Theater
May 7, 2009 at 4:00 am
Two of the country's smartest, weirdest, sexiest festivals happen in small cities: Portland and Austin. Seattle has no excuse.
You know you want it.
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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So, if Seattle is starving for lack of a "grown-up performance festival" as he suggests, why does he then completely negate his own argument by rattling off a list of a half-dozen or so that already exist? It is his contention that Seattle needs yet another artsy-fartsy performance festival just because he'd prefer to have all his chosen favorites presented to him in one all-you-can-eat buffet? Sounds like somebody is just too lazy to get around to all the stuff that's already out there.
Seattle already has Folklife, Bumbershoot, Capitol Hill Block Party, Decibel Fest, Giant Magnet, Earshot Jazz Festival, Moisture Fest, Northwest New Works Festival, SIFF, Live Theater Week, Seattle Festival of Improv Theater, Sketchfest Seattle, and World Rhythm Festival, not to mention the literally hundreds of neighborhood and community arts and cultural festivals that abound throughout the city during the year (http://www.seattle.gov/html/VISITOR/fest…).
Sure, a lot of these are mostly music-oriented, but then again, a respectable number are performance specific, and quite a few feature acts of international caliber. Plus, most of the local groups he mentions put on regular performances of their own without having to rely on any sort of catch-all festival format.
Perhaps if Mr. Kiley spent a little more time going out to see what's already being done, and less time thinking about how to justify his paycheck without doing his job, he'd be taken just a bit more seriously.
Which ones? and who? None of the festivals you list bring international caliber pieces of performance in the manner of Fusebox or TBA. Obviously, you missed the point of the article.
"Perhaps if Mr. Kiley spent a little more time going out to see what's already being done, and less time thinking about how to justify his paycheck without doing his job, he'd be taken just a bit more seriously."
Again it seems like you have little or no comprehension when it comes to this article. Mr. Kiley is referencing a festival FOCUSED ON THEATER which just took place IN TEXAS featuring INTERNATIONAL CALIBER PERFORMANCE, which he ATTENDED. He is relating it to the fact that Seattle has nothing like it going on, but that from his experience Seattle has the potential to host an expansive, interesting, and diverse festival where artists from across the country and abroad are excited to produce and premiere new and experimental work. Not only does this benefit the audiences of Seattle, but it also gives credibility to the work of the local artists and festivals you so blithely list off.
I would also like to point out that just because many of the artists that Brendan lists are able to put on "regular performance" you might also notice that these same artists often cycle through these same awkward "festivals" in order to try and make a new piece. This keeps the quality of the work the artist is able to make at about the same level as they are working in a limited structure with no budget and little or no support for process; producing a short, scaled down version of a final piece. Why does it seem like Seattle based dance and theater is a bit behind the curve and so many artist are leaving? BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUPPORT FOR THESE ARTISTS IN SEATTLE.
Why can't Seattle artists produce engaging dangerous internationally acclaimed large scale-work? Work like Jan Fabre and Troubelyn?( I only use this example because he is coming to OtB soon). Well, perhaps one reason is that Mr. Fabre is subsidized by the City of Antwerp because they want him to make work there, because they find his work, though often controversial, important for the cultural dialogue. His work also PREMIERES at festivals like The Spill Festival which is just the type of festival this article is talking about. But fuck right!? Why would we want artists like that come and produce work here when we can just get it a year or so later, once people have told us what it is and how to think about it?
Don't you think that a large scale, city/state/ privately sponsored festival featuring both local and national artists where complete pieces of new work are preformed would be a good thing for Seattle?
I know you can't understand why these things are important for the future of art in the city but honestly, and I am trying to be fair because you obviously had trouble with this article, to compare Sketchfest to Fusebox just reveals what a childish moron you are.
I'd hit that so hard, the Mississippi would run backwards.
