By Raoul Bhaneja of Hamlet (solo) – Hope and Hell Theatre Co. 

It was Thanksgiving Monday (Canadian) and as we touched down in Inuvik, two degrees north of the Arctic Circle, it was snowing.  In fact it was the first “real” snowfall of the year, which I was told would stay till around late April or May.

I had learned on my first trip to The North in January, during a stop at The Yukon Arts Centre that the worst thing a “Southerner” like me could say (NOTE: as a half South Asian, half Irish kid born in the UK and raised in Ottawa and Bonn, Germany I have rarely ever been called a “Southerner”) was something along the lines of “Man, it’s cold here!” or “Wow, you people live like THIS?!”

However I think social faux pas was justified.  For example, during that trip one of my shows had to be cancelled as it was TOO COLD to travel by car to Haines Junction.  I was told that in the event of a vehicle breakdown at night I would DIE as the road is not regularly patrolled by the RCMP after sundown, particularly when the wind chill was hovering around minus 50 degrees centigrade.  There was other evidence.  I had to jumpstart the company van three times and the sliding doors at the hotel had frozen shut so we had to go out the back way.   There was some satisfaction to all this for me as I was mocked on my arrival for having purchased a brand new ridiculously expensive Canadian made parka.  I was told that as it was only minus 25 it was fully evident that I was indeed a yellow bellied, cowardly, ostentatious, “can’t take the real cold”, first rate “Southerner”!

Canada is funny that way, in that it holds many geographic surprises and wonders to the uninitiated.  I remember many years ago, while spending my first night in Newfoundland preparing to shoot a movie, I was AMAZED to learn that someone was going to get up the next morning and drive to the “West Coast”.  “WOW!” I declared “That would take forever, it must be at least five or six days to drive to Vancouver?”  A pitying glance for a C.F.A (Come From Away) like myself was followed by a “Vancouver?  No by’… Cornerbrook!”

As snow blew across the tarmac at Inuvik Airport, I looked over to my tour guide, tour manager, story teller and long time acquaintance from our time at The National Theatre School nearly twenty years prior, the Northern Arts and Culture Centre Artistic Director, Mr. Ben Nind.  I knew our landing had been a bit treacherous as he had held his breath and closed his eyes on the landing.  That scared me to no end as he was a hardened air traveller of the North, with stories of blizzard landings in the high Arctic that would make one want to cut up their Aeroplan membership card never board a plane again.   Ben shared the anxiety that many of the North had to contend with in 2011. A series of deadly air tragedies had touched many personally, in particular those who have no other way to travel in and out of their communities but by air.

Thankfully we were now on terra firma and I quickly noticed that my worn walking shoes from Toronto were already slipping on the icy ground beneath my feet. Not wanting to come off looking like a total   “Southerner” on this trip, I had opted to go for a bit of a cooler look with a leather jacket and NO winter boots.  I marvel now at the biological fortitude or foolhardiness of my youth as I would proudly stand waiting for the OC Transpo bus to take me cross town to my high school in Ottawa in the dead chill of winter, well below minus 20 with NO toque and SOAKING wet (soon to be frozen) hair.

Inside the terminal I stood face to face with an enormous polar bear, towering over me, its full height over seven feet, ready to tear me to shreds.   Fortunately it was a work of artful taxidermy and I had been prepped by my terminal walk thru at Norman Wells where I was greeted by a slightly more friendly Grizzly.  After our snow covered bags (have I mentioned it was early October?!!!) Ben took me to the airport restaurant for what he described as the “best burgers in the North”.  I was already quite full from the amazing Thanksgiving dinner I had attended the night before in Yellowknife, where I was brought, a complete stranger, to sit side by side with one of the legendary families of town.  I enjoyed a home cooked turkey with a fascinating family who ranged in age from 18 months to eighty.

Ben was right, the burger was delicious.  So what if I had started to over eat on this tour? I do Hamlet on my own.  I burn calories!  Also I needed to have insulation, an extra layer of fat if I was to survive the next week up here and from what I could see it cost about five bucks to buy an orange anyway.

We got into our hotel and after a few days on the road I was tired.  Sit down, lie back on the hotel bed and prepare for tomorrows show in the hall of the local community centre…. that’s all I needed to do.   Before my eyes could close, there was a knock at the door.  It was Ben, standing in the hallway with his coat and baseball hat on.

Ben:  We’re going.

Raoul:  What?  Where?  We just got here-

Ben:  Thanksgiving Dinner.

Raoul: What?  Uh… we just ate at the airport, the hamburger-

Ben:  You don’t need to tell them that.

