File this under "Oh, come on"

R&J protested in Tennessee

No, I'm not talking about Colarco's adapatation with prep school boys playacting as the two lovers.

Not even talking about the Zeffirelli film with a nude scene with a 15-year-old actress.

No, rather The Star is reporting that a Toronto school-touring production of Romeo and Juliet was almost cancelled due to a group of parents who disapproved of the show's sexuality.

From the article:

... a woman who identified herself as Val, a home-school teacher from Hermitage, "struggled being here with my son. The sexuality was too much. Our children need to be more pure."

And, I guess, "several other teachers echoed her opinion."

Now, I haven't seen the production but I'm reasonably assured that all the actors keep their clothes on.

So, does that mean these folks are objecting to the script? That was written in 1595 (give or take)?

If so, kudos to the ensemble for an obviously vivid and faithful interpretation of the Bard's text.

To those teachers and parents of those oh-so-pure children... You do know that this is what your kids are listening to, don't you:

Congrats Michael Healey

The Drawer Boy 4th most produced play in the US during the Naughties

Top ten lists are always in vogue around the new year, especially at the dawn of a new decade (or century, or millennium, or what have you).

You can usually find Top 10 productions of the year for theatre as well but, due to the nature of the beast, they're so localized, that these lists don't "mean" as much as some others.

However, over at Nestruck on Theatre there is a report that Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy was the fourth most produced play in the U.S. during the last decade.

Local boy does good!

Of course, I can't help but grit my teeth a little to report that somehow this list should mean more to me than others.

It is an unfortunate symptom of Canada's national character that we judge our successes based on how well we do south of the border.

That being said, Mr. Healey's work is among a list of some really seminal pieces, and the fact that his play has been produced 36 times in a country not of his origin is, to put it mildly, impressive.

Congratulations are indeed in order. Well done!

Everything old is new again?

Shades of December 2008 - Harper prorogues Parliament again!

Conventional wisdom today is that PM Harper has prorogued Parliament for the second time since the 2008 Federal election because he's worried that the committee investigating the Afghan detainee/torture issue is costing the Conservatives too much political capital. That the issue will disappear once the afterglow of the Vancouver Olympics erases it from our collective consciousness like a MiB Neuralyzer.

However, Dimitri Soudas, the PMO's press secretary, doesn't think so. It's "old news" he noted in a conference call to reporters, according to the G&M's John Ibbitson. And, I tend to believe him.

Not with Soudas' statement, but rather that this is an accurate reflection of the government's attitude towards the detainee issue: they don't think they'll lose an election over it, and, as uncomfortable as the issue has become, it will eventually go away.

Besides, defence has never been this government's preference for action. They like aggressiveness. They like to squash the enemy.

They like to consolidate power.

The second piece of conventional wisdom circulating among the pundits is that prorogation is doubly advantageous to the Conservatives because it allows Harper to further stack Senate vacancies with partisan loyalists, effectively giving him a governing minority in the Upper House. This seems to be a little bit more in character...

But then, Harper didn't need to lock up the HoC and kill 37 pieces of legislation just to fill Senate vacancies. He could fill them while the House sits. Yes, prorogation effectively resets the make-up of Senate committees: without it, the Liberals could keep a majority in each committee until each one had finished its business, regardless of the overall make up of the Senate. But, again, going through with prorogation just to obtain a "governing minority" in a legislative wing of government that the Conservatives are (supposedly) ideologically opposed seems like overkill for much too little in return. Even for this government.

Last year at this time (more or less a couple of weeks), Harper was forced to prorogue Parliament to save his government's skin. As you may recall, the government had just won another minority in a Federal election that broke the government's own law regarding fixed election dates, on a platform of economic stability and no deficits. It's first act of business: to introduce a fiercely partisan economic update that virtually ignored the world-wide economic crisis in favour of financially crippling the opposition parties. The opposition parties reacted, and Harper found himself in a long discussion with the Governor General over the merits of using an obscure parliamentary procedure to avoid losing the confidence of the House.

Fast forward to now, after the largest deficit in Canadian history (by far), a couple of lily-livered attempts by the Opposition to knock the Conservatives out of power, and a relatively stable year of polling showing that Canadians are not comfortable with anything more than a minority of blue on the government's side of the aisle, and Mr. Harper decides to give the GG a ring. "One more time," he asks, "after all, everything worked out for the best last time round, eh?"

This is a strategic move, yes, but I believe it's only the first step and not the endgame.

See, if the government learned anything from its last year in power, it understands that it does indeed have a lot of power. None more than when the House isn't sitting. Mr. Harper is never so popular than when he's not defending his government and its policies (or lack thereof) in the House. Rather, he looks better when he's on trade missions, or announcing money for projects via stimulus funds, or even (strangely enough) singing.

Through prorogation, the government effectively buys 2 months of time in which they can set the publicity agenda through vehicles like "Canada's Economic Action Plan" in which taxpayer's money is used to promote the government, while the opposition parties must use their own money to get any airtime. And if (and when) they do, this conveniently allows for the PMO to send out one if its infamous "Alerte-Info-Alert" emails to Tory MPs and supporters which outlines talking points to defend/dismiss any criticism. And, of course, to fundraise for more money into the Conservative's election war chest.

