Category Archives: Around the Watercooler

How to Set Up an International Playwriting Competition

Edwin Wong
45th Annual Comparative Drama Conference
Rollins College
Orlando, Florida

Hi Everyone. Thank you for coming. I’m Edwin Wong and I bring to you five years’ experience curating an international playwriting competition. In 2018, I set up the annual Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition. Each year, it awards $14,000 in cash. We workshop the winning play and publicly stage it on Zoom. Lots of people ask how they can start their own playwriting competition. Today, I’ll share what I’ve learned. It’s easy. You need: 1) a website, 2) word of mouth, 3) a partner theatre, 4) jurors, and 5) money. The talk is divided into five talking points.

Point one. Set up your webpage. I picked up a “WordPress for Dummies” book, bought the risktheatre.com domain from GoDaddy along with their managed WordPress solution. For a person without experience, setup took a week of minor hairpulling—I still have my hair. The webpage costs $350 a year. This includes security and a secure HTTPS site. Once you get over a thousand monthly visitors, hackers find you. You can take a look at the website right now, it’s at risktheatre.com. Theatre spelled the proper way. I use a plugin called ninjaforms to register playwrights’ info, collect PDF scripts, and process PayPal. If you want to have someone create the website, allow $2,500. That’s point one.

Point two. Word of mouth. How do people learn about your competition? There’re many playwriting organizations that will advertise gratis. I get the most hits from Dramatists Guild, followed by Playwrights’ Center, playsubmissionhelper.com, londonplaywrightsblog.com, Patrick Garbridge’s listserv called Playwright Binge, Women in the Arts & Media Coalition, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn are helpful, especially Facebook, where there’re lots of playwright groups. On Facebook, Risk Theatre has its own business site. It takes time to grow the number. After five years, risktheatre.com is getting 12,000 hits a year. That’s point two.

Point three. The partner theatre. The first hitch that I encountered when contacting playwriting guilds was: “Who are you and how can we trust you?” To publicize the competition, they wanted me to partner with a theatre. This is where you pound the pavement. Theatres are selective. It’s not enough to have a fully-funded competition. The focus of your competition has to fit with their mandate. For example, I was into high level talks with a university; I would endow three $2000 scholarships and the theatre department would host the competition. But it fell through when “risk” didn’t fit the faculty’s research interests. You also want to be selective with your partner with. Reputation is everything and once you partner up, your names are linked. Hint: you’ll have your best luck pitching to artistic directors and general managers specializing in new plays. That’s point three.

Point four. How should scripts be submitted and evaluated? Consider checks and balances to keep things fair. Risk theatre, for example, asks for blind scripts. Also, I sub out the jurors; I don’t read scripts myself. We’ve had jurors from New Zealand, UK, Canada, and USA. Jurors’ identities are revealed after the competition. Here’s the system: in round one, the scripts are randomly divided between three jurors (there’re one to two hundred entries each year). That means each juror gets fifty odd scripts. Of these fifty, each juror nominates seven into the next round. The seven plays juror one nominates gets passed to juror two, the seven juror two nominates gets passed to juror three, and the seven juror three nominates gets passed to juror one. In the next round, each juror nominates two of the seven into the finalist round: the two juror one nominates gets passed to juror two, the two juror two nominates gets passed to juror three, and the two juror three nominates gets passed to juror one. After this, I arrange a Zoom meeting where the jurors meet to decide the grand prize winner. If you’re interested in becoming a juror, let’s talk; I’m always looking for jurors and the evaluation period takes place during the summer break. That’s point four.

Point five. The finances. Risk theatre charges $49 per entry. This is where the money goes. Jurors receive a $40 honorarium per script read, so of the $49—because the semifinalists and finalists are read multiple times—roughly $45 goes to the jurors. Through the $40 per script honorarium, the competition has been able to attract top talent: Yvette Nolan, Kelli Fox, Anthony Giardina, and others. Many of the jurors ask to be connected with the playwrights after the competition is over. It’s rewarding to see how competitions can be places for actors, dramaturgs, directors, and playwrights to connect.

Then, because the object of the competition is to encourage people to think of theatre as a stage of risk, I send each entrant a copy of one of my two books. That costs $25. So, after the $49 entry fee, each entry actually costs the competition $21 ($49 – $45 – $25 = -$21). Many people ask that the entry fee be dropped. I could do this, but don’t, for a specific reason: the risk theatre competition has a specific agenda. Even with the entry fee, about 10% of the entries don’t fit the criteria. If the entry fee were to be dropped, we’d received thousands of entries, with many more unrelated to the agenda. The entry fee gives playwrights skin in the game. I look at the competition as a joint venture between myself and writers who are fascinated with the idea of theatre as a stage to simulate low-probability, high-consequence events. The entry fee is a ballast that will determine how many entries you get.

If you have an entry fee, you’ll get fee-shamed. I receive emails saying: “Why do you have a fee? Does your theatre also charge actors to audition?” Those are the friendly ones. People talk to you like you’re Voldemort or a Bond villain. Judas has had better days: instead of $49, the competition might as well charge thirty silver pieces. That’s why, if you set up a competition, it’s good to have a clear goal and purpose. Know why you’re doing it. One thing I’ve learned from the competition is that people who’ve made it, and not just people in the theatre world, but anyone who’s done something, must have gone through so much.

From the cash prizes to the workshop, hiring dramaturgs and actors (who are paid $30/hour), the competition costs over $20,000 each year. I fund it out of my own pockets, which I make as a plumber in the construction industry. People say: “Apply for grants.” I’ll never apply for grants. If I need to do something, I open up my own wallet. How you fund your competition will be major decision. Out of your own pocket means never worrying about the funding being renewed.

Think of the prize structure. With Risk Theatre it’s $10,500 for the grand-prize winner and five $700 prizes for the runners-up. It was set up like that because $10,500 has an impact. And with the number of entries, playwrights who believe in themselves have a good chance: last year’s winner entered every year before finally winning. I’d like to give a shoutout to the winners:

2019 Gabriel Jason Dean with In Bloom, a play about a journalist who cheats the truth in pursuit of a higher good.

2020 Nicholas Dunn with The Value, a play about the price that we are willing to pay, and how much the price costs.

2021 Madison Wetzell with The Lost Ballad of Our Mechanical Ancestor, an adaptation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound with robots, a modern twist, and a robopocalpyse.

2022 Franky Gonzalez with That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven, a boxing play about risk going awry when four Latino boxers go all-in in a system that’s rigged.

Franky’s play That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven will have its world premiere at Urbanite Theatre (in Florida) this coming June. I’ll be watching the progress with bated breath: can a play where risk is the fulcrum of the action fill the seats? If the risk theatre template of playwriting can help playwrights and theatre find new audiences in this risk age, I’ll be so happy.

Consider supporting playwrights beyond the competition. Last year ago, I published the first two winners and one of the semifinalists in the first ever risk theatre anthology. If you’re interested in seeing what we’re doing—and I hope some of you will be—here are some complimentary copies of our two books. The first one, from 2019, lays out the idea of risk theatre, the blueprint. And the second, from 2022, is an anthology of plays from the competition. These are free copies, come up and grab one after.

There you have it, the basics of setting up your own international playwriting competition: website, partner theatre, advertising, jurors, and financials. I’ll close with a tip: it takes time to get things going. Risk theatre is in its fifth year and it’s only now that things are starting to pick up. In this game, success isn’t measure in days, weeks, or months, but in years and decades. Keep going. Thank you.

Oh…if down the road you have any questions, I’d love to help, it’s easy to find me.

Bio: Edwin Wong has been dubbed “an Aristotle for the 21st century” by David Konstan and “independent and provocative” by Robert C. Evans for exploring the intersection between risk and theatre. He has published two books and many essays on this topic. In 2022, he received the Discoveries Award from the Ben Jonson Journal and has talked at venues from the Kennedy Center and the University of Coimbra to conferences hosted by the National New Play Network, Canadian Association of Theatre Research, Society of Classical Studies, and Classical Association of the Middle West and South. He was educated at Brown University and is on Twitter @TheoryOfTragedy.

Review – 2022 Vitus Vitesse EVO CRX SRAM RED eTap Road Bike

If you’re looking for a world-class, UCI certified mid-life crisis road bike, read on! This is a review of my new Vitus Vitesse CRX EVO CRX bicycle fitted out with the top-tier SRAM RED eTap AXS groupset. I ordered it sight-unseen from Chain Reaction Cycles at the end of March 2022 and it arrived from the UK two weeks later. From mid-April to December this year, I’ve logged 4500km on it.

About Me

I’m 48. I ride to commute and for pleasure. My commuting bike, fitted with carrier and mudguards is a 2014 custom Marinoni Sportivo Ti. It’s still my winter and commuting bike. And I’m still doing a few kms on it: I don’t own a car. Sold my car in 2010 and never looked back. Best decision of my life. Whenever I need a car, I rent or borrow one. This is the way to go both in terms of finances (I think a car, once you factor in gas, insurance, repairs, and replacing it every decade or so, is really costing $600-$800 each month) and fitness / health. No need for a gym membership when you’re a bicycle commuter. It strikes me as so ironic the folks (and I know a few) who drive to the gym to do half an hour on the stationary bike.

I ride 7-8000 km per year, averaging 26kph on commutes and 31kph on club rides. My goal with the new bike is to average 33kph+ on club rides next year. Maybe. It’ll be hard but achievable. A little less pork chops and pie might help. I also enjoy kickboxing, weight training, and running. But the running knees are starting to give out. They are good up to 7km, but start tweaking over that. It’s a bummer. The Marinoni is an endurance bike, with a more relaxed geometry. Because I hate stretching, I am not the most flexible. So, I was worried I could ride an all-out road-race bike. It turns out that this is no problem. As you can see in the picture, the stem is slammed.

