In October 2017, Alexis started working at the Theatre Centre on the Condo Project. As part of the reporting process, Alexis is writing about her experience. Check out this piece from earlier in the project where Alexis wrestles with the question “how the fuck are we relevant?”

Since The Theatre Centre moved to this building a few years ago, thousands of folks of all ages and backgrounds have moved into condos and started living out their lives all around us. Every day when we come into work, we’re taken out of focusing only on art, theatre, Equity fees and contracts and are reminded that lots of people are living around us and might not really care about what is going on in the mainspace, but they do need coffee and probably a place to hang out. It made us wonder: “sure, we hold a place in the arts community but what do we mean to our literal neighbours?”

The time when we could simply invite the masses to our offerings has passed. This practice of show-invite-as-outreach serves only to reinforce this idea of art and the cultural space belonging to the artist as ‘other’. It separates what goes on in that space from the lives of the folks who live beside it and says “the privilege of being invited to join us is enough art for you.”

It is our job to embrace the individuals who live around us and find a way to be a part of their everydays; we can’t just endlessly lament their lack of engagement from our meeting tables. Lyn Gardner states in her The Stage UK opinion piece—“It follows that if art embraces the community and is part of everyday lives, then the community will embrace art, and fight for it when it is under threat.” As a publicly funded cultural space, do we not kinda belong directly to our communities and doesn’t this mean we’re mandated to be responding to their ideas, passions and interests?

The ramifications of years of this PUBLIC AS AUDIENCE ONLY mindset means that people seem scared of engaging with art and artists. There is an intangible tension from the public upon entering artistic/cultural spaces—a fear of misstep, failure, embarrassment and that any mistake will ultimately reveal them as the “non-artists” they are. Our neighbours hesitate to grab a coffee at The Theatre Centre café and instead go across the street because of the art connected to us. “It didn’t feel like it belonged to me” said one of our neighbours, when I asked if they had ever come to the café before. “BUT IT DOES!!!” I wanted to shout back.

So how the f*@k do we become part of their everyday lives?

That question has a unique answer for each company, artist and practice but the first step for us is The Condo Project. The Condo Project is a partnership between The Theatre Centre and Bohemian Embassy condos just down the street. We asked them, essentially, to allow us to try and become vital to them. To let us into their lives to experiment with community-interest led initiatives and events and be a sounding board for what works and what doesn’t in new forms of cultural engagement.

So far, so wild.

In early October, Aislinn and Franco met with a few residents to start a discussion about what the project could be. The story has nearly become legend in the short weeks we’ve been telling it but the story goes there was only one idea that everyone not only agreed upon, but was excited for; celebrating the Bohemian concierge staff Bill & Joey.