Ibbitson, in the article linked to above, refers to a statement made by an anonymous government official, who notes:

"... the government wanted to give itself time and breathing room to think through how to manage the economy as it emerges from recession and to put in place a long-term strategy for balancing the budget."

I believe him/her.

But only because I've seen this before. In essence, s/he is saying:

"The government has learned its lesson from last year: the 2008 economic update was much too hasty a policy-cum-political document to be (at all) effective. We had just barely recovered from fighting an election campaign and we didn't realize how seriously the economic crisis was going to affect Canada. We were rash; we didn't think things through.

This time will be different.

This time we can design a budget that much more discretely aligns our political motives with one more year of stimulus spending, while beginning to cut programs under a facade of fiscal responsibility. This time we can create a document that much more effectively traps the opposition parties into either supporting us or being woefully embarrassed. This time, if they don't support us, it will be they who loses the public support, they who cause a $300 million election, and ultimately they who provide us with the means to finally win a majority government. And they won't have that pesky coalition option to fall back on.

This time, we can take the time to get it right."

Whoa. Cynical much?

Maybe. But yet I keep seeing in the media that the government intends to continue spending stimulus funds through 2011, and yet introduce a leaner budget in 2010. That the government has no intention of increasing taxes but rather intends to freeze or cut spending in order to get the deficit under control.

Something has got to give.

I have great friends

All of a sudden my email was filled with Facebook notifications

I import this blog to my Facebook profile automatically. Generally, if I do an interesting post, I'll get more comments on FB than on my blog. But, in most cases, there's not too much activity on either format.

That is, until Wednesday's post was imported to my profile.

Below are some of the responses to that post. I feel like I need to share them with the wider blogosphere because 1) they reminded me that I'm not alone with these feelings, and 2) other artists feeling the same shit can benefit from my friends' wisdom.

I just wanted to thank you all for reading and responding, and how much it meant to me.

Cheers!

might need a good vacation somewhere new and something that will inspire - India maybe... become a yogi..:)

Dig a new well my friend.

Can I just say I relate? You're right, getting stuck in the past is not a good place to be. But recognizing how where you are is different than where you want to be is a good thing.

In my experience it all comes and goes in waves. Much like life. No sense stressing when the tide is going out, just trust that it will come in again.

I totally relate too... But one thing I've found helpful is to not give myself the option of waiting for creative inspiration (which frankly, for me, rarely comes) and to treat my passions like a job. I try to write something. Every day. Whether I want to or not.

check out http://www.dailyom.com/ You can subscribe and get a "daily om" emailed to you each day. They're freaky with their timing, things I'm feeling or thinking about (or stressing about) seem to be the next day's topic.

I can relate too... What I found familiar - besides being discontented with joe-jobs, that's what I always call them too! :) - was how I compare the present self/situation with past triumphs/failures - for me, it is not very helpful as it results in alot of "I should's", and takes me away from what is happening in the present.

There is a serious tendency in this profession to forget that we are humans first and performers second. It is impossible to give anything to your art or your job if you haven't anything left in you to give. ...It's hard to be a professional story teller if you don't take some time to generate a few stories of your own. Live your life. See other peoples' work from time to time to remind your self what you enjoy about theatre and what you'd like to change. But live your life. How else are you going learn what it is you have to say?

This one takes the cake:

I think you need one of these.

In defence of Canadian Heathcare

Interesting math concerning our socialist... I mean, 'single-payer' system...

Please forgive this post, for I make a lot of big assumptions and generalizations below.

If you're like me, you might feel somewhat divided about President Obama's efforts to reform the American Healthcare system. Yes... you want him to succeed, you believe that he's doing the right thing... for Americans. But at the same time, what he's really advocating is a two-tiered system, something that I'm profoundly against, here in Canada.

But I think that a person can be both pro-AmericanHealthCareReform and pro-CanadianUniversalHealthCare at the same time, because their system is so much shittier than ours.

Forget the GDP arguement. It's often repeated that Americans spend a higher percentage of their country's GDP on healthcare than any other industrialized nation. But that doesn't really mean anything to anyone. The real questions are how much do I spend on healthcare, am I getting value for my money, and are others getting better value for less?

It's suprisingly complicated to try to get answers for any of these questions. Trying to figure out how much an average Canadian spends on healthcare is difficult because spending is based on taxation, and taxation in Canada is progressive (meaning that your income tax percentages differ based on how much you make -- American taxation is also progressive BTW.) We also have sales taxes and corporate taxes, which means that there are pools of money going towards healthcare that aren't coming directly from your wages (some may argue this point, though). Finally, because healthcare is administered provincially rather than federally, there's no real national percentage of how much of a Canadian taxpayer's dollar is invested into health.

As such, if you're not a professional statistician and you're only armed with Google and some basic math skills, any answers you'll find will be way over-simplified. I'm not a professional statistician, and my math skills are a little suspect, but apparently I had some time on my hands, so I did a little digging.

