Praxis Theatre is currently on hiatus! Please find co-founders Aislinn Rose and Michael Wheeler at The Theatre Centre and SpiderWebShow, respectively.

Date: 2012 November

November 29, 2012, by
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(l-r) Adam Wilson, Ava Jane Markus and Maev Beaty are directed by Mitchell Cushman in the SummerWorks darling turned Mirvish hit Terminus

by Michael Wheeler

I haven’t seen Terminus yet – going with my Mom next week. I don’t want that to stop me from writing about it here though, as we don’t do reviews in this space in any case.

It bears mentioning though that local indie theatre has created a genuine artistic and commercial hit, and that this comes in the form of Terminus. The production is the first show in a pretty big risk Mirvish is taking with their new indie-focused, Off-Mirvish season.

One of our most read and commented discussions this year was, Mirvish Blows Up Downtown Theatre in which I argued that A) A Mirvish interest in regularly and commercially producing the work of indie artists could be significant in an awesome way and B) the Mirvish re-development on King St had the potential to bring a net benefit to Torontonians and theatregoers if it included a smaller venue than the Princess of Wales, which will be demolished.

Since that post, The Off-Mirvish season has probably gone even better than anyone at Mirvish or their indie partner Outside The March could have imagined. It has received stunning reviews, social media buzz is at a fevered pitch and shows are selling out. Hope you don’t want to go this weekend Friday – as tickets are not available.

Anyone who has paid a casual interest in our industry knows it has been tough times as of late. Theatres are closing, deficits have been posted, boards are overstepping their mandate – questions of relevancy abound. To see a potential upswing, a positive sign that artist-driven independent work is viable and can excite not just our own community, but the city at large, is worth noting. Not only can this thing get turned around, we’re the ones who can do it.

Certainly there is value in much of the other work our community creates that is not commercially focused. God knows I wouldn’t be running this company with Aislinn and making this work if I didn’t think so, but what gives theatre its intrinsic value isn’t really what is at stake here. Theatre will always exist and address core questions of humanity as long as humans can get together somewhere. What’s at stake here is establishing a viable sustainable professionalized urban theatre industry.

If you remove the artists who work at our major non-urban festivals, that is something we don’t have in Toronto currently. Those artists that do work regularly here almost all have secondary focuses. By creating a regular link between independently produced and created work and commercial theatre, Mirvish threatens to redefine this paradigm. Not because we will work on Mirvish shows, but because it has the potential to reignite interest from audiences and other producers in what we do.

So hats off to Outside The March Artistic Director and recent Praxis blog writer Mitchell Cushman. We all really needed this to go well coming out of the gate, and you are passing off the baton with an early lead.

David Mirvish with the Terminus team

November 23, 2012, by
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This Onion Talk reveals some of the aspects we won’t be looking at in the workshop.

by Michael Wheeler,

Next week I am leading a workshop with Theatre Ontario on online tools and how they can complement and integrate with live performance. It is designed to be useful to staff at arts organizations as well as artists interested in these ideas and concepts . You know how they say spots are limited and filling up fast? This is also true in this instance.

Looking at examples from work with The Electric Company, Volcano Theatre, The Shaw Festival, The Theatre Centre, Praxis Theatre and The Wrecking Ball, this workshop investigates imaginative expression and best practices in performing arts and online integration.

Praxis Workshop @ Social Media Week 2012

Questions the workshop poses:

  • Where does your social media content come from?
  • What ‘voice’ should you use to represent your work or organization online?
  • What’s the latest with live-blogging and live-tweeting?
  • How can online tools and presence assist instead of distract from the work?

