Tag Archives: performance

History Repeats

We went to see a theatre performance of Fiddler On The Roof last night. The story ends with the Ukrainian Jews being kicked off their lands and dispersed across Europe and to America. After the show the lead star said that last night’s performance, and all of their performances, were dedicated to the Ukrainian people.

It makes me realize that we are not a truly civilized species. We fight over land and over resources. We kill in the name of God and Country. We judge based on skin colour and cultural differences. We act like unruly children against each other and we allow ourselves to repeat historical errors, none the wiser that lessons could have been learned.

We might have bigger brains, but we are no better than warring ant colonies, or a rutting animal fighting for dominance. We are animals pretending to be civilized. Power corrupts and corruption leads to injustice, and injustice undermines civility. We let history repeat itself because politics is more important that people and countries matter more than compassion.

Be invisible

Yesterday I said in a post about our school’s open house, “I have a saying I share with the tech crew which is, ‘It’s your job to be invisible’.”

A few years ago we had Alvin Law visit our school. When he arrived our tech crew set him up with a wireless microphone and had everything set up just as he specified. He did a truly amazing performance and after the show, after the tech crew helped take off the microphone, Alvin said to me, “Dave, what kind of a school are you running here? It feels pretty special.”

Then he said, “I present to multi-million dollar companies, like IBM and Microsoft, and I have never had a tech crew treat me so well. I’ve never had my sound work so well. I’ve had presentations where they are paying me a lot of money to present to 1,000 people and they can’t get my sound to work. There wasn’t a single issue with my sound today, it was perfect.”

That’s the sign of a good tech crew… they are invisible. When a microphone doesn’t work, people notice the tech crew. They are also noticed when a microphone is too loud, or there is feedback, or an off stage mic isn’t turned off, or when the lighting doesn’t actually light up the performers. When these things happen, the crew become part of the performance. When everything works as planned, they are invisible.

When a tech crew does their job well, they are invisible.

Closing night

My youngest daughter just had her last performance as Viola disguised as Cesario in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. I got to see 3 of her 5 performances and this was easily the best one. All the performers were having fun with their roles and the audience was lively and enjoyed the show.

Stage performances are something I’ve grown to love ever since meeting my wife, and I truly enjoy seeing my daughter on stage. But the show itself is such a small part of what goes into a play. Three months of rehearsals with full weekends given up, and arriving home after 10pm four days during the week led to these performances. My daughter said after the show, “I have no idea what I’m going to do with all this time now that I’m done.”

Live performances are like that: Hours and hours of work leading to a series of shows, and then it’s over. Getting to be on stage in front of an audience is the reward, but alas it is fleeting, and the show comes to an end.

An artist finishes with an art piece that lives on. A performer presents their art work on stage and then it is over, and only memories remain. The performance must come to an end, a closing night, a last time to share what hours of preparation went into. The play starts with the well known verse, “If music be the food of love, play on.” But for the stage performer there comes a closing night, and the music comes to an end.

A piece of living history

Yesterday Jowi Taylor brought his Six String Nation presentation to Inquiry Hub. The guitar named The Voyageur is built with 64 unique pieces of Canadian heritage, and Jowi’s storytelling brings some of those pieces to life.

I first met Jowi, and Voyageur, a decade ago on a retreat to an ‘Unplugd‘ conference near Algonquin Park in Ontario.

In my ‘Thank you’ to Jowi at the end of his performance yesterday, I shared that he and I had met at this conference and that the first time I heard The Voyageur played was by Bryan Jackson, a teacher and now Vice Principal here in Coquitlam. Bryan sang an original song about a profound piece of graffiti written on a wall in Winnipeg. I shared how uniquely Canadian this was, and that the thing I love most about what Jowi has created is that the guitar is a piece of living history.

For many, history is in books, and places to visit, and items you can’t touch in museums. The Voyageur guitar brings Canadian history into schools and communities, it creates special memories for the people who touch and play it. It brings history to life. My student, Trevor, will always remember getting to play this guitar that has been touched by so many famous Canadians, and played by Canadian music legends across the country.