The following is a partial, and admittedly incomplete listing of "international caliber" dance, theater, and performance artists who have performed or had works performed in Seattle since early 2008, or, who will appear here in the next few months:
Strange Fruit – Australia
Ballet Preljocaj – France
Momix – United States
Grupo Corpo – Brazil
Lar Lubovitch – United States
Chitresh Das – India
Sing Sing – Australia
Mark Morris Dance Company - USA
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre - USA
Twyla Tharp - USA
Les Aronautes – Belgium
Sidi Goma – India
Kuniko Yamamoto – Japan
Hacki & Company – Germany
Ontroerend Goed – Belgium
Nephesh Theatre Company – Israel
Aurélia Thiérrée – France
Circa – Australia
Puppentheater Halle – Germany
Radiohole – USA
SocÌetas Raffaello Sanzio – ITALY
Young Jean Lee Theater Company - USA
Back To Back Theatre – Australia
Superamas – Austria/France
Compagnie Marie Chouinard – Canada
Gisele Vienne & Dennis Cooper – France/USA
Chelfitsch – Japan
Tim Etchells – UK
Tanja Liedtke – Australia
Jan Fabre – Belgium (as you mentioned)
Obviously, I did not miss the point of the article, since these are precisely the kind of performers Mr. Kiley seems to feel we should be attracting to Our Fair City. Perhaps you both need to get out more to see what's really going on in Seattle, since neither of you appear to be fully cognizant of the level of performance work being presented locally.
And I did not in any way directly compare Sketchfest to Fusebox, as you are well aware sir, but rather cited it as one among many performance related festivals and events that already occur in and around our locality. Of the dozen I mentioned, you deliberately chose to cherry-pick what is admittedly the least prestigious of those events in order to justify your snide, supercilious rejoinder. That, as we say across the briney, is not cricket.
Sweetheart,
The point isn't who has performed in Seattle in 2008 at various locations at various times. Bit that is a nice try. The question was how do you curate a festival where artists, like the ones you mentioned above are excited to show new pieces or present work here before it has life elsewhere?
Honestly, and I can only speak for myself but would assume the same to be true for Mr. Kiley, of the pieces on your list I knew about and saw many of them but in no way do I think they represent "what's going on in Seattle". Which is again beside the point.
The questions I asked to you were what Festivals are bringing this type of work to Seattle? Who are these festivals bringing that produce this type of work?
You see a festival has the potential not only to support one single artist, rather it has the potential to support numerous artists, and revitalize a city. It lends credibility to other smaller festivals that work within this one larger festival, and makes the City a destination where well-known artists want to not only show there work but make there work as well. It also helps the artists that live in said city connect to other artists they may not otherwise get to meet.
Would you discount the importance of Bumbershoot because a wide range of famous and up and coming musicians play in Seattle all year, or is Bumbershoot important because it creates a special atmosphere to listen to and experience music?
Please forgive the grammatical errors above. It has been a very long and difficult night.
Thank You.
There are not nearly enough of those here already.
Why is it necessary for Seattle to emulate a new works festival from some other city, just for the sake of doing so?
On The Board's Northwest New Works Festival would seem to already quite respectably fill the bill you and Mr. Kiley bemoan is lacking here, at least so far as local performers are concerned. What makes either of you believe any of these other "world class" groups would necessarily be interested in participating in yet another festival wherein they must create even more new work than they are already? How much new material can these companies be reasonably expected to produce, if the goal is to have previously un-produced material at each of these events? Are we to simply consider them artistic beasts of burden, whose sole purpose is to manufacture endless streams of sight-unseen product for our consumption like so much sausage on an assembly line? That hardly sounds like a recipe for producing work of "world-class caliber".
In my humble estimation this sort of production is time, funding and labor intensive in the extreme, as I am sure you are well aware, having seen one or two examples of your own company's work. It seems highly unlikely that you yourself, even with considerable support, could sustain the economy of scale required to create, develop, fund, and produce three or four brand-new festival-level productions within a given year, since this appears to be the main impetus of both your and Mr. Kiley's arguments. And furthermore, why would you want to? What would be the point? How would such constant, rote manufacture serve the purpose of your art or your own artistic inclinations?
