The Opportunity to Fail

by Lisa Cox

Lisa was the 2015 recipient of the International Creators Scholarship.  The scholarship provides the opportunity for an emerging theatre artist to train in theatre creation on an international level with SITI Company.  The Scholarship was created in partnership by Why Not Theatre and Theatre Ontario, and is sponsored by SDA Enterprises with matching funds from artsVest Toronto.

The SITI Summer Intensive began on a Sunday evening. The air in the JBK was filled with hunger, curiosity and nerves of course. We were all met for the first time. As we went around the circle and introduced ourselves by name, practice/discipline and point of origin, it was clear that I was going to spend the next month was an incredibly passionate group of artists from around the world. As the weeks progressed, the nerves came and went, but the hunger and curiosity only intensified as we dove deeper and deeper into our training. This training is not for the faint-of-heart: 90 minutes of Suzuki training, followed by 90 minutes of Viewpoints. Lunch was followed by two 90 minute classes of either movement, Speaking (with a sword no less!), dramaturgy and composition. Dinner and then rehearsal for 2 to 3 hours. The level of fatigue and exhaustion high – but what was astounding was that everyone pushed through; teaching us that that our personal limits are much further than we think.

The Importance of Rigour

Suzuki is a physical form of training that is as intense as you desire it to be, but you stand to gain the most by pushing yourself well beyond your perceived maximum. And then hiding it. Rigour is explicitly folded into the Suzuki training. Similar to classical ballet, we chase forms that are impossible to make with our bodies.

The Suzuki training is directly related to our work on the stage. Suzuki provides a perfect, unattainable, form. The performer's job is to strive for perfection in the form; to butt up against the form; which of course leads to failure. But it is within the attempt and this failure that we learn. 

The attempt requires a razor-like focus and conscientiousness. Moving with this kind of meticulousness sharpened my awareness and knowledge of my instrument – my body. Though the standard or form is perfect and unchanging – throughout the course we were asked to look for the specific challenges facing our personal instrument, to chart our own journey and develop our own language to face our personal obstacles. Each improvement creating new challenges that inform us about our instrument.

There is also something incredibly beautiful to me around sharing of obstacles, language and thought. Within the pedagogy of the Suzuki at SITI, students are repeatedly asked to watch each other. But it even goes a step further – to share what you saw (the good, the bad and the downright ugly) with each other. At times this was by watching with our eyes, sometimes it was by placing our hands on each other and once, literally carrying each other while executing the form. By forcing us to not only “watch” but share what we “saw” with each other, we were able to deepen our understanding of the form. We began to find the language to articulate our findings. It also made the pursuit less of a downer: It was less about continually failing and more about finding joy in the pursuit of perfection especially since perfection is an unattainable destination. A huge paradigm shift.

What became clearer and clearer to me as well was the implicit need for that same rigour in Viewpoints class. Can I really forget about the idea of being interesting and be honestly curious? Can I truly be in a state of working, and not performing, when I am up in front of my peers? Can I continue that state of work (and not think about what I just did or will do) when I am watching? Can I follow my own bliss and lead at times... Do I even know what that is?

These are questions that I will continue to ask of myself your years to come, perhaps and most likely forever. 

The teacher and the student

Another moment of beauty is that core SITI company members not only teach or lead all of the classes, but they also take all of the classes with us. Not only does this show us their dedication to training, but it also allows us to watch them work. And while this is inspiring, gorgeous and jaw-droppingly awe making, it also means that we get to watch them make mistakes. This was incredible. What are mistakes? How do these incredible performers navigate mistakes? 

Well, in Viewpoints, there are no mistakes. There is only information. If we are noticing, open and less wrapped in our personal psychology, this information leads us to discoveries (and not judgements) about our physical and vocal tendencies and the text we are studying. We need these discoveries. Once we are aware of our tendencies we can choose whether or not to continue to work in our habits, or to work on carving out new patterns. 

In Suzuki, while watching each other and sharing what we saw, we were learning to objectively articulate the needs of the form. When we were working with others and watching others, we the students, were learning how to teach ourselves. The instructors at SITI would remind us that, in others, we are all more likely to see the same challenges that we have ourselves. The major difference is in the articulation or the language we use. We are much kinder in our articulation to others than we would be to ourselves. By practising with others, we were shifting our self-talk to be more objective and on a basic, human level, kinder.