On the Vitus fitting chart, a 5’7″ rider (70kg) fits a size small or medium frame. I went with the small. Manoeuvrability is nice. I also like lighter and that feeling of sitting “big” on the bike–it’s hard to describe, but you probably know what I mean. My Marinoni is closer to a medium, and is plenty stable. But it also feels big sometimes. Having ridden the Vitus for awhile, I think I could have even went with XS, even though it is only recommended their XS for riders up to 5’5″. If anything, if you go for something a little undersize, you could always swap in a longer stem, easy. But since it was an online purchase, I didn’t want to take the risk. If I was buying locally, I probably would have went with the smaller XS frame.

Not My First Choice

Because I was worried about the racy geometry, my first choice was a Canyon Endurace. Similarly outfitted, it would have been about 15% more. But it has better brand recognition. But 2022 was one of the years of the global bike shortage. When I found one on the Canyon site in my size, I spent a little too long configuring the build. By the time I hit “buy,” someone else snagged it. The last one in the world. What luck. But the Vitus was still available. I actually like the look of the Vitus better, with the dropped seatstays and the clean look. And it was still in stock. All-in, with taxes, customs, and shipping, it came to $10,300 (before taxes, custom, and shipping, it was $7800). The bike is a great deal. A Specialized Aethos similarly outfitted would come to $17,000, all-in. The Specialized is a superior bicycle, but not $7000 better. And I doubt there would be any real-world benefits in performance for an enthusiast rider such as myself.

Unboxing

The shipping was surprising quick: two weeks. The big box came with a big hole punctured in the side. The FedEx guy told me to accept it and take a photo noting the damage. It looked like a forklift went through the box. Fortunately, the bike was undamaged. But the battery charger had fallen out. Chain Reaction Cycles was a pleasure to deal with. They responded right away: “Buy a battery charger locally, take a picture of the receipt, and we will reimburse you,” they said. Easy. Assembly was a piece of cake: install seat, seatpost, and tighten together the stem and handlebar. It took about half an hour, and could have been much faster if I wasn’t also drinking coffee and in awe of the bike. To me, this was an unjustifiable purchase. The Marinoni does everything that I need already. But I wanted a lightweight race bike with disc brake and that new electronic shifting everyone was talking about. The Marinoni is outfitted with rim brakes and a mechanical (and beautifully chromed) Campagnolo Athena groupset.

Performance

This is my first electronic groupset. It is pretty cool. Perfect shifts each time. It shifts perfectly under load. You know, if you shift too late on a hill with a mechanical derailleur, you get that awful “clunk clunk crap” sound. Well, with the electronic shifting, I can shift under load with full confidence. And it shifts quick. I love it. In the future, it is electronic for me all the way. Mind you, I have no problems with the Campagnolo mechanical shifting. On the higher gears, it takes a few seconds now to shift. It’s getting a little worn out from riding in the rain for eight years now. The CR2032 batteries in the handlebars seem to last forever. Haven’t changed them yet; they are supposed to last a couple of years(!). The rechargeable batteries in the front and rear derailleur I charge on the first of every month. And on the 15th of every month, I swap the front battery to the rear (the rear derailleur gets the lion’s share of shifts, especially with the SRAM design, which has a 48/35 in the front and a wide 10-33 in the rear cassette; the idea is to stay in the big front chainring as long as possible). The sound of electronic shifting is very satisfying.

One crappy thing was that on the SRAM RED AXS shifting was that the chain was dropping when going onto the small chainring in the front. This is very annoying, as the chain gets stuck between the ring and the frame, which not only scratches the frame, but is a pain to pull out. Adjusting the chain catcher helped, but not very much. My Marinoni doesn’t have a chain catcher, and the chain has NEVER fallen off shifting into the smaller ring in the front. It turns out that the front derailleur cage was either poorly assembled, or had shifted during shipping: it was installed a few millimetres higher than recommended. It took me a month to finally figure it out, mostly by watching YouTube videos. It was an easy five-minute fix loosening and retightening a few bolts. But while I didn’t know, it was quite unnerving, as I thought it would be like this forever! Since adjusting everything many months ago, no more dropouts. Whew! So that’s one thing to watch out for when ordering a bike by mail.

I’ve been following this disc brake debate. Some say they’re great. Some say rim is just as good. The only way to decide is to ride both. To me, disc is the way to go. Victoria, Canada is a place full of rolling hills. On the hill routes, my hands get tired just holding onto the brakes when riding rim brakes. With disc brakes, you have one-finger stopping power. This is rad. I love it. The crappy things they say about disc brakes are true too. When riding in the wet, they can get contaminated with oils on the road and then you have to clean them with isopropyl alcohol. I rode a few times in the wet with the new Vitus, but, for the most part, will ride it only when it’s dry(-ish). I’ll save the Marinoni for the weather days. Changing the disc brake pads is a pain as well. I can get them so that there’s no disc brake rub, but it takes me awhile. Maybe I’ll get better. But with rim brakes, changing the pads takes five minutes and you’re done: the clearances are MUCH more forgiving. But count me in as a disc brake convert.

Is the Vitus faster than the Marinoni, which is 1.1kg (2.2 pounds) heavier with a more relaxed geometry? Accelerating from a stop or out of a corner, yes, absolutely. The power transfer feels instantaneous. Going up long hills, yes, absolutely. It’s like night and day. Once up to cruising speed on flat or rolling terrain, I’m not so sure there’s a big difference. Definitely not a 1kph difference. Perhaps a difference in tenths of a kph. The new Vitus has given me new PBs on a lot of Strava segments. But not all. There are still a few where I’ve had the (fractionally) faster time on the Marinoni. So yes, because the Vitus is stiffer (carbon vs. ti), more aggressive (race vs. endurance geometry), and lighter (1.1kg), it is faster. But unless you’re doing a longer climb or laying the power down from a standstill or going around a corner to break away, the difference is marginal. I was hoping, for this much money, the bike would just shoot out like a rocket automatically. I was mistaken: to go fast, you still have to lay down the pain.

Parts

I swapped out the crappy seat that came with the bike with a nice Selle Italia SLR boost saddle. Also sold the stock Reynolds AR29 wheels that came with it and picked up an ultralight Hunt Aerodynamicist 32 wheelset (carbon spokes, 1200 grams!). This is my first experience with tubeless tires. So far, no flats. Every three months I top off the magic juice in the tires with Stans Sealant. Maybe I will get better with time, but it is a mess. Not entirely converted by the tubeless technology, but no real complaints either (besides having to top it up). Instead of a spare inner tube and pump, I carry when riding the Vitus tubeless plugs and a CO2 cartridge. Time will tell. The one nice thing about hookless (the Hunts are tubeless and hookless) is the nice flat profile between the tire and the rim. With hooked rims, the tire sits on the rim like a bulb: at the point of contact the tire flares out. With hookless, the transition between the rim and tire is flush. Aesthetically, it is quite pleasing. And yes, I am finding with tubeless I have to pump up tires more frequently, say once a week. With inner tube, I can get away with going two weeks–and sometimes three–between pumping up the tires.

I also tried out a Ritchie negative 25 degree stem (with the stem slammed). But that was too much. It hurt my back. So went back to the Prime stem (which is +6 degrees). All-in, the bike weights 7.38kg (16.3 lb). I could get it a little lower by getting a RED cassette and chain (even though marketed as a RED groupset, it ships with a FORCE cassette and chain, this is fairly common in the industry). Almost forgot, also swapped out the setback seatpost for an in-line seatpost. For aesthetic reasons: the inline seatpost just looks so much cleaner.

What I Really Like

It’s hard to see in the photo, but the Vitus Vitesse comes with an aero handlebar: the top of the handlebar is bladed. Where it connects to the stem, it is round, just enough room to put on the Garmin mount and a light. It is also ever so slightly “V” shaped, with the vertex of the “V” towards the rider. It looks badass. It’s also a short drop into the drops. At the ends of the drops, the handlebars flare out a touch (you can see it a bit in the photo), so you know where you are on the drops. This is the first bike where I actually prefer to be in the drops than the hoods. These are my favourite handlebars, ever. Both in terms of looks and feel.

I also love the brake adjustment on the brake levers. For people with small hands, the option to have the brake levers closer to the handlebar is a godsend. It’s safer. There’s no such adjustment on the Campy Athena brake levers; I wish there was. The option makes descending more fun.

The electronic shifting is fun too. You can set it up to automatically shift for you, so that when you switch between the big and small chainring in the front, it automatically moves a few gears on the rear cassette so that it’s a smoother jump. I played with turning on and off the sequential shifting, but now have it engaged. There are also different modes of sequential shifting available. Options. I like options. They are the closest thing to a free lunch.

Oh, did I mention the dropped seatstays, which are ever so lean, are gorgeous. A nice contrast to the massive, muscular downtube. Beautiful.

What I Don’t Like

The paint job isn’t the smoothest. There appear to be thinner parts and some overspray in other areas. You can feel it. You can really tell the difference when it’s up against one of those cost-is-no-object superbikes. The Specialized Aethos in black, for example, has some kind of sparkles in the paint that you can hardly see unless you’re looking right at it. But, from a distance, it really makes the bike sparkle.

One of the cables for the brakes also rubs against the bike when turning the handlebars. It also rubs away the paint. So I put a piece of black tape there.

No big issues, but just a few things to be aware of. At this price point, you can’t have it all.