These are questions I would be asking myself were I a such a performing artist being asked to provide more fodder to support yet one more city's "international new works festival". And although I certainly would not presume to speak for those artists, I can nevertheless imagine them saying to themselves, "I've got more than enough in my kit already. Thank you, but perhaps some other time."
Furthermore, this compulsion to do what someone else is already doing simply because they're doing it fairly reeks of insecurity, derivativeness and provincialism. Does Seattle really need to create another Spoleto, or Edinburgh, or Humana, or TBA, or Fusebox, et al, ad nauseum, just because another festival did it first? That merely reduces us to the level of imitation and redundancy. As it is, one cannot swing a dead budgie around this continent without hitting a new play/new works festival, even in the remotest hinterlands. Not surprisingly, the same may be said for Seattle itself. And jealousy over some other new works festival's initiative and success hardly seems a reasonable justification for jumping on their bandwagon, stealing their concept, and calling it our own.
If the ultimate aim is to put Seattle on-the-map as an incubator for world-class theater and performance art, perhaps we would be better served by creating something more original, unique, innovative, imaginative, and pertinent, rather than attempting to ride the coat-tails of someone else's effort and success.
Mr. First Nighter,
I will answer your question, but then you must answer some of mine, which you seem to be putting off. Your thoughts above seem to begin to answer the question you pose. Slightly. So I will follow that thread of logic.
You are right sir, when you say: "This compulsion to do what someone else is already doing simply because they're doing it fairly reeks of insecurity, derivativeness and provincialism."
And I also agree that: "If the ultimate aim is to put Seattle on-the-map as an incubator for world-class theater and performance art, perhaps we would be better served by creating something more original, unique, innovative, imaginative, and pertinent, rather than attempting to ride the coat-tails of someone else's effort and success."
So where then to begin the dialogue. I do not think that the conversation should be about artists and producers having to justify why something like this is important in the landscape of Seattle performance, rather it would be nice and different if we discussed what it is that would make a festival here significant and specific. Fusebox is great for Austin and TBA is working fine for Portland, but neither of those festivals would work here and honestly, they would both feel a bit false were Seattle to adopt their model. This is due in part because of something that you point out earlier as well, Seattle already gets numerous shows we have imported from other cities and countries. Shows that have been made for other audiences and theaters and plop themselves in our beautiful little city. We are not massive metropolis like New York, and probably couldn't sustain an Edinburgh or Under the Radar. Yet.
So then what could we do? You use NWNW as an exemplary example of what a festival can be. Again, I must agree with you. It is focused and tight. It allows you to see a wide breath of work in a short amount of time that you would otherwise miss. It is well curated and programmed focused on local and regional artists. It is inclusive to other mediums but centered around performance, dance and theater. Great. It is also in OtB's Season and allows the institution to be introduced to artists they know little about and holds the potential for more work in the future (see: locust, juniper/zoe, tEEth to name a few). It doesn't really provide budget (to the festival's credit it does try), but it does provide space, time, and audience. Things desperately needed. OtB (and this is pure opinion) also feels more alive when it is hosting NWNW than it does at any other time in its season. It is in the summer, and the potential for amazing success and dismal failure are palpable. This is good. This is exciting. This is worth exploring.
What seems to reek of insecurity, derivativeness, and provincialism, is that whenever anyone points out amazing, successful things in other cities and asks "why can't I have that here?" People start going crazy and start using specious logic such as: Seattle gets a lot of "world class performance" coming through town. Plus Seattle has Festivals. This means Seattle has World Class Theater and Performance Festivals. Generally, clomping around like Rhinoceros. Crying that the discussion is mute because it implies that we just want to copy someone else, and their success.