Constructive Collaboration

Oh Composition class, How did I hate thee? In 6 days or less create a 12 minute piece of theatre, following a laundry list of criteria. Create this piece of theatre outside of your 8 hours of class time with people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, that you have never worked with or even met before… and GO!

The level of stress was unbelievable, but really, welcome to the world of theatre.  From a performance perspective, Composition Class gave us the opportunity to practise the mindsets and awareness that we were developing in Suzuki and Viewpoints in real time. From a creation point of view (most) theatre is created on the most ridiculously small budgets, in less time than necessary with people that you have shared limited time creating with. And the play/text has needs too! 

Composition Class was a concrete lesson in constructive collaboration. In team environments, there are four stages that a new team goes through: forming, storming, norming and performing. For creative processes, we stand to benefit from norming the storming stage. As a team, having the ability to supportively encourage and challenge each other’s ideas allow a kernel of an idea to blossom into practicality if not excellence.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Why Not Theatre, Theatre Ontario, SDA Enterprises, and artsVest Toronto for the International Creators Scholarship. I am irrevocably changed by my time at SITI’s Summer Intensive. Filled with a curiosity that I haven’t experienced in years and full of questions, I return to the Toronto theatre scene with a language by which to speak about the work and an approach by which to bring my best instrument to the table.

Photos courtesy of SITI Company, from the annual Summer Intensive at Skidmore College. FMI: www.siti.org. #SITIskidmore15.

Learn more about Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre's International Creators Scholarship

Congratulations to the 2015 International Creators Scholarship Recipient

Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre congratulate Lisa Cox, who has been chosen as the recipient of the International Creators Scholarship this year.  The Scholarship allows for an emerging artist to train with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company for one month in Suzuki, Viewpoints, and directing and devising new work.  The Scholarship is a partnership between Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre, sponsored by SDA Enterprises and funds have been matched by artsVest Toronto.  artsVest Toronto is run by Business For The Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council.

A graduate of Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Studies program, Lisa Karen Cox relishes work that combines music, movement and heightened language. Lisa often plays men and other mythical creatures.  Theatre credits include: The Penelopiad (Royal Shakespeare Co/NAC); Friar Laurence in Romeo & (her) Juliet (Headstrong Collective); Elizabeth in The Story, Igora in Weather the Weather (Theatre Columbus); Pompey in Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare in the Rough); 2 seasons at the Stratford Festival of Canada; Horatio in Hamlet (Beyond the Cubical Productions); and The Vagina Monologues. Lisa was also the choreographer for Nightwood Theatre's Bear with Me and Comedy of Errors. Lisa is a certified teacher and artist-educator.

"The opportunity to study with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company will deepen my understanding of my theatrical practice," said Lisa.  "The study of composition, dramaturgy, and movement will fulfill a dream of completing formal education in theatre, and develop my ability to articulate my processes and aesthetic. I am beyond excited!"

This Scholarship program is designed to address the need for theatre artists to access more contemporary artistic training opportunities and to encourage artists to set the stage for the future of theatre and performance creation in Ontario, by having the opportunity to experience high caliber international training.  The scholarship includes course training and application fees, accommodation for the training period, and a travel allowance.

SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theatre in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. For the past 22 years, their impact can be seen on theatre creators around the world.

Learn more about Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre’s Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship

Funding International Training for Ontario’s Theatre Creators

SITI Company - 2014 Skidmore Intensive

Theatre Ontario is thrilled to announce the return of the International Creators Scholarship, funding emerging artists’ training in theatre creation with the SITI Company.  The Scholarship—which will be offered in 2015 and 2016—was created in partnership with Why Not Theatre and is sponsored by SDA Enterprises with matching funds from artsVest Toronto.

The Scholarship allows an emerging artist to train with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company for one month (June 7 to July 4, 2015) in Saratoga Springs, New York.  They will train in Suzuki, Viewpoints, as well as directing and devising new work.  SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theatre in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. For the past 22 years, their impact can be seen on theatre creators around the world.

This program is designed to address the need for theatre artists to access more contemporary artistic training opportunities and to encourage artists to set the stage for the future of theatre and performance creation in Ontario, by having the opportunity to experience high caliber international training.

The 2015 application deadline is March 13.

Find out more about applying for Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre’s International Creators Scholarship

Read about the experiences of the 2014 scholarship recipients Colin Bruce Anthes and Miriam Fernandes 

artsVest Toronto is run by Business for the Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council.