Wikipedia has nice little compartive chart in its Taxation in Canada page that lists average Income Tax rates in different countries. The below info is from that chart --

In 2005, a Canadian who was:
Single with no children, paid 31.6%
Married with 2 children, paid 21.5%

In 2005, an American who was:
Single with no children, paid 29.1%
Married with 2 children, paid 11.9% (wow, no wonder they have deficit problems)

Now, this doesn't mean much unless you know how much income you're paying tax on. According to Statistics Canada, the average household income in Canada in 2006 was $53,634. Meanwhile, the median US household income in 2005 was approximately $46,000, at least according to WikiAnswers.

Okay... some of these sources are legit, and some are less so. I reference two different years when comparing annual household incomes. There's no accounting for the difference in currencies. But, for brevity's sake, let's call it even.

Using the above numbers, simple math tells me that --

In 2005, a Canadian who was:
Single with no children, paid about $16,948 in personal income taxes
Married with 2 children, paid about $11,531 in personal income taxes

Now... how much of that went towards healthcare? Because I live in Ontario, I'm going to use this jurisdiction as a base. In 2009, Ontario is projected to spend 43 cents of every tax dollar on healthcare. In 2008, it was 46 cents.

If we round this to about 45% of the provincial budget, and we pretend that sales/corporate/miscellaneous taxes don't exist, we can see that this equals about:
$7,627 for single persons, spent on healthcare annually
$5,189 for families with 2 kids, spent on healthcare annually

How does this compare to America?

Well, I found this tidbit on About.com:

The federal government tracks average spending on health insurance for people with job-based coverage. The most recent figures are from 2005, and indicate that the average individual's job-based premiums were $3,991 that year, while families spent an average of $10,728.

Something's off here... the American tax system seems to be geared towards giving families a break on taxes. But, compared to my numbers above, American families pay way more on health care coverage than do Canadians.

Futhermore, as far as I'm concerned, if you're paying job-based premiums, that's really no different from a payroll tax. It's a benefit, sure, but if that money wasn't going towards health insurance, then it would be going into that employee's wallet. Thus, I think it's only fair to add this to the Americans' average income taxes... how much was that again?

According to our numbers, in 2005, an American who was:
Single with no children, paid about $13,386 in personal income taxes, for a total of $17,377 with healthcare costs added in.
Married with 2 children, paid about $5,474 in personal income taxes, for a total of $16,202 with healthcare costs added in.

And these people are considered lucky because they have insurance through their employers.

However, these numbers (inaccurate as they are) are even more damning when you consider:
-How much I inflated the Canadian costs by not including sales or corporate tax revenue in my equations... I just assumed that healthcare is paid for entirely by Income Tax, and that's not the case at all.
-That the Canadian's tax dollars cover everyone, not just those who can afford premiums, and even those who fall upon hard times and are in most need of healthcare will still be covered.
-That the Canadian system cannot disqualify a taxpayer for "pre-existing conditions" or any other kind of nonsense.
-That all of the revenue generated for healthcare goes towards healthcare, rather than lining the pockets of insurance company execs or stockholders.

Our system is not perfect. But it's a helluva lot better than theirs.

I know this is supposed to be an arts blog. But, what more can I say when this post on Parabasis sums up this issue so much better than I ever will.

Even though we've seen this before... WTF!!!

So blatant, so appalling, so... typical

I haven't really been inspired with righteous political anger on this blog since parliament was prorogued last winter. Time to fire it up again.

Montreal's Divers/Cité festival was denied a $155,000 grant from the federal government's Marquee Tourism Events Program (MTEP), part of the economic stimulus plan.

Divers/Cité features international performers that are homosexual. This year, the festival is scheduled to run July 26 - August 2. Festival organizers found out about losing out on the stimulus money on Tuesday. Yeah... this Tuesday.

This, after festival organizers were assured by federal civil servants at Industry Canada that the Divers/Cité application had met all the MTEP criteria, and was only waiting for final approval from Industry Minister Tony Clement's office.

Clement, who just recently took over the reigns of this program from Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy, claims that issues of "regional fairness" were the reason why the festival lost out. Since approximately $42M has already been awarded to festivals based in Quebec, he felt he needed to spread the money around.

Couple of things:

1) MTEP is a $100 Million program. The 150K that Divers/Cité requested was just a drop in the bucket. Even if nearly half of the kitty had already been spent in Quebec (about the same amount that has been allocated in Ontario, BTW), would funding Divers/Cité really have made all that much of a difference? But, like I've written before, insignificant amounts of money seem to make no difference to this government when comes to matters of ideology.

2) Clement took over the MTEP file in a flurry of controversy when it was suggested by a Conservative backbencher that the PMO wanted to punish Ablonczy for allocating $400K to Toronto's Pride Week. Conservative MPs vehemently denied it. Even Suzanne Girard, director of Divers/Cité, sprung to the defense of the PMO, saying that right wing elements of the Conservative Party were trying to undermine the government. She said, “It could do exactly what the right wing does, which is block the whole thing and it stops.” Then, Clement confirms everyone's worst fears by yanking funding 4 days before the festival is set to begin.