We can make our own success. It is possible. We can make something unique, and innovative, imaginative and pertinent, flexible and elastic. If we want. Or we can keep having the discussion about whether or not something like that belongs in our city. We can make it specific (only Seattle based artists, only artists west of the Mississippi, only artists from states where gay marriage is legal, only new work, what ever we want. We can make the rules because it doesn't exist yet). We can make it significant; can we included the museums, and the dying theaters in The Seattle Center, as well as found spaces, galleries, small theaters, bars, and cafes. We can make it Humana or we can make it N.W.A.. But we can't make it anything if the discussion begins, "go fuck yourself for talking about Fusebox in Seattle you pretensious little snob. We have everything we need here in our emerald cocoon."
The things you bring up in your last paragraph are the bases of thought that can lead us to application. These are the more difficult discussions to have. They are much more honest and complex and might actually prove that we don't really want to have a city-wide, nationally respected or hated, festival focused on performance in Seattle. It might prove that we are too hindered by logistic difficulty, or lack of leadership. However, then when Mr. Kiley writes "why not us", there will be an actual answer for him that honestly reflects the perspective of the city at this time.
The examples of performance work I cited in my previous missive were presented locally as part of several different series and events: Bumbershoot, On The Boards, Giant Magnet (nee Seattle International Children's Festival), University of Washington World Series, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Seattle Theatre Group, all of which frequently spotlight nationally and internationally recognized theater and performance companies. I concede none of these are strictly devoted to new works, with the exception of NWNW, which we both agree does an exemplary job vis-a-vis local and regional performers.
Be that as it may, it is a bit disingenuous to suggest any of these do not represent "world class festivals". Bumbershoot is generally recognized as one of the top arts festivals in the world, even if regrettably of those mentioned it tends to have the least emphasis on theatrical performance. Giant Magnet should also be considered a truly world-class performance festival. The justification for their recent name change, as I have been given to understand it, was because the producers felt the former name placed too much emphasis on the idea of the festival being devoted strictly to children's content, when in actuality the performers invited to participate may appeal to a gamut of audiences, including adults.
Additionally, the U.W. World Music and Theatre series also tends more toward music and dance, despite its title, although it has occasionally hosted performance groups on its schedule, while in my estimation S.T.G.'s programming places roughly equal emphasis on theater, dance and music. On The Boards comes closest to what you and Mr. Kiley presumably think of when using the word "performance", but I do believe one must be willing to broaden the definition somewhat, or else risk overlooking certain not-so-easily definable groups and productions, and so I chose to cite programs from these other series by way of inclusion.
But this debate is also predicated somewhat on how one chooses to define the term "festival", which for you and Mr. Kiley I take to mean an event of multiple offerings occurring in a concentrated geographic and temporal framework. Again, Bumbershoot and Giant Magnet both easily fit this criteria. So perhaps, rather than re-inventing the wheel, the more sensible approach would be to investigate the possibility of expanding these already existing events to provide a wider spectrum of programming. It would think the former in particular could easily accommodate adding rather more diversity to their mostly music-centric line-up. By the same token, I could just as easily envision Giant Magnet producing a more adult version (if that is how we wish to envision it) of their current festival.
However, this does not address the central issue, namely, what would constitute a unique, singular event that would not simply be a carbon-copy of something already in existence. And for that, I regret, I do not have an immediate answer. I only know that I am not interested in seeing a recreation of some other city's effort, not when there is already such a festival (here I refer to Portland's TBA) in close proximity as it stands. I believe the ultimate answer to that question would necessarily lie in the hands of whatever group of artists and producers elected to bring such an event to fruition.
Does that argument apply to galleries? Sports teams? If someone's playing baseball in Houston, it's a waste of time to play baseball in Chicago?
The first arm of your argument is defeatist. The second is just contrary for its own sake.
So why, exactly, do you oppose a festival on the level of TBA and Fusebox and Under the Radar and the dozens and dozens of equivalents in Europe? How does that hurt the city?
(Also: I have a strong hunch you are not British and that you and I know each other. If I'm right, how about you just come out and have this conversation like a grown-up?)
I have no money to add to the cause (being a poor artist myself), but I am more than willing to out my man power behind this idea, and I have a feeling that I can get a few others on board as well.
Please, keep it up. At some point I actually want to talk to you about this in depth.