“It’s Impossible, of course, but Try”

by Miriam Fernandes

Over the month-long training in Saratoga Springs, in each Suzuki class that SITI Company Member Akiko Aizawa would teach she would say to us, “It’s impossible, of course, but try.”  This is the perfect way to sum up my time in Saratoga Springs—chasing the impossible.  The impossibility of keeping my balance in Suzuki, of being aware of everything at once in Viewpoints, of creating a newly devised piece each week with a group of new people and with a list of thirty things that must be included in the composition.  This is the beauty of the SITI Training—it gave me the tools to engage with the journey of chasing the impossible. 

My mind is still reeling from the whirlwind month and I am still trying to absorb and process it all, but I will attempt, in this blog, to start to bring some thoughts to surface.

Here are some of the things I am thinking about:

1) Training is a lifelong commitment.

When I mentioned in my previous blog that I was going to train “with” the SITI Company, what I really believed was that I was going to be “taught by” the SITI Company.  In actuality, I was training “with” the company.  Every morning we would have a 90-minute Suzuki class and a 90-minute Viewpoints class—and along with the 30-odd international artists, SITI Company Members would also take the class.  Consistent training is a fundamental value of the SITI Company.  They all teach and they all take each other’s classes.  This was ground shattering to me because in my experience, there exists a hierarchy of knowledge between teacher and student.  The teacher “knows” and the student “learns.”  And while this was still true in a sense, as many of us were learning new training methods, the company members’ participation in the classes taught me that in order to be excellent at anything, one must practice. You’re never “done” training.  In the case of the SITI Company, the teacher “shares” and the students “practice.”

And of course, it makes sense; ballet dancers practice their pliés whether they’re in a show or not—it’s a reaffirmed commitment to their craft.  And over the month I realized what a strange thing it is that as a theatre artist, I don’t have a practice—something I do daily to work on my craft.  The Company’s commitment to their training—Suzuki and Viewpoints—is humbling.  Training with people who have been studying these forms for over twenty years and watching them do their work and approach it with the same curiosity and presence as if it was their first time is inspiring—it’s how I want to work. 

2)  If you don’t know what you’re doing, get really specific.  Make choices.   If they’re wrong you’ll know, but you can’t know until you get really precise about what you’re doing.

In any given creative process, I get to a point where I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.  There are so many possible roads I can take that I get overwhelmed and frozen at the crossroads.  One of my greatest joys this month was discovering that choice will set me free.  Making a choice, however arbitrary, will bring me closer to what I am looking for. 

I had never realized before how many choices I have to make for every minute that I am on stage—it’s infinite and requires a rigor and clarity that I want to work with.  Nothing I do onstage can be accidental or unconscious, because the audience makes meaning (subconsciously) of everything.  As Anne Bogart says, “Acting is consciousness”.  It is being hyper aware, hyper present.  Both the Suzuki and Viewpoints training give the actor tools to bring themselves into the present moment, often by raising awareness by physically engaging the body.  And with this awareness, one can make choices:  to increase the tempo here, to create a more extreme spatial relationship there, to bring more stillness into the work: all choices that give me a way “in” to the work when I feel paralyzed. 

3)  There is a lot more to telling stories than text.

Ellen Lauren, (SITI Actor and Co-Artistic Director of the Company) says, “Actors are like braille that the audience presses into to read the story.”  It’s not just the text that we speak but the entire experience of seeing our bodies move through space and engage in the situation of the play, that an audience reads. 

And this is one of the MOST exciting challenges for me—if the audience is making meaning of everything I say and do, then everything on stage must be a choice!  From the moment I breathe in a monologue, to the turn of a head, to the dynamic of my speech, to the speed of my walk.  There is so much to craft—and each choice participates in the telling of a story to an audience. 

4)  Be interested, not interesting.

Often on stage, especially in a Viewpoints improvisation, I felt the need to “perform.”  What does that mean?  To be interesting?  To give the audience something worth watching?  That means that I am deciding what I think is worth watching and imposing that on my audience.  That’s not so interesting.

Anne Bogart says, “The one thing you can’t fake is curiosity.”  If you follow your curiosity, it will take you on a journey.  What’s way more interesting to watch is someone on stage who is interested in something.  What they are interested in, the audience doesn’t even have to understand.  It can be the actor’s secret.  But the act of being interested brings the actor into the present moment.  It activates their body and mind in a way that makes it impossible to not watch them.