3) Regional allocation for funding is nowhere to be found in the eligibility criteria for the MTEP. Criteria outlines that only events or festivals that can prove that they attract large numbers of tourists could apply for funding. By the government's own regulations, most of that funding would be streamlined to Ontario and Quebec... which shouldn't be an issue since the demise of these provinces' manufacturing sectors are at the core of the recession, they need the most help.

To me, Clement's claims for trying to check stimulus funds earmarked for Quebec under the guise of "regional fairness" reads like CPC code for "we're just trying to avoid another sponsorship scandal." Which is a sad cover for a blatant appeasement of the Conservative base. Not only does it financially slewfoot an openly homosexual festival, it also addresses other key CPC base points: less public funds for the arts and less money for Quebec.

But really, $150K is nothing. It's really hardly anything to the government's stimulus budget. The stimulus program for infrastructure alone is $12 Billion. GM's Canadian division got a $10.5 Billion bailout.

To me, this is just another sad attempt to appease those in the CPC who have been alienated by the government's... well, governance. But pulling $150K away from one gay festival, when a much larger, more prolific gay festival in Toronto got nearly triple that amount just a few weeks before... seems to me a pretty weak gesture.

That... and a totally disgusting and shameful way to conduct business.

Making Money on the Web

Indie artists, new-media journalism and DPI

Yes, the Internet is changing everything.

Following up on last week's post, my buddy Adrian emailed me to discuss some of the ideas in the post in more depth. He writes:

I think things are also in transition, and the piece speaks to that in a way - the 'answers' have not yet come out... the problems and opportunities in the democratization of the arts via the web. It's kind of exciting to be working at such a turning point; it's tough, but exciting to see the conversations happening, people inventing and creating ... like that indie singer/songwriter who managed to make 19k in 11 hours using Twitter, and basically just being creative. But she ended up making the money on merchandise - shirts mostly. Not selling her music. This seems to be the bottom line - the art is a promotional tool - you have to sell something which is not in endless supply (ie: an mp3). But, these can still be creative products which are an extension of your art.

Is this new arts business model? Selling items that are associated with your art while giving your art away for free? Then, magically, Trent Reznor weighed in on the same topic, in entirely different conversation elsewhere in the blogosphere:

The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process...

What's interesting to me is how everyone is trying to rethink traditional models of monetizing their practice in the age of the Internet... and I'm not just talking about the culture sector.

Case in point: journalism. Rebecca over at The Art of the Business points out an insightful article about the future of arts journalism today by András Szántó. He notes:

Amid the doom and gloom about arts journalism [...] innovations offer a glimmer of hope. There is no going back to the cultural and advertising dominance that newspapers once enjoyed. We should be mindful that the emerging landscape offers asymmetrical odds for art criticism (which can survive by the labour of individual writers) and arts reporting (which requires institutional firepower and protections). Writers will struggle to reclaim the access and influence they achieved with the backing of prestigious journalism brands. Even so, the faint outlines of a new system are starting to emerge.

This is a great article about the future of one sector of journalism. Everyone knows that this industry is under tremendous pressure, and a "new model" needs to be created. Although, nobody is quite sure what that model needs to be. There are various theories -- Jeff Jarvis recently wrote a book about basing all new economic models on Google's business model. In short: focus on networks rather than traditional distribution models and shift to an economy of abundance rather than one of scarcity.

An economy of abundance assumes that you can charge the least amount for a product or service by making it available to a nearly unlimited source of buyers (or users) via the World Wide Web. Very interesting theory. But... what if the access to the Web itself becomes limited?

This brings me to Deep Packet Inspection or DPI, an Internet issue garnering so much attention that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has dedicated an entire website to it.

What is it? Essentially it's technology that allows Internet Service Providers' (ISPs), or anyone else I suppose, to examine web transmissions to figure out what kind of content is being sent. Today the Big 3 Canadian ISPs (Bell, Rogers & Telus) are defending their positions to the CRTC to use DPI technology. From what I understand, they want to disuade peer-to-peer file sharing. Their arguement is that it allows a small share of users to eat up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth.

Now, privacy issues aside, why would this affect artists', or anybody else's, attempts to monetize their practice on the Web? Well, DPI technology basically allows ISPs to "throttle" users at their own discretion. In other words, if your ISP believes you are using too much Internet, they can and will slow down your connection. And, apparently they can do this even if you bought a package marketed as "unlimited" or if you are using a small indie ISP, like TekSavvy or Execulink. If you want to know more about why and other politics surrounding this issue, check out this cool, informative post on Technology, Thoughts and Trinkets.

And, if you were planning on producing a play that, say, required you to upload a large amount of data to the Web in order for a variety of users to stream the production live... well, you'd be concerned about ISPs limiting users' access to the Internet too.

On the other hand, there are ways around everything, it seems. For you hackers out there, this is a link you might find interesting...

