Beth Dart is a theatre artist who primarily makes theatre not in a theatre space. Beth takes us on a journey through Edmonton as Festival City, meditating on the importance of community, and the innovative exchanges that happen between small to large productions. Take a theatre tour from fests, to cafes, pubs, and parks, from Edmonton to Whitehorse, and back again.

References & links 

• Common Ground Arts Society

• Found Festival

• Edmonton Fringe Festival

• Theatre Network 

• NextFest 

• Workshop West Playwright’s Theatre

• Fort Edmonton Park

• The Aviary

• The Fringe Grounds Cafe  

• Catalyst Theatre

• Music Yukon  

Explore more conversations at nakaitheater.com/podcast. Thanks to the Government of Canada through the Department of Heritage for funding this cycle of the podcast.

Transcript:

Beth Dart: I am a theatre artist who primarily makes theatre not in a theatre space. So a lot of my experience is in found space and site specific work. And I also have produced festivals and worked within festivals quite a bit. So I was the artistic producer of Common Ground Arts Society for six years, and the festival director of Found Festival, which is a found space arts festival for seven years.

So, The majority of my experience is based in Edmonton, but I relocated to Whitehorse last January, so 2022. I think one of the interesting things about Edmonton is the size of our Fringe Festival, and how that festival instils ethics of risk, and collaboration, and camaraderie. The Fringe Festival is really about bringing new work to a new audience, and sometimes Fringe audiences are only seeing theatre during the festival, and so you get a different reach. But what I've found that it really did for Edmonton is really allow us to dig into risk, instil that independent producer model and ethos in a lot of the artists, and allow us that opportunity to really play with new work. It's a very specific model, so you're building within confines, but sometimes those are the best ways to stretch your imagination.

But from that, I found that the community is really supportive of performer created work, of collaborative work and that kind of spirit lives on throughout the season. So there's a lot of independent companies in Edmonton who are creating really innovative work, and that those teams cross over a lot. So there's a lot of collaboration, and a lot of shared resources, and I think that's something that really helps Edmonton build a really strong theatre scene.

I've been working in professional theatre for fifteen years, and I would say at the beginning of that time it was more informally and now some of that exchange of resources has been built into more formal programs. Most of the established theatre companies in town provide space, and time, and resources to emerging artists that allow them to build new work.

So there are some programs: the Fringe has their Spotlight Series and the Westbury Award. With Theatre Network there's Nextfest and that will see work continue beyond Nextfest. being another incredible support in the community for playwrights specifically. 

So these established companies are looking at what emerging or independent artists are creating and how that might fit into their season, and how they might be able to support that creation process. There's also other organizations that aren't necessarily theatre organizations that are interested in supporting local work. Fort Edmonton Park being one of them, we've been partnering with them for eight years now on site specific performance. And they also work with other companies as well. So there's a lot of what do we have that you might be able to put to use? And I think sometimes that creates work that is jumping off of what resources are available. And sometimes that's supporting work that is already being created in the community.

So yeah. But space is always the big one.

When that support is more formalized, there's usually stipulations that come with it, so it has to fit a certain venue or certain style or whatever it might be. So there are some limitations on that. But that said, I think there's avenues that have been formalized, and avenues that happen. Edmonton for sure is a scene where you can call anybody and say, "I need this piece of equipment, but we don't have the budget for it. Can we figure out some sort of in-kind deal?" And that kind of exchange is pretty consistent. So yeah, I think formalization can get sticky just because there might be things that you check boxes you have to mark for funders or whatever it might be. And so there are some limitations, but the more exchange that happens more broadly, we can open up that community and those supports that are exchanged, so even though there might be challenges, it's overall a really positive influence on a community. There's definitely spaces that theatre artists frequent, such as The Next Act, which is a beloved pub with excellent food. That's right in the heart of the theatre district in Edmonton. The Edmonton Fringe Theatre just opened at the Fringe Grounds Cafe, which is a loiter-positive space, as they call it. So you can come and you can buy a coffee, or not buy a coffee, sit, use the wifi, access to free printers, and there's other folks that are working in the same space. So it becomes a little bit of a work share, but you don't have to pay anything to be there. And then also, when you buy your coffee, you can buy, if there's any space available, you can get drop-in space for $7 an hour, which is incredibly affordable.

So it does invite local creators to come. And it's not just theatre artists, it's musicians, it's poets, it's beat makers. And there's a lot of different activities that are happening in that lobby space. And so creating that kind of cultural hub that invites folks to come work on their own, or work with each other is some incredibly invaluable to the community.

And then the informal end of that is people get together a lot and share ideas, and jam and maybe you never intended to talk about work, but you always end up doing it. (laughs) So changing, exchanging ideas in that avenue as well. And I feel particularly lucky 'cause I do crossover into the music community as well.

And so spaces like The Aviary, which is a small 150 capacity music venue here is something that crosses over into cabarets and site specific or found space theatre as well. And so there's a lot of crossover between the theatre scene and music scene, poetry scene. There's a lot of collaboration among those as well.

And so finding those spaces where you're gonna, if you show up alone, you're gonna bump into friends and have a good time and have a good conversation, I think is so important. And often those spaces revolve around alcohol, and so it's nice when those spaces have other options as well. The Fringe Grounds being a great example of that, and just really supportive of making sure people have access to community. 

Found Fest was founded by Helena Bellier and Andrew Richie, and I think at that time it was a response to how inaccessible renting theatre space was for emerging artists. And so they went, we like making found space work, so let's continue doing that. And I think the community wasn't quite sure what found space, and site specific work was at that moment. And so what's interesting about Found Fest is that there were definitely pieces in the early days that were very much site specific, were found space pieces, but some of the pieces were also adapting themselves to fit into found spaces. And then as the festival evolved and grew and people got to know it a little bit better, it really made people think about what is found space work. And so they were creating pieces very specifically for the festival and that changes how you engage with audience. You have to onboard your audience in a little bit different of a way. So it's been interesting over the now eleven years, I think that Found Fest has been around how artists within the Edmonton scene have adapted how they approach found space work overall.