Site Specific location for Composition 1: Parking Lot

5)  Language is power.

While there was a diversity of artistic practice in the room (directors, actors, circus performers, writers, puppeteers, etc.) the Company trains everyone as a Performer.  And as we created weekly compositions together, we needed to collaborate.

So how do you deal with the impossibility of collaboration?  How do you put five people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, languages, artistic practices in a room and get them to make something?  One of the SITI Company’s answers to this is give them the same vocabulary: i.e.  The Viewpoints.

The Viewpoints provide an artistic vocabulary that gives order to the chaos that is the world.

If you give a company of artists a way of talking about work, a common language, you give them the power to articulate their ideas and understand each other’s proposals.  Anyone who has studied Viewpoints before knows about vocabulary like tempo, spatial relationship, shape, architecture, etc.  These are the tools of a director, given to an actor.  Giving the actor these tools empowers the actor to make choices.  In my own practice, I know it has made me more aware of, and responsible for the “whole” picture, because I can now name what I couldn’t before.  I can take care of the whole by knowing what I am serving within it.

SITI Company – 2014 Skidmore Intensive

I went to Saratoga Springs seeking Master teachers and that is exactly what I got.  The level of pedagogy was unlike any I had experienced before.  The way the SITI Company speaks about what they do and why they do it was inspiring.  Working with artists from around the world was a gift!  I can’t quite describe how I am changed, but I feel it—I feel the fire.  I feel more alive.  The experience was truly paradigm shifting and I cannot express my gratitude deeply enough to Theatre Ontario, Why Not Theatre, and the sponsors for this opportunity.

The Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship is a partnership between Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre, sponsored by Nekison Engineering and Contractors Ltd with funds matched by artsVest Toronto.  artsVest Toronto is run by Business for the Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council.

Practicing Deeply

By Colin Bruce Anthes

Over the past month, I have had the tremendous privilege of training with Anne Bogart and SITI Company in Viewpoints, Suzuki method, and devised composition. The unique opportunity, which I could not have otherwise afforded, was made possible through the Independent Theatre Creators’ International Training Scholarship arranged by Why Not Theatre and Theatre Ontario. For me, this scholarship was the completion of a unique circle; while conducting my initial training at Humber College, I had the great pleasure of soaking in Why Not’s mesmerizing production of The Prince Hamlet. It was one of a handful of pieces that built in me a compulsion to start my own company and pursue a career as a theatre creator. Five years into that journey with Twitches And Itches Theatre—three since making our permanent home in St. Catharines—the same company that helped inspire my beginning now opened the much-needed door to strive for the next level.

The month was creatively and personally immense; this report is doomed to be too long trying to be brief. I was a beginner again, which caused alternating feelings of inspiration and frustration practically second by second. I spent great amounts of time being not very good at things, and yet left each day with a vast collection of meaningful images, new ideas, and different exciting ways to think about the profession. Returning home, I have been astonished at just how much I have been able to pour into my creative projects, as if a flood of insight had been dammed up and was finally allowed to burst. I kept a notebook throughout the intensive, and I have a sense I will be scouring its pages for many years to come. 

Warming up for Suzuki class
Photo by Miriam Fernandes

I arrived representing Canada with fellow scholarship recipient Miriam Fernandes, a terrifically talented Toronto actress who is also at-least part-angel. Miriam and I were part of a truly international contingent: the intensive drew participants from Brazil, Finland, Spain, Singapore, Belgium, Greece, England, and more.  The range of disciplines was equally broad: everything from theatre historians to circus performers assembled to expand their particular artistry through an intense month of hands-on physical training. I have never before collaborated with such a diverse group, and that alone would have made for a worthwhile training experience.

The SITI Company members themselves are unique not only for their inspiring life-long commitment to training—they have practiced Suzuki method and Viewpoints before each rehearsal of their 23-year history—but also for the immersive walk-the-walk way they pass that training on to others. Rather than establishing a dichotomous trainer/trainee arrangement, the handful of core company artists alternate turns as instructors, while the remainder jump into the fray with the rest of us.