Answering my own question

Before I move on from politics...

This will be my last political-based post for a little while as I'm going to start to focus more on artistic process and theory now that I finally got my first grant since moving to Ontario in mid-2007. (Yay!)

But before I do, I thought I'd answer my own question about arts funding in Budget '09.

Did we get what we wanted?

Well, no... but I don't really think it has much to do with how much money was earmarked for culture, nor do I think it has much to do with how the money was distributed (although this is a side effect of what's really ailing us).

What I think we really wanted was a government that recognizes the value of arts and culture in Canada. We still don't have it and, as long as the Harper Conservatives retain power, I don't think we will.

With the 2009 Budget, the sudden appointment of 18 senators immediately preceding it, and the establishment of a firm end-date for the Afghanistan mission during last year's election, the Conservative government basically stopped being... conservative. Or, at least it abandoned the lion's share of policies that it used to stand for.

(Don't take my word for it though. Here's a pundit that knows more about it than I do. Here's another. And another.)

But I don't think this represents a seismic shift in where the party's long-term goals are. Rather, I think that it's a natural consequence of a government whose immediate focus is survival at all costs: compromise.

But that doesn't mean Mr. Harper, his party, or his base now values culture any more than it did when they used arts funding as a wedge issue in the 2008 Federal election. In fact, I've written earlier that the new arts funding in Budget '09 is less a policy than a temper tantrum.

What bugs me, and I think most artists, is that Mr. Harper painted us as leeches in order to win a few votes, and the budget does nothing to salvage our reputation. And we can see that he still thinks we're leeches because no new money is going to arm's length organizations (i.e. Canada Council) that fund us.

What we wanted, what we still want, is a little respect. We want recognition that we do provide an important service to our country, that we are a boon both in raw financial numbers as well as in quality of life.

We want a partnership with our government that is both respectful and responsible. (We don't want to waste taxpayer's dollars anymore than the taxpayers want us to.)

We recognize that not all of our art is going to be brilliant... in fact very little of it will be. In fact, a large portion of it will be shit. That's a fact of life. Art is like science: you must fail, fail, and fail again before you finally discover another secret of the universe.

I think each new secret is worth it. I just wish more people agreed with me.

Budget Hangover

Why has the furor over arts funding fizzled?

It's been about a week since Budget ’09, and all is quiet on the Culture front. At least… it’s been quiet online.

There’s a smattering of righteous anger about the $25M set aside for Luminato’s Canada Prizes for the Arts and Creativity over at Praxis. But, mind you, at the time of this writing, only 9 comments have been posted. And The Art of the Business’s round-up of the budget’s art funding hasn’t generated a lot of discussion either.

In fact, comments have been down across the board. In the G&M’s story about arts funding, only 49 people have voiced their opinions. Which could be construed as a good number, but it’s nothing compared to the hundreds of comments the G&M was generating when the Liberal/NDP coalition was a near reality.

Blogs that I expected to hear from – Department of Culture, One Big Umbrella, The Wrecking Ball – have been mum on the Budget. And yes, I realize that I’m a big ol’ Mr. Pot pointing fingers at a bunch of Mr. Kettles: the first time this blog actually started to get some attention was when I was all about political activism.

So, what gives? What happened to our united front? Why are have we retreated into the dark corner like a pimply tween that snuck into a high school dance?

Did we get what we wanted after all?

---

Update: Oops, didn't mean to leave you out Starving Artist. Nice read and responses.

Canadian BeeGee

Courtesy the G&M:

Bob Martin, the Canadian actor-writer who won a Tony Award for co-creating The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway, has been hired by the Las Vegas billionaire Steve Wynn to write the treatment for a stage musical biography of the Bee Gees.

To project or not to project

More random thoughts on multimedia theatre…

Starting with, “What the hell does multimedia theatre mean anyway???”

It’s one of those lovely bits of language that gets used all the time but nobody really has a handle on its actual definition… just more of a sense of the kind of reaction it’ll produce. Like “physical theatre” or “new media.” Or, “group think.”

Let’s do a quick Google search, shall we? According to Whatis.com, when multimedia is used in live situations it can be “the use of a speaker or actors and ‘props’ together with sound, images, and motion video.” Or, if you check out Scala.com, “The term multimedia describes a number of diverse technologies that allow visual and audio media to be combined in new ways for the purpose of communicating.”

A slide show? A film strip? With (gasp!) sound design??? … yah ok. But nowadays, more likely than not, we’re talking computers. The last few shows I’ve been involved in, a good portion of the production was run off of a Mac laptop. Most young indie producers and designers I’ve recently met own a Mac laptop. Which means more and more shows will continue to incorporate multimedia elements, whether they are designed to fall under the umbrella of “multimedia theatre” or not.

Accessibility is wonderful. But just because my sound design is collection of mp3 tracks played during blackouts, I’m not going to label my show a multimedia production. In fact, few artists would describe a piece as multimedia… even if they’ve included digital projections or other elements... because there is a negative perception that persists.

Why?