And seeing that growth within a community is really interesting. And then it bleeds back over into Fringe and folks bring their found space pieces, do something like the Fringe Festival or other festivals. And it's interesting to see how a seed of an idea can spread throughout a community as well. But there's definitely a huge amount of crossover and support that happens between — like Edmonton's known as Festival City because there are so many festivals, and so that crossover between the different festivals, and how and what they support in the creative process, or in the style of work is really interesting to see where, how things bleed into the more established festivals or the professional houses, things like that.

Something that I really appreciate about scope of the theatre scene from those intimate, even those one-on-one performances where it's a performance by one person, for one audience member up to the Citadel House with seven, eight hundred people at a time or more, is that the skills from both of those scenarios cross over.

And so we're really lucky to have a community that embraces folks that create the more immersive or intimate work and how their work might apply to something in a larger house, or how skills that are built in intimate performance can be applied to more classical proscenium style work. And that the experiences and skills of both of those are so valuable in the other environment as well, and that there is a pretty consistent exchange of artists that are working in various different scenarios that can support the growth of the scene overall because the skills are so transferable. I think it takes a lot of work to be a classical performer doing Shakespeare, but it also takes a lot of very different work to be able to create intimate one-on-one experiences for audience. And so being able to find the skills that support those different practices from one another, I think is pretty. I don't know if Edmonton is unique in that you can exist as a professional theatre artist and only create in Edmonton. I don't know if that's unique or not 'cause all my experience is mostly in Edmonton and I've had the pleasure of touring a bit.

I think one of the greatest assets of any scene is collaboration and exchange from other spaces. I think it's necessary for the growth that there's going to be exciting innovation within a smaller community. And when that can be shared, it expands what is possible. And so there is definitely some exchanges, artists that work really hard to take their work on the road.

Everything from small scale, independent work to more established companies like Catalyst Theatre. I think that we're in a moment of adjustment as far as bringing work into Edmonton. There's obviously, there's the big players that are doing that, but there's been some changes due to the pandemic and I think we're, that recovery we're gonna see, it's gonna take us a few years, I think, nationally, to bounce back from the impacts of the pandemic and what that means for touring.

And again, to speak to music like we see it in the music scene right now. The risk of touring for an independent musician right now is really high. 'Cause if they're on the road and they end up getting COVID, it completely changes the financial viability of that tour. And that's the same for theatre as well.

And I wonder how we can make that more resilient in order to continue exchanging across the country as well.

I took quite a lateral shift in my career as well coming up here 'cause I'm working for Music Yukon. My immediate exposure was to the music scene prior to the theatre scene, which is a bit of a change for me. I think what's really exciting about Whitehorse and the work that I've seen so far is so in inspired by community.

Not necessarily that it's Yukon based themed work, but that there is a really beautiful DIY community-based feeling to a lot of the work that I've seen. And that is a really positive thing in my eyes, that it is involving folks, from professional artists to community artists, that there is a really beautiful sense of community overall, and that some of the work that I've seen so far too is really responsive. It feels like it's immediate. And that's something that I love about the smaller companies in Edmonton as well, is that you're not steering a big ship. So you're able to respond to the here and now a little bit quicker. I'm excited to, to meet more folks that are creating in Whitehorse and hopefully collaborate.

And it's interesting 'cause there's a handful of folks from Alberta who have made their way up to Whitehorse in recent years and getting to reconnect with them is really exciting, and see what they've been working on over their time in Whitehorse too.

I think something that it sparks for me is that art can't, specifically, performance art can't be created in a silo. You can't do it on your own. Even if you're making a solo piece, you still need an audience in order for it to go anywhere to be what it is. And so speaking to that kind of creative exchange that exists within a community that – it's a collaborative art form. And in order to do that, you have to have collaborators, you have to build community in order to have collaborators. And there is an element of trust there too. So if you're working on something incredibly, that's stretching your boundaries, that you're innovating on some sort of idea or concept or something in that world, that you have a community of collaborators that you can trust, that you know they're not gonna pluck your idea and go running for the hills with it. That there is an exchange that's gonna happen. But in that same vein, as a collaborator, you grow each time you create something new with a group of humans. And so you are gonna pull something from that experience forward into the next process that you go into and how that can have a beautiful ripple effect of how work is created within a community, I think is really exciting and that you can't do it alone . There isn't the best way to bounce ideas off of folks and is to have these exciting conversations, whether that's directly in process or at the bar after rehearsal, whatever it might be, is really exciting to me and I love that definition of it.

Yeah.
A lot of the artists that are creating in Edmonton have come through the University of Alberta or Grant MacEwan University, and so there is a shared language there for sure. Edmonton loves clown, and so there's a lot of clown training that happens in Edmonton that is filtered into other forms of performance.

It doesn't mean that we have a ton of red nose clown, but that those practices are integrated into other processes, which I think is really exciting, and I think that's something that's really interesting to me is that when we practice together, when we build practice together, we are able to come to a process with a shared language.

And that isn't by any means intended to be exclusive by any means, but that we can start at a level and build from there. And building that kind of shared language in a community, I think is really interesting to watch how individual artists and their interests can springboard from those shared languages as well.

Jacob Zimmer: Thanks very much for listening. You can find out more at nakaitheatre.com/podcast where there's links and transcriptions. Thanks to the Government of Canada through the Department of Heritage for funding this cycle of the podcast, in which we discuss how to be together and thrive as live performance makers.

Stay well.