This month, we have something a little different for you. Marketing Coordinator Tamara Jones spent some time with Residency artist and Lead Creator of Bear Witness, Jennifer Tarver, to talk about oratorio, the fruits of remote collaboration, and how to shift our awareness towards self-compassion. If you’re curious about what the other Residency artists have been up to, make sure you stop by for the digital Residency showings next week!
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Do you miss the café as much as we do? The vibe of people working away, taking a break, having a coffee, a chance encounter, a laugh shared between old friends—we hope What’s On(line) will recreate some of that sense of connection. Each month, you’ll get an exclusive look at what’s going on behind the scenes; offering insights into the creative process or quick connections with an artist.
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This week, Alone Together is written by the incredible multidisciplinary artist Jani Lauzon. We are fortunate to have worked with Jani for a number of years on the development and creation of Prophecy Fog. This meditative, solo show (co-produced by The Theatre Centre and Paper Canoe Projects in association with Nightswimming) began with Jani’s voyage into the Mojave Desert in search of Giant Rock, armed with the question: can a site still be sacred if it has been desecrated? The piece was nominated for three Dora Awards and we were thrilled to see Melissa Joakim win for Outstanding Scenic Design.
We are honoured Jani has shared the impact COVID has had on her, and her work, and hope you enjoy her writing (and her beadwork) as much as we did. Miigwech Jani.
When COVID hit, my play I Call myself Princess was heading into its final week at The Globe Theatre to a nearly sold-out audience. I had just returned from the pushOFF festival in Vancouver and I was on my way to the Stratford Festival for the season late opener. I was finally enjoying the momentum I had worked hard to achieve after being a single parent for many years. And then it all stopped.
I am, by my own admission, a workaholic. My work is my lover. I respect it, feed it, treat it with care and it feeds me, energizes me, and fills me with joy. Without it, I dove deep into periods of intense loneliness. I threw myself into digitizing my VHS tapes, then my HI8 tapes. I started working on new demo reels (acting, puppeteering, voice). All good, but not deeply satisfying.
So I returned to beading. I made my first bracelet when I was in high school. It’s falling apart now but I was so proud that I was able to teach myself how to use a loom. Over the years I fell in and out of my relationship with beadwork, depending on how much time I had. My pride and joy is the moose hide coat I made, including the beadwork and the hand-sewn lacing. (I was trying to wean myself off of drug use but that’s another story.)
For years I had always wanted a pair of Frye boots but couldn’t afford them. So when I found a pair at the Salvation Army for $5, I didn’t care that they weren’t exactly the same; I had a plan. A plan I was too busy to execute. With time on my hands, I pulled them out of the back of my closet, dusted them off, stripped them, re-stained them and got to work on some appliqué beadwork. Happy to say they are almost finished.
Beadwork is an important part of Indigenous culture and economic resilience. The images used in designs tell stories and help document history. When I am beading I am focused and deep in thought. I am contemplating the future; I am in prayer, and quieting my mind. And that, as it turns out, was exactly what I needed to be doing during this time. I needed to keep my hands busy so that my mind could be in quiet reflection. Although the majority of my work has disappeared, I am deep in thought about how to bring my play Prophecy Fog to national and international audiences. I am contemplating how I will be finding a place in the world for my work while watching my beautiful daughter and her partner Charlie grow in their lives and relationship. I am looking forward to returning to the National Theatre School to enter the next phase of development on the devised work I started with the 1st year (now 2nd year) students. And I am deep in dream world conjuring up a positive future full of exquisite artistic expressions for us all.
— Jani Lauzon
Jani is a writer, performer, creator and mom to upcoming Indigenous artist Tara Sky.
Visit Paper Canoe Projects for more of Jani’s work.
Thank you for celebrating GivingTuesdayNow with us!
Your thoughtful words are helping all of us find a little more comfort and connection. Thank you for giving the gift of stories back to the community!