Raoul: But-

Ben: They’re waiting for us.  Let’s go.

Not ten minutes later I was standing in the warm kitchen a longtime resident of Inuvik, a nurse at the local health care centre who had laid out before me another TREMENDOUS spread of Thanksgiving goodness.  Everyone there was ready to eat.  They had been waiting.  I swallowed hard and sat down as mounds of delicious (but indigestible ) turkey, stuffing, sprouts, potatoes, gravy, salad, roasted vegetables were put on my plate.  I broke out into a sweat.  A wave of nausea followed by a wave of panic over took me.  Here I was, for the second day in a row, invited into the warmth of a complete strangers home, during the very significant feast of Thanksgiving and the last thing I wanted to do was throw up the North’s best hamburger all over my hosts and their close friends, as their esteemed “Southern” guest.

I looked at Ben, who merrily munched, too much of a pro to give anything away about the cheeseburger progressing thru his system.  He gave me a look, the kind one needs in a moment like that, as if from an older sibling or kindly Uncle, or perhaps one that was given to the brave souls before they climbed out of the trenches at The Somme.  It was a look that said “Steady… Steady on , man.”

I am thankful indeed that in that instant -it worked.

What followed was another remarkable evening of stories, laughter and for this touring artist the reminder that even on a Thanksgiving thousands of kilometers away from my wife and children, we are a nation of families with open arms, tables and hearts ready to share our homes, ideas and our experiences with each other.  I’m looking forward to continuing that journey at Magnetic North 2012… But please… no turkey.

The Grizzly of Norman Wells Airport. Photo courtesy Raoul Bhaneja

Polar Bear of Inuvik Airport- WELCOME SOUTHERN COWARD!!!!!!! Photo courtesy Raoul Bhaneja

It’s Thanksgiving Monday in Inuvik! Photo courtesy Raoul Bhaneja

Written by Christopher Morris, Artistic Director, Human Cargo

In 2003 I had an idea to make a play about how the winter darkness affects people who live in the arctic. It would be created in Nunavut and Iceland during the arctic darkness with Southern Canadian, Inuit and Icelandic actors. I picked Pond Inlet, Nunavut on a map and flew up for four weeks in November/2003 to introduce myself and the idea of the play to the community. Four workshops later, bringing Canadian and Inuit actors to Iceland, and then an Icelandic actor to Nunavut, and then cutting the Iceland component out of the play all together, the play finally premiered at the National Arts Centre in 2010.  Throughout Night’s tour across Ontario and throughout the Western and Eastern Arctic, true to its spirit, the play has continued to evolve. The questions we are trying to ask with this play have become more focused over time. Like all theatre creations, we began this process in the dark and only over time, understood what needed to come to light.

Here are a few photos from the different workshops:

Taken in Pond Inlet, Nunavut in 2007 during a rehearsal of Night’s first workshop. (Michelle Fisk, Annabella Piuggatuk, Ben Clost and Lamech Kadloo) Photo courtesy Christopher Morris

Night’s second workshop took place in Akureyri, Iceland in collaboration with the Akureyri, Playhouse. Photo courtesy Christopher Morris

Night’s Icelandic actor Denni Palmarsson in rehearsal. Photo courtesy Christopher Morris.

Pond Inlet, Nunavut in October/2008. Photo courtesy Christopher Morris

During a rehearsal, Night’s Pond Inlet actor Abbie Ootova and dancer Linnea Swan. Photo courtesy Christopher Morris.

En-route to an Iceberg, Pond Inlet/2009 (Denni Palmarsson, Abbie Ootova and Night’s set and costume designer Gillian Gallow) Photo courtesy Christopher Morris

I just received this response to my blog post about truth in the theatre from Selena Couture, a PhD candidate in theatre at UBC (and old friend). 

Hi Marcus,

Just read your blogpost. I’ve also been following/thinking about the Mike Daisy thing. Here’s my favourite part of Ira’s interview with him. It’s better when you hear Ira say “I feel like I have the normal worldview” but it’s OK in print too. Excruciating…and hard to look away from at the same time. 

Mike Daisey: I think you can trust my word in the context of the theater. And how people see it–

Ira Glass:I find this to be a really hedgy answer. I think it’s OK for somebody in your position to say that it isn’t all literally true. Do you know what I mean? I feel like, actually, it seems like it’s honest labeling. And I feel like that’s what’s actually called for at this point, is just honest labeling. You make a nice show. People are moved by it. I was moved by it. And if it were labeled honestly, I think everybody would react differently to it.

