Earth Ship Rehearsals, May 28th - June 11th
At the beginning of May, everything about our project looked uncertain. With an outbreak of variants taking place in Nova Scotia, the possibility of continuing our tour as planned seemed unimaginable. On top of that, our scheduled rehearsals with collaborators could no longer take place, as travel throughout the province was restricted and our social contacts were further reduced to the two of us and our dog. We found ourselves isolated with no outside eyes on the project and no concrete plans to hold onto.
Yet, the work always continues. At the end of the month we began to transition into other projects. With the approach of the summer months, we organized a self-isolation in Prince Edward Island to prepare for The River Clyde Pageant, a spectacle that Ian organizes with the community of New Glasgow and other collaborators every summer. Thanks to the generosity of some neighbours, we landed in an isolated piece of land surrounded by a wood lot with lots of room for creative processing. The property also happened to have a unique, off-the-grid structure on it made out of reclaimed car tires, known more widely as an Earth Ship.
It was in this wonderfully secluded setting that we started our rehearsals. We were able to set up our show in the trees under the shelter of a tarp. With only the birds to hear our shouts and our songs, we made room for the deliciously complicated process of piecing together a puppet show. The dog seemed content to be our sole audience member.
Theatre is inherently a social art form; it only exists through human encounter. It takes many minds, and more importantly, many witnesses to see the shape of it emerge from the chaos. With so much empty space to fill, we found new challenges in the stillness of the forest. There were no suggestions offered from across the room, no discerning eye watching our clumsy maneuvers. We had only to guess that our work was building toward something.
There is something miraculous about being gifted time, however. The open schedule of isolation brought a new intimacy to the materials we were working with. We were able to disassemble scenes, rebuild them, and disassemble them again. With new instruments in hand, we stumbled through learning the score, reviewing the tunes in our sleep, our slumber now free from the clutter of our daily lives. Collaborators generously met us over video chats and phone calls, sharing long hours at their devices listening to our discoveries and offering suggestions through the thin connection.
Two weeks can disappear rather rapidly when you have a show in your hands.
At the end of our quarantine, we had the rough shape of a show made. Eager to share it with an audience, we invited our hosts to watch our first run. Over freshly made pancakes, we preformed a breakfast matinee on the front lawn. Despite there only being 6 people seated in front of us, the energy of an audience was shocking to experience after many days with only ourselves as company. The vibrancy of that presence is a welcome reminder of the joy of live performance.
