Details on the Montreal show:
Friday June 1 @6pm
Saturday June 2 @4pm
Agora de la danse – Laboratoire
12$ regular / 10$ students
Full info and tickets here

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I’m excited to “let slip” that we’ve been invited to do Perhaps in a Hundred Years at OFFTA in Montreal. Which is amazing news. It’s a great opportunity for us to perform the show we love for friends in Montreal and with the many many presenters and artists in town for the FTA.

But first we need to raise some money to cover our costs. OFFTA provides an incredible context, but we need to find the resources ourselves, so we’ve started a indiegogo campaign to raise $3,000 in 14 days.

Click below to be a part of getting us on the road.

This is the question I keep asking myself these days.
I’d like to separate it a bit from the closing of the Vancouver Playhouse, though obviously that is what has it on my mind. I don’t know enough about the situation or the scene to comment about the specifics, but there is something general that I think needs to be talked about.

The “ecology” metaphor gets a fair amount of play in the arts. The idea being that a scene is a complex, interdependent network of big and small, a diverse community that relies on each other in potentially unexpected ways in order to thrive. It’s a metaphor I’ve used and genuinely generally am ok with. I do believe in the value of healthy bigs and successful commercial theatre along with the nimble, emergent and experimental and most of everything in between (it is a bloated middle that I worry most about.)

So, if we take, for the moment at least, the ecology metaphor a step further,
the problem is that we, as an arts community, seem to want endless growth. Current structures to be maintained while new ones are continually born and grow. Which isn’t how I understand ecologies to work.
To be blunt, things have to die in order for other, new, things to grow.

So, is there ever a time when it’s ok for a theatre company to close?
Is it that it should only be by clear choice, rather then to avoid the creditors? This seems historically unlikely. For economic reasons, companies refuse to die. The need to maintain the operating support from government alone means that there is a rotation of Artistic Directors, a turning of larger and larger ships, with more and more influence from the Boards and mandates, structures and models developed in the 70′s and 80′s.

(Da Da Kamera is the only company I can remember closing shop. [Read Daniel McIvor's remarkable account here] It’s rare and full of potential and hope along with sadness.)

With “austerity” and a growing radical conservatism meaning arts funding or private support isn’t going to keep pace with the ever growing number of applications and companies, the ecology is going to fail if there isn’t significant change.

I will admit that an early thought in hearing about the Playhouse closing was “Oh, at least there will be new money at the councils next year.”
It feels horrible to think these things, like a philistine betrayal of my peers.

But,
We rail against greedy investors and CEO’s who keep the lid on the 99% for endless growth, but we replicate it. We rail against politicians who want to hold up the status quo of economic relations, but we fight to maintain our own.

I sincerely hope the best parts of the Playhouse can live on. I hope that there are plans for the costumes and props and physical resources to be distributed into the community of companies, that the patrons and audience and supporters will continue to go to the theatre in a city that is doing amazing things. That the staff take their expertise and commitment and help others to grow to fill the gaps, and to create new, unexpected solutions.

The social and political world we live in is different from a metaphoric or even real ecology. There are ideologies and choices being made: agendas and missed chances. I recognize that.

But I also want to ask, is it ok for a theatre company to close?

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Another possibility worth discussing: mergers

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Updates:
A good post by Ian Leung challenging the use of the ecology metaphor.

In thinking about the Polar Bear extinction issue (if we ruin the planet, that’s not part of the ecology) is important. Though any one theatre is not a species.

This appeared in my inbox today (Via You’ve Cott Mail)

“Among the consequences of our fetishism of professional status, it strikes me that we have relegated ourselves to being a sector with huge numbers of unsuccessful and underemployed professional artists rather than a sector with huge numbers of successful, part-time or occasional, pro-am ones.”

(Via State of the Artist » Blog Archive » Diane Ragsdale: The professional lens: Are we a sector of underemployed ‘professional’ artists or successful ‘pro-ams’?.)

I think Ragsdale’s take is accurate in Canada as well the US – though there are some important differences.

The funding structures in Canada also push us towards identifying as either professional or amateur as do the professional associations (unsurprisingly.) The bureaucratic processes and long timelines mean that the momentum and passion that drive doing something “for the love of it” can fade or be crushed.

But it’s not the economic or career ramifications of the separation that are most interesting and available for change – I think the art form will get better and I think more people will be interested in that better art, if there is fluidity between the “pro” and the “am.”