In Conclusion…

It was a foolish decision to spend so much on a bike. Especially since I had another one. But it was worth every dollar. I’m finding that I’m loving riding this lean and mean machine. And that’s worth something. After purchasing it, I’m also finding there are advantages of getting what some would consider a “no-name” bike. Vitus is the house brand of Chain Reaction and Wiggle Cycles, one of the world’s largest cycling companies. They sell factory direct. So the savings. One big advantage of having a Vitus bike is that you can actually park it downtown and not have to worry about it being stolen: the Vitus name is unknown to (most) thieves. If I had bought one of those Pinarello or Specialized or Trek bikes, I’m not sure I could park it downtown. So the Vitus is sort of a stealth bike where you get 99% of the performance at 60 or 70% of the price. If you’re looking for performance on a budget, this one’s a contender. Shortly after I picked up the Vitus, another member of the club also took the plunge. That tells you something.

– – –

Don’t forget me. I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.
sine memoria nihil

Edwin Wong has been dubbed “an Aristotle for the 21st century” (David Konstan, NYU) and “independent and provocative” (Robert C. Evans, AUM) for exploring the intersection between risk and theatre. He has published two books (The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy [2019] and When Life Gives You Risk, Make Risk Theatre [2022]) and over a dozen essays on this topic. In 2022, he was one of three international academics to receive the Ben Jonson Discoveries Award for his work on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In 2018, he founded the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Playwriting Competition, the world’s largest competition for the writing of tragedy (risktheatre.com). Wong has talked at venues from the Kennedy Center and the University of Coimbra to conferences hosted by the National New Play Network, Canadian Association of Theatre Research, Society of Classical Studies, and Classical Association of the Middle West and South. He was educated at Brown University and is on Twitter @TheoryOfTragedy.

 

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Ronin Scholar

ronin (noun) In feudal Japan, a lordless wandering samurai; an outlaw. Origin: Japanese, lit. ‘drifting people’.

Nietzsche, though himself sickly, of poor constitution and poorer eyesight, saw beyond what others could see, and had the power to ignite and explode all he came in contact with.

Nietzsche’s chosen field was Altphilogie, or the study of the ancient languages and literature (i.e. Greek and Latin). It was the late 1800s, the days when Otto von Bismarck was unifying Germany and when philology was still unified, the days before the awful schism that separated Altphilologie into the branches of linguistics and classics. His teacher was none other than the great Plautus scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, who himself traced a line back to Richard Bentley. Not only did Nietzsche have great teachers, he had the best of classmates too, chief among them Erwin Rohde, the author of Psyche, a monumental study of the idea of the soul and ancient Greek cult. They would be friends, on and off, until Nietzsche’s demise.

In his youth, Nietzsche went from peak to peak. As an undergraduate, he published an article in one of the leading journals. That was unheard of. What is more, he was granted a professorship at the University of Basel prior to receiving his doctorate. This was simply unprecedented. His good fortune was likely due to Ritschl’s glowing letter of recommendation, which closed with these words: “He will simply be able to do anything he wants to do.”

Nietzsche’s undoing after being appointed to Basel quickly followed. The “publish or perish” credo prevalent today was equally prevalent then. His first book, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music was an imaginative work weaving together many themes of the day: the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the music of Wagner, Dostoyevsky’s forays into the world of the subconscious, the mysteries of Greek tragedy, and the meaning of German culture. It was a timely book. But with its unsubstantiated musings on the Apollonian and the Dionysian, it was also a wild book. It wasn’t philological. It was, instead, speculative, and speculative to an extreme. Ritschl, in horror, panned it. Rohde tried defending it at first, but realized, on further examination, that to distance himself would be professionally astute. Nietzsche’s adversaries, chief among them the celebrated Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, pounced. Overnight, Nietzsche went from star to persona non grata. He had been cancelled.

The students taking his classes dropped precipitously. After an extended leave of absence, he was forced to resign, in 1879, his professorship at Basel altogether. But now something strange happens. Not only did his production increase following his resignation, with each publication (and in many cases self-publication), the scope of his intellectual freedom also expands. In the years that followed his resignation, he is writing quickly, purposefully, and becoming more himself. His greatest works all follow: Daybreak (1881), The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), and Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, The Wagner Case, and The Antichrist (1888). Here’s the question: if he had stayed within academia, would we still remember him today? By the time he started writing Daybreak (a fitting title, if any), he had already become a ronin scholar, a scholar without a university, an outlaw. But perhaps it is because he was a ronin that he was able to do what he did? Has anyone considered this possibility?

Today, these ronin scholars still exist. While “ronin scholar” is a cool, badass term, they are not so-called by academia. Instead, these scholars are pooh-poohed by academia as “cottage scholars” (a quaint and pastoral image) or “independent scholars.”  Both terms, while ostensibly neutral, are somewhat derogatory, a reminder that this person hasn’t quite made it.

In this blog, I’d like to celebrate these “ronin scholars” by drawing attention to how Nietzsche wouldn’t have been able to do the things he did unless he was a “cottage scholar” or “independent scholar.” As those within academia–at that time–pointed out, Nietzsche had to go because he was simply saying things that could not be said. Many of the things he said were, gasp, unsubstantiated by their sound “scientific” and “philological” approach. But, you know, when we look back now on what the other “scientific” and “philological” scholars were publishing, a lot of it looks pretty dated and just plain wrong to us today, easily as “speculative” as Nietzsche himself. Could history repeat itself? How will the scholarship of today be viewed in a hundred years?

This brings me to my point: how much freedom is there in academia today to truly express oneself? How much of academia is an echo chamber that talks of “method,” “science,” and “progress,” but is merely repeating the myths of what it needs to believe to perpetuate not knowledge, but the power structures and the institution of knowledge? Was Nietzsche critiquing academia by calling his first post-resignation book, of all things, Daybreak?

Was Daybreak so-called because it was a daybreak from having to hold back, having to self-censure any thoughts that went against the political ideologies of the academy? Consider his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, written while he was still in academia. Though scandalous, it is quite conservative when compared to his later works. In The Birth of Tragedy, he says the right things: he is pro-Wagner, the consummate German; Germany is leading the way by returning to the ancient past with Wagnerian music-drama; German philosophy is also leading the charge with the German philosopher Schopenhauer, and so on. Now, compare The Birth of Tragedy to his later writings when he was free from academia. In his later works, he rails against Wagner, Schopenhauer, and all the glories of Bismarck and German culture which he values at the worth of German beer: intoxicating but hangover inducing. The question is simple: could he have written these later works if he were still Professor of Altphilologie at Basel University? Or, are there freedoms one only enjoys when one is a ronin scholar, an outlaw, a drifter without allegiances.

The received wisdom is that if one is a cottage, independent, or ronin scholar, one cannot make it all the way. The cross-pollination with colleagues is insufficient. One is not inspired by students. One may lack access to libraries. Conferencing, done on one’s own dime, is more difficult. It is harder to come by ideas. But the received wisdom can be flipped around as well. What if all the cross-pollination, inspiration, books, and conferences condition participants into a sort of groupthink? Classics in the 1800s was part of the gentleman’s education, almost an extension of the state. If you had asked classicists in the 1800s whether this was true, they would have said: “No, that is ridiculous. We are advancing the field. In fact, with our philological science, we are even more Greek than the ancient Greeks were. With philology, we will bring back the glory days of the past.” Now, the conventional story with Nietzsche is that he left academia because of failing health and declining enrollment in his classes (because of the scandal of his first book). This story safeguards the legitimacy of academia: Nietzsche left due to health reasons and because he couldn’t make it as a teacher. But is it true? Perhaps he left because the atmosphere stifled what he had to say. Sure, Nietzsche complains about his health, but, if he was in such poor health, how did he travel so extensively and average over a book a year in the 1880s? And really, was the attendance in his classes dropping that much? Daybreak doesn’t much sound like the title of a book of an author is dire health and spurned by students. It sounds like the title of a work of someone who has found freedom of expression: it is the dawn of a new day. He had become a ronin scholar. Today, I’d like to raise a glass to toast these ronin scholars. They deserve a salute. They have paid a price.

In the late 1800s, nationalism was in the air. Academia never questioned it. Consider what is in the air today. Does academia call the dominant trends into question? And does academia ever call itself into question? Does academia argue for and against, or does it argue for the received wisdom in its halls? Who are the dominant voices in academia, and who are the intellectual ronin of our day and age? Are there, gasp, advantages of being a ronin scholar? These are all worthwhile questions.

In his youth, Nietzsche shone like a star. Then, like a Homeric hero, he paid the price for his aristeia, his finest moment. But, in paying the price, he discovered freedom. He became a ronin scholar, an outlaw working on the peripheries, a writer without allegiances. Though free, he was scorned. His books were self-published, and in small runs of a few hundred copies. Today, he is remembered as someone who saw through the veil. He was the original ronin.

If Nietzsche could make it, why couldn’t I?

– – –

Don’t forget me, I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.
sine memoria nihil

Almost Freedom 45

You don’t know your value until you put it on the table. Here’s a story, a true story that played out this month. I work construction. I’m a project manager on a team that builds highrises, hospitals, schools, old folks’ homes, you name it. At the beginning of August, I gave my notice: I would stay on as long as the company wanted, but not past February 2021, the completion date of my current project. Why? I’m 45. There are many years left to build buildings.

Here’s the reason: when you talk to the old timers, they’ll tell you all the things they wish they’d done different. None of these things involves working more hours at the office or working longer. There’re books for me to read. Maybe another book for me to write. There’s my work in theatre. There are my hobbies: kickboxing, cycling, running, the gym. And now yoga and backpacking. I work because of a fear of running out of money. But you don’t need that much to achieve your dreams. And, more often, when you have more, it prevents you from achieving your dreams.

Look at Cus D’Amato. He invented the peek-a-book style of boxing. He coached three heavyweight champions of the world, including Mike Tyson. Every day, he did what he loved. By all accounts, he led the best of lives. When he died, all he had in his name was the station wagon he used to drive his fighters to the gym. I would like to be more like him. He didn’t worry about the money. He worried about doing exactly what he needed to be doing. That’s why he has a legacy.

