Small Wooden Shoe blog

Tim Etchell’s blog at the Guardian continues to be very good:

It’s watching this small fraction of inspired improvisations (maybe 3% would be more accurate) that reminds me how lucky I am to work with performers who can do this – this very strange combination of tuning and turning, doing and waiting, acting and not acting, pretending, playing, inventing, insisting, listening and taking chances. It might be an odd thing for a sometime writer like me to say, but watching this kind of rehearsal, when the group is on a roll, and being lucky enough to nudge it into shape a bit, reconfirms so many of my doubts about the singularity of authorship that many plays demand. I really do prefer the making by doing, the group effort, its multiple directions and endless live negotiations. Even the cold of the bunker, and the ever-present threat of an eight-hour circular discussion, can’t keep me away.

EYE MAGAZINE - Christopher Hoile
DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

THE “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?” AWARD
Small Wooden Shoe’s Dedicated to the Revolutions, in which theatre artists attempted, badly, to explain scientific concepts they did not, or could not be bothered to, understand. What’s next: Hairdressers Teach Shakespeare

I would like to answer the question, “What were we thinking?”
(At least for myself, I can’t speak for the others.)
I think your question was rhetorical, but it’s always a fair one.
I also think it’s fine if you didn’t like the show – of course that’s going to happen.
But I do think that questions should be given some kind of response.

When we made Dedicated to the Revolutions, I was thinking a lot about expertise and knowledge – about broader social questions of specialization and the assumptions that go along with them.

A culture in which some people are allowed to speak of certain things and others (hairdressers, actors and the like) should just sit quietly and then applaud at the end is what I was thinking about. I was thinking that science (and art) are areas where this opinion is particularly strong – areas where non-experts fear to venture due to possible scorn and humiliation at the hands of the experts.

It’s an attitude that can lead to catastrophe as expertise removes itself from the everyday and we suddenly find ourselves with an economic crisis we can’t understand, a world we have to take on faith and hairdressers that aren’t allowed to do anything else.

I was thinking about how there might be room for something other than a particular kind of virtuosity and showing-off. And I love virtuosity and showing-off, and I think from your list that it’s the style of art you prefer too, but I wonder about other options – of proposing other strategies.

Of proposing vulnerability and even the importance of exposing our vulnerability in public. The show was loose and goofy in parts – maybe too much for your tastes – but it was intentional. The act of standing in front of people and trying to think, as opposed to recite, with pleasure, desire and not a small amount of vulnerability was a proposal for the loosening of the structures that dictate who can think about what.

Questions of expertise and virtuosity in art are long standing and always shifting, but those aren’t the most important questions – taste in theatre and the people who write about it will change and change back. It’s the social questions I return to.

Of course a 90-minute performance isn’t going to solve these problems. But maybe we can be part of a discussion; maybe we can open up the conversation even just a bit.

That’s a least part of what I was thinking.

Jacob Zimmer
Artistic Director, Small Wooden Shoe

In their 1984 documentary Being & Doing, visual artist Stuart Brisley and experimental film-maker Ken McMullen use the term of their title to describe a shared zone of folk ritual and performance art. For them, being and doing is a way to think about performance – not as pretending or fiction – but simply as the execution of tasks, somehow banal and magical, in real space and time.

via Tim Etchells on performance: The background performers who steal the show | Stage | guardian.co.uk.

First - I want to see this movie.

Second - While this thing of task has been central for my thinking about performance for a while now. Recently I have been thinking a lot about pretending and fiction. Especially about Science Fiction and Fantasy and how those genres are related to what I do.

More soon…

A long time coming but live recordings of the songs are on our myspace page

and here is a short video from Dedicated:

A huge congratulations to both Brendan Healy and Buddies in Bad Times.

The announcement of Brendans’ appointment as Artistic Director of Buddies, is I think a very important thing. It marks a generational shift while maintaining the commitment to rigorous contemporary queer (both definitions) leadership from Buddies.

Of course, I’m horribly biased - I think Brendan is terrific - thoughtful, engaged and curious. He’s a friend. I’ve worked with him before and I hope to work with him again. I’ve also worked at Buddies before and hope to work there again. So I can’t remove any of that from my excitement, nor should I. Buddies and Brendan are two of things that I love about theatre in Toronto, and to have them together is great.

Part of  change though, is the ongoing need for support from the community and the public. This, I imagine, can take many forms - buying a pass, volunteering, donating and advocating for the importance of a strong queer voice in theatre and performance in Toronto and Canada are all important. Beginnings can be hard, and as excited as I am for Brendan and Buddies, I’m sure there is a daunting learning curve and amount of work to get done.

Let’s take our excitement of today and make sure we remember and contribute to the work tomorrow.

cross-posted with Dancemakers

As we are very close to posting the notes from the Unconference, I came across this: It’s the discussion board for Devoted and Disgruntled, an on-going Open Space program done by Improbable Theatre in the UK (Phelim McDermott facilitated a very good Open Sapce a couple years back at PuSH

We are already planning next years Unconference

(not anything official, but maybe think of keeping April 24th, 2010 clear)

and
I’m also wondering about a regular event like Devoted and Disgruntled.

Is there any interest?

Misha Glouberman on the Canadian Stage. Photo by Amanda Lynne Ballard

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Unconference. It was a full and exciting day for me (and I think for others.)

Met some new people, had good conversations with people I knew but had never had a good conversation with.
The first goal was for those things to happen (and not just for me, despite Misha’s jokes.)

My hope now is that there will be some momentum, interpersonally and organizationally, to continue those conversations and transforming them into more better performance in Toronto.

We’re getting the notes compiled and already talking about next year.

