All those who follow the seasonal programs of theaters and other venues have noticed, in this “post-pandemic” year, the unusual abundance of proposals on our stages.
The renowned choreographer. and now a director, Mélanie Demers wrote a powerful Facebook message, in October 2021, questioning the opulent effervescence of the fall return to dance. The artist said he was overwhelmed by the number of events, rejoicing in this bubbling, but also saying he was very worried about the short time given to each new creation.
“As soon as our three show nights are over, our works are already buried. Only a few will see the light of day again and go on tour. But that’s not how we will create a common discourse. […] I am sorry for these shows that we create quickly for lack of money, lack of time and that we send so quickly to the cemetery to make way for the next one, ”she wrote.
Unlike dance performances, plays generally stay on longer, but audiences might repeat the same talk when there are more premieres than days in the same week. After years of a pandemic, the fall start of 2022 took on the appearance of a demolition race, where one had the impression that the cars were projecting themselves onto the track without looking either ahead or behind, without checking the state of the engine or the fuel gauge.
I hear companies and their management repeat that artists have not stopped creating during the pandemic. Either. It remains difficult, however, to conceive the fact that everyone, facing the funnel in full view, decided to plunge into it with their eyes closed.
Pandemic/amnesia?
The pandemic will have nevertheless made it possible to adopt new ways of working: the precious time to reflect, the creative laboratories, the shoulder-to-shoulder sessions in videoconferencing, the writing residencies… Then, suddenly, with the return to room, we scuttled what many described as progress for the profession. Beautiful resolutions were born while the whole planet was watching Netflix or reading novels that had been put aside for years: rethinking the ways of writing, programming, producing… The pandemic sparked the idea that the theater community was going to look yourself in the face and renew yourself. But it was only a dream.
Talking to experienced performers coming out of the crisis, I was amazed to hear some and some of them say that the biggest difficulty now, because of the overproduction, was to match the diaries. And the next generation, damn it? Then, this huge and heavy drop that makes the vase overflow, we are planning dozens of covers in 2022-2023! If everyone continued to work during the pandemic, which explains the overflow, there is absolutely no room for reruns in the particular context where new productions or those that have been postponed are jostling.
We must ask ourselves if it is the spirit of competition that considerably undermines any effort to rethink the functioning of the theatrical milieu. A milieu, let’s say it, torn between extremes, that is to say the eternal tug of war between art and commerce. A medium which had, for once, undertaken a reflection on the possibility of questioning the race against time, that of accumulation, stacking, one-upmanship.
CQT master plan
Fortunately, the Quebec Theater Council (CQT) is keeping an eye on the grain. Last November, it published a new master plan for the decade 2023-2033. This fairly comprehensive document should serve as a geographical map for years to come. It is worth reading it to grasp the importance of the message that we are trying to convey in our own way. Ideas and new measures abound, each one being accompanied by a precise timetable for the short, medium and long term.
However, very little emphasis is placed on consultation between the various institutions to address how to design programming. We avoid tackling the issue of competition between artistic directions head-on. Without questioning the independence and uniqueness of theatres, omitting this dysfunctional dimension is equivalent to renewing a model that risks preventing all actions from being carried out for their purposes. As long as the directors of the theaters continue to look at each other like faience dogs, each will continue to gnaw at its bone in its corner, grumbling at the others, who have bigger or better stocked ones.
“Let’s talk, let’s listen to each other”, rightly concludes the CQT’s master plan, in what it calls a “follow-up word” and not an end. Let’s hope so. “Otherwise, as Mélanie Demers concludes, we abdicate before the dictatorship of everything-to-consume, everything-to-consume. »
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