When I gave notice, however, my boss made me an unexpected offer. This is the part about not knowing your value until you put it on the table. Here was the offer: a) full-time too much?–then go to part-time, you decide how many hours a week and which days, b) over 10% raise, and c) work from home or remotely. For the last month I’ve been torn. Some friends say: “It’s an incredible offer, you have to at least try it.” Other friends say: “If you can, get the hell out.” My friends outside the construction industry would be more likely to give the former advice. My friends in the industry, however, would tend to give the latter advice. This last month, the decision’s been tearing me apart. To go for legacy on a threadbare budget or to sell my soul for a measure of comfort? Or could I do both?

In October, I start part-time. The tragedy is that understanding comes after choice, sometimes many years and decades after.

—

Don’t forget me. I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.

Review of Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+ Cycling Panniers

Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+

Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+

My twenty plus year old Serratus panniers finally wore out (on the bottom of the photo, they used to be black). They were maybe 17 litres a side for 34 litres of combined carrying capacity. I cycle to get groceries once a week, and I found that two 17 litre panniers plus a 25 litre backpack did it most of the time, but on weeks where I was getting bulky items, another trip would be required. I’d also like to put more weight into the panniers rather than in the backpack. It’s just a more comfortable ride not having milk jugs and tubs of ice cream on your back. And it would be nice being able to lie apple pies down flat. They don’t like being jostled around when placed on their side. Yes, there is room for me to eat a little healthier. But at least I burn some of it off cycling. So, I was looking for a large set of panniers. But the catch was that I was also looking for a lightweight set of panniers. No four pound panniers, thank you.

The choices came down to Tailfin’s SL22, Ortlieb’s Back-Roller City, and Axiom’s Seymour Oceanweave P55+. Tailfin’s SL22 is the lightest of the bunch: 1200 grams and fully waterproof. But $380 (CDN) for a set. They hold 22 litres per side for 44 litres total storage. Like the Tailfin SL22, Ortlieb’s Back-Roller City is a roll-top pannier, meaning you fold the top to close it. The Back-Roller City holds 20 litres per pannier for 40 litres total storage and weigh 1520 grams. They are Ortlieb’s lightest 40 litre panniers and are fully waterproof. Axiom’s Seymour Oceanweave P55+ holds a combined 55 litres. Since they are a drawstring closure with a top flap that buckles down with two adjustable straps, it is easy to overload them for 55+ litres of storage. Like the Ortliebs, they also weight 1520 grams (3.35 pounds) for a pair. But they hold much more than the Back-Rollers. In Canada, the Ortliebs cost $170. The Axioms are also priced at $170 a set. They are both much less than the Tailfin SL22, which, at $380, are over double. What an incredible premium to be lightweight.

The first bag at the local bike shop (LBS) I saw was the ubiquitous Ortlieb Back-Roller City. For being fully waterproof, it was lighter than I thought. The roll-top design, however, does not allow much room for overpacking. Three rolls and then buckle down is standard. For larger loads, you could get away with two rolls. That’s not very much extra room. And, while 20 litres a side is spacious, it’s not spacious enough to lay an apple pie or a black forest cake down flat. On top of this, I like to leave panniers on the bike. Not only does my bike do club rides, it’s also a commuting bike and a grocery bike. The Ortliebs, with their distinctive design and enduring popularity may be a target for thieves. I never saw the Tailfin SL22 (not stocked at the LBS, mail order only), but it is also a roll-top design. With an extra litre a side, it wasn’t going to be much bigger than the Back-Roller City panniers.

When I saw the Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+, I thought: “Wow, this is big!” With the drawstring closure and the flap that buckles down with adjustable straps, you can pile another foot of stuff on top of their nominal height. Here’s a photo of a 4 litre milk jug with a 750 ml bottle of wine sitting on top of it. It’s always hard in photos to see exactly how big things are, but this gives you an idea. These are deep panniers. If you overloaded the pannier to maximum capacity, you can pile another foot of groceries above the top of the bottle of wine. Of course, at this point, you’re going to have weight and balance problems driving the bike!

Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+

Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+

I bought the Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P55+ panniers. They are incredibly light for a 55 litre pannier. Part of this is that they are water-resistant, not waterproof. Axiom has a Monsoon line, also made from their Oceanweave fabric, but thicker. It is fully waterproof. But heavier. If I need to transport something in heavy rain for more than twenty minutes, I’d put it in a plastic grocery bag or a dry sack. Easy. The Axiom Seymour Oceanweave panniers come in 22, 35, and 55 litre (per pair) sizes. They will appeal to people looking for a no-nonsense and lightweight pannier that can be left on the bike without too much fear of theft. The Oceanweave fabric is also a selling point.

Ever go down to the beach of the docks and see busted up fishing line floating around? The fishing line that all sorts of otters and turtles get themselves stuck in? Fishing line floats up all the time in the beaches and docks around Vancouver, where cycling gear company Axiom is based. But what we see on the beaches is just a fraction of the problem. There’re football field sized masses of fishing line floating in the oceans. Now fishing line is made with polyester threads. So are bicycle panniers. This got Axiom’s brand manager Andrew Belson thinking: could fishing line be recycled into material to make panniers? This was the beginning of a five year R&D project to create Oceanweave, a textile made from reclaimed fishing nets.

In the end, Belson and Axiom Gear found a way to recycle fishing line to make the Oceanweave fabric at a cost just a fraction more than what it would have cost to have made the material new. The important thing, however, is, that 75% less crude oil is used to produce Oceanweave than to produce new fabric. And, what is more, now there is an incentive for companies to go out to “harvest” these football field sized masses of fishing line floating in the oceans. This is win for marine life (which gets stuck in the nets), people hoping to make a difference by cleaning up fishing line (there’s now an economic incentive to collect it), and environmentally conscious cyclists.

What I hear is that backpack makers, clothing companies, and other companies that use fabrics have been in touch with Axiom to enquire about their Oceanweave fabric. Oceanweave has only been around for three years. Maybe this is the start of something great? Well, each time I use my panniers, I can have that feel good feeling.

Oh yes, I should add the mounting mechanism is first class. The rack clips adjust to different diameter rack tubes with the turn of a screwdriver. Lots of adjustment is possible. Easy, takes seconds to adjust. The distance between the rack clips is, unlike on Ortlieb and other panniers, not adjustable. If Axiom were to have made it adjustable, they would have needed to add bars for the clips to slide back and forth. This just means more weight. I like Axiom’s lighter design. I had no issues with heel strike while cycling. The panniers were mounted onto a conventional looking Blackburn EX-1 rear rack. On the bottom of the bag, there’s an adjustable arm that slides onto the rack tube to prevent the bag from bouncing around. This is adjustable with a Phillips screwdriver as well. It worked fine for me, and it will likely work fine for you as well. In a few weeks, I’ll be swapping out my Blackburn rack for a Tubus Airy rack. I expect this to work just fine as well. The Oceanweave line of panniers is not only a great product, but a great story as well. A good buy. Now I can have my apple pie and eat is as well.

Don’t forget me. I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.

Gilberto Conti and Tony Nardi on Multiculturalism in Brazilian and Canadian Theatre

On July 6th 2020, as part of a CATR seminar encouraging theatre practitioners across the world to share their work, I had a chance to talk to Gilberto Conti (Czechia / Brazil) and Tony Nardi (Italy / Canada). Our conversation drifted towards a timely topic: the history, development, and future of multicultural theatre. Many people are wondering how theatre can become more inclusive to reflect the changing communities of which they are a part. Gilberto and Tony both have such wonderful insights, I thought I’d post this for everyone to see. This conversation is an ongoing series of conversations hosted by CATR. Thank you to Bruce Barton and Natalia Esling at CATR for making this opportunity possible. Previous conversations can be found here.

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF THEATRE RESEARCH (CATR)

ARTICULATING ARTISTIC RESEARCH SEMINAR
“ARTICULATIONS OF DIVISION AND UNITY: RE-EVALUATING PRACTICES OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH”

Date: July 6, 2020 via Zoom

Group C Discussion (Gilberto Conti / Tony Nardi / Edwin Wong)

Edwin: Gilberto, did you want to start? How does your project engage boundaries and division?

Gilberto: As a performer in puppet theatre and the Folia de Reis, I approach theatre from a practical perspective. I also study the theoretical aspect of theatre, but from a child, I’ve performed in the community theatre of Brazil. The Folia de Reis rite in Brazil reenacts the biblical journey of the three kings to Bethlehem. It’s a European tradition. But in Brazil, it also incorporates masks, songs, and other African and Indigenous elements. Like the theatre of Tony’s Italy, Brazilian theatre is full of stereotypes. And like theatre in Canada—where both Tony and Edwin call home—Brazilian theatre is a multicultural institution.

As a theatre researcher in Czechia, my project is to spread the word about Brazilian theatre culture all over the world. Here in Czechia, Brazilian theatre is too little known. As part of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), I’ve also taken part in research groups in Shanghai and China to talk about Brazilian theatre. When people all over the world learn about Brazilian theatre—a theatre that lies at a crossroads between Indigenous, European, and African influences—they learn that culture belongs to no culture. Culture is the action and reaction of different peoples across borders. European culture is part of Brazil inasmuch as American culture is part of Europe.

Edwin: That’s a great point, Gilberto, that culture doesn’t belong to any one group. It’s something that’s being created by the interaction between many people. Tony, could you tell us about how your research engages boundaries and division?