As I’ve said before, theatre might be better to do than it is to watch, and it’s certainly better to watch if one also does. To prevent this equation from spiralling only towards esoteric practices, it is crucial that there are people running back and forth between the research and the community. Not to approach social work (though this also is good and interests) but to approach a theatre that deals with the world outside of itself and to develop larger communities who both do and watch contemporary work.

I’m leading a workshop / rehearsal process for people who have little or no experience with acting and little or no desire to become professional actors. We will be working on Brecht’s Saint Joan of the Stockyards over ten weeks: doing monologues, small scenes and big scenes. Working on speaking, some physical work and some improvisation. We will show something at the end.

We have a great small group starting on March 17th, but a couple of participants had to drop out, so we’re looking for 2 people interested on short notice.

Because this is the first time I’m doing this, the course is very cheap – just $250 for 10 weeks.

I know lots of my friends are theatre people, but maybe (just maybe) you know someone who isn’t and might be interested in this.

Anyone can email me at
jacob@smallwoodenshoe.org if they want to ask any questions, get a full outline or register.

Thanks
Jacob

Elements of Theatre Performance

A Small Wooden Shoe Workshop Series

Dates and Time
10 weeks

(Orientation Weekend)
Sat, March 17, 10am – 1:30pm
Sun, March 18, 1pm – 6pm

(Weekly Workshops)
Sundays, 1pm – 5pm
March 25
April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29,
May 6, 13, 20

Elements of Theatre Performance will engage participants in the process of developing a theatre show, including performing in front of an audience.  

The learning objectives of the workshop series include:
Confidence and ease with public performance
Text analysis and argument building
Staging and spatial awareness
Public speaking
Knowledge related to theatre and performance
- Brecht with Small Wooden Shoe’s spin specifically

Things to consider:
Comfortable clothes and shoes are important
Breaks will be provided, but food won’t be
This is meant to be fun as well as educational

Funny, Catchy and Not Too Challenging, or “At some point, you’re just an elitist f*ck.”: “…Which got me thinking about snobbery […] I’ve got to say that, for me, those middlebrow shows form a disturbingly large portion of my early memorable theatrical experiences—42nd Street, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables. If I had to say what sparked the interest in theatre in me, I’d be hard pressed to come up with an answer that wasn’t a megamusical.”

(Via .)New Beans – Clayton Lord on new art and new audiences

On a direct level I can relate (for me Phantom and Les Miz.) – and I’ve being thinking about my current interest in returning to musicals and scale, and how I can reconcile that with the focus and skills I’ve developed doing intimate and research performance. I’m less concerned with the “always everyone” option that Lord mentions, and more interested in the possibilities of back and forth.

Intimate and research art are needed for the field and the world and need government and institutional support (since they have less box office and less access to donors) and populist work (that challenge rather than enforce oppressive, status quo beliefs) is also needed and need support in order to not become financially elitist.

AND – artists, producers and institutions should be able to move back and forth. The middle path can lead to awkward nowhereness but the back an forth is what appeals to me.

What are the changes that are needed for this to be more possible?

“The problem is not, fundamentally, to get people to slow down, or to move without being toxic to their environment. The problem is to make people aware that anonymity is as toxic to the ecology of heart as hydrocarbons are toxic to the atmosphere. The problem is how to restore intimacy, curiosity, trust, and play into the happenstance encounter of citizens, in an era when the happenstance and the unpredictable are a threat.” Pier Giorgio DiCicco [also]

On stage, we are not anonymous performers or artists – we use our names. This is different than the non-anonymity of celebrity because we not celebrities – that’s obvious. We are people making some very poor financial choices in order to stand in front of others and say our names in small rooms.

Which is better.

I am grateful for the people who wrote and called their councillors, those who spoke to council and kept media attention going, to those who made their voices heard. And I am grateful to the staff and councillors who are working so hard to make the city work despite Fords’ best efforts.

But I’m not sending thank you notes to the Executive or to Palacio just yet. First, I am suspicious of the strategy of announcing more cuts than intended in order to “save the day” at the last minute. This strategy usually means a whole bunch of cuts slip through with little notice and an opposition with no wind in their sales. It’s going to take a lot more than one day of being marginally less terrible for the city to have me sending notes of thanks Ford&Co.

The pressure needs to continue, and the real work of changing a city and changing the conditions that made Ford resonate to voters needs to happen. I have little faith in politicians changing their minds. I still, despite all the possible cynicisms, believe that in ourselves and our fellow residents is where change can occur. Let’s work on that.

One election day away.

Dear Councillor Palacio,

I am writing to ask you to reconsider your position as a supporter of Mayor Ford.