Participants will emerge with:

  • A better idea of your relationship to social media
  • A clearer idea of what approach to social media is right for you.
  • Information to inform your social media strategy.
  • Ideas for social media content and where to look for/create them.
  • A better understanding of trends and developments.
    HASHTAG: #THEATREON
    WHERE: 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 210. Toronto
    WHEN: Tuesday November 27, 6:30pm to 8:30pm
    RSVP: Theatre Ontario Registration
November 22, 2012, by
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Pam Patel, Michael Spence, Madeleine Donohue, Joel Benson & Ciara Adams in The Sacrifice Zone

Theatre Gargantua Artistic Intern and emerging artist Meara Tubman-Broeren interviews one of our favourite Toronto artists Ciara Adams about her work on The Sacrifice Zone and her long history with the company as a creator and collaborator.

MEARA: First I wanted to ask about your history with Gargantua, because you have a long history with the company, and I wondered if you wanted to speak to that experience, and how you got involved with them?

CIARA: I first started working with Theatre Gargantua in 2003. I had a friend who was one of the founding members of the company, her name’s Erica Buss, she had originated one of the parts in Raging Dreams and they were remounting the show. She told me I should audition, so I did, and ended up taking on the role she had originated. After we finished that remount the company started the e-DENTITY cycle, I was an associate artist with the company throughout that entire cycle, from the very first day until we finished the show at the Royal Alex. I stayed on for the first version of Fibber, then things got really busy with my music and bluemouth as we were creating Dance Marathon. It’s been great to be working with Theatre Gargantua again on The Sacrifice Zone.

MEARA: You work and devise theatre with other companies as well, in particular bluemouth, so I’m curious about your personal creation process and how that feeds into the Gargantua process.

CIARA: We are in the middle of a new development process with bluemouth, and it has highlighted the differences in a Theatre Gargantua process and a bluemouth process: it’s really illustrated to me that bluemouth is really not a theatre company, we’re a performance collective (if there ever was any doubt). Theatre Gargantua’s work, though highly collaborative, original and devised, lives much more in the world of theatre, and structurally speaking, it’s more traditional in so much as there’s a director, a script, and you’re working as an actor, be it a multitasking interdisciplinary actor! Whereas in bluemouth we don’t work with a director, we create collectively, sometimes I need to be more of an actor, sometimes a musician, at others a dancer, and we all act as the “outside eye”, so yes, very different worlds. It’s really interesting being involved with both companies because aesthetically speaking, they’re quite different, and as a performer and creator it’s my job to shift to the current situation and context.

MEARA: So part of the creation process for the show was sharing personal stories and experiences around the issue of justice, and one of the stories that became a big influence on this piece was your experience teaching in Fort McMurray.

CIARA: I was thinking about it last night, and one of the things I think is really great about The Sacrifice Zone is that it’s not set in any one place, it could be the coal mines in Wales, it could be Australia, Canada, nearly every country has some kind of mining or extraction industry or history of such. It was by chance that I just returned from my second trip to Fort McMurray when we did the first development of The Sacrifice Zone in June. I go there as a teacher with the Royal Conservatory of Music Schools program Learning Through the Arts. It’s a somewhat surreal place, and even though it’s the oil sands, and there are all these politics associated with it, it’s also a community like any other. These kinds of communities exist all over the world, where the local industry, and therefore economy is so closely linked to day to day life. Fort McMurray has its challenges for sure, being able to go there and bring the arts to that community feels important to me because that’s how we all tell our stories and understand who we are.

MEARA: I’m curious about how, since your formal training was in voice and acting, you ended up in the world of more physical work and collective devised work.

Ciara in motion with Michael Spence

CIARA: I did start as a music major it’s true, but by the time I got to the end of my undergrad, what interested me had shifted and I was really inspired by new forms of contemporary postmodern theatre that were emerging. So when I went over to the UK, I knew that I wanted a classically based training, but I was also really interested in devised theatre and contemporary work. I chose the Guildhall School of Music and Drama specifically because they had embraced devised theatre practice and there was lots of movement and voice training. I had studied dance growing up, done gymnastics, and been an althlete, so it just sort of followed on from there. I do love the fact that I knew exactly the kinds of companies I wanted to be working with, when I moved back to Canada, I was able to find them. There’s a great story actually, when I still lived in the UK I met an actress who was coming to Canada to work on a new show, when she described the company that she would be working with and I thought “my god that sounds amazing, that’s exactly the kind of company I want to work with if I ever move back to Canada”, flash forward a couple years, that conversation long forgotten, when I discovered she had been working with Theatre Gargantua.

