I am currently reading an amazingly powerful book on the dawn of a post-literate society. The New Dark Ages by James Marriott highlights society’s growing acceptance that the scrolled headlines and images we receive from our smart devices offers the whole story. A young multilingual Krakow taxi driver wondered, as I told him I had been to Kyiv and Lviv whether anyone still lived there. It is understandable if the main news he/we receive is of the destruction at the front-line and the growing array of explosions in Kyiv and other beautiful cities in Ukraine.
It is one of the reasons I choose to follow the daily posts/images from Anglica Shalagina, with her 134k followers on Instagram and Facebook, who from Kviv offers us a momentary glimpse each day of the beauty of that City and the resilience of her fellow citizens. Her messages sometimes show a sense of dogged determination and exhaustion, huddling with her cat, but most often her resilience enjoying the sunshine and views across Kyiv – a city which is still free and was a vibrant capital city before Moscow was even a swamp.
It is also a reason I choose to visit the City to meet theatremakers and return to tell my stories of the amazing creative work which is ongoing amidst the trauma of an invaded Country. The artists make work to offer joy and entertainment, as well as to highlight the power of Ukrainian writing and theatremakaing. They use drama and music to offer healing and release to audiences and participants. Sometimes they make work which will, they hope, travel outwith the Country to festivals like Edinburgh in the future.
I head back for 2 weeks on Sun 4th Oct to offer some workshops, see some shows, and soak up the end of summer and the beauty of early autumn in Kyiv and Lviv.
This is my first blog since pre-EdFringe.
For the first time in 10 years I have not documented my Edinburgh Fringe experience in blogs. Kath and I became quite seriously ill at the end of Week 2 and we were completely knocked sideways. In the last week or so we have ended our antibiotics and now steadily regain energy. I got to Cornwall to my spiritual home of Mousehole where short walks, and delicious fish and café/pub visits, helped to restore me. Now I head home to Edinburgh as I type this for a few days before Ukraine.
I did manage to see 29 shows in my days around EdFringe and wrote audience comment reviews for most of them on the EdFringe website. Maybe sitting in some airport or minibus terminal as I undertake the 26 hour journey from Edinburgh to Kyiv via Warsaw, I will gather them into a blog – at least so I have an easier record of what I saw.
One of my most emotional moments was sitting at the Pleasance launch event where Anthony Alderson, Director for 20 years, brought the magic of the Fringe to life. Here are a few extracts of his empassioned entreaty for curiosity.
First his encapsulation of Pleasance Fringe theatre – A room full of strangers agreeing to let someone they’ve never heard of, try to surprise them with stories they have never heard before. By any algorithmic measure, that shouldn’t work. Especially now, with so much technology. Everything in our lives seems to be very good at giving us more of what we have already chosen, and never once betting on what we haven’t yet discovered.
Then he cited two members of the public entering the Courtyard and how they simply followed something they didn’t understand…because for one moment… ‘curiosity’ was far more interesting than ‘certainty’…. Algorithms are a kind of map.. but one that only ever redraws the streets we’ve already walked along…Artists are cartographers of a different kind….They draw maps for the territories the rest of us haven’t yet had the nerve to explore. Every August, the Fringe becomes thousands of these maps, laid out side by side, and nobody tells you which route to take. You choose! And somewhere along one of those unfamiliar roads, you discover that the point was never to arrive somewhere certain. It was to have the curiosity to go looking at all.
It was a joy this Festival to see four Ukrainian theatre producers/programmers on their exploration of the landscape of artistic maps across every hub in the City. The same meeting up with our Maltese delegation of exploring creatives, and the Japanese delegation of senior producers. Each and all were being suitably curious.
After thanking the curiosity of all the staff and temporary folk who choose to come and work on the Fringe, and the certainty of the skill of those who build and equip the theatres, Anthony thanked the audience thank all of you, our audiences, thank you. Not simply for buying tickets.. but for ‘choosing’ to sit in a room with strangers and let something surprise you. In a world that’s doomscrolling its way into forgetting how to remain curious, Live Arts just might be the most important thing we have left. Because during this festival, the lights will go down. Someone you’ve never heard of will walk onto a stage. They may fail, but the chances are…. they may change your life. None of you knows which. That’s the whole point. So please, please…. remain curious. Welcome to the Pleasance. Thank you.
So I took two chances which fashioned this blog – on James Marriott’s exploration of our forgetting how to be curious, and on Anthony Alderson’s press conference where I sat in a very big room with mainly strangers and was surprised and delighted by Anthony Alderson’s wonderful call for us to remain ever curious. Live Arts may indeed be the most important thing we have left.
Next week I will meet live artists and see performances which are part of the shout for freedom and the holding together of a community and a culture. I will walk through unfamiliar streets, enter new theatres and spaces of gathering, and see very unfamiliar stories.
Thank you to the Ivan Franko Theatre and the Ukraine Institute for welcoming my planned third visit.
Slava Ukraini.