Tony: In terms of boundaries and division (partition), my project engages the institutional boundaries that exist in, and have been illegally forced upon, performance media, actor training and funding agencies, which privilege the production of culture by the so-called two founding nations (i.e., culture produced in English and/or French or modelled after British and American standards of culture and performance ) at the expense of other cultural and linguistic communities, predicated on a misinterpretation and misapplication of the Official Languages Act and Official Multiculturalism––as constitutionally defined and mandated.

Cultural practices in Canada fall mainly outside the constitutional standard of 1) multiculturalism (Charter of Rights s. 27) and 2) the minimum standard (all constitutional provisions and Charter rights are minimum standards). Multiculturalism in Canada, as commonly understood and institutionally practiced, is less an official policy that fosters, protects and reflects the fact of cultural diversity in the production of publicly funded culture and more a descriptor for all non-English and non-French communities, the “special interests and treatment” and “accommodations” ascribed to them, and the culture they produce. The concept of multiculturalism has become, in practice, the catchall term that identifies and characterizes all things “ethnic” or “other” and deliberately differentiates them from the two- founding-nations cultural norm.

The production of publicly culture in Canada is essentially and institutionally a policy of division. This has created institutionally-driven cultural ghettos that have been erroneously ascribed to official Multiculturalism, when in fact they are the result of a misinterpretation and misapplication of constitutionally mandated multiculturalism. Under the rubric of Critical Race Theory, specifically the Interest Convergence tenet, multiculturalism has favoured publicly funded performances from members of the so-called two-founding nations at the expense of performances from all other communities.

Also, my treatment on the acting/writing “divide” also engages craft-based boundaries and divisions that at times have been used to separate actors from writers as if they were born in different worlds and practice radically different crafts. This divide widened with the development and rise of the auteur (God) director in the 20th century that at times supplanted the role of the writer and acted as a wedge between actor and writer (see actor Simon Callow’s Manifesto below from his 1985 book, Being an Actor).

Edwin: I love what you’re doing to promote a new vision of multiculturalism in Canadian arts Tony. I’ve often thought that theatre, whether in Canada or Brazil or Czechia, would benefit from being more diverse and reflective of the vibrant communities of which they are a part. As for my project and how it engages in boundaries and divisions, let me start by saying a few words about the project itself. I’ve written a book on a new theory of tragedy. It’s called The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy. I argue that risk is the dramatic fulcrum of the action. Protagonists, according to risk theatre, trigger catastrophic low-probability, high-consequence events by making delirious, all-in wagers.

My project engages tradition because the genre I’m writing in—the theory of tragedy—goes back through Nietzsche and Hegel all the way back to Aristotle. It’s another voice in a long, ongoing conversation. But my project also creates division because it’s a separate and unique voice. Playwrights say: “The idea of tragedy was wrapped in the mystique of motivations and nobility and flaws that put it out of reach.” Risk theatre is a twenty-first century take on tragedy. It says: “The goal of tragedy isn’t pity and fear or colliding ethical positions or the Dionysian versus the Apollonian. The goal of tragedy is to incite anticipation and apprehension in the audience: anticipation for the hero’s wager and apprehension for how badly the foolproof plan will turn out.” To take the idea of risk theatre from page to stage, I’ve founded the world’s largest playwriting competition specifically for the writing of tragedy. It’s now in its third year (risktheatre.com).

This has been such a great discussion so far, I’m having so much fun! Let’s go back to you Gilberto. Could you comment on the common points intersection in our projects?

Gilberto: One thing that comes to mind immediately is how multiculturalism has a history of oppressing others. The Folia de Reis rite is such an example. It was from Europe and it was a vehicle to spread Catholic ideas in Brazil. Like how Tony puts it, in multicultural societies, often there is a dominant culture. Funny thing today is how things have turned. The previous “colonial” theatre of the Folia de Reis in turn is being supplanted by new religions and new cultures.

Edwin’s risk theatre project brings to mind the risk performers take in performing. We have a saying: “If you don’t feel cold in the stomach, don’t perform it.” Risk brings theatre to life. The theatre of the Folia de Reis is a street theatre, and the street theatre is unlike university or big budget theatre. It’s a community theatre where I remember how many performers who struggle with feeding themselves and their families must make a gamble in purchasing the masks and clothing for the show. I like how Edwin highlights how risk is an inherent part of performance.

Edwin: Risk is ubiquitous isn’t it? Turning to you Tony, where do you find a common intersection in our projects?

Tony: I see two main points of intersection with Gilberto. The first is my experience of community-based festivals and religious processions in Calabria (and in Canada within “Italian” communities), and the second, my experience of so-called “multicultural” performances in Canada in theatre, film and television. We perhaps intersect as well on the idea of actively preserving ––– through practice–– cultural expression and output that stem from so-called diverse/multicultural communities/practitioners. This is evident in Gilberto’s Folia study, and my interest in (and history with) performances that stem from “diverse” practitioners whose combined output reflects Canada’s multicultural makeup (without the need, however, to label the individual works as multicultural since no such works exist). Multicultural defines the sum of the parts and not the parts.

“Diverse” and “multicultural” (and the term “ethnic”), as presently and largely employed in Canadian media and scholarship, are segregationist terms; they exclude English- and French- Canadians as constituent parts of multiculturalism, as defined in Pierre Trudeau’s House of Commons speech in 1971 when he first introduced the policy of multiculturalism for all Canadians, and entrenched in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There is no such thing as a diverse or multicultural performance, unless we are defining both terms outside the constitutional standard, within a othering context, and through the lens of the so-called two founding nations. “Diverse” and “multicultural” are synonymous with and euphemisms for “other” and “ethnic.”

In Brazil and Calabria, religious-based festivals and performances are part of everyday life and set in actual everyday settings. The Folia de Reis and religious festivals in Calabria are performances of the people, by the people and for the people. From a professional, North American perspective, community-based performances can be looked upon as less than “professional” and not as relevant. They blur—and intentionally crisscross—a number of lines at once, between the onstage and offstage realities, the fictive and the real, the spectator and the spectated, life and art, etc., Living with these dualities—and with Brecht’s notion of the alienation/distancing effect—is a part of daily life, and normal. The professional mourners in southern Italy is a perfect example. They are in –– but not lost in –– character. They exist in a real life setting and perform within that setting. The “stage” is both undefinable and ubiquitous and tells multiple stories (e.g. in Calabrian culture, sitting at the kitchen table is perhaps the greatest communal activity and human experience. It is a home’s center of gravity, headquarters for all discussion, real-life drama and storytelling). These performances are often closer to the ideal that professional performances often strive to attain in traditional, Western professional settings. “All the world’s a stage” is not a metaphor in these two locations: performances exist in daily life and daily life is a performance. There is no estrangement between the spectator and performer even when they do not overlap. These festival performances stem from the people, and express and renew themselves through the people that participate as performers and/or spectators. The messiness of this type of performance is both multicultural and intercultural. They are not intentionally prescriptive multicultural performances but organically reflect a multi cultural community. Professional theatre, on the other hand, is often superficially multicultural, mainly in promotional sound bites, and “intercultural” by prescription, in which linguistic and cultural hierarchies, however, still exist and establish the working language –– for all.

The point of intersection between Edwin’s work and my own is that we’re both trying to redefine aspects of theatre practice for the present. Edwin has redefined the template for understanding tragedy; he has reconceptualized the tragedy template through his innovative risk theatre theory. I’m challenging misconceptions of multiculturalism and “multicultural” theatre. I’m also trying to address (bridge or remove) the age-old acting/writing divide in performance.

Edwin. I love this opportunity for the three of us to talk about the past, present, and future of multiculturalism in theatre. Much of our work revolves around the idea of theatre as a place where cultures can meet to create and share stories. I’d like to think about risk theatre as the contribution of a Chinese-Canadian theatre researcher into the continuing narrative of theatre performance and creation. Just as Gilberto talks about Brazilian theatre being a point drawing in Indigenous, African, and European cultures and Tony talks about different voices contributing to multicultural theatre in Canada, I attempt through my risk theatre project to add my multicultural voice to an old conversation called the theory of tragedy that has been going on for millennia. For theatre to be an essential part of their communities, the people in these communities have to both remember the old traditions and also to make new traditions as well.

We have one more question. Gilberto, could you share your thoughts on how the coronavirus pandemic has changed your outlook and theatre research?

Gilberto: How has it impacted me? First, I need to reinvent myself. Many of the congresses now are online. We see the rise of the video conference. Puppet video is possible by video. One positive aspect of the online world is that it’s good at connecting faraway people. A generation will change as we adapt to new technology. Having said that, some theatres are opening slowly in Czechia. Although there is change, I feel that theatre needs to be present. The Folia de Reis must be present to fulfil its mandate as a rite, as a cultural performance.

Tony: I have not had the time to reflect on this, namely because Covid has not changed my daily routine (writing my thesis) except that it has confined me to one space, home, in which the lines between work and home blur and overlap making it that much harder to dedicate focused time to research and writing. I did cancel however an in-person graduate course at York (acting for film directors) that I was scheduled to teach this summer. I declined the online option because, in the moment, I could not conceive how to adapt the in-person curriculum (exercises, etc.) to an online setting. Performance is reliant on presence, aura, and interaction within a physical context and setting. Even when captured on film, the performance must live and breathe in a physical space shared by other characters and spectators. Physical proximity and energy (including between actor and audience), in harmony or in conflict, are the “TNT” in drama and performance. I foresee a post-covid reality in which smaller venues and gatherings of people will increase in popularity, e.g. drawing room readings and theatre. We may be forced to reimagine and rearticulate theatre around the family kitchen table, after all.

Edwin: I read you loud and clear Tony. We’re evolved to have face to face interactions. Theatre harnesses the tools that millions of years of evolution gave us. We’ve only had thirty or forty years with computers and the virtual world. So there’s a big gulf to overcome!