I moved into the riding in May 2011, buying a first home with my partner on Carrick Street. I love the neighbourhood. I love the economic, ethnic and resident diversity. I’m close to the Silverthorne Library, the hydo-line parkette and I have good access to to the West Toronto Railpath, which is amazing for my year round cycling. The Keele busses and the St. Clair street car make getting to the subway easy (I would love a few less stops, but that is a minor complaint.)

I am looking forward to interacting with the the community centre and park more in the coming year- passing by the full pool in the summer and the rink in the winter is a real delight that makes me happy and proud to live in Toronto and our neighbourhood.

One frustration is the empty storefronts along St. Clair by my house. Between Caledonia and Old Weston, there are almost as many “for rent” signs as there are business. I understand that the neighbourhood is changing and that there will be pains as things shift. But right now the only thing that seems likely to stick is Jonah Schein’s constituency office.

I run an small but, potentially, growing theatre and events company. I want us to be a “local” company in many ways. Our shared office is on Dundas West and Keele and I am mindful of supporting local businesses. My ambition includes a real engagement with local schools and community centres, along with a rehearsal, teaching and performance space in the neighbourhood. As I pass by these empty storefronts, I think about these dreams, and the dreams of other young social and artistic entrepreneurs I know. I think about how we all dream of space, and I think about how we all face scarcity. We have ideas, skills and drive to make the city better, to contribute to our community and the lives of those who make it up – but the current administration is attacking the structures and feeling of possibility that make all that possible.

The relentless focus on cutting and destroying the social fabric and infrastructure is disheartening and makes our work and lives harder. The jargon of “tax-payer” over “citizen” or “human” crushes our higher potential and reduces everything to a base and petty level. A level that we should all be trying to live above. The feeling of absurdity and hopelessness for a better city that comes from hearing about a council willing to turn down free and necessary public health nurses; that spends more to have less safe cycling; that attacks the programs that house and care for our most at-risk while promoting red herrings like monorails and a war on public servants is crippling.

To reframe a revenue problem as a problem of expenses is small politics that aims at dividing and deconstructing our society for the betterment of the few. It should come as no surprise that these ideas come from an independently rich Mayor who inherited his wealth and influence. They are ideas that make starting new things very hard, ideas that keep things going the way they are currently going – environmental and social decline that increase that gaps between the rich and the rest of us.

While I’m well aware that lobbying for one’s own particular field is limited, but I wanted to give a concrete example for you:

Right now I am preparing to submit an application for annual operating funds to the Toronto Arts Council. It won’t be for much money, maybe $10,000 a year, not event a tenth of our yearly expenses, but it will make a huge difference in the stability of the company and reduce the amount of time we spend writing project grants – time we could use developing connections and programs to benefit the community and people of the city. It will also mean we could afford more space – perhaps one of those store fronts. With that kind of space, we could offer classes and performances that would benefit the area through participation and engagement as well as bringing new people into the neighbourhood who will support local businesses and activate the streets in a way that inspires new, grassroots businesses and services.
But I am applying with the knowledge that we will not receive that funding. With the proposed cuts and/or freezes, there is simply no room for new companies to receive operating funds. My best chance of getting the stability those funds provide would be to take a job with a more established company – none of which are in this neighbourhood, so I will have to leave the storefronts empty, I will have to continue to support the development of other communities. I also have the fear that without transit, increased cycling infrastructure or neighbourhood community strength, any business that I start in the neighbourhood would fail.

Civic services aren’t the cure-all but they provide an important part of making our city a better place to live, and I ask you, as a resident, voter and as a person who wants a better city, neighbourhood and life for everyone, to stop dismantling the city we love. Reinstate the vehicle registration fee and Transit City look for better relationships with the other levels of governments and revenue sources. I am sure there are places to save and decrease bureaucratic bloat, but please stop participating in the destruction the morale and capacity of our, potentially, great city.

We will all remember your efforts,
Sincerely,
Jacob Zimmer
Artistic Director, Small Wooden Shoe

Another thing that I particularly like about the Pomegranate Center is that they clearly see community improvement as their mission. Their work then flows from that belief. I would argue that any 501(c)(3) organization has that view as a responsibility (and a privilege). How is the work of the arts altered or adjusted if that mindset is adopted?

via Engaging Matters | Pomegranate Center.

I’ve been thinking more and more about this responsibility and privilege.

3penny Christmas Concert. Photo: Omer Yukseker

Small Wooden Shoe is in the process of becoming a charitable organization. A step that most arts organizations take in Canada. It allows us to write tax receipts for individual donors, apply to foundations and to request larger, on-going, grants from government funding bodies. It means that we are responsible to the Canadian Revenue Agency for how we spend our money.