Mike Daisey: I don’t think that label covers the totality of what it is.

Ira Glass: The label, “fiction?”

Mike Daisey: Yeah. We have different worldviews on some of these things. I agree that truth is really important.

Ira Glass: I know. But I feel like I have the normal worldview. The normal worldview is somebody stands on a stage and says, “This happened to me,” I think it happened to them, unless it’s clearly labeled, “Here’s a work of fiction.”

“I like to write stuff that’s only an inch from life, from what really happened, but all the art if of course within that inch”
– David Shields (from Reality Hunger)

Allright, the shows are announced. It’s a list I feel super proud to be associated with. Last year at this time I blogged a bit about how the festival felt strong on shows that represent a wide range of style and aesthetic values, but semi-weak on telling stories that come from experiences/ creators that reflect the multicultural reality of our major cities. This year that’s not the case. While we’re arguably short on queer content this year, there’s a whack of shows that ask fundamental questions about what it means to be Canadian in relationship to the multiple places citizens of this vast country consider home.

Which makes me wonder about the massive brouhaha caused recently by Mike Daisey’s one-person show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, about the manufacture of Apple products at Foxcomm plants in China.

I’m thinking about it because two of the shows are solo pieces derived directly from the personal (and political) experiences of two artists: Carmen Aguirre’s Blue Box tells the story of her experience in the Chilean underground. Mani Soleymanlou’s One tells the story of his journey from Iran to his current home in Montreal.

Basically Mike Daisey’s story details his experience going to China and observing a whole series events in which workers are pretty intensely mistreated. He’s been touring the show for years, to huge acclaim and impact, and the PBS radio show This American Life decided to broadcast a chunk of it. Trouble is, their China correspondent heard the broadcast, and quickly decided that there was no way that Daisey could have experienced a number of the events he describes having witnessed. Turns out Daisey lifted a bunch of stuff (including meeting underage workers, and workers who had lost limbs) from already existing media reports, and then pretended that he had actually met them first hand.

Made the story a lot better. But it didn’t happen to him.

Daisey’s defense? The stuff happens all the time (and it does). He was making art, not journalism, and in the service of that art, he fudged the truth, to increase its dramatic impact. And why, he asks, is the story suddenly about him? Who does that serve, when the atrocities he describes are TRUE.

This American’s Life’s response: you didn’t tell the truth, and misrepresented your own experience, to us, and to your audiences in the theatre, which makes you an untrustworthy source, and a LIAR.

I can’t say if Mani and Carmen’s experiences as represented in their shows are all true (maybe more on that later, or at the festival when we do talkbacks). But I do know I think it’s a fascinating question that gets right to the heart of a weird relationship between art and political action: journalism’s tonal objectivity is kind of explicitly designed NOT to move people. Storytelling’s personal subjectivity is designed to. At the same time, we’re immersed in a culture that seems to crave a sense of authenticity that comes from people telling us what actually happened.

So when you’re making art that’s meant to galvanize people into action, what do you do?

Mike Daisey being interviewed after the fact on This American Life (it’s really painful): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

Mike Daisey responding to the brouhaha after a show in Georgetown:
http://soundcloud.com/mike-daisey/georgetown-talk

…or so someone should tell Mitch!

Magnetic North’s idea of a great auction sale is a lot quieter but the prizes will delight you; they include a trip to spectacular St. John’s to appear in an episode of CBC TV’s Republic of Doyle (and meet star Allan Hawco!), your very own Newfoundland House Party with the NAC’s Peter Herrndorf, and subscriptions and ticket packages from the NAC’s English Language Theatre, GCTC, New Theatre, and Evolution Theatre.

Our silent auction runs until August 19th but don’t wait too long to examine the goods; check the bill here!

Wrapping up a week of Compass Points and saying good-bye to Magnetic North leads to a gambit of mixed emotions. It has been a phenomenal week – rife with learning opportunities, emotional journeys, moments of self-discovery and reaffirmations of our craft and our need to create. But as we are sent back out into the real world, I can feel the familiar doubts and moments of trepidation creeping into my knees. The mantras of the week revolved around statements of being “Bold”, “Fearless” and “Fierce”. I know all these affirmations were present in the productions mounted throughout the festival and in each artist who made their craft available. So I suppose there is only one choice. Push the fear out of the way. Tell the trepidations they have no place in my art. And begin the process of creation.

