity. And so… ya, from title show, they used to say “die vampire die”, and that’s what I think about those negative thoughts… so unoriginal or not, here they are.

 

Hi, this is Corey it’s January 2, 2018 and this is my first thought.

I’m always thinking about ways to be more creative and how to carve out time for creativity even in the smallest way. I think that’s what I’m going to try to get better at, is planning for creativity and making space for it in my day. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this and it sounds like it’s successful, it sounds like it’s a better way of doing it than like thinking that the time will make itself available. But maybe when you actually write it down and like, you know, be a grown-up about it and actually make time for it that it will actually happen. And maybe it won’t! And maybe I’ll find out just like every other resolution that it didn’t turn out the way that I thought it would. I think making time for creativity kind of keeps me sane so that’s my thought for today.

All right, happy new year everyone!

Thought Residency: Adrienne Wong

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Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017 with three thoughts for the end of the year and this is number three.

YOU.

You are the person who is listening to this right now. Maybe you’re my Mom, maybe you’re my sisters, maybe you’re my friends, maybe you don’t know me from a pile of potatoes.

You are so important to me. You are the reason that I make anything, that I get anything done. Because I think of the moment that you receive it. I think of the delight! I know these last three not been very delightful, but the delight! The delight! Of… surprise, of discovery.

So, for 2018, I dedicate it to you. Everything we make. It’s for you

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017. I have three thoughts for the end of the year and it’s about darkness.

Um. Blech. I don’t like thinking about darkness. It’s enough to drive me towards my addictions: alcohol, social media, season 2 of The Crown.

So for the next year I want to embrace it. To wrap it around me like a cloak, like a badge of honour and know that while darkness doesn’t make me unique in any way, or special, um… that it does make like kind of interesting.

And I hope to teach my children that darkness is ok, and that it’s how we manage it. How we find the light.

Hi this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow December 2017. These are three thoughts for the end of the year. One. Solitude. (Laughs)

Do we seek it out, or is it thrust upon us, like greatness? And is it like the seasons, turning and changing our perceptions of it?

In a way I think solitude is like water. That it feeds the growth inside, but too much of it can flood our selves away. So, right now I’m hiding in my basement (laughs) trying to complete my thoughts for a new year and wishing for solitude, but just the right amount.

See you tomorrow.

This is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

I’m thinking– I don’t want to start them this way! (laughs) I’m thinking that I don’t want to start about what I’m thinking about. Because uh, of course I’m thinking about it! It’s a thought residency. Blah! Boring!

So I guess I’m thinking about being obvious and is being obvious always the… wrong thing to do? Is it sometimes helpful to be obvious? To just, like, put it out there so that everybody knows what it is that you’re thinking about and it’s not a surprise to anyone?

Maybe.

Maybe if we were all just a little more obvious um… things would run more smoothly. The problem is that my thoughts are not always even obvious to me. So here I was trying to think about remembering and then I think about being obvious and… that seems to be the way the brain works: are these non-linear tracks.

Good morning, this is Adrienne Wong thought resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

Let’s talk about agreement and conflict. Um… Is agreement necessary to making art–with collaborators?

I guess, ultimately, you do have to agree on what’s going to happen in the space of time that you call the performance. Or do you? Um. What does it mean if a piece has a part in it that you don’t want to have be there? Is that ok? Uh… And how does the piece hold that disagree with – among the collaborators?

I don’t– gosh I don’t really have an answer to that. That’s just a, like, living question. Um.

I think it could be pretty interesting to have discord, because conflict is drama. Right?

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong. Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

I am… forgetting things lately. Uh. Maybe it’s not so much lately, but I certainly have noticed it more. Um. So… here I have forgotten to do this thought and I’m… thinking about why I forgot. Because isn’t it said that we remember the things that are important to us. So maybe this… thinking isn’t important to me? Or maybe in the list of priorities it comes in after… making lunches, shoveling the sidewalk, getting the kids to the places that they need to do, and showing up for my collaborator on a workshop day. Maybe that’s enough to remember.

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow – December 2017.

I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to work harder, to be more efficient—to work smarter, not harder—and get better at what I do and that’s really hard because I can’t always explain to other people (nevermind myself) what it is exactly that I do. So how does one get better at something kinda unnameable.

Of course, of course, of course the answer is that I make these things, that I make these shows. But what I am really trying to do, I think, is, uh, peel away a layer, or be vulnerable, um, or kind of just present create these opportunities for people to be present with each other. And in order to get better doing that, I guess I have to get better at being present. Which seems a bit like a paradox.

Oup! I’m over time. Talk to you next week.

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017 with Thought Number 5.

Right now I’m thinking about deadlines. I’m late submitting this thought aaand it seems like I am late with pretty much everything these days: late getting to meetings, making supper, getting to bed, etcetera, etcetera…

Uhh… And yet at the same time I have to admit deadlines are pretty important to me. To help me get things done. Um. Some people talk about how they can’t write if they feel like there’s a deadline looming, whereas I’m the exact opposite: unless I have a deadline looming I can’t really seem to get anything done.

Because I need to know that someone, somewhere is going to read the thing or see it. Um. Otherwise why say it?

That’s Thought Number 5. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident December 2017. This is Thought #4.

Right now, I’m thinking about community. Uhh… And how hard it is to make stuff if you don’t…  have it! Um. (laugh)

Who are you making this thing for? Who’s gonna watch it? Who’s gonna want to see it? Who’s gonna listen? But moreover who’s going to be the one to… help you… think. Uh…

I truly believe that we are not just individual people. That our brains actually are networked through other brains and they function better when we’re connected to other people, and through this larger process of collective thinking come to moments of epiphany or inspiration or whatever you want to call them.

So… I’m thinking about how important my community is to me.

I think that’s about a minute (click) so uh… oh! I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye!

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017.

Let’s talk about gifts because after all, tis the season.

I remember, when I was a kid, my Mom teaching me how to choose a gift for another person. She taught me to think about what the person might like and then to find that thing. And so even though I don’t really like all the buying and spending and spending and buying and consuming that comes along with the holiday season, there is something to the practice of considering what might give another person joy and then giving them that.

This, too, is an art form

Ok, that’s enough. See you next week.

Hi, it’s me, Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident, December 2017 with my second thought.

It’s 8:30pm and I’m finally sitting still. After a long day. And it makes me wonder: do you take a break every day?

I don’t.

And… that makes me wonder: do I even know how to relax anymore? Do I even know what I like to do to relax? Everything I can think of… that I like to do… has to do with work: cooking, reading, watching certain shows, reading certain books.So I guess I’d have to say that the thing I like to do to relax… is nothing. That’s not so bad.

Hello this is Adrienne Wong. I am the SpiderWebShow thought resident for December 2017.

I’m in my car right now. I’ve just picked up a wood rasp from my friend. I’m borrowing it so that my father-in-common-law (who’s visiting right now) can help us with our drawers in the kitchen. Make them less sticky.

I’ve traded two cans of Coke Zero and two slices of black forest cape–cake, although I don’t expect to get those things back.

It makes me think how the barter economy is pretty swell. Uhh. Especially for things that you don’t need for very long. Things you might need for a theatre show, for example. So I wonder how that barter economy can work in our favour as theatre makers.

In kind donations are one thing but is there some kind of Bunz Trading Zone for theatre? That’s it for now. I’ll have another thought tomorrow. I hope.

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