David Binder: The arts festival revolution

32,930 views ・ 2012-11-16

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Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Morton Bast
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Sydney. I had been waiting my whole life to get to Sydney.
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I got to the airport, to the hotel, checked in,
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and, sitting there in the lobby, was a brochure
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for the Sydney Festival. I thumbed through it,
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and I came across a show called "Minto: Live."
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The description read: "The suburban streets of Minto
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become the stage for performances
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created by international artists
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in collaboration with the people of Minto."
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What was this place called Minto?
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Sydney, as I would learn, is a city of suburbs,
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and Minto lies southwest, about an hour away.
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I have to say, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind
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for my first day down under.
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I mean, I'd thought about the Harbour Bridge or Bondi Beach,
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but Minto? But still, I'm a producer,
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and the lure of a site-specific theater project
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was more than I could resist. (Laughter)
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So, off I went into Friday afternoon traffic,
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and I'll never forget what I saw when I got there.
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For the performance, the audience walked
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around the neighborhood from house to house,
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and the residents, who were the performers,
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they came out of their houses, and they performed
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these autobiographical dances on their lawns,
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on their driveways. (Laughter)
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The show is a collaboration with a U.K.-based
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performance company called Lone Twin.
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Lone Twin had come to Minto and worked
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with the residents, and they had created these dances.
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This Australian-Indian girl, she came out and started
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to dance on her front lawn,
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and her father peered out the window to see
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what all the noise and commotion was about,
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and he soon joined her.
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And he was followed by her little sister.
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And soon they were all dancing this joyous,
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exuberant dance right there on their lawn. (Laughter)
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And as I walked through the neighborhood,
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I was amazed and I was moved by the incredible
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sense of ownership this community clearly felt
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about this event.
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"Minto: Live" brought Sydneysiders into dialogue
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with international artists, and really celebrated
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the diversity of Sydney on its own terms.
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The Sydney Festival which produced "Minto: Live" I think
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represents a new kind of 21st-century arts festival.
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These festivals are radically open.
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They can transform cities and communities.
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To understand this, I think it kind of makes sense
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to look where we've come from.
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Modern arts festivals were born
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in the rubble of World War II.
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Civic leaders created these annual events
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to celebrate culture as the highest
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expression of the human spirit.
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In 1947, the Edinburgh Festival was born
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and Avignon was born and hundreds of others
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would follow in their wake.
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The work they did was very, very high art,
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and stars came along like Laurie Anderson
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and Merce Cunningham and Robert Lepage
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who made work for this circuit,
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and you had these seminal shows like "The Mahabharata"
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and the monumental "Einstein on the Beach."
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But as the decades passed,
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these festivals, they really became the establishment,
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and as the culture and capital accelerated,
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the Internet brought us all together,
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high and low kind of disappeared,
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a new kind of festival emerged.
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The old festivals, they continued to thrive, but
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from Brighton to Rio to Perth, something new was emerging,
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and these festivals were really different.
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They're open, these festivals, because, like in Minto,
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they understand that the dialogue
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between the local and the global is essential.
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They're open because they ask the audience to be a player,
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a protagonist, a partner, rather than a passive spectator,
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and they're open because they know that imagination
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cannot be contained in buildings,
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and so much of the work they do
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is site-specific or outdoor work.
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So, the new festival, it asks the audience to play
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an essential role in shaping the performance.
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Companies like De La Guarda, which I produce, and Punchdrunk
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create these completely immersive experiences
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that put the audience at the center of the action,
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but the German performance company Rimini Protokoll
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takes this all to a whole new level.
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In a series of shows that includes "100 Percent Vancouver,"
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"100 Percent Berlin," Rimini Protokoll makes shows
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that actually reflect society.
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Rimini Protokoll chooses 100 people that represent that city
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at that moment in terms of race and gender and class,
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through a careful process that begins three months before,
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and then those 100 people share stories about
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themselves and their lives, and the whole thing
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becomes a snapshot of that city at that moment.
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LIFT has always been a pioneer in the use of venues.
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They understand that theater and performance
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can happen anywhere.
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You can do a show in a schoolroom,
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in an airport, — (Laughter) —
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in a department store window.
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Artists are explorers. Who better to show us the city anew?
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Artists can take us to a far-flung part of the city
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that we haven't explored, or they can take us into
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that building that we pass every day but we never went into.
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An artist, I think, can really show us people
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that we might overlook in our lives.
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Back to Back is an Australian company of people
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with intellectual disabilities. I saw their amazing show
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in New York at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal
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at rush hour.
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We, the audience, were given headsets and seated
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on one side of the terminal.
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The actors were right there in front of us,
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right there among the commuters,
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and we could hear them,
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but we might not have otherwise seen them.
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So Back to Back takes site-specific theater and uses it
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to gently remind us about who and what we choose
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to edit out of our daily lives.
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So, the dialogue with the local and the global,
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the audience as participant and player and protagonist,
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the innovative use of site, all of these things
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come to play in the amazing work
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of the fantastic French company Royal de Luxe.
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Royal de Luxe's giant puppets come into a city
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and they live there for a few days.
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For "The Sultan's Elephant," Royal de Luxe
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came to central London and brought it to a standstill
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with their story of a giant little girl and her friend,
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a time-traveling elephant.
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For a few days, they transformed a massive city
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into a community where endless possibility reigned.
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The Guardian wrote, "If art is about transformation,
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then there can be no more transformative experience.
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What 'The Sultan's Elephant' represents is no less
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than an artistic occupation of the city
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and a reclamation of the streets for the people."
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We can talk about the economic impacts of these festivals
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on their cities, but I'm much [more] interested in many more things,
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like how a festival helps a city to express itself,
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how it lets it come into its own.
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Festivals promote diversity,
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they bring neighbors into dialogue,
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they increase creativity,
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they offer opportunities for civic pride,
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they improve our general psychological well-being.
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In short, they make cities better places to live.
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Case in point:
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When "The Sultan's Elephant" came to London
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just nine months after 7/7, a Londoner wrote,
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"For the first time since the London bombings,
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my daughter called up with that sparkle back in her voice.
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She had gathered with others
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to watch 'The Sultan's Elephant,' and, you know,
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it just made all the difference."
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Lyn Gardner in The Guardian has written
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that a great festival can show us a map of the world,
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a map of the city and a map of ourselves,
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but there is no one fixed festival model.
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I think what's so brilliant about the festivals,
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the new festivals, is that they are really fully capturing
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the complexity and the excitement
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of the way we all live today.
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Thank you very much. (Applause)
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