I found this approach both refreshing and extremely useful. Too often instructors establish an unproductive hierarchy in which they, except from actually doing the work, represent a technical perfection we all imagine exists but have never seen. By engaging in the classes with us, the SITI performers produced every kind of useful example. Sometimes the image of an artist completing a Suzuki exercise far more capably than me provided something to strive for, with a clear idea of how I might go about that striving. But what was perhaps more useful was to see them in moments of struggle. They would sweat, make and correct mistakes, and navigate the pressure of starting each Viewpoints improvisation from scratch just like everybody else. The image of the graduated, perfect professor shrugged off, I was instead left with an image of training perpetually replenishing its value across the span of a career. Perfection would be stagnant and no longer training. A quarter of a century into their journey, the members of SITI Company are still looking for meaningful challenges.

Without going into methodological detail—the methods are meant to be tried, not described—the Viewpoints/Suzuki combination provides extremely practical long-term training. Suzuki is about contained form; Viewpoints is about free-flowing improvisation. One has great objectivity (am I as fast as I could be?), the other is completely subjective (have I discovered an interesting relationship?)  Suzuki method is made up of challenging, often impossible physical exercises that provide the artist a concrete way of measuring their progress. Viewpoints, meanwhile, is a series of ways of improvising based on the component parts of performance: one improvises with shape, then tempo, then special relationship, etc. The company often said that Suzuki is the training in which one can never be right, and in Viewpoints one can never be wrong. By practicing both, the actors build complementary skills that provide balance and feedback for each other.

In addition to regular classes throughout the day, evenings were spent working on compositions. Compositions were comprised of a weekly collaborative assignment—each time with different group members—based on Aeschylus’ The Persians: SITI Company’s next production. The Persians is quite a bad play, but it is doubly unique for being the first extant Western work of drama and for being the only Greek play that tells its story from the perspective of an enemy nation. Early before the final morning class, I bumped into Anne and had the pleasure of picking her brain one-on-one for a bit. I confided my suspicion that she selected The Persians for all the challenges it presented rather than because she had a natural vision for it. “You bet,” she agreed. “We had no idea how to do it.” I thought that was brilliant.

In addition to being her trainees, we were also Anne’s lab rats; oftentimes she would ask permission to steal the ideas that emerged in our weekly compositions for her own production. In the age of Wikipedia, it was fitting and fascinating to see theatrical collaboration expand to sixty-plus creators. 

The triumvirate of Viewpoints/Suzuki/Composition makes good sense in the long-term, but in the one-month intensive—much of which was spent learning how to actually do the work—they were somewhat mismatched. It was not at all surprising when company member Ellen Lauren told us in our final Suzuki class “you are just now ready to start training.” Classes gave us more tools, but their use is to be honed over the long-term; they did not lead into composition as a math class leads to a test.

Perhaps because of this, the greatest challenge I faced throughout the intensive was a lack of pride.  Despite spending all day working on theatre, most of that work was geared towards learning the training, with very little towards actual performance. Compositions are wonderful because the group is under the gun to create something outside the box in a very short time, often leading to surprising discoveries. The weakness, of course, is that one has to settle for a product quickly, with only the spare hours in a week-long process to (hopefully) integrate everyone’s creative visions, memorize, fine-tune, and perform the work. One strives for the best, but for a piece to really come together an element of good fortune is necessary. While I was able to conjure up a few well-received images for these pieces, and often felt there was something to our material, I was rarely able to feel at home in what we created, and most of my work fell below the standard I expect from myself.

And yet, it was oddly refreshing to feel so helplessly incompetent. I might even go as far as to say it was inspiring. As an indie theatre maker usually operating on a shoe-string budget, I am typically in the position of having to know. If I am not perfectly stable, presenting the exact step-by-step guide to a successful outcome, the project will wobble all the way to the finish line. Here I had a chance to be surrounded by remarkable artists handing me fascinating new techniques and ideas, and to be fumbling about—permitting the immense gulf between where I am and where I want to be to stand front and centre—was extraordinarily freeing. It presented me with the start of a journey, attached to my current journey, yes, but also thrillingly new. It was a bit like the moment back in college when I realized I was going to have to start my own company.

I could blab on and on about the intensive forever—I fear I may have already. I will conclude by offering my deepest thanks to Theatre Ontario, Why Not Theatre, and the sponsors for providing this invaluable experience. I have no doubt I will continue to be grateful for many years to come. I will leave you with a quote from Anne’s new book. I think it describes where the intensive has placed me exactly. “To practice deeply is to live deliberately in the space that is uncomfortable but with the encouraging sense that progress can happen.”