MEARA: That’s amazing! Something that’s interesting about this show is that we started with quite a naturalistic text, with quite a lot of text, and the process has been a lot about finding the physical undercurrent of that text and how the text becomes physical. As a performer, how do you navigate that dual thing that’s going on, shifting between the physicality and the text?

CIARA: This process has been very interesting because it has been different from my other Theatre Gargantua experiences. I am sure if you asked Jacquie, the director, she would agree, that it has been quite different from the norm. We did a lot of table talk and reading through the script at the beginning, and Suzie Miller, the playwright, was doing an incredible amount of rewriting based on our daily rehearsals, which I think was quite useful for us as actors because it gave us a real understanding of the characters through that process. Now it’s gotten to the point where slowly we’re coordinating the physical life with the script itself. Now it’s getting to the point where we are able to marry the emotion with the physical. Sometimes that can be tricky because you’re not just having to think about how you’re feeling while acting, you’re having to think about how you’re feeling as you interact, fall to the ground, and roll while saying your lines. But I have always loved that challenge, which is why I do find it really satisfying working with Theatre Gargantua.

MEARA: Would you like to talk about what you have coming up next after this?

CIARA: I would love to talk about that! After this, I’m very excited that bluemouth is undertaking our second phase of development for our new piece which is called Stay (a) Wake: A Field Guide for Strip Poker, it’s a working title, but people seem to like it. We have a residency for our second development phase at Hub 14 in Toronto in December and bluemouth is also throwing a “Happy Hour” Fundraiser at Musideum on Thursday, December 13th from 5.30-7.30pm. Come on out and support us! Musideum is an incredible space located inside the 401 Richmond Street building at Richmond and Spadina. We will share some of our past work, and some new work too. Apart from that we have a few more presentations of DANCE MARATHON lined up for 2013, including the National Arts Centre in June as part of the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa.


Meara Tubman-Broeren & Ciara Adams on set

There are 2 public performances of Theatre Gargantua’s The Sacrifice Zone coming up this Friday and Saturday at 8pm in Factory Theatre’s Studio. The piece is Associate Produced by Praxis’ own Artistic Producer Aislinn Rose. Tickets are available here.

Ciara Adams has been co-artistic director of interdisciplinary collective bluemouth inc. since 2009; she has worked with the collective since 2003. An associate artist since 2003 Ciara has developed and performed in four of Theatre Gargantua’s cycles. Ciara is also a musician who has released two albums to date. She teaches voice from her home studio in Toronto, and she is a mentor artist educator with the Royal Conservatory of Music’s LTTA program. www.ciaraadams.ca

Meara Tubman-Broeren is an emerging creator, director, and producer of new work. As well as her Artistic Internship with Theatre Gargantua, she is currently the Administration and Documentation Intern for the Rhubarb Festival 2013. Upcoming she is producing The Seagull in Four Movements, a contemporary adaption of Chekhov’s The Seagull set and performed in a Toronto bar, as well as developing and directing a new work for the Paprika Festival’s Olde Spice program.

Theatre Gargantua’s Internship Program is designed to provide an opportunity for emerging artists to expand their skills and experience through observing and participating in Theatre Gargantua’s creation cycle. Interns participate in all rehearsals and creative meetings, while simultaneously assisting in areas of production and administration. This program allows interns to develop new skills useful in future artistic and producing endeavors.