We loved hearing from you; and it’s inspired us to keep the conversation going. No matter how big or small, we want to know what’s putting a smile on your face! If you’d like to be featured on our weekly Alone Together series, send us a submission (500 words max.) to [email protected].
Missed us on Tuesday? Find us today on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to join the conversation.
Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?
We are beyond thrilled to announce that Liza Paul has been promoted to the role of Associate Artistic Director at The Theatre Centre! Anyone who has ever met or worked with Liza will understand why we are so happy—we think the entire community has much to celebrate.
Since joining our team in 2017, Liza has brought her unique energy, programming vision, and absolutely infectious laugh to The Theatre Centre. In addition to serving up some truly delectable cocktails, Liza introduced many successful events in the café, parties on the rooftop, and more jams in every space in between. She has programmed events centred on up-and-coming deejays, worked with Emancipation Arts in support of their inaugural (and now annual) FreeUp! Emancipation Day event, salsa parties, and more—if it had flavour, she was down to put it on.
Paul’s commitment to the comedy community has remained steadfast (she herself is a performer and stand-up comedian) and she’s provided space, and money, to comedians, especially BIPOC and female performers. Jokes, Guy; Goodmorning, Tonight; Amigas Cheetahs; and Comedy as a Second Language are just a few of the shows Liza has programmed while at The Theatre Centre. This initiative culminated in her programming the hugely successful Comedy is Art festival which featured over 40 artists in 9 shows over 5 days.
“I’m so happy to be finally sharing this news! I remember when we first hired Liza as our Café/Bar Curator & Manager. I had reached out to ask if she was interested in the role, and she said ‘I’ve never managed a café before!’ I said, ‘send me an email and tell me what you’d do with the job if you had it’. Within a day or two, she essentially sent me a manifesto of what our café/bar could and should be to our community and how she would see that realised, given the opportunity. Hired. Since then the role has grown and changed along with Liza’s skills and interests, very much in the same way that my own role was allowed to grow and change with me at The Theatre Centre.
“Liza’s leadership of last year’s week-long Comedy is Art festival was remarkable to witness— and not just the incredible performers she programmed, but the way our entire team was galvanized in support of making this event the massive success that it was. Liza’s spirit, imagination, and perspective are all things that make us a better team, and a better organization. We talk a lot about inventing the future at The Theatre Centre, and I am so looking forward to continuing to work closely with Liza as we invent our way forward in this time.” —Aislinn Rose, Artistic Director
“This new role is a dream, an honour, and a privilege in one glorious package, and the thrill and the gratitude run deeper than words can possibly express. I am so lucky to work with this team and to have this magical opportunity to support art and art making in all its shapes and sizes. I am really looking forward to working alongside Aislinn. We’ve already had lots of opportunities to collaborate, and while we see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, we also aren’t afraid to challenge one another and I think that’s a really special combination. I really hope to see you all in the building again one day soon. But until that time comes, please know that I will be hard at work scheming and dreaming on a future that serves us all— and planning the most epic rum punch and reggae-fueled welcome aaallla unno* back bashment (surprise, Aislinn!) The Theatre Centre has ever seen.” *all of you
—Liza Paul, Associate Artistic Director
Though our doors may be closed, the work continues behind the scenes, and we are looking forward to sharing all of that information with you in the coming months. It’s important to us that you know we are working to understand how we can support artists differently during this time, and that means not making assumptions about what we think artists need.
We are currently conducting interviews with Residency applicants, asking how we can support the development of new works and ideas without physical space, and are excited to be announcing a new intake of Residency artists soon. Our Creative Producers-in-Training Rachel Penny and Sascha Cole are conducting interviews and consultations—with recent Residency applicants, artists we’ve worked with, and those who’ve never applied to the program—to find out what artists need and how we can better serve our community. We continue in phase three of the Metcalf Foundation Staging Change program with EmcArts to hone our ability to be responsive and adaptive; and truly – what better time to be engaged in that work, and with our question, how can we be more reckless with our generosity?