The nagging feeling that I have though, is that we’re not (as a sector/community/”industry”) living up to actually being charitable: working for the good of the community.

This is a messy and potentially controversial subject, but I simply don’t think that my self-expression is a charitable act. Nor is the self-expression of the other professionalized, privileged artists I mostly work with.

Something else is needed.
I want to take seriously a mission of reducing alienation through engagement, rigour and “a good night out.” I want to take seriously the charitable goal of reducing “need.” And I want to work in the frame of theatre. I could, and do, volunteer with other charities and NGO’s (what would change if if arts groups thought of themselves as NGO’s?) But it is theatre that I know best and somewhere, despite much evidence, I believe that the process and event of theatre can make people’s live more better. The important word here though is “can” – I don’t think it inherently does. I think we have to work at it, make choices and probably change some thing about the work and the modes of production and distribution.

I’m thinking a lot about teaching and community work right now – about how Small Wooden Shoe can do those things both within the context of contemporary arts practice and in the community.

This certainly ties into the question of Populism that I’ve been hacking away at, as well as events like the 3penny Christmas Concert, Upper Toronto and Galileo.

We’re starting up a program that mixes teaching and community productions for people who have no interest in becoming professional.

This is, like Populism, something that I want more movement around. It’s not an either/or. I want to be able to do the kind of work discussed on Engaging Matters and I want to work with highly talented and skill artists on projects like Antigone Dead People and I want all of that to be responsible to our charitable status.

Anne Bogart:

“As a theater director and a child of postmodernism, during most of my career I avoided the charge of storytelling.  I was more interested in subverting stories, turning them on their head, reversing them, twisting and turning them inside out rather than serving them up in a conventional way.  The destructive impulse led my approach to stories.  To me, stories could be renewed only through their deconstruction.

And yet, something new is brewing in my approach to making new work.  The storytelling that comes naturally to me in daily life is entering into my thinking about theater.  I know that telling stories in life is a powerful tool to communicate ideas and lessons drawn from experience, but until now I have avoided fully embracing the subject in my work as a director.”

(Via December 2011 – Wright the Story | Anne’s Blog – Blog | SEE | siti.groupsite.com.)

I’m doing a new version of the Populism talk tomorrow (Tuesday December 13) at Dancemakers at 6:30. While tipped a bit towards dance, there is something that relates to the storytelling question in there too.

more soon, but thought the link was worth a read.

Invited by Dancemakers to share a bill with Nova Bhattacharya, I switched from dramaturge to choreographer. Very exciting (and a little terrifying.)

On Friday December 9th, please join us for a special night supporting not only this new work for Dancemakers, but also the continued work of Nova and I with our own companies.

See the show and then join us for a reception in the lounge with the artists of Dancemakers, Small Wooden Shoe  and Ipsita Nova Dance Projects (Nova’s company.)

There will be good music on the stereo, some snacks and wine generously provided by Casa Lapostolle and a chance to celebrate.

Tickets are $40 (there’s a small service charge as well) and half goes to support Small Wooden Shoe and the work we do.  We’ve got a lot going on* and your contribution would mean the world. And help pay some people for their amazing work.

Buy your ticket [here]

(If you can’t come that night, you can donate directly to Small Wooden Shoe [here]
And the show runs to December 18 so please come another night!)

Here’s a video from rehearsals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNGLTgsUUCo&feature=youtu.be

and some thoughts from Jacob about the show:
“There’s only so much I can say about the seventies or the late sixties, even though they shaped me. I was very young or not born at all. But the images and music are the ones I grew up with. The images of a certain kind of rebellion, the sound of a certain kind of voice, the images and sounds of a journey from innocence to cynicism to… whatever comes after all of that has played out.

I decided to take up some of those images and sounds with Story Dance Radio at Dancemakers. A chance to work in a different art form seemed like it might be the right time. To work with an amazing company who have a capacity for image making in a form so tied in common perception to music. To tell a simple story of starting out, of passion, of being spent, of asking “what now?”

*(For example)
- We just completed a workshop on Evan Webber’s *Antigone*
- watch a video about the project [here]
- *Upper Toronto* is picking up steam.
- read about in the Varsity [here]
- sign up for Upper Toronto specific emails here.
- The *3penny Chistmas Choir* returns December 29th at Buddies.
- Leora Morris received an LMDA Dramaturgy driven grant] to work on “Small Wooden Shoe Reads Difficult Plays and Sings Simple Songs”
- There’s a Nuit Blanche 2012 project in the works.
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