~ All images by Michael Cooper

November 19, 2012, by
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Viceofag Launch Party

by Jordan Tannahill

Last month my boyfriend William and I signed a one year lease on an old barbershop in Kensington Market, spent three weeks in our long johns scrubbing the walls and floors of hair, painting it, installing lights, and launched a storefront performance space called Videofag. It is our home and the first one we have shared together. But it also one we want to share with Toronto’s cultural community because we believe we can offer something vital to our peers – space. From Le Chat Noir and Gertrude Stein’s rue de Fleurus salons in Paris, to Warhol’s Factory and the Chealsea Hotel in New York City, to VideoCaberet, A Space Gallery, and Rochdale College in Toronto, space for experimentation and discourse has been critical to the development and evolution of artistic peer groups and cultural movements for generations.

I believe Toronto theatre has suffered from a deficit of truly independent, radical space over the past decade. While many young theatre artists, including myself, have benefitted greatly from development programs run by established theatres we are in danger of becoming an overly institutionalized generation of artists. A generation who places value on recognition from the establishment, tentative to seek opportunities for ourselves outside the support of pillared companies and festivals, with selection committees, boards of directors, operational funding, and other structural hierarchies. The theatrical institutions of today were iconoclastic spaces carved from the cultural landscape in the 60s and 70s with a sense of urgency and purpose. As crucial as they remain in our ecology, they are now the establishment – with corresponding programming and financial obligations – and are limited in their capacity to represent the  needs and identities of the emerging zeitgeist.

Our generation cannot afford to exist perpetually in the demi-world of workshops and staged readings. Rather than striving for recognition based on a value system prescribed by the establishment, we need to stake out new territory for ourselves. Instead of standing by to inherit old institutions, or to be programmed by them, we should be actively making new space for ourselves, on our own terms and for our own needs.

There is a crisis of space in Toronto – a lack of affordable venues founded and operated by our young peers where year-round access to dialogue, experimentation, creation, and presentation is possible. A space outside the world of the four-hour tech call, the commercialized, review-centric, festival environment, or developmental programs of larger institutions who lack the ability to produce most of what is seeded within them. What is needed is an accessible, year-round space for emerging creators where ideas have the proper time and context to gestate, be torn apart, and reformed. Where the very nature of why we make performance, and what our generation wants out of performance, can be questioned and defined for ourselves. A space that costs nothing upfront to use – affording us more time in the theatre and less time at our day jobs (and mitigating the financial risk in creative risk-taking).

Videofag is @ 187 Augusta Ave in Kensington Market across from the park.

There are many inspiring models for peer-based collaboration in our own theatrical history – the founding of Theatre Passe Muraille in 1969, Factory Theatre in 1970, and the coming together of six independent companies in 1979 to create the B.A.A.N.N. Theatre Centre – and more recent examples, including Hub 14, Unit 102, Toronto Free Gallery, and companies like Native Earth Performing Arts and fu-Gen forging a home for themselves at Daniel’s Spectrum. Furthermore, many informal spaces like family rooms and kitchens have played critical roles in the evolution of Toronto theatre over the years. So there are many working models, historic and present, from which to draw inspiration – without, of course, fashioning replicas of existing institutions.

A few weeks back over coffee, Brendan Healy conveyed his support of Videofag and our hope to present risk-taking and transgressive work there – Buddies was founded on this ethos and continues to embody it to this day. I left the conversation, though, with the understanding that spaces like Videofag shouldn’t attempt to emulate even the most groundbreaking of institutions, but rather embrace their DIY nature and understand how they are specially positioned to present different kinds of work. This is not to say that we shouldn’t pursue opportunities to produce our work on established mainstages, but rather we should not wait to make work solely in these conditions. We should look at our independence as an asset – a freedom from commitments and expectations – to radically explore and innovate on our own terms. I suspect many of the exciting projects of our time will be pieces we create in the spaces and contexts of our own making.

With Videofag William and I want to bring together boundary-pushing artists, academics, curators, and shit-distrubers operating within a wide range of mediums and socio-political communities to form an atelier where new ideas can be explored and worked on over a timeframe tailored to each project. And it will succeed not because of anything William and I do but because a community of creators have already begun to invest emotionally and artistically in it, and are in the process of making it their own. Ultimately, it is the kind of space that I want to create work in. The kind of space I desire as an artist. The kind of space that inevitably will evolve to the point where it no longer fulfills the needs of the next generation and will, in time, be replaced itself.