How and why we hosted a broadcast of live music from the theatre during a pandemic
By: The Theatre Centre staff team
On June 13, 2020, spiderwebshow presented an intimate and evocative performance by JUNO Award winning singer-songwriter iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ at FOLDA. We were honoured and excited to host the livestreamed performance which marked the first time The Theatre Centre had artists in the space since we closed the doors due to COVID-19.
As the livestream began and the lights came up, illuminating the performers in the Franco Boni theatre, the entire staff watched, not from seats in the theatre like we usually would, but from our homes. This was totally new for us and though we would have loved to be in attendance, there was an overwhelming sense of joy. To see the space come alive with the energy of iskwē and the band, to hear the theatre filled with song again, it was a remarkable feeling. There are a lot of reasons we do what we do and for us, sharing this space, inviting people to experience art, and joining together for a shared experience are at the top of the list. Since we closed the doors on March 16th we have not been able to do that. This live performance gave us the chance to feel some of that again. For that, we are extremely grateful to iskwē and her team, and to FOLDA. Oh, and it was also an awesome show!!
It is important to note that we did not undertake hosting a live performance lightly — a conversation that began with every staff member at The Theatre Centre, members of the FOLDA team, and iskwē and her team was rigorous and ongoing to prioritize the health and safety of everyone involved.
In the spirit of sharing knowledge and experience, The Theatre Centre wants to offer this really transparent and plain timeline* of our production process for the livestream broadcast. For the time being, this might be the “new normal” and if other theatres are considering this, or other artists are wondering how they might share their work, we hope you might learn something from our process. We are open to questions, suggestions, constructive criticisms of this pathway – this truly was an experiment and these are our results.
Along the way we’ll mention:
FOLDA – Festival of Live Digital Art produced by SpiderWebShow
iskwē – Performer accompanied by three musicians
Aislinn Rose – Artistic Director
Alexis Eastman – Producer
Tim Lindsay – Technical Director
Navid Amini – House Technician
Natalie Gisele – Director of Production and Facilities
Liza Paul – Cafe/Bar Curator and Manager
Andrea Lundy – Production Manager, FOLDA
Michael Wheeler – Director of Artistic Research, FOLDA
Jesse MacMillan – Technical Director, FOLDA
*A note on time: it’s a pandemic. Our relationship to time is not what it once was. These are the most accurate dates we can come up with.
STEP ONE: MID MAY 2020
Some context for you: The Theatre Centre is already producing (in association with PuSh & Luminato) a livestream performance/conversation as part of FOLDA called Field Notes from the Future, with Sea Sick’s Alanna Mitchell.
Aislinn and Michael Wheeler were talking about other performances in the festival, and Michael mentioned wanting to find a way to present iskwē‘s performance. He asked her if it would be possible to use the Franco Boni Theatre in The Theatre Centre. Aislinn said she’d take it to the team.
Aislinn: “I’d been visiting The Theatre Centre building every few days, and the sight of the empty café and performance spaces just felt so wrong. So I was obviously excited about putting something live in the Franco Boni Theatre if it was in any way possible. However, I also knew that I didn’t want to put the team in harm’s way, or ask them to do anything during the pandemic that would make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable. The first thing I said to them was, “do you want to do this, because if not, the conversation doesn’t go any further”.
STEP TWO: THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, 2020
Aislinn brought the question to the team-wide meeting, asking all staff what they thought of the idea of hosting a live broadcast from the Franco Boni Theatre. Everyone was excited to work with iskwē and to get to present this sort of work. There were some questions though; main concerns were:
— Was it safe; for the artists, staff, crew, building, public, etc.?
— Were we comfortable to do it?
— Did we have the energy/capacity?
— Was it legal?
