Artists and Communities

Abstract

In Sorouja Moll’s essay on the Unilever Canada/Dove-sponsored production Body and Soul, she quotes the playwright and director Judith Thompson as saying, ‘‘It felt like a revolution.’’ I think Thompson has nailed it. At the heart of every conversation I’ve had with artists who work on community arts projects and central to every play of this nature I’ve been involved with is this visceral, explosive sense that something radically new is in the room. There is a freshness and honesty that emerges in the liminal space of a workshop or rehearsal through people who’ve never done this before. One of the greatest challenges of this art form is how to take participants unfamiliar with the craft, process, and business of theatre from those generative moments of discovery to a powerful theatre experience that recreates that sense of revolution for an audience. Ruth Howard and I stood at the back of the Baillie Theatre in Toronto listening to the talkback after a performance of Body and Soul. The women speaking from the audience to the women on stage were excited and effusive in their praise. Somebody suggested that copies of the script might be made available at libraries across Canada so that other ‘‘ordinary people’’ could get help telling their stories. Ruth and I looked at each other in surprise. Later, over a drink, we wondered why nobody in the theatre that day seemed to know about Canada’s long, rich history of artists working in communities of all kinds: telling stories ‘from the ground up,’ grappling on and off the page with questions of aesthetics, politics, and ‘authentic voice,’ negotiating the role of the artist and the participant. Clearly more work was needed to get the word out! CTR has been terrific at documenting and supporting the community arts movement in Canada. The choice to focus this issue on artists reflects a shift in how this work is placed within the arts and culture funding bodies, the neighbourhoods and organizations, and among artists ourselves. In 1981 when I received my first Toronto Arts Council grant to run the program that helped start Second Look Community Arts, money for community projects had to be explained and argued for over and over again. Now this rich and fertile field has attracted the ardour of the mainstream: artists, producers, and funders from many creative worlds are engaging with all kinds of communities. These developments are accompanied by the delights and dangers that all love affairs entail. by Kim Renders