Videofag is a storefront cinema and performance space in Kensington Market. While one of our primary focuses is supporting new queer voices in the city, we want to nurture transgressive work from shit disturbers of various ages, orientations, cultural backgrounds, and creative mediums. Ultimately, we are interested in creating an inclusive space for risk taking and discourse. www.videofag.com

Jordan Tannahill is a Toronto-based playwright, theatre director, and filmmaker who runs Suburban Beast, a performance company. He launched Videofag with his partner, actor William Christopher Ellis, in October of this year. For more information, or to propose a project to Videofag, feel free to email Jordan at jordan@videofag.com.
November 8, 2012, by
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by Michael Wheeler

Benskin's Bill C-427 was defeated by HarperCons

Yesterday, Bill C-427 came up for second reading in Parliament. A private member’s bill proposed by the NDP’s Tyrone Benskin (previous Artistic Director of Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop), Bill C-427 was an Act to amend the Income Tax Act to allow income averaging for artists.

These changes were “designed by neutral tax experts at the Library of Parliament to achieve the desired tax fairness for artists and cultural entrepreneurs.” It failed 142 to 121. All of the votes against it were by Conservative MPs, including Heritage Minister James Moore.

The tax codes in Britain, Germany, The Netherlands and France have all made similar adjustments to encourage cultural production by independent producers. Corporate tax rates has been lowered by one third (22% to 15%) since Harper took power. Certainly cultural tax rates could be amended to reflect a level playing field. Unfortunately the Conservative Government couldn’t appreciate the value of a tax code that allowed entrepreneurs in cultural industries to be taxed at competitive rates with international trading partners and competitors.

From Benkin’s website:

WHY IS BILL C-427 NECESSARY

Due to the irregular hours and inconsistent incomes frequently associated with their work, artists are nearly always disadvantaged both by punitively high taxation during years of high earning and by virtue of their ineligibility for a number of Federal programs such as Employment Insurance (EI), the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and others. C-427 will begin to level the playing field by allowing them to average their income over an elective period, achieving considerable tax savings over two to five years.

The critique of the Bill was presented in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed by Kevin Milligan, which levels three charges against income averaging: 1) Last time we tried it was complicated. 2) Last time there were more tax brackets. 3) Last time tax rates were higher.

These reasons not to act to support Canadian culture through a fair tax structure, frankly, are awful. They can be summarized by two statements: “Why do you guys want to make everything so complicated?” and “Come on guys, it’s not so bad.” None of these standards are applied to corporate interests in the myriad of ways they have been accommodated and caressed by the government. They are not particularly compelling as arguments go either: Even meagre savings, when you are living on the poverty-level income of many artists, would be significant.

Heritage Minister spoke and voted against C-427

When the Minister was asked if he would support the bill for Second Reading yesterday, he said he would not. Moore listed new museums, programs and a recent visit by members of The Canadian Arts Coalition as signs the government was doing a great job with culture. He did not address at any time the financial realities of being an artist or the particulars of the bill, preferring to recite the institutionally-based initiatives he controls the funding for. He did not address why the government won’t support a tax system that allows our cultural workers to compete on a level playing field.

If the Harper Government doesn’t want to work to support culture and the economic paradigm that defines it, that’s cool. We kind of knew it all along. Let’s not pretend this was a decision made out of anything but partisan interest however. This bill would have made a major impact on the viability of being an artist in Canada. It begs the question whether culture not tied to The War of 1812, or the major institutions it controls, is something this government wants to encourage.