We mulled it over on Zoom and the main questions we came up with were:
— If we did want to do it, how could we take the lead on defining safety protocol for our staff and building in this new context?
— We wondered how this planning could accommodate the public gathering limit of 5 people?
— Was it in a legal grey area, because we are not an essential service and this would technically be us working, or would this be considered “live broadcast?, which was now permitted?
— How great is it that the Franco has windows we can open!?!?
The next steps we identified were (in kinda this order):
Since Natalie, Navid and Tim would be the primary contacts and would very likely have to be physically present in the space, they first had to decide what they were up for as individuals. Aislinn felt like the next step was to go directly to chat with FOLDA, as they had already done some thinking about precautionary steps. Navid felt like he wanted some more education and to come up with some core plans for The Theatre Centre before going into the meeting, so Natalie, Navid, and Tim did research and discussed their perspectives and comfort levels.
Tim: “We looked into safety guidelines that were implemented in other sectors to keep workers well protected — for example, staggering how many could safely share the site entrances (and break areas) during work calls. With a caveat that the number of team members on the building interior always be kept to less than five in a room, we were confident we could implement this. The Workers’ Health and Safety Centre had some informative webinars and other helpful guidelines that were particular to keeping social distancing measures intact while on a job site, and we combined those pointers with our typical planning for a technical load-in and rehearsal schedule for the Franco Boni Theatre space to propose an approach for setting this event up.”
Natalie: “It was important to decide and discuss among the 3 of us before moving onto the next steps. We gathered what information we already had between us and then identified what information we were lacking.”
STEP THREE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
Navid, Natalie and Tim met with Andrea, Michael, and Jesse to discuss how we could pull this off while keeping everyone as safe as possible.
Navid: “For us, it was reassuring to know that we were all on the same page. Safety was a top priority and it made us feel more comfortable with the idea of opening up the space again. The FOLDA team talked about their recent past experiences streaming from venues and the kind of safety precautions they were taking. They wanted to know what we as a venue had been thinking about and we told them about rules we had in place following the provincial guidelines. Although we have been closed since mid-March, we had already been taking some safety precautions in the days before this, being mindful of cleaning high contact surfaces such as door handles, reducing the capacity of our Franco Boni & BMO Incubator theatres, and providing easy access to disinfectant all around the building for both staff and patrons to try and encourage social distancing. A lot has changed since then, and now we don’t allow more than five people in the Franco at once. Once FOLDA knew the limits within which they had to work, they needed to go back to their full team and see if it was achievable.”
Natalie: “It felt reassuring after having the conversation with the FOLDA team and they seemed motivated and ready to work within the limits set in place.”
STEP FOUR: THIS HAPPENED AFTER FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2020
Tim: “When I spoke with iskwē and the FOLDA production team, they were excited to use an empty theatre as a canvas for her haunting sounds, with a keyboard and string players flanking her. Our space is very reverberant when it’s empty, which lends itself nicely to this type of stripped-down performance, so the next step was just about determining what their other technical needs were and building a schedule that would accomplish what they wanted.”
We gave the FOLDA and iskwē teams a few days to come up with a plan that worked with the guidelines we wanted to put in place and then met for a second production meeting to finalize the plan.
Navid: “Going into the second meeting we had a pretty good idea as to what the plan would be. The performance would be happening in the Franco, while the broadcasting team worked in the upper gallery. Setting up would be done in phases, starting with video, followed by the lighting hang, and then setting up the sound the morning of the broadcast. Our goal was to limit the amount of people in the building at one time, as well as limiting traffic through the building while loading gear. Tim made a good point that we would technically be working in a construction site, and that everyone should be disinfecting any gear before and after use. It had been pretty clear up to that point that we were all taking this very seriously, and I think that at the end of the day that was what really allowed this to happen.”
Natalie: “In addition to Navid’s notes, we only used Theatre Centre staff as crew, along with FOLDA’s team. We did not need to hire outside crew. Gloves were not required while working, as the team was in charge of disinfecting the equipment they were using.”