And like me, there will be students and adults in the audience that will remember the stories told by Jowi about how this amazing guitar was brought to life.

Here is my first memory of Bryan Jackson playing The Voyageur at Unplugd, back in the summer of 2012: “Graffiti

Learn more about Jowi’s Six String Nation here.

All the world is an improv stage

Think of the roles you play in life: A child, son or daughter to parents… Sibling. Student. Friend. Employee/Boss. Boyfriend/Girlfriend. Husband/Wife. Parent. Caregiver….

We take on so many roles in our lives. And when we take them on, we do so without an instruction manual. We play the role, not knowing how to really do it. You can be trained for a job, but not for every scenario you face. You can model yourself as a parent based on what you’ve seen other parents do, but your child will challenge your skills in unexpected ways.

Every role you take on will put you into situations where you are going off script, you are improvising to the best of your abilities. Sometimes nailing the role and making great choices. Sometimes bombing and making decisions that make the role harder.

All the world is a stage, and we are all actors, playing parts we learn as we play them. Some people play certain parts really well, while they flop in different roles. Not too many people, if any, are able to play each of their roles without struggling somewhere. We admire those that put on a show and do things really well. We complain about those that can’t or don’t play their role well. We often lack confidence that we can do our role well enough.

We are far more critical of how we play our roles compared to others. We often feel like we are the only ones acting… everyone else has a script. But there is no script. There is no one path, improv doesn’t work if everything is set up. It has rules to keep going well. It’s better to support the actors around you than it is to cut them off. It’s better to understand that you share the stage than trying to go solo.

It’s not about getting everything right. It’s about helping others when they are lost for their lines, their roles. It’s about sharing and laughing. It’s about enjoying the performance, even when it’s challenging. It’s about taking on new roles, and trying new things.

The world is your stage. The play is your playground. Improvise your roles as best as you can. And remember that others are improvising theirs roles too. Work with your fellow actors to create the best performance you can. But remember it’s all an act, and if you aren’t playing a role that works, change the role or change the way you act in it. All the world is an improv stage, and so you get to write the script as you go. Enjoy the performance, you only get one.

On the stage

Last night my youngest performed her ‘Set of 5’. Her and 3 other classmates choose 5 songs to sing and do a patter in between them. The songs and stories are personal and raw. They can change the lyrics of songs to better tell their story.

There is something really special about watching aspiring singers and actresses open up and share a part of themselves on stage.

I don’t know how they do it? It’s so far off of what I’d feel capable of doing. First off, I really can’t sing. But beyond that, the idea of getting on a stage and confidently expressing such confidence and candour… it’s all too much for me.

They on the other hand, they shine when on stage. They connect with the audience, incite laughter and tears, and take us on a wonderful journey. All the world may be a stage, but it takes a special kind of person to get up on a stage and give a truly great performance.

Waves and fluctuations

I’m an avid audio book listener, and I usually get through almost a book a week unless I am reading something that’s really long, then it could be two weeks. But I just took three weeks to listen to a 5-hour long book, and didn’t feel I got as much out of it as I had hoped.

One of my healthy living goals this year was to shoot arrows 100 days of the year. I’ve far exceeded that target, but last week I only shot once, and I think I might only get to shoot once this week. The long gaps have led me to be more inconsistent and two out of the last three outings have produced some of my lowest scores in months.

I’ve been doing really well in the gym and have added a few pounds in the past few months, but the past couple weeks I’ve been missing a few workouts or I’m working out, but not really pushing myself.

I’ve missed more meditations in the last 6 weeks than I’ve missed for the rest of the year. When I do meditate, it’s more like I am am having a quiet moment to think about random things. I can’t seem to focus on my breath any more than I could when I started my daily meditation routine almost 3 years ago.