You can follow Michael on Twitter at @michaelcwheeler

November 6, 2012, by
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Abdelfattah Abusrour, Amer Khalil and Kamel Elbasha in Facts

Dan Daley sends Praxis a letter from Palestine where he was touring with Arthur Milner’s Facts:

Palestine: how much do you know about it? In the little town of Bethlehem on the closing night of the month-long Arabic language tour of Arthur Milner’s Facts, I feel that I know even less about Palestine. What I do know is that I met numerous Palestinians with big hearts and a great passion for the arts. Yet still I come away from it unsure of what to do – to forget or to take action?

Kamel Elbasha & Abdelfattah Abusrour

Our Canadian team included myself, Arthur, Samer Al-Saber (director) Martin Conboy (set & lighting designer) and a brief visit from Jennifer Brewin (artistic director of Theatre Columbus). We were given an entire apartment to live in at the home of Dr. Abdelfattah (co-producer and actor) and his wife Naheel Abusrour along with their five children. We could even get a lift from the Doctor’s employee, Salim, whenever we needed to go somewhere.

Dr. Abdelfattah or “Abed” as most call him, runs a cultural centre in the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem (a small village of homes that stand butted up against the separation wall) This camp has existed since the Israeli instated partition of 1948. If you’re not aware, this was one of the first extensive occupations that led to thousands of Palestinians refugees in the region. Abed was born in Aida camp during the 1960s. He is the only one in his family of seven children to study abroad and achieve a doctorate (a PhD in biological engineering). One evening he said to me: “I quit my career because I saw that I could make a greater difference through art and theatre and now it has become my career”.  So he formed the Alrowwad Cultural & Theatre Society with its own educational facility in the heart of the camp. I spent much of my time volunteering at the centre as we prepared for the tour. On a daily basis I saw numerous children from the camp receiving an education in music, dance, media arts and theatre.

Alrowwad became the co-producer of the tour with the New Theatre of Ottawa. It’s impossible to describe how the limited resources of Alrowwad continually contributed to the success of the production. Most of their equipment including video cameras, computers and stage gear is donated. Most of the young men and women who work there are donating their time. In my two months here I can say I have become very close with several of them and that’s just the kind of people they are.

Cast at the home of Kamel Elbasha

Kamel Elbasha, the translator of the play, is the single reason the show managed to find a co-producer that could commit to the time the project needed. He essentially championed the project from the beginning and even took on the role of the character Yossi.

The tour wasn’t all fun all the time. There were times that it seemed like no one could care about what we were doing. The team and me were always un-sure if anything was actually going to get done and if anyone was actually going to come and see the show. Given our Canadian sensitivities, we had to get used to their way of working and sure enough we were delightfully surprised by their ability to coordinate huge tasks at what seemed frighteningly last minute. Much gets lost in translation I think.

On tour we drove across much of the Palestinian territory and into Israel, back and forth across numerous military controlled checkpoints. One such checkpoint confiscated our rental car and put it through an inspection that involved pulling body parts off the frame. It was almost amusing watching a young Israeli soldier carry our spare tire out from the inspection garage to be x-rayed. The best was watching another soldier come across a stack of our tour postcards. She had a moment with it, of course noticing the Arabic text, showed it to her companion and moved on. This was possibly our worst encounter. In most cases, we would flash our Canadian passports and they would barely blink. However, if you got into a discussion with them, their party line was often: “What are you doing here?” Our reply: “Visiting Palestine!” Their reply: “Don’t you mean Israel?”…

At the performances we would usually have a “talk-back” session with our audiences in a mix of Arabic and English. Rarely did these discussions leave the realm of politeness, but on occasion some presented a critical reaction. One such audience member criticized Palestinians for maintaining a level of complacency that is undermining their freedom. Another attributed this complacency to the extensive amount of foreign aid in the region, which has improved the lives of many, but like a bad drug, it only numbs the pain while Palestinians continue to bleed more land to Settlers – that’s my own paraphrase, but I think it’s a good summary of what she said.