As part of the risk theatre project, I run a playwright competition inviting playwrights from all over the world to write plays to explore the impact of the highly improbable. The competition is online, so not much changes there. Like Gilberto was saying, the online world offers a great opportunity to shrink the geographical divide.

In the past, we’ve flown in the winner to workshop their play in Victoria. We’re going to move the workshop online this year. So there’s a new challenge. But what I feel from talking with both of you is that all the people who are passionate about theatre are the theatre. Our ideas, passions, and will to bring theatre to life is theatre. These are difficult times, but your enthusiasm reassures me that, as long as we keep going—and we will—we’ll find a way.

Don’t forget me. I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.

Edwin Wong Responds to Tony Nardi

As part of the 2020 AGM, the Canadian Association of Theatre Research brings together theatre researchers and practitioners from all over the world to share their ideas in the Articulating Artistic Research Seminar. The group is lead by Bruce Barton (University of Calgary) and Natalia Esling (University of British Columbia). This year’s participants bring a wealth of experience from five continents and include: Lisa Aikman, Megan Andrews, Bakare Babatunde, Gilberto Conti, Andrew Houston, Caitlin Main, Tony Nardi, Laine Newman, Gouri Nilakantan, Milena Radzikowska, Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Stan Ruecker, Shira Schwartz, and Edwin Wong.

We each prepared a statement of artistic research and uploaded it to the CATR site. Mine can be found here. Then we were assigned into subgroups. I was paired with Gilberto Conti, a theatre researcher from Czechia who specializes in the intersection of African, European, and Indigenous cultures in Brazilian theatre and Tony Nardi, a Canadian actor, writer, and director who specializes in Canadian multicultural theatre. This is a fantastic opportunity to see all the cool things people from all over the world are doing with theatre in a time of crisis. In our subgroup Gilberto was assigned to respond to my statement of artistic research and, in turn, I was assigned to respond to Tony. Here’s my response to Tony’s piece on multicultural theatre.

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF THEATRE RESEARCH (CATR)

 

ARTICULATING ARTISTIC RESEARCH SEMINAR

“ARTICULATIONS OF DIVISION AND UNITY: RE-EVALUATING PRACTICES OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH”

 

Date: July 5, 2020

Place: Non-place

EDWIN WONG RESPONDS TO TONY NARDI

In his articulation of artistic research, Tony Nardi brings a wealth of experience to the table. It’s a humbling experience to hear the insights from an award-winning actor (two-time Genie Award winner plus many others), writer (James Buller Award winner and many others), director, and producer with forty-two years of experience in theatre, film, and television. The best part of Nardi’s articulation is that, after forty-two years, he continues to push the boundaries of research. In addition to his impressive resume, since 2016 he has been sharing his experiences with the next generation of artists at the University of Toronto and York University.

One way to respond to Nardi is to begin by recapping his articulation of artistic research to see the sorts of observations and questions that arise. Nardi beings by drawing attention to different dichotomies in performance media (defined as theatre, film, and television). The three dichotomies he identifies are practice (doing in the theatre) versus research (learning in the classroom), research by-way-of practice (which privileges knowledge) versus practice by-way-of-research (which privileges the show), and acting versus writing. These dichotomies remind me of the ancient Greek dichotomy between logos—a narrative or account—and ergon—deeds and actions.

Most of the time, logos and ergon are at odds. Logos is a discussion and narrative while ergon is action. Sometimes, however, logos and ergon come together. One example is Plato’s allegory of the cave in The Republic. By discussing justice (logos), Socrates performs the work (ergon) of guiding Glaucon out of the cave. With his experience on both sides of the table—as an actor and a writer—Nardi is become a synthesizer of dichotomies. “In the process of doing,” he writes, “practice and research are practically indivisible.” Similarly, he synthesizes the acts of writing and acting by drawing together common denominators: “the actor writes when they act and the writer acts when they write.” Are these words the beginnings of a book on acting theory by a Canadian that Nardi laments has not been written yet? I hope that they are. Such a book would go a long way to incorporating Canadian multiculturalism into Canadian performance. More on that below.

Nardi’s comments on the playwright combining writing and doing brings to mind Bob Dylan’s observations of Shakespeare’s creative process:

I was out on the road when I received this surprising news [i.e. that he had won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature], and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it. I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn’t have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I’m sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: “Who’re the right actors for these roles?” “How should this be staged?” “Do I really want to set this in Denmark?” His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. “Is the financing in place?” “Are there enough good seats for my patrons?” “Where am I going to get a human skull?” I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare’s mind was the question “Is this literature?”

Perhaps it is our age, so fascinated with specialization, that wants an artist to be an artist, and nothing else, that wants an actor to be an actor, and nothing else. But perhaps, as Nardi and Dylan write, not only is the artist a writer, but in writing is also an actor, director, stage manager, general manager, producer, and box office manager. Perhaps the writer-actor dichotomy is something that exists more in the public’s mind than in reality? I’d like to hear more from Nardi about how his students have benefited from his approach which breaks down the conventional writer-actor dichotomy in favour of a writer-actor synthesis. I am grateful to Nardi for expanding my sensibilities here. Up to this point I had thought of a writer as a writer and an actor as an actor. I enjoyed Nardi’s point that the best actors are also writers and vice-versa.

In the past, there have been influential researchers who have approached theatre from diverse perspectives. Aristotle—who has influenced seemingly everyone—approached theatre from a philosophy background. And Nietzsche—who counts among his disciples Strindberg and O’Neill—approached theatre from the perspective of a Greek and Latin classicist. Such diverse approaches bring to mind biologist E. O. Wilson’s notion of consilience (from con– and siliens ‘jumping’), that jumps in knowledge result when unrelated disciplines come together. In his articulation piece, Nardi talks about a consilience within the theatre disciplines—for example, his writer, in writing, also acts. I find this approach illuminating, and would like to hear his thoughts on how diverse perspectives outside of theatre can interact with and contribute to theatre research. Is there an opportunity here? In a way, could it be that the greatest actors or the greatest writers were also the most complete and multi-faceted human beings, able to draw into their art every facet of the human experience?

After talking about how he synthesizes the acting-writing and research by-way-of practice-practice-by-way-of research dichotomies in his teaching, Nardi addresses a third dichotomy: the stage-film dialectic. To Nardi—who is experienced performing on the stage and in front of a camera—the dichotomy between stage and film is false and unsupported by the actor’s point of view. In a memorable image, he argues that a stage actor can visualize the actual stage as a camera lens and a film actor can visualize the camera lens as a type of stage. For a film actor, for example, performing in front of  an extreme wide-shot lens is akin to acting before a large theatre while performing in front of a close-up lens is akin to acting in a one-on-one setting. To reinforce his point, Nardi draws attention to how there the film actor also performs in front of an audience: the 10-50 “spectators” of the film crew. Like a theatre audience, they are always watching. Some people do not consider the film crew to constitute an audience. Nardi disagrees.

Here I would like to offer a differing opinion. My specialty is risk. From the perspective of risk, each time the actor goes in front of the audience, the actor takes risk. Risk is what makes an event special. In a way, when a pianist goes in front of an audience, the audience is unconvinced the pianist can pull off the cascade of trills or the quick succession of arpeggios. There may even be some in the audience who desire the piano lid to come crashing down on the pianist’s fingers. The pianist senses this tension and attempts to overcome it. If the pianist takes risks and prevails, the audience’s reaction to being proved wrong is to erupt into applause. This tension, I believe, is real. The great Canadian performing artist Glenn Gould retired from the stage at the age of 31 because his nerves couldn’t handle the darker aspects of the performer-audience dynamic. He believed the audience wanted him to fail. And each time he performed in front of a live audience, he needed to overcome the audience, an act which he paid a price for in his health: ulcers, sleeplessness, stomach problems.

It may be similar in other performing arts. Comedians who have perform in sit-coms in front of  a camera and stage crew sometimes express a yearning to return to the live stage. On a live stage, there’s tension in the air. The audience is at the ready to heckle the comedian if the joke is flat or the delivery off. Popular sit-com comedians such as Seinfeld have expressed a desire to return to touring on the road, to being on stage at the comedy clubs. They describe the road experience in front of a live audience as being “honest.”

Perhaps live performances differ from a recorded performances in terms of the risks and rewards. Because there’s no take 2, the performer must go all-in on one moment and defy the audience’s dark wish. I’d love to hear Nardi’s thoughts on the risks or the psychology of performing in front of a camera (where multiple takes are possible) and in front of an audience, where there is only the moment, either to capture or to lose. To me, risk separates, to an extent, the live versus the recorded event. Perhaps one way to test out this idea is to compare recordings of live events with recordings made in the studio?

In the largest and concluding section of his articulation of artistic research, Nardi talks about “the ways and degree to which Canada’s multi cultures have impacted professional performances in Performance Media since the promulgation of the 1971 Multiculturalism Policy, the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the 1988 Multiculturalism Act.” As a first-generation Canadian whose parents were from China, this was fascinating. I had always taken it for granted that English and French dominated Canadian film and theatre. In his dissertation, however, Nardi exposes this practice as unconstitutional multiculturalism. When I read his paper saying that, someday, we could get some Canadian content in Cantonese (and other languages), I thought: “Cool.”

Unconstitutional multiculturalism happens when institutions misinterpret Canada’s policy of official bilingualism. When Canadian media institutions prioritize English and French over other languages such as Farsi, Korean, or Mandarin, Performance Media becomes almost a tool of propaganda which erases, rather than celebrates, cultures and ways of life. Nardi is changing the institutional misinterpretation of official bilingualism through his innovative research. The benefit will be new films and play that embraces performers’ cultural backgrounds, languages, and ways of life. This is a bold, welcome, and most timely initiative. I wish Nardi all the success in this crucial project. The world is changing, and the performance arts ought to change with it. Current events certainly seem to be playing into his call for a multiculturalist performing arts.