Maybe we should look at artists who would rather describe their productions as multimedia than not (… and I’m going to grossly over-generalize here, so please bear with me). I’m going to wager that any theatre artist that labels his/her work as “a multimedia production” has either made a huge error in marketing the piece, or is generally much more concerned with form rather than content. Or, (if I’m more charitable) said artist is more willing to experiment with form… but still at the expense of its substance.

This is a problematic approach. I mean, yes, there is a market for experimentation. But it’s a small one. If you’re okay with that, then go hard. But don’t expect the general public to swarm to your show. An audience’s greatest fear in checking out new works of art is to be made to feel stupid. Experimental theatre usually makes a lot of smart people feel stupid.

I believe in experimentation in theatre. However, I don’t believe in experimentation for the sake of experimentation… unless you’re in school or (maybe) if you’re workshopping a piece. The difference lies in approach. Are you asking, “How can I incorporate multimedia into this work?” You should rather be asking, “What do I need to tell this story?”

A cynic would answer, “You don’t need anything except an audience.” Which I suppose is true, in a kind of fundamentalist point of view. But the key to the question lies within the artist who’s asking, “What do I need?” Because any story will speak to each artist differently, and each artist’s approach to communicating an impression to an audience will be just as unique. S/he is only limited by what tools are available for use.

… Am I then saying that some artists are more predisposed than others to incorporate multimedia elements into their productions? Of course I am. Just as some dancers are more predisposed towards contact improv rather than ballet. And some directors are more predisposed to Shakespeare rather than collective creation. And so on.

As much as my career thus far has generally played out on the sunnier side of experimental theatre, I may be more conservative in my approach than one might guess. While performing in Edmonton, I labeled myself as an actor specializing in physical theatre and collective creation. This didn’t necessarily mean I was always looking for a way to incorporate those elements into my work. It was more of a call to likeminded souls who saw the world in similar ways. It meant that the questions were larger than "How do we incorporate physicality into the work?"; rather, the questions revolved around “What do we want to talk about/ what do we want to create?” Content was key. Form -- experimental/ physical/ collective/ whatever -- was intrinsic.

Now, again, our mistake was less about approach (in my humble opinion) but rather in marketing. (… And, to some extent, execution, but that’s another issue altogether…). We advertised under those labels: ‘collective creation,’ ‘physical theatre’ and even ‘experimental’. And, somehow we were shocked when throngs of people weren’t lining up to buy tickets. Go figure.

Anyway, enough about me: I was talking about incorporating multimedia into theatre, and ended up somewhere along the lines of audience stigma and perception. And marketing. Why on earth does every blog entry always end up about getting bums in seats???

My point is this: multimedia will be used in theatre more frequently because it’s easy to use and increasingly accessible. Does it signify a grand shift in theatrical style? Maybe. Will it lead to larger audiences coming to check out theatre? Probably not – but, as with anything else, it depends on the specific production.

… Is it necessary?

It depends. Start here instead: Who are you?

Et tu, Ignatieff?

It’s the fashion these days for directors to set a new production of Shakespeare in an alternate historical timeline. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is a little tired of these productions, especially as each new interpretation seems to be more and more of a stretch. So please don’t read the rest of this post as a ringing endorsement of the style (…er, fad).

However, for argument’s sake… and because my little art blog seems to be all wrapped up in politics right now, anyway… if you were to apply Shakespeare’s political tragedy to our own Canadian one, who would you cast in the titular role: Stephen Harper or Stephane Dion?

The answer, of course, depends on your point of view – pro-coalition or not. I imagine if you are a Conservative supporter, then your pick would be Harper. The idea of the greatest leader of the Roman Empire assassinated by his own government via multiple stab wounds to the back is probably more than fitting to your view of Canada’s current political crisis. This would probably also serve to keep your blood boiling hot.

However, considering the Conservative party’s current stance on culture, I’m tempted to assume that an ardent Harper supporter has neither read nor seen Julius Caesar. As such, s/he wouldn’t know how minor a role Caesar actually has in the play. (I do: I’ve played him.)

Stephane Dion is a more apt choice – especially if you replace the Roman Empire with the Liberal Party of Canada. (Considering how many years the Liberals have governed the country since confederation, this is actually not that much of a stretch.)

The real question then becomes how to cast the true main characters in the piece: Brutus and Marc Antony? Does Michael Ignatieff become Brutus – the man who ended up leading the assassination plot (albeit reluctantly) for the good of the Empire, and takes power? And does Bob Rae become Antony – the well spoken orator who rallies against Brutus, and ends up defeating him by setting up a triumvirate government with Octavius and Lepidus (read coalition government with Layton and Duceppe).

Hm. This is kinda fun. I can see why directors can be lured to this approach… However, my focus is not in producing Shakespeare, so I won’t be looking to produce this any time soon. Feel free to use, if you like.

I’d buy a ticket.

Prorogation official

Harper gets his wish.

On the National Post's live blog of the event, this comment basically sums it up:

12:02 Kenny Yum: In the House, Speaker has adjourned the sitting. Some cheers, some jeeers. CPAC goes blank.