Arthur with audience post show in Ramallah

I appreciated one young woman in the crowd who exclaimed that she wanted more from our play, that it could go further, but she couldn’t articulate what exactly “further” meant. Others felt it was a refreshing experience to see a play “which did not depict Palestinians in a depressing light”. Many were excited to have a pair of Israeli characters on stage. At Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, the excitement was palpable in a room full of young Palestinian men under the age of 21. I had been told that much of the arts are inundated with the same images emphasizing stereotypes and failing to recognize the good humour Palestinians have about their situation.

Many have asked Arthur why he wrote a play about Palestine and Israel, why he as a Canadian was even interested and how he came to tell this story. One very different question, which generated a strong discussion, came from a young girl who asked, “What did Canadians think of the play?” Before Arthur could answer, one audience member exclaimed, “must have been like preaching to the converted!” and Arthur replied, “No, it was like preaching to the ignorant”.

The production under the direction of Samer (a Palestinian-Canadian) has taken on a greater sense of humour than I think Arthur or I expected. The depiction of the Settler appeared sheepish and pathetic. He is much less threatening than our Settler was in the Canadian production. I guess there is a need to laugh at that which oppresses us. What better form of therapy? I only make note of this because our

Samer pre-show with audience in Jaffa

Canadian audiences, in a concerted effort to be considerate and compassionate about everything, took the performance somewhat more seriously. The text is full of jokes geared toward a western audience, which the Canadians responded to, but our Palestinian friends used physicality to generate the humour.

A man of great distinction in Bethlehem, a professor of biology who attended our opening night, proclaimed “I would pick the Settler over the Palestinian Cop any day!” His point being that you can trust the political leanings of a Settler, especially a fanatic settler since their intent is pretty clear. To the Professor and other audience members, a cop of the Palestinian Authority needed to be a bit of a low-life. It became clear that there is much distaste for the Palestinian Authority. Alternatively, our PA cop behaved like a role model, as the ideal version of a government representative they might want.

The talk-backs, personal discussions and encounters I had here led me to think a lot about fanaticism and the purpose it has in a place like this. Fanaticism gets attention. Many settlers are considered fanatics and they’re hated by both Palestinians and any left-leaning Israeli. There are Palestinian fanatics too, but sadly I’ve heard them described as “oh yes the people living in Gaza right?” Or to take that stereotype further: “the terrorists right?”

Loading out from Bethlehem

I can only base my reactions upon what I saw here. I don’t know enough to fully understand the situation. There are divisions upon divisions within both nations. Some would say there are several nations, for example: separating orthodox Jews from secular Israelis.  However many divisions, the dispute continues to subject Palestinians to a discriminatory occupation and Israelis to an instituted level of denial. No one is at ease.

Our tour of Facts was a success for the people involved. It has been invited back to perform for a complete run at several of the theatres we visited including a venue in Ramallah, Hebron and Jaffa. Our Palestinian co-producers plan to do just that and return to those venues in the new year, but this time it will be without the Canadians. Instead they want to come to us in Canada and if anyone knows a pool of money to help them come here, please be in touch.

If I cannot forget then I want to make sure others can witness.

From Palestine,

Dan Daley
Associate Producer
Arabic Language Tour of Arthur Milner’s Facts

November 1, 2012, by
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by Aislinn Rose

Voting in the CAEA Council elections ended last night and the results are in.

Huge congratulations to five of our seven endorsed candidates in Ontario who ran as a slate promoting indie issues, improved communication between staff, council and the membership, and a re-examination of the role Equity plays within the performing arts ecology in Canada.

Those new Councillors are:

ONTARIO

Hume Baugh

Mark Brownell

Kristina Nicoll

Vinetta Strombergs

Aaron Willis

Congratulations also goes out to the other two fine candidates elected to Council in Ontario: Nigel Bennett and Yanna McIntosh.

Here’s hoping that an Indie Advisory Committee is formed, allowing Brenley Charkow and Kate Fenton, our other two endorsed candidates to participate in a significant way. Jason Chesworth would also be an excellent addition to such a committee.

Full National CAEA election results can be found here.

Follow Aislinn on twitter: @AislinnTO