Next week: Part 2 as Miriam Fernandes reflects on her experience

The Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship is a partnership between Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre, sponsored by Nekison Engineering and Contractors Ltd with funds matched by artsVest Toronto.  artsVest Toronto is run by Business for the Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council.

Searching for a Master

By Miriam Fernandes

In 25 days I will be on a bus on my way to upstate New York—Saratoga Springs to be exact—to spend a month training with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company.  I feel a flutter in my stomach just writing that.  In less than a month I will be arriving on campus at Skidmore College, along with artists from around the world who have left their countries to come on this pilgrimage for the opportunity to study with these Master teachers.

Miriam Fernandes performing in
the Toronto Festival of Clowns
in 2011

I have been thinking about my next level of training for some time now.  I am a Toronto-based actor and a graduate of York University’s acting conservatory, but am now searching for training in devising—specifically in physically-based creation.  I have always been attracted to the work of Lecoq graduates like Ravi Jain and Adam Paolozza; work that is physically engaged, and demands an energy and rigour from the performer that makes it impossible for the audience not to be engaged.  The SITI Company’s training in Suzuki and Viewpoints demands exactly this kind of rigour from the performer in the belief that the whole body is vital to the act of storytelling.  A theatrical experience is more than the spoken word—it is image and poetry and the in-the-moment liveness that theatre is by definition.

But this training is more than just a physical way into creation.  It is a way of looking at the world and a series of principles that are malleable and can be applied in countless different ways.  For example, there are three shows happening at The Theatre Centre right now:  ZOU Theatre Company’s Business As Usual, Ahuri Theatre’s Ralph + Lina, and Play it Again Productions’ Death Married My Daughter.  All of these artists were trained at Lecoq or Gaulier, but each show is bound to be drastically different.  Just as Lecoq-trained Ravi Jain has created shows like SPENT, A Brimful of Asha, and directed Nicolas Billon’s Iceland, the shows are completely different, but the artist is using the same principles, just applying them differently.

In the same way, artists who study with the SITI Company will not be bound to create work with a similar aesthetic.  I think SITI offers artists a way into the creative process, tools, and ways of thinking about the work.  In her blog, Anne Bogart quotes Michelle Kokosowski, a French promoter of global theatre initiatives, who talks about the difference between a teacher and a master.  “A teacher,” she said, “teaches you how to do something. A master lays out everything he or she knows and then asks you to make something new out of it.”  I am constantly questioning the work that I am seeing and making, and asking myself, What is theatre?  Where is the line?  Does there need to be a line?  What is the relationship between performer and audience, and how can it evolve?  I think this training will help me examine these questions and challenge me to see how far I can stretch the answers.

I have taken workshops in Suzuki and Viewpoints in Toronto but now I am going to the source of the training.  I know we will be working on a whole different level.  During the intensive, students train in Suzuki and Viewpoints, but also take classes in Composition, Movement, Design, Dramaturgy, and Playwrighting.  I’m really curious to see how the company carries the principles of Suzuki and Viewpoints into the creation of new work.  In our composition class, we’ll be studying Aeschylus’ Persians, as the SITI Company is currently working on an adaptation of the play, which will premiere this September in California.  I think it’ll be an incredible opportunity to look at the traditions of Ancient Greek Theatre and figure out how to find the contemporary in the ancient. 

I admire a lot about how the SITI Company operates: the fact that they are ensemble-based, that training together and creating together go hand-in-hand, that teaching is still at the heart of what they do, and that their training is never static, but constantly evolving. I am particularly drawn to their commitment to international cultural exchange as the company was formed as collaboration between American director Anne Bogart and Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki.  The fusion of Eastern and Western artistic practice is thrilling to me.  

I think what I am most looking forward to in this month is that it will mark the next big step in my training.  I’ve been cobbling together a series of workshops and classes in Toronto, but a four-day class can only take you so deep into the work.  I am ready now for a longer, more intense and focused training, away from my city, away from all of the distractions of everyday life.  For one whole month, all my focus will go into my artistic practice. 