Executive Power

In one of my previous blog post, It's in the Governor General's hands now..., I wrote that the GG has to act in the best interests of Canadians.

Whoops! Scratch that, I'm totally wrong.

The GG is not (supposed to be) a political office, just an exectutive one, and a highly symbolic one at that. She's supposed to act on the advice of the Prime Minister, except in only very very very VERY rare circumstances.

However, now that Harper will ask the GG to prorogue Parliament (as early as this afternoon), he has basically brought politics to the office, where none should exist. He is asking her to make a political decision -- either prorogue Parliament, which favours the Conservative agenda, or let the vote of confidence proceed, which favours the Coalition.

Under the guise of democracy, he's basically giving the British Crown a legitimate hand in governing our nation again.

This is a lose-lose situation for the GG. She cannot help but take sides in this mess.

She has a third option: to prorogue Parliament but restrict the powers of government to the most mundane daily operations. By doing this, she still follows the advice the of the first minister, who still hasn't officially lost the confidence of the House, but refuses Harper's governence until he actually earns that confidence. She also manages to keep the powers of her own office -- an unelected position -- at minimum.

While this would probably be a wiser move on the GG's part to retain some semblance of sanity within our constitutional monarchy governance system, it will also be the absolute WORST decision for the country because it handcuffs the government from taking any action on the economic crisis until the House resumes.

So, while politics are not supposed to be a part of her decision, nor are the interests of the nation (beyond those that apply to constitutional law) supposed to be part of her decision... how can they not be? She's only human.

I don't envy her decision at all. But I will be watching...

---

Nice little Q&A over at the G&M about the GG and constitutional procedure.

Here's an interesting and intriguing tidbit:

David Mordecai from Toronto Canada writes: Given the editorial in The Globe and Mail yesterday, I was wondering if the Governor-General can suggest to the Prime Minister that he step down in favour of a different leader of the Conservative Party?

Bob Beal: Hi David: You asked a question that I have not seen raised in the miles of copy on this story, and it is a good question.

The answer is most definitely yes. The Governor-General has a right, and a duty, to advise her prime ministers. I don't know how often it happens today in Canada, but something the public is not aware of is that prime ministers usually meet often with governor-generals, or in Britain, prime ministers with the Queen. This, of course, used to happen much more frequently. Queen Victoria was regarded as a bit meddlesome, and she played favorites between prime ministers.

But as the great British constitutionalist Walter Bagehot wrote: "The sovereign has ... three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."

Diabolical

Harper's cuts to the arts earlier this year showed more than a callous attitude towards Canadian culture... it revealed how he intends to govern, period.

What's happening on Parliament Hill right now is almost unheard of. And it hinges on a relatively small cut that will have a huge impact on a target group that is politically unfriendly to Harper's Conservatives.

Sound familiar?

Like the cuts to culture funding only a few months ago, the Conservatives' plan to eliminate public subsidies to political parties does nothing to solve the current economic crisis. It does, however, solidify their core support (presumably to distract from upcoming and unavoidable deficit spending the government will be forced to engage in) and it will also nearly destroy the opposition's ability to compete in the next federal election (which will probably be coming up in a matter of months, or even weeks, based on these moves.)

Like the culture cuts, the $30 million the government will save is barely a drop in the bucket compared to the $3 - $10 billion that economic forecasters are saying next year's deficit may amount to. However, just as the culture cuts disproportionately damaged the long-term viability of the exports component of our industry, cutting subsidies to political parties will also disproportionately hurt the opposition parties' finances and viability to construct a future election campaign (at least in the short term... when it will matter most).

During the election, I wrote that the culture funding cuts could be used as a political tool for progressive voters to describe a pattern of ideological governance by the Conservatives. However, I thought that Harper's capacity to do so would be contained by the context of a minority government and a worldwide economic crisis. Who knew that his ambitions would be so naked or bold.

As the Globe's Jefferey Simpson wrote

Thursday's economic statement was an economic lame duck and a political boner. It revealed, among other things, the kind of Conservative Party that all but its core supporters suspected would eventually be outed: a group of ideologues, led by a Prime Minister who discarded his campaign sweater to reveal an economist with a tin heart and a politician who looks everywhere for political advantage.

Instead of trying to grow Conservative support, he appealed only to his party's core. Instead of acting in a statesmanlike fashion at a time of crisis, he opted to play politics, proposing to cancel public subsidies for parties, a move that would disproportionately benefit his.

The Conservatives have altered the parliamentary schedule so that a vote of non-confidence won't happen until at least December 8. The G&M is reporting that the Conservatives are going to embark on a massive public relations blitz to build public opinion against a possible Liberal-NDP coalition government, relying on (ick) Bloc support.

As much as I am skeptical that this coalition would work for any extended amount of time, at this point I'm positive that anything would be better than this current bunch of goons that running the show.

What can we do about it?