STEP FIVE: THIS HAPPENED MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2020
Liza: “Navid and I went to the building to clean out the cafe and green room fridges. By this point it was apparent that our building would not be reopening any time soon, so we figured we might as well clean them out and shut them down to save on the energy bill. While we were there, I said that we’d probably need to let the artists know that the fridge wouldn’t be available, since we had not only cleaned it out but shut it off, and beyond that, sharing space for food and all the touching it would require felt like an unnecessary risk to my mind. Navid’s feeling was that we ought to turn it back on and create protocols for the use of the fridge. It got me thinking about how all the things we took for granted once upon a time (like the building being open, for example, or being able to share a refrigerator without needing to think about ourselves as potential biohazards) are continually revealing themselves in even the most seemingly mundane of considerations.”
STEP SIX: WEEK OF MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2020
Navid, Tim, and Alexis had a meeting about how to handle the possibility of any of the artists entering the building exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.
Alexis: “In the meeting with Tim and Navid we mostly talked about how to safely and respectfully ask artists and technicians about taking their temperature and flagging potential COVID symptoms. We ultimately did not feel like it was fair to ask Navid to stand there in a HazMat suit pointing a temperature reader at people’s foreheads as they entered (a little too RoboCop 2, ya know?). So we opted to request anyone entering the building to self-assess at home based on Toronto Public Health’s list of symptoms and fever ranges and report to their own team if they felt they were a risk. We also sent a list of protocols to everyone in advance so they could have a good idea of what to expect when they arrived.”
STEP SEVEN: STILL WEEK OF JUNE 8 2020
Natalie: “This install was definitely different. Everything was simplified to reduce the amount of people needed in the room. Installation also happened in sections over a few days. Rather than trying to accomplish the maximum in a day, we organized it so that each element was brought in on separate days. We started with video install, which only required one FOLDA and one TC staff member. They did some tests to make sure broadcasting was possible in our venue. Then the lighting hang happened on a separate day, with only two TC techs on site and two of FOLDA’s team to supervise. The lighting plot was also minimized, for ease of load in and numbers of workers needed. Sound checks, rehearsal and performance all happened on the same day.”
STEP EIGHT: SHOW DAY! SATURDAY JUNE 13 2020
Navid: “It was great to have people in the building again, but it was strange, you could tell that a lot of people just wanted to do what they would normally do during a show day. It felt weird reminding people that we still need to work safely, especially since (unrelated to the performance) there was a large group gathering happening right outside the building at Lisgar park. In the end, the performance happened and went very well. Most of the challenge was just reminding yourself and others to maintain an awareness of the space we occupy and the responsibility we have to each other.”
The Theatre Centre staff watched the livestream from their homes. We each felt a deep feeling of joy and sadness to see a performance in the theatre. We talked about how it sort of felt like when you’ve been cooking all day and then you eat everything in 20 minutes. The performance was beautiful. It took a lot of different work. It happened on our screens and then it was gone. We post-mortem’d the livestream as a team and talked about the logistics of the venue, about infection mitigation officers, about where our responsibility as a venue lies. How do we care for ourselves and artists in the most human-oriented way possible through this pandemic? The feeling that things have changed is certainly with us, but so is the feeling of hope for the experiments to come.
“When some people hear defund the police, because of years of indoctrination and propaganda they hear ‘take away my safety and security’ and that’s not at all what we’re saying. In fact, what we’re saying is that for Black communities and for Indigenous communities the police do not provide safety and security whatsoever (and they barely provide it to anybody else), and aren’t Black people and Indigenous people worth it? Aren’t our lives worth considering a completely new way of approaching this issue?”
