west uptowner

nh letterdance1, originally uploaded by plastictaxi.

It amazes me that I am exhausted, way behind on everything I need to do for anything that is mine to do, and yet feel myself compelled to put up this picture and say a few words about it. As if blogging were a primal instinct like eating or mating.

I am a lucky man. I have such cool people giving their all to this process - and it has been a weird, let's-invent-a-way-of-working-none-of-us-has-ever-done-before adventure. Because that's what this is: a collective discovery, no scripts, just design and action and movement coming together in a series of passes as something takes shape underneath us that we slowly recognize better, and bring that recognition back into the next go-round. We are evolving this show.

if you reading this I hope you get to see it: March 13-27, 2011 at the Theatre Centre in Toronto. (416 538-0988).

If you don't see it, oh well. more updates here soon.

The other challenge with this piece is the importance of the issues at stake here: that after 50 years people outside the major cities of Colombia (and even in them) are not safe from large-scale violence. And our country is taking advantage of that instability to promote our businesses, making it profitable for some to work to maintain the status quo there. The Canadian mining and petroleum industries are at the forefront of a modern gold rush in Latin America, and they don't take no for an answer when the local population has reservations. Furthermore, our government has actively supported this with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to encourage legislative reforms, loans, and insurance guarantees to these companies. And we feel lucky to get $15000 from the Canada Council to put on a play that tries to raise the human spirit.

Making a gorgeous performance piece feels like a ridiculous excercise sometimes, when you think about what 80% of the people in this world have to go through to make a modest living. But by going towards beauty, versus anger, and focusing our gaze on the human issues, versus polemics, I hope we can play a small role in a larger struggle against the ugly destructive side of our way of life in Canada.

and that's as close to a rant as I'll get in public. By me a beer for the personal version. or come to the show.

# posted by trev @ 11:25 p.m.