Yoshi Oida, Theatre des Loges, Paris.
January 2014

I spent some time in Paris this winter and while I was there a friend told me about a performance that Yoshi Oida was doing in this little theatre in the northeast of the city.  So that evening we hopped on the metro and found our way to the Theatre des Loges—which had the same feel as the old Theatre Centre in Toronto.  The space was an old warehouse converted into a little theatre—concrete walls and wooden beams across the ceilings.  There were about two hundred people packed into this place: on chairs, leaning against walls, and sitting on the floor.  It was a mix of artists and theatre students, all coming to see this amazing man perform and speak.  Yoshi performed a 30-minute excerpt of his piece, Interrogations, wherein he asks questions of the audience (based on Zen Buddhist writings), and creates a relationship between performer and audience similar to that between Zen Master and his student.  At the end of the performance Yoshi took questions from the audience, and the one that remained with me was when someone asked, “What do you think of the notion of Master?  Do you think everyone needs to study with a Master?”  Yoshi thought for a moment and then responded:  “I am someone who needs a Master.  I am lucky my Master, Peter Brook, is still alive.  But some people don’t need a Master to find their way—some people can do that on their own.  However, if you are someone like me, who needs a Master, rather than spending three years with a mediocre Master, it is better to spend three years searching for your true Master.”

There are many factors that draw me to the SITI Company’s training, but I think at the forefront for me, is that I am in search of a Master.  Anne Bogart and her company have dedicated their lives to the development of this training and creation, and they are truly Master teachers.  I sense that I am on the cusp of something big. I can’t wait to see what June brings! 

Miriam Fernandes is one of two recipients of Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre’s Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship.  The scholarship  was sponsored by Nekison Engineering and Contractors Ltd. with funds matched by artsVest Toronto, run by Business For The Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council.

Miriam is currently in Soliciting Temptation at Tarragon Theatre until May 4.

Congratulations to Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship Recipients

Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre congratulate Colin Bruce Anthes and Miriam Fernandes, who have been chosen as the recipients of the inaugural Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship.  The Scholarship allows for two emerging artists to train with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company for one month in Suzuki, Viewpoints, and directing and devising new work.  The Scholarship is a partnership between Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre, sponsored by Nekison Engineering and Contractors Ltd. and funds have been matched by artsVest Toronto.  artsVest Toronto is run by Business For The Arts with the support of Canadian Heritage and the Toronto Arts Council..

Colin Bruce Anthes trained in the theatre performance program at Humber College, where he graduated (class of 2009) with the Humber Theatre Award for Outstanding Achievement, and played the title role in Pentheus to critical acclaim in the National Post. In 2009, along with composer Tom DiMartino, he formed Twitches & Itches Theatre: a multi-disciplinary emerging artist company creating original works that explore the art of storytelling through experimental methods. Twitches & Itches has subsequently produced annually, garnering critical acclaim and arts council funding along the way. Colin has played lead roles with a dozen theatre and film companies, including an intercultural Romeo in Mozambique with Shakespeare Link Canada, and Ed in Banquo’s Banquet’s fringe hit Trudeautopia (4 stars, EYE Weekly). This April, he will complete a combined honours degree in dramatic art/psychology with a minor in philosophy from Brock University, where he has received academic awards from all three concentrations. Colin is a proud member of the vibrant performing arts scene in St. Catharines, where, in addition to his work with Twitches & Itches, he is secretary of the board for the Essential Collective Theatre.

Miriam Fernandes is a Toronto-based actor, creator, and arts educator.  Acting credits include:  Hamlet (Shakespeare in Action), The Biographer (Tango Co.), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Speakeasy Productions), The Bundle (Edward Bond Festival), and Macbeth (The Classical Theatre Projects). Miriam has worked in various capacities with Soulpepper Theatre Company, Groundwater Productions, and Roseneath Theatre and served on the board of directors for Volcano Theatre.  She is currently an artist in residence at Theatre Passe Muraille where she is developing her first one-woman show, Cat and Mouse.  In September of 2011, Miriam co-founded The Pomegranate Project with Sarah Brose.  The Pomegranate Project is an arts education initiative that connects students in Toronto to students in Mumbai, India through dance, theatre, and filmmaking.  The Project focuses on the themes of peace, community, and connection.  Miriam is a graduate of York University’s Acting Conservatory program and has studied at Ecole Philipe Gaulier.

This Scholarship program is designed to address the need for theatre artists to access more contemporary artistic training opportunities and to encourage artists to set the stage for the future of theatre and performance creation in Ontario, by having the opportunity to experience high caliber international training.  The scholarship includes course training and application fees, accommodation for the training period, and a travel allowance.

SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theatre in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. For the past 22 years, their impact can be seen on theatre creators around the world.

Read more about Theatre Ontario and Why Not Theatre’s Independent Theatre Creators International Training Scholarship