I know that I can’t always be doing everything at my best, but usually the fluctuations vary and I am doing some things well while struggling in other areas. The only thing I’m still doing consistently is writing daily… but I’m finding that I’m quite slow and everything else in my morning routine needs to be rushed.

This isn’t some bigger issue that I’m aware of, I’m not feeling depressed or sad. I’m just in the wave trough of effort and enthusiasm of my routines, and hopefully going to move up to the crest soon. It’s just unusual to find myself ‘down here’ in so many aspects at once. I tend to find some balance that is missing. The question is, what do I do to get out of it? Do I focus on just one thing? Do I wake up earlier and give myself more time? Do I just accept the fluctuations and allow myself another week of going through the motions, knowing that I’ll find my way back, knowing that I can’t always bring my ‘A’ game to everything I do?

My indifference to trying to get out of this rut suggests to me that I need to allow myself this time. I’ll make sure that I don’t miss another meditation. I’ll try to see if I can get an extra session of shooting arrows in this week, even if it’s for half the time I usually shoot for. I’ll start a fictional novel even though I usually wait for the holidays to choose a book that I’m not learning from. None of these are huge steps, but each of them offer me an opportunity to move from trough to crest in one of these areas that I seem to be under-performing in.

Live performances

I could never do it. Step on stage night after night and perform the same set of lines. It’s not something I would want to do. Tell me I have to present some information to 1,500 kids in a school gym, easy. Give me 5 lines to act in the same scenario and I’m a mess. I’ll give you a performance similar to a cardboard cutout of myself. And, I’ll probably mess up 2 of the 5 lines.

But put me in the audience and I’m in awe of the dramatic artists on stage. I get swept up in the performance. I am in awe of the the performers sharing their craft. And while I am someone who rarely watches all but a handful of favourite movies more than once, I can watch a live performance again and again.

Yesterday, in front of a very small audience, I got to watch my daughter in a musical for the first time in 2 years. Opening night is often a bit shaky, but her and her 2nd year cohort really nailed the performance, it was wonderful. Their creative interpretation of the play, with minimal props, was clever and imaginative, and the performers all hit their marks.

I will miss tonight’s performance for a (digital) open house event at my school, and then catch the closing performance tomorrow night. And I’ll probably enjoy the performance more than I did last night. That’s the power of a live performance, and I love to watch. I also love the joy it brings my daughter, but I never want to be on the stage myself. My role is in the audience.

Live events

Last night I watched my daughter perform live for the first time in 2 years. It was her university class performance, with 11 students singing two 1-2 minute shortened versions of songs from the 60’s to today. And there was also an opening and closing song along with three group songs. The event went by quickly, the audience was small, and everyone including performers wore masks the entire time.

It was wonderful!

I loved being part of a live audience. I loved watching talented kids put their heart and soul into a performance. I loved the sense of normalcy that an event like this gave me.

I even loved that we had to show our vaccine card to enter the audience. The idea that we can slowly start to expand our opportunities and see live events needs to come with precautions and concern about reducing risk of covid contagion. Live events are wonderful, but as we move back to normalcy, it needs to be done cautiously… or we’ll take a step backwards and lose out on enjoying many live events like this one.

An Annual Event

Last night we held iHub Annual where we highlighted some student performances, our Ollie Awards, and our grads.

Our Ollie Awards are our awards based on our motto: Dream – Create – Learn, and students from all grades and all levels of academic achievement can receive them.

The show opens at 4:45 with a song co-written and performed by students for the annual. My speech to the grads is at 39:40, and our Valedictorian and Spirit of Inquiry award winner’s speech is at 49:17.

This is a presentation put together with so much student work, and it comes off quite polished. It is a celebration of the year that was, and for a few moments while watching it, I forgot about the challenges this year presented.

I can’t wait for the opportunity to run this event live again, but watching last night from the comfort of my home, I was thrilled to see students in the chat enjoying the show, and I was grateful that I wasn’t in a stuffy theatre on one of the hottest days on record.

It truly is remarkable to work in a school where students know that it’s their job to Dream and Create, as well as to Learn.