We say good-bye to our Compass Point colleagues, but I know our journey together has only begun. We will see each other for the rest of our lives as we take new strides into this art form and push ourselves and each other to new heights. I hold the experiences of the week as a sword against my angst. I have letters from established artists posted on my fridge with my own notes scribbled amongst their advice. And I repeat to myself a few of the last words I heard on Friday afternoon as our week came to close – “Don’t be ‘good’. Just be original.”

-Celine Filion

It was a day devoted to the Process of Learning and Creation. The day began with a full panel discussion by three diverse theatre companies followed by workshops targeting writing grants and the intricacies of playwriting. Despite the number of events, the different artists involved and the different formats, there was a strange line that ran through the day and through all the artists involved. Regardless of the difference in experience, recognition of work and success in the industry – the message remains that making work is hard. It will not get easier- it will always be different, and there should always be passion – but it will never be easier.

After the fun of the week and the friendships forged, today served to be a small reality-check and a reminder of the work ahead. And I can’t help to look around the room and wonder which of these artists will be next to make a footprint on the Canadian scene. Or with whom might I find myself discussing the creation of a company that will fulfill our needs and what we would like to see explored in our area of Canada. But I know I am not the first to have these thoughts, I won’t be the last and I refuse to be lost somewhere in the middle. So I can only put faith in the advice that also remained constant throughout the day, “Put your faith in the work, and be fearless”.

-Celine Filion

Since 2005, the Industry Series has served as Magnetic North’s professional development symposium dedicated to building networks and sharing the wealth of knowledge among festival delegates. Offering workshops, panels, pitch sessions for new work, speed-dating sessions and roundtables, the Industry Series provides a key forum for dialogue, networking and exchange. The Series has become a model for other festivals and organizations across the country and internationally, and has fostered a growing sophistication and interconnectedness among Canadian professionals.

The 2011 Industry Series was hosted and devised by Ottawa theatre artists. During Daily Pitch Sessions, artists showcased their projects on tour and in development. A series of discussions and workshops led by artists and producers from across Canada gave voice to the new artistic practice and vitality blossoming in Canada’s theatre community.

Alix Sideris had the chance to speak with representatives from two of the groups involved – John Koensgen of Ottawa’s New Theatre and Kevin Orr from Theatre 4.669

Theatre critic Alvina Ruprecht

So says Ottawa’s dean of theatre reviewers, Alvina Ruprecht. You can read her full review here.

Her reviews for other productions in this season’s festival include YICHUD! and This What Happens Next

Volunteer expertise: recording the discussion at an Industry session

Now that the festival is winding down, as the Volunteer Coordinator for Magnetic North  I’ve been sitting here at my desk in the Hub reflecting a little and have come to a bold conclusion:  Being a Volunteer Coordinator isn’t that much different from being one of the Directors of this year’s plays. In very much the same way that any play is produced, a  script was developed (the festival schedule), casting calls were held (advertising, applications and interviews) and roles were filled according to the “talent” of each actor (volunteer) cast.

Now you may say that the “real” parts that shone in this mammoth production were filled by the plays themselves, the artists within them, and the staff and Board of Directors who managed this festival, all of whom were ever before the public eye. But I would have to say that in addition to these  more important roles  were the “lesser” and “smaller”  supporting roles  (if you will)   all of which  went to an amazing group of Magnetic North volunteers,  whom I have come to know and love. When the Festival finally began, the downtown Ottawa area was amassed with a Magnetic North volunteer- powderblue-shirt-army. If you were at the festival, you likely saw them  shuttling people from the airport to the hotels and sometimes between venues. Perhaps you saw some smiling and patiently giving out the delegate badges and bags, others barbecuing, while others handed out programs, ushered at the plays, took your tickets, moved risers around or served you drinks  at the Festival Bar. And let’s not forget the Human Library “books” who volunteered their time to share a little bit about themselves and the “librarians” too.

As it is for volunteers, none of them were in it for the paycheque.   Amazingly, some of them even  took vacations or returned from them so they could help. But even if they didn’t go to those lengths, all of them signed on because they believed in what the Magnetic North Festival stands for, and wanted to help to see it promoted.  I would say, as well, that they played these “small parts” with the expertise of some of even the finest actors;  most not needing the spotlight, but simply gaining a great satisfaction knowing they could help in some small way. They played their parts with grace and servant’s hearts.

This year’s Mag North Volunteers, in my estimation, were the cream of the crop. And with that thought I am  reminded of that  famous line “there are no small parts, only small actors” only in reverse, because every Magnetic North actor-volunteer that signed on to help  approached their role as if they had the part of their lifetime—and every single one of them shone, as a result.  I am proud to have known and worked with them.  I’m sure you agree.