Nardi’s thoughts on the performing arts and multiculturalism are extremely thought-provoking. Many questions come to mind. Are we due for a 21st century theory of acting written from a multicultural Canadian perspective? And the plays that dominate regional theatres from British and American canons—while classics, do they also propagate dissonance between the theatre and audiences which are increasingly diverse? That is to say, are classic plays in some way agents of assimilation and integration? I remember in the days of the Roman Empire, theatre was a tool to bring peace to the conquered: in each vanquished city, the Romans would build a forum, baths, and also a theatre. Is part of the solution new plays, written by new 21st century theories of drama, performed according to 21st century theories of acting by performers who reflect the theatre community’s demography? If so, perfect: I’ve written a 21st century theory of drama in my book The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy. I’d love to find a way to collaborate with Nardi to inaugurate a new and multicultural theatre in Canada.

– – –

Don’t forget me. I’m Edwin Wong and I do Melpomene’s work.

NNPN Panel: WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE: THEATER & CRISIS

nnpn edwin wong risk theatre

A whirlwind has carried me from morning to evening. Earlier today, I took part in a panel at the National New Play Network AGM. With the Great Quarantine locking everything down, the NNPN took their AGM online, hosting it on the Zoom platform. The focus of the AGM was the question on everyone’s minds: “How can theaters become essential to their communities?”  The panel I was on was called “We’ve Been Here Before: Theater & Crisis.”

Jess Hutchinson at NNPN organized the panel. I was joined by dramaturgs and theatre researchers Carrie Kaplan, Sally Ollove, and Tanya Palmer. Maestro Julie Felise Dubiner moderating. The over 300 registrants restored my confidence in the future of theatre. For 90 minutes, we laid out our visions of tomorrow’s theatre.

Now this whole Zoom format is interesting. All the panelists and the moderator can see one another on the main Zoom box. Then there is a Q&A box that fills up with attendees’ questions. Pop, pop, pop, up they come in real time. If that’s not enough, there’s also a separate chatbox buzzing with a hundred comments from all the attendees. Some saying hello to one another. Others commenting on the panelists’ conversation. Some sharing interesting footnotes.

Ever wonder what it’s like to be inside a JS Bach Invention in six parts? Each voice in the Q&A box, in the chatbox, and the panelists’ voices sung out like a musical line in theatre’s eternal song. The name of our panel was called: “We’ve Been Here Before.” I can’t help but to think that this panel has happened before–with different panelists–in the past. And I can’t help but to think that this panel, sometime in the distant future, will convene again with different panelists. To have participated in the conversation for 90 minutes is such a trill, or, I mean thrill.

Here were my introductory comments at the panel:

My name is Edwin Wong and here’s my background. I approach theatre from the perspective of a classicist. In the ancient days, they too had this moment of pandemic. In 430 BC, a plague struck Athens, wiping out a third of its population. But the playwright Sophocles confronted the situation head-on with his plague play in 429 BC, Oedipus the King. He was not afraid to challenge the Athenians’ beliefs. Theatre today can also rise to such heights if we are courageous. Laurel Bowman at the University of Victoria and David Konstan at Brown University taught me ancient Greek drama. My specialty is the theory of tragedy.

These days, I’ve set up an annual playwriting contest with Langham Court Theatre in Victoria, Canada. The Risk Theatre Playwriting Competition is the world’s largest contest for the writing of tragedy. Last year’s winning play was In Bloom by Brooklyn playwright Gabriel Jason Dean. Through the competition, Langham Court offers the community a forum to explore the role of chance and the unexpected in theatre and in life. We fly in the winner for a workshop and staged reading. Langham Court is an essential part of our community because of the personal connections the competition fosters within our city of 370,000 and with playwrights around the world. I’m honoured to be working with competition manager Michael Armstrong, Langham GM Michelle Buck, and board member Keith Digby on this unique project.

The contest is based on my award-winning book on theory: The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy. Risk theatre is tragedy reimagined as a theatre of risk. It’s risk, and not catharsis or a collision that drives the action. Because we’re surrounded by the impact of the highly improbable, the competition invites playwrights to write plays that dramatize unintended consequences and the impact of low-probability, high-consequence events. Audiences today clamour to learn more about the impact of risk. The theatre is a perfect stage to simulate risk. When theatres produce new plays based on modern theories of drama, theatres connect powerfully with community. To remember the past, we continue the conversation with the past by writing new theories and new plays.

But you say: “Who wants tragedy?—enough of tragedy, we cannot think of tragedy while living through it.” This sentiment is straight from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a story of fellow travelers exchanging stories. Whenever one of the travelers tells a tragedy, the rest of them put a stop to it. They say: “This is too sad, we insist you stop immediately!” People write to me all the time saying: “Why do you have a tragedy competition during this crisis?” But what I also see is this: people who have heard about my theory of drama based on low-probability, high-consequence events are fascinated and want to learn more. Here’s a thought. If you market a play as a tragedy, you’ll be met with disdain. But if you market a play as an exploration of risk, audiences will clamour for more. To me, tragedy and risk theatre are synonymous, the same thing. All of drama is the dramatization of risk, that’s why we have two genres: comedy to dramatize upside risk and tragedy to dramatize downside risk. But it’s not the same to audiences. And this brings me to my last point: the theatres which are essential to their communities will find creative ways to pitch their shows to audiences to pique their curiosity.

Brutal though this process of creative destruction has been, it also offers the courageous an opportunity to reshape, refine, and reimagine the theatre of tomorrow.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.

Risk Theatre Goes to Concordia University in Montreal

Risk theatre is going on the road to the PARTITION/ENSEMBLE conference in Montreal. It’s put on by the Canadian Association of Theatre Research (CATR) and hosted by Concordia and the Université du Québec à Montréal. There, I’ll be participating in a twelve-person seminar convened by Natalia Esling (UBC) and Bruce Barton (U of Calgary) to discuss how underrepresented and marginalized scholars and artists drawing from diverse experiences and backgrounds contribute to theatre research today. This will be a great opportunity to see how artists and scholars working on the fringes make their voices heard and to share my own experiences inaugurating the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition (https://risktheatre.com/) with Langham Court Theatre. The conference takes place May 25-28 2020 and the seminar is titled: Articulations of Division and Unity: Re-evaluating Practices of Artistic Research.

I’m so grateful to be selected. This conference is a milestone for risk theatre, as this is the first theatre conference I’ve participated in. Though outside the comfort zone, if risk theatre is going to gain traction, I’ll need to branch out from speaking exclusively at Classics conferences (my background is in ancient Greek theatre). And, in another, first, this will be my first time in Montreal, a city so many have fallen in love with. Here’s a copy of my successful proposal to the organizers:

PROPOSAL

My name is Edwin Wong, and I’d like to tell you about how my “risk theatre” project is enriching the field of artistic research. Risk theatre is the name for my new theory of tragedy that makes risk the dramatic fulcrum of the action. My book, The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected, published in 2019, lays out the foundations of a dramatic model based on uncertainty and chance. The book has launched an international playwright competition, hosted by Langham Court Theatre in Victoria. The contest is in its second year. Over 200 playwrights from 11 countries have participated.

My voice in the theatre community may be considered to be underrepresented from a variety of perspectives. My background is not theatre, but rather Greek and Roman Studies. While studying ancient theatre at UVic and Brown, I came across theories of drama by Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and others. Currently, I am no longer part of academia proper, but work in the field of construction as a project manager. I have a trades background as a Red Seal plumber. I approach theatre as a civilian without formal training in theatre research.

I can speak to how diversity in culture (Chinese-Canadian background), language (classical languages), and background (construction) can inform development in the field of theatre research. I am active in the local theatre scene in Victoria as founder of the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Playwriting Competition (https://risktheatre.com/). I’ve given talks on risk theatre at UVic, University of Calgary, UMass Boston, the Society of Classical Studies AGM, and Okanagan College. I’ve been invited to speak at Samford University (Alabama) in March, and in a few days, I’ll be giving a presentation to a third-year drama class at UVic. The full transcript of the talk is available on my blog https://melpomeneswork.com/oedipus/. The goal of the risk theatre project is to inaugurate a new tragic age in storytelling, drama, and literature and I’ve love to share my unique story with seminar participants.

BIO

Edwin Wong is an award-winning classicist with a master’s degree from Brown University, where he concentrated in ancient theatre. He works as a project manager for PML Professional Mechanical overseeing new schools, hospitals, and condos. His book The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy was published by Friesen Press in 2019 and he founded the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Playwright competition with Langham Court Theatre in 2018. He lives in Victoria, BC.

And here’s a copy of the Articulating Artistic Research at CATR 2020 call for seminar participants:

CALL FOR SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS

Seminar Title: Articulations of Division and Unity: Re-evaluating Practices of Artistic Research
Co-Conveners: Natalia Esling (UBC) & Bruce Barton (U of Calgary)

Canadian Association of Theatre Research/Société quebécoise d’études théâtrales 
Conference Theme: “Partition/Ensemble” 
May 25th-28th, 2020
Montreal, Québec
Université du Québec à Montréal & Concordia University

Focus: the focus of this gathering of the Articulating Artistic Research Seminar is on expanding awareness of, and directing attention to, traditionally marginalized or underrepresented voices whose diverse experiences and backgrounds can inevitably enrich the field of Artistic Research (AR). Part of this work involves addressing a paradox within AR—that the set of practices enabling it to transcend lines of division also often, if unintentionally, works to reinforce them. To this end, we invite proposals that query lines of separation inherent within AR and that prioritize a diversity of perspectives from a range of communities.