Sandy Hudson
Defunding the Police Panel, Progress Toronto
We stand with those calling to defund and dismantle the police and prison industrial complex. The call to abolish the police asks us to imagine a future different from our current reality. Alternatives already exist; Transformative Justice is one such model. As writer, educator, and community organizer Mia Mingus wrote, “Transformative Justice seeks to respond to violence without creating more violence. [It] can be thought of as a way of ‘making things right,’ getting in ‘right relation,’ or creating justice together.”
In 2018, we presented Out the Window in partnership with Luminato. The work investigates the lives lost at the hands of the police, and the system’s inability to help people in crisis. As part of the programming, we held a number of post-show discussions, including Sandy Hudson hosting a Black Lives Matter panel, which brought the topic of abolition to the conversation. Two years ago that idea was considered by many to be radical. Today it is part of the mainstream conversation.
It will take creativity, community, and a desire to change but it can be done. Now’s the time artists and art-lovers; let’s create a future where police don’t target, surveil, brutalize and murder Black and Indigenous people. How creative are you?
What is Transformative Justice?
Barnard Centre for Research on Women
Indigenous Peacemaking
Native American Rights Fund
Abolish the police
Sandy and Nora Talk Politics
June 2, 2020
Defunding police – what it means and how it could work
CBC Front Burner
June 9, 2020
What ‘defunding the police’ means for Indigenous people
CBC Front Burner
June 10, 2020
Defunding The Police Will Save Black And Indigenous Lives In Canada
Sandy Hudson for Huffington Post
June 2, 2020
Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police
Mariame Kaba for The New York Times
June 12, 2020
“Do I believe we can have a police-free future in our lifetime? Absolutely”: Policing expert Robyn Maynard on how defunding would work in practice
Interview with Robyn Maynard by Lara Zarum Toronto Life
June 12, 2020
Not Another Black Life and Black Lives Matter Toronto is calling for the defunding, demilitarization, disarmament, and the dismantling of the Toronto Police Services, starting with a 50% reduction in funding. We support this call.
A motion put forward by Councillor Josh Matlow would reduce the police budget by 10%. On June 29, Toronto City Council will meet to vote on this motion. Anthony Truong Swan created phone and email scripts urging city councillors to support the demands of Not Another Black Life and Black Lives Matter Canada. Make your voice heard; contact your city councillor today.
“The origin of policing here is to control and restrict Black and Indigenous people’s movement through genocide, removing Indigenous people from their land, killing them, and through kidnapping Black people who had liberated themselves. That’s an irredeemable institution. There are obviously reverberations today where they continue to try to control and restrict our movements and kill us. That is an irredeemable institution. Over centuries it has shown itself to be unchangeable and irredeemable.”
Sandy Hudson
Defunding the Police Panel,
Progress Toronto
This is a living document compiled by Elly Belle, with help from K & Micah Herskind.
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Photo by BLM
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Continue readingI was about 10 when I realized that the samosas at the store were different from the ones I knew. For the next 18 years, I would eat them at plenty of restaurants, cafes, and even out of questionable cardboard boxes sold by fundraising undergrads on campus. But none would ever stand a chance next to my grandma’s.
Everyone’s grandma is the best cook. But my grandma is the best cook. My dad’s family is Chinese; and although he was born in Hong Kong, my grandparents got married and lived in India until 1956. After learning this a few years ago in a round of Kwan-family trivia, I was finally beginning to make sense of how special these samosas really are.
My grandma sent us lots of different food growing up, but I was always most excited when my dad came home with a bag full of her frozen samosas. Potatoes being my favourite vegetable, my love for them was only natural. I’m not sure when her samosas stopped appearing in our house, but I do know that it’s been at least a decade since I last ate one. And since quarantine started, I haven’t been able to stop craving them. There was no way around it— I had to make them myself.
Armed with a list of ingredients from my dad, I took to the kitchen. After guesstimating proportions for the filling and prepping the wrappers, I fumbled through the first samosa despite carefully following each step on YouTube. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but wrapping is hard. Over the hour and 15 minutes it took me to wrap only 17, I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of time it must have taken my grandma to put together those seemingly bottomless bags. Not only for my family, but also for the 11 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins who also lived in Vancouver.