Remember that the optics on this one are not so good for the progressive parties, and that's why the Conservatives tried to pull this fast one in the first place. Their plan is too shout as loud as they can to anyone that will listen that:
1) The opposition is trying to force an election because they are not willing to give up taxpayer-funded subsidies; and
2) The Conservatives won the election fair-and-square, and the opposition was not given a mandate to govern.

Please, shout back:
1) In a minority government situation, it was the Government's responsibility to maintain the confidence of the House, and the Conservatives failed miserably only six weeks after the election;
2) The Conservatives tried to use the most serious financial climate in seven decades in which thousands of Canadians have lost their livelihoods for their own political gain;
3) It's actually the Conservatives that want another $300 million dollar election, the opposition is actually taking extraordinary steps to avoid one by setting up a coalition government; and
3) The Conservatives were not given a mandate to govern either -- they lost 62% of the popular vote.

Remember: if this wasn't a blatantly political move, then why didn't the Conservatives also impose election advertising spending limits along with cuts to funding? Or alleviate individual donation caps?

The Department of Culture also has more tips about how to get involved and avoid being railroaded by this weekend's upcoming publicity blitz.

Seriously. What a friggin mess.

AWWWWW.... crap.

Ballet BC lays off entire company.

We're All Fools

Harper might win a majority by cutting arts funding... and we artists are helping him do it.

Don't ask me how I feel about Harper's cuts and his outrageous comments. I'm as hurt and and angry as the rest of you, but there are more important issues here than my feelings. Or yours.

As a political maneuver, this was brilliant. (er... diabolical?)

Harper had to deal with a couple of small problems: he was being attacked by all the party leaders on a number of issues and he needed to consolidate his base support while, at the same time, attract swing voters at the centre of the political spectrum.

Regionally, he was working long before the writ was dropped with massive pre-election spending in order to warm up the electorate. Conservatism at its most basic level (I thought) is against taxpayer's money being spent like this, especially on frivolities like a UFO sighting commemoration.

As the economy gets worse and worse during this campaign, he looks like he's doing his due duty in managing the economy by cutting "frivolous" arts funding. He tells artists that we have to "stick to a budget."

Now these cuts were made a while ago, but they didn't receive a lot of press. But we as artists must challenge them. Because we're constantly under attack. And the arts need to be defended. And so Quebec artists, bless them, use the Gemeaux awards to shame Harper and the ideology behind these cuts. But unfortunately, outside of Quebec, this plays right into Harper's hands.

He calls us "fat cats" and says we live in an "ivory tower." He says that the furor over these cuts won't resonate with "ordinary Canadians," i.e. regular folk that work hard for their money, not like them bum artists living on the taxpayer's dime, the worst kind of corporate welfare. (Ick.)

All of a sudden the arts (for the first time that I can remember) have become a major election story. Let me tell you why, in my opinion, this is not a good thing for artists.

What has been accomplished here? Let's take a look:
1) Harper has consolidated his core support. Even those who may have felt alienated by his concession on Afghanistan, can rally around on Harper on this issue. These cuts are ideological in nature and appeal to many of the same voters who support life sentences for children.
2) Harper hasn't lost any support from the centre spectrum voters; in fact, he may have gained some traction. Think about it: we're an electorate that is having trouble understanding the Green Shift. Trying to explain how cuts to programs that send artists overseas are a bad thing... is damn hard. Unfortunately, Harper's comments about artists being "whiners" is ringing true (at least in English Canada).
3) The left still remains split. While artists have succeeded making a lot of noise about the value of art, we've only been denouncing Harper and we haven't thrown our combined weight behind a different candidate that will champion the arts. And we, just like the rest of Canada, remain divided into camps of ideological or strategic voters.
4) The other major parties have jumped on the band wagon. As passionate as I am about the arts, the pragmatist in me knows that it won't win an election. So while this is a major election story, it's not an election issue. But all the other party leaders think they smell blood in the water, and at this point, are desperate for any conservative weakness that might have some traction. This is not it.

The two major election questions are the economy and Harper. He has made the election about these issues, and the more the other leaders are sidetracked away from them, the more this plays in his favour. Especially if they continue to be unified in their pro-arts, anti-Harper response... if there's no distinction, then there's no mending of the left-of-centre split.

Now I realize that Harper needs Quebec to form a majority, and yes, cutting Quebec arts funding IS actually a major election issue... in Quebec. But in BC and especially in Ontario, it's the economy stupid.

So what do we do about it?

1) Keep making noise... but be strategic. This election is about Harper. He's coming to us in a fuzzy sweater and trying to woo the centre by claiming he makes common sense decisions for the good of Canada. But THIS decision is steeped in ideology. Same as his crime bill. This is a pattern: what journalists like to call a narrative. (He's also being mean about it - another narrative). This is the narrative that we must promote: if he follows far-right ideology on the arts and crime, then what does this mean for health care? Education? WHAT WOULD HARPER DO WITH A MAJORITY??? (You get the idea.)
2) We have to back one of the other parties. Any one. But we have to consolidate our vote. This is a tremendous opportunity: the other leaders are listening. What can/will they do to consolidate our vote?

E-mail this post to every artist you know. There's still time...

~talbot