Once there are notes and I get a bit of time I will post some more thoughts.

For people who came, what would be the next step and what would you like to see happen next year?

Right Here, Right Now, the the Unconference on the Future(s) of Toronto Performance, takes place this Saturday, June 20, from 10 am to 6:00 pm, at the Berkely Street Theatre.

Here’s the original post.

Here’s where you register

The event is shaping up to be an important, helpful meeting of people who care a great deal about theatre, dance and performance in Toronto, and who, having met, have the ability to really get something done.

We look forward to your contribution.
Here’s a few new details about the event.

*** Saturday , June 20 10:00 – 6:00. All-day

The Un-conference is a full-day event, on Saturday, June 20. Registered participants are expected to take part for the whole day.

We’ll be serving coffee, tea, and snacks, and registering participants starting at 9:30 am. Please show up at the Berkeley
Street Theatre no later than 10:00 so we can start on time. As well, Lunch is included in your Registration fee, which you can
pay at the door if you haven’t already (only $10).

*** Can’t make it? Need to miss part of it? Let us know.

We’ve assembled a great collection of people for this event, and we’re counting on your participation. If for any reason you can’t
make it to the event, or might need to miss part of the day, please let us know as soon as possible.

***Come prepared to participate

Right Here Right Now is a fully participatory event. The event will be facilitated in way where most of the agenda is created by
participants. You’ll spend most of your time in discussion with other people.

You don’t have to do anything to prepare. But if you like, you might want to think a bit about this: Is there a specific problem
or challenge you face, that you think other people at this conference might be able to help you with? We’re going to
structure the event so that people can really share expertise, and help each other with real, practical issues.

*** After the event

The event will go till around 6:00. The bar will be open for a while after for those who want to continue the conversation, and
people who want to have dinner together after the conference can meet at Betty’s (240 King St East), where we’ve reserved a room.

*** More information

The event is at The Canadian Stage Company – Berkeley Street Theatre – 26 Berkeley Street.

We’ll be providing lunch for all participants, around mid-day

To minimize our use of disposable cups, we encourage you to bring your own coffee mug and water bottle.

You can read the full announcement of the event here.

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday!

Sincerely,

Misha Glouberman, Jacob Zimmer, Ravi Jain and Natasha Mytnowych

On Saturday June 20, from 10am - 6 pm, I think something can start.

For few years I’ve imagined a big meeting of people involved in performance in Toronto. I imagined this meeting because I don’t really know many of you (no matter what Facebook says), and I especially don’t know what problems you have that I might be able to help with and which problems of mine you solved years ago or at least might have some words of advice for me. Or what good times we might have if we spent some time together. I want to get out of the silos that I too frequently find myself in – I imagined a meeting because I suspected I wasn’t alone in feeling this.

And I’m tired of panels and professional meetings that, while important and useful, don’t feel nearly as lively as the people attending them.

So it is with great pleasure and hope that I’m writing to invite you to the first Un-Conference on the Future(s) of Toronto Performance

This is a chance for theatre, dance and performance-based artists, administrators and supporters to set the agenda and have the conversations that matter most to you. A chance to meet, in a meaningful way, new people and actually talk with the people you might see all the time but never actually sit down with.

It is a potential space for something special to happen – to get together and meet. And meeting helps.

Space is limited so please RSVP to festival@canstage.com.

Below the fold is some more writing on the event.

Also – if you forward this post to the people you also think should be there – that would be great. There are people I don’t know, who you do, and I’d like to meet them and hear what they, and you, have to say about the future(s) of Toronto performance.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments

Read more…

In post Dedicated mode (thanks everyone who came) we’ve been writing some material, including re-jigging the way we talk about the company. I would love to hear thoughts on it:

SMALL WOODEN SHOE

sabotage , noun, French, from sabot – … 3b : deliberate subversion
sabot - French, noun - a small wooden shoe.

Artistic Director: Jacob Zimmer
Artistic Producer: Erika Hennebury

Founded in 2001 by Jacob Zimmer in Halifax, Small Wooden Shoe is a theatre company now based in Toronto.

Small Wooden Shoe engages with the world around us in a curiously critical manner while maintaining the need to perform – to step up and to entertain. By being direct, honest and genial we hope to ease or transform the possible alienation between performers and audience. We do this in an attempt to find ways to ease or transform the possible alienation of contemporary living.

We believe theatre is a useful tool to think-through, feel-out and change-up important social, historical, political and other everyday issues.

Believing that developing a sound artistic practice shouldn’t limit us to one performance style or genre, we have made political agit-prop (Delayed Knee Jerk Reactions, 2001), hard-boiled live-to-air radio (The Mysterious Death of WB, 2002), Chekhov adaptations (The Orchard, 2002), multi-media solo shows (No Secrets, 2003) and durational task based performances (Mostly Just Doing the Saturday Crossword, 2006). We have also created on-line think tanks, public meetings, teaching workshops, keynote lectures and publications, all of which we consider to be part of the same larger project that is Small Wooden Shoe.

Small Wooden Shoe performances are created in collaboration, led by Jacob Zimmer. Jacob brings the conceptual framework and starting points to the collaborators and the show is the result of the responses to his propositions and his response to those responses. This creative feedback-loop expands the work beyond the possibilities of a single maker, with all participants having a personal investment in the work, while maintaining a distinct and rigorous artistic vision that identifies the work as a Small Wooden Shoe production.

We envision a local, national and international conversation about the world and about performance. Our participation is maintained through travelling and meeting: essential ways of extending the reach of the company and our projects work while also engendering vital feedback and inspiration.

Small Wooden Shoe is a company in residence at Theatre Passe Muraille