After several minutes of gingerly prodding my samosa babies in hot oil, they were ready. Taking that first bite was like coming home, jumping into a hug, and traveling back in time all at once. The golden triangles were crisp on the outside and packed with warm memories on the inside. In that moment, I realized that the comfort they give me isn’t just in taste, but in the feeling of being taken care of — the feeling of being loved, and nourished, and provided for. That’s what I’ve been craving.
My grandma’s English is limited and my Cantonese is, unfortunately, all but non-existent, but I’m hoping she’ll understand when I bring her a bag full of frozen samosas the next time I see her. Mine are not nearly as good as hers, but I guess I’ve got the time to practice.
— Audrey Kwan
Audrey is the Business & Development Coordinator at The Theatre Centre.
Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?
It seemed obvious I’d write about how music is keeping me going. How many people have you seen on social media lately posting covers of formative albums (with NO EXPLANATION… why the heck is that a requirement)? These past weeks, however, I have been more concerned with teaching myself to sit comfortably in silence. A recent study found that many people would rather do anything — even electrocute themselves! — than be alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes.
Part of my identity has always centred around whatever I put into my ears. Connecting to music does get me through the dark and uncomfortable times of dislocation and isolation. Admittedly, the record-collecting end of this habit gets ridiculous, but the rewards are great. I love the sense of lifting off the earth that so much music provides, and to “arrive without travelling”, as George Harrison wrote. This feeling is very private, and yet so strongly connected on an emotional level; for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved that sense of unseen inner motion.
Armed with a list of ingredients from my dad, I took to the kitchen. After guesstimating proportions for the filling and prepping the wrappers, I fumbled through the first samosa despite carefully following each step on YouTube. This shouldn’t come as a surprise but wrapping is hard. Over the hour and 15 minutes it took me to wrap only 17, I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of time it must have taken my grandma to put together those seemingly bottomless bags. Not only for my family, but also for the 11 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins who also lived in Vancouver.
G.I. Gurdjieff, the mystic philosopher, had a lot to say about music’s significance. Even in a single note, he felt we could all hear resonances within ourselves and from the wider world. Gurdjieff was convinced that every encounter with music held this promise of connection, but only rarely do we experience it on that level because our awareness is underdeveloped. Humans gather in groups for concerts and worship services, Gurdjieff said, not just to see and hear what is on offer but more primarily to “get human” with some other humans in a room. To see and be with an audience is a fundamental part of the musical event: a shared communion of exchange between the music, and its performers, and the listeners. Right now, our communion with music is stifled. To connect with it all by ourselves, we must first be at peace with silence.
I do not only mean disconnecting from “the attention economy”, as Jenny Odell has written about, but that is part of it. Immersing ourselves in the presence of silence, without distractions, we can better hear those inner and outer resonances. The private experience of being spirited away by a solo listening session, while hypnotic, can itself be a distraction from the present moment. We can be entranced by music’s spell, asleep to what is here and now.
Meanwhile, I am raising a newborn during this crisis, a very intense experience and uncharted waters for me. Being cut off from almost everything else, at least I have an opportunity to really enjoy these precious early moments with my family. Using this time for escape, to take off into another world, is in violent tension with the demands of the baby in the room with me. For, in the little one’s brain, there is no other moment but this one, no world but the one we see. Being here in the precious moments of quietude, I am learning how to listen again.
— Tim Lindsay
Tim Lindsay is the Technical Director at The Theatre Centre and works as a freelance sound designer.
Alone Together is a series of shared stories by The Theatre Centre. Over the next several weeks, our team is going to offer you some of our own personal joys, those things that nudge us, the arms that extend to us in the dark, those things that catch our hearts off guard. And we’d love to hear from you in return… what’s blowing your heart open these days?