Issues & Goals: The aim of this seminar is to address gaps in the field of AR related to privileged perspectives/ontologies and to trouble the idea that collaborative/ensemble practices might in fact also reify certain divisions. Our goal is to tease out various assumptions inherent in practices of AR, and to more clearly understand and articulate how a focus on diversity (of cultural, language, background, and ability) can inform the development of the field.

Structure & Schedule:
·      A selection of no more than 12 participants will be invited to attend the seminar in accord with the above noted criteria. We will notify those accepted by February 5th, 2020. 
·      By March 20th, 2020, all invited participants will be asked to share (electronically) with the full group an 8-page articulation of a personal Artistic Research activity that engages with the above-identified focus. (Additional criteria for these documents will be distributed to all accepted participants.)
·      By April 1st, 2020, co-conveners will organize participants into sub-groups.
·      Between April 1st and May 1st, sub-groups will be responsible for reading/experiencing each other’s work and meeting (via Skype, Zoom, telephone, or email) to engage in discussion around 2-3 thematic questions (to be proposed).
·      By May 1st, each sub-group will submit a 1-2-page summary of their discussion and responses, and outlining key disruptions and intersections generated through their exchange. All seminar participants are asked to read/experience these materials.
·      For the first 2 hours of our in-person meeting, each sub-group will present their collective ideas and responses (via traditional summary, creative/performative means and/or through a participatory activity) to inspire deeper, more focused exchange on the topic.
·      The final hour of the seminar will take the form of an open discussion between the seminar participants and audience members.
·      The entire seminar will be open to all conference attendees.

Please submit proposals (300 words) and a short bio (50 words) to Natalia Esling and Bruce Barton no later than Saturday, February 1st, 2020.
Thank you to all the organizers and sponsors of CATR 2020 for this exciting opportunity. See you in Montreal May 25-28!
Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.

Hypnosis for Authors and Writers

How far would you go to write words with power? Would you consider hypnosis? I did and here’s my story. It starts off from a most unlikely beginning. While looking into kickboxing sparring techniques, I discovered the work, life, and philosophy of Cus D’Amato, the inventor of the peek-a-boo style of boxing. Mike Tyson is his most famous pupil, but he also trained two other world champions: Floyd Patterson (the heavyweight champ between Rocky Marciano and Ali) and José Torres, all hall of famers. Smaller fighters looking to close the distance with larger fighters with longer reach would do well to watch clips of Tyson executing the peek-a-boo style. At 5’10” Tyson was a small heavyweight. But, by working the angles, he had his way against much larger opponents.

At 5’7”, I’m cannon fodder for the bigger guys at the gym, which is pretty much everyone. Watching clips of Tyson improved my game, and, as I learned more about Tyson’s life, I discovered there was more to him than the “Iron Mike” persona of the 80s and 90s. For one, he’s extremely well read. He quote Plutarch and Nietzsche with ease, and from his quotes, it’s evident that he grasps his place in history in relation to those who fought before him, from the gladiators to his contemporaries. He credits much of his character inside and outside of the ring to his foster father and trainer Cus D’Amato.

D’Amato was an extremely driven individual whose sole purpose was to find and train heavyweight boxing champions. He sacrificed all for this end. Increasingly fascinated both by Tyson and D’Amato, I picked up Tyson’s biography of D’Amato: Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus D’Amato (2017). One of the enduring lessons Tyson learned from D’Amato was that character is everything. Inside the ring, the fighter with a stronger character will prevail over an equal or even stronger opponent with less character. To make his fighters strong in their minds, D’Amato would, on a regular basis, take his fighters to the hypnotist. But this was no ordinary hypnosis where you find balance, inner peace, or a better night’s sleep. He hypnotized his fighters to hit with bad intentions.

Some want money. Some want power. To others, family’s where it’s at. There are those who live for wine and a song. For me, the highest good of life is to be remembered and not to be forgotten. It terrifies me, not the thought of dying, but the thought that after I’m gone, the world will continue as though I had never been. To be remembered, I sought a topic that could stand the test of time. I found that in the theory of tragedy and I listened to the old masters talking their theory: Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kaufmann, Szondi, and the others. To join the ancient conversation, I wrote The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. I founded the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition with Michael Armstrong, Michelle Buck, and Keith Digby at Langham Court Theatre (https://risktheatre.com/). I started writing these blogs, started conferencing. All so that one day in the future, I might enjoy posthumous fame. Time will tell.

For me to reach this level–to enter the canon–however, is a shot in the dark. I lack the depth of these other writers. In terms of intelligence, I would say I’m slightly above average. But I am persistent. And stubborn. The odds of entering the canon are a million to one against. I’ll take these odds. But I’ll also take every advantage that comes my way. That’s when I started thinking about hypnosis. After all, Mike Tyson was a long shot and he entered the canon.

I looked for a hypnotist and I found one: Harmony Shaw. When I first saw the name, I blinked. Wasn’t she the labour foreman for Lark Construction when we did Selkirk Place, a 230 bed care facility back in 2007? There was a photo of her on her website. Indeed, it was her. I guess in thirteen years, you can pick up one or two new skills! I gave her a call, she remembered me as well and we caught up on old times. It was meant to be. She explained how it works. We do a meet and greet session, no hypnosis. In the first session, about an hour long, clients tell her what they’re after, and she takes notes. Later, she’ll use these notes to plant subconscious cues during the actual hypnotherapy sessions.

Harmony also went through what to expect during the actual hypnotherapy session. The client reclines in a day bed and relaxes. Her job is to keep the client in between a state of sleep and waking. It’s sort of like the moments you’re drifting off to sleep or the moments in the morning where you’re conscious you’re dreaming but not quite awake. While the client is in this in-between state, she charges up the client’s subconscious with suggestions. So far so good.

But I was curious. How would this work? I asked colleagues at work. A surprising number of them had gone through or seen hypnotists in action. Apparently, schools used to hire hypnotists to entertain students during grad ceremonies. The consensus on these shows is that it appears to work on some people. But it didn’t work on the people I chatted with, who were skeptical. To them, hypnotism was some sort of scandalous parlour trick. A thing of ill-repute.

The day came for my hypnotherapy session with Harmony. Friday after work. It had been a busy Friday afternoon, so I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to get into that half-asleep half-awake state, I was so wound up. We met up, I got into the daybed and closed my eyes. The session began with her telling me: “Focus on the sound of my voice.” Then she started talking about the sound of the clock as it checked off the seconds. She told me to concentrate on the sound of her colleague in the next room, who was cleaning up. Before you knew it, I was in that half-asleep, half-awake state. Harmony asked me to signal by moving a finger that I was still awake. I did this and she got out her notes from the previous session.

It was at this point the hypnotherapy session proper started. I heard her say the things we had talked about. “You will write with bad intentions,” she said. “You will write words with power,” she said. “Your words will outlast the pyramids,” she said. The first thing I noticed was that it was sort of shocking, no, shocking isn’t the write word, it was sort of enticing and discomfiting to hear someone say your words back to you. These are all phrases I’ve thought about to myself. It was different to hear them told back to me in another person’s voice. The second thing I noticed was that it was odd to have someone talking to you in this half-asleep half-awake state. The mind is sort of floating in this in-between state. It can notice it is being talked to. It understands the meaning of the words that it hears, though some higher functions appear to be shut down. It is open to suggestion.

We’ve all been spoken to in this in-between state. The difference with hypnotherapy is that the hypnotherapist keeps you in this state. Normally, if someone’s talking to you as you’re dozing off or waking up, you’d either doze off or wake up. The difference is that the skilled hypnotherapist keeps you there. Our first session was just over an hour long. During the session, I had no sense of time. I still could feel meaning, but at a rudimentary level. Some of the higher brain functions do not appear to have been engaged. As the hour wrapped up, Harmony counted down from five and told me that I would wake up feeling refreshed. When I got up and looked at the clock, I was surprised that just over an hour had passed. It had seemed like ten minutes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after experiencing my first session, it was just as she had described. It’s like you’re having a nap with someone talking to you. There was no magic about it, which to me, is a positive thing. The hypnotist stage acts on YouTube seem contrived, not entirely believable. This sort of hypnotherapy Harmony practised on me made sense. I could see how, if this is that Tyson experienced, it would have helped him. I think if anyone is attempting anything that challenges physical or mental limits, hypnotherapy would be something to try. Hard work and effort would get you 99% of the results. Hypnotherapy would be that boost that gets you that 1% extra.

Since the session with Harmony I’ve  been writing some presentations and some new blogs. I’ve found myself writing in a more direct and concise tone. I’ll be writing, and there’ll be a voice in the back of my mind: “Write with power, write with intention, don’t do any tricks with words when the direct approach suffices.” I don’t know if this is due to the hypnotherapy or simply that I know that I’ve done the hypnotherapy. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. I know I’ve done it, and I feel that it’s given me a mandate. And that’s good enough to take my writing to a higher level. If you’re wondering whether to try it, definitely go for it. There’s no magic to it. There’s no mind-blowing results. But it will take you that 1% higher. And for it to have that effect is pretty amazing.

I’ve been telling my friends about my hypnotism experience. Most of them have been surprised that I got hypnotized to “write with bad intentions.” “That’s wrong,” they say to me. “Writing isn’t a contest,” they say. “It’s not like boxing,” they say. But isn’t it? You’re locked in the cage with all the other writers saying the same thing. And in the end, it is a contest: only a handful will be remembered. And if you’re the one who’s remembered, you have to deliver the knockout blow to your worthy adversary. Isn’t writing and fame a heavyweight bout for the ages where every advantage counts? Am I missing something here or is it my contemporaries who are missing something?

We only live once. Keep your mind open to new ideas, especially new ideas where there is little to lose but much to gain. We owe it to ourselves to be the best we can be in each thing that we do.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.