In my years of teaching language (Spanish and English) and high school in Mexico or photography in Vancouver I eschewed the lesson plan. In Mexico City in one of the high schools I was teaching I had that terrible problem of having to hand in my lesson plan for the year at the end of the school year. I felt that a lesson plan made the teacher stay in one course that could become a rut. I remember having students tell me that I had already given them a version of “important” information.

More recently in teaching photography I discovered that I could give the same class twice without having my students notice. With open laptops (the school in question did not prohibit this) while munching take-out food and social networking or Photoshopping photographs for other classes they mostly did not pay any attention.

I have seen quite the opposite at dance classes at Arts Umbrella. The students seem to adore their instructors. They rarely misbehave or talk during these sessions.

While chatting with Arts Umbrella Dance Company Artistic Director Artemis (Arty) Gordon a couple of days ago we were discussing ex-alumnus Nina Davies’s retrospective essay of her days at Arts Umbrella. Arty said something like this, “Nina mentioned a talk I gave to her class, perhaps ten years ago. I think I gave the same talk to this class (the graduation students) just a few days ago!”

It is important in photography (at least I think it is important) that the idea of a model, a studio, a backdrop wall, a camera, a light and a photographer behind the camera is a formula for numbing failure. This is invariably the case unless a plan is thought out ahead of time, perhaps a theme of sorts. Important stuff has to be repeated and it will never go out of style.

I believe that Arty understands this and she was simply marveling with some sadness the march of time.

A few minutes after the chat with Arty I mentioned to the grads that they should read Nina’s essay. The blank expression on some of their faces was no surprise. Nina has been gone from Arts Umbrella since 2009. Who would remember her? And who would remember that other favorite Arts Umbrella dancer Kiera Hill?

I often run into perfect strangers who warmly greet me. My excuse for not remembering that they have been my students (when they tell me) is the joking remark that I have had too many drugs and alcohol in my past (not true).

While I have never taught dance I do have a thread of commonality with Arty. This is that as a teacher we watch students come and go. Sometimes they are youngsters who then leave when they are almost formed adults. They come and they go while we, the teachers remain where we are while getting older.

But there is a bittersweet measure of gratification every time one of those students returns with a smile or writes an essay like Nina’s. Yes we might have been richer had we chosen to be plumbers, but the pleasure of having helped to form a human being (perhaps for the better) is something that is most satisfying.

Guest Blog

Kimiko Karpoff

Nuts and Bolts - it's a hip life

6/11/2015

Fifteen years ago I was lying in a hospital bed thinking that I had just made the worst mistake of my life. At the age of 34 I had hip replacement surgery. In that moment as I lay in recovery I felt sick, in pain and, worst of all, couldn't move my leg at all. "You've done it now," I thought. I'd dreamed of being able to run with my three-year-old; here I was not even able to turn myself over in bed.

One year after surgery I could run with my son. I took up karate and earned my yellow belt. Ten years after surgery I travelled to west Africa, to the the village of Adexor-Kpodzi in the Volta region of Ghana. I travelled by airplane, trotro, taxi and boat. The final leg of the journey was a two hour walk along a dirt path, carrying on my back all that I needed for one month. The mere ability to do that walk was amazing to me.

Getting a joint replaced is an awesome thing. I know that I am fortunate and privileged to have access to the kind of medical technology and care that allowed me to walk again. As a story catcher, I also took it as an opportunity to capture a particularly poignant moment in my life. I asked local photographer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward if he would be willing to photograph the event. He suggested that we do before and after studio portraits. As well, he photographed part of the surgery. This is from my journal at the time.

Journal, June 11, day before surgery

Alex wanted me to come today for photos so I’d be nervous.

Finn’s gone with my dad this morning. He seems singularly undisturbed by the closeness of surgery. “Bye Mom. See you when you get home from the hospital.”

Last night I dreamed about having the surgery. I don’t know what drug we used, but I want that one. No pain at all. I’ll tell the anesthesiologist.

Now that the time is here, I almost can’t believe it. I have no second thoughts, yet I wonder about the oddity of getting a part replaced. It’s almost like I’m, we’re, too laissez faire about this. There should be some sort of ritual like birth, death and marriage. Some way to honour the joint that has served me for 34 (nearly 35) years, as best as it could. Now it will be summarily tossed aside. Quite literally thrown in the incinerator I believe.

Perhaps these photos can be my ritual. A way to honour and immortalize this part of me that I’m saying good-bye to. I want them to be beautiful. After all, this is the hip that carried my child, that made love to my husband,that helped me win a track and field award when I was 14 even though every indication is that it was already damaged.

I can’t believe I’m getting nostalgic about a joint that has given me such grief. But, at least, I’ve cut through my confusion about what I’m feeling. I love my hip. The bad it brought was only physical pain. The joy it helped me carry was so much greater. I guess I just want to give it a proper and fitting good-bye.

So here I am fighting tears on the Skytrain, weepy, thinking about replacing my hip. Oh, my. I think Alex wants to show my fear and trepidation. Now I want a joyful thank you to a part of me that has been so important, although I’ve never even seen it.

     

 Good-bye old friend, and thank you.

One of my ideas was that I would publish some magazine articles about the experience, but I was ultimately unsuccessful in pitching the story. Alex garnered some press with a triptych of the photos in a gallery show. Pete McMartin wrote a column in the Vancouver Sun and quoted me saying, "After they tell you what you'll go through you start thinking before the operation, 'This is terrifying; this is awful.' At the same time, there were all these emotions I couldn't quite recognize, until one day when I was riding on SkyTrain and I was writing in my 'hip' journal about how I felt about the operation. And I'm realizing that a part of me was almost in mourning for -- and I know this sounds ridiculous -- losing a friend. . . [My hip] wasn't perfect, but it did the best it could, and it seemed disrespectful not to recognize that."

A hip is something that always travels with you, but eventually I put the story of it away and went on to other things. An anniversary, however, invites occasion for reflection.

When I first had the surgery I was told that an artificial hip lasts 15, maybe 20 years before wear and tear requires another replacement. About a month ago I saw a surgeon for the first time since having the staples removed from the surgery site. I was prepared to consider that after 15 years I would be looking at at least a revision to the surgery, which I thought preferable to a full new hip replacement. I dug my old film x-ray out of the closet and took it along for comparison to the new one. Before I even showed it to him, the surgeon commented that the old and the new would probably look a lot alike. The hip looks great, he said. Come back in 5 years.

This past year I took up hot power yoga. There are some things this new hip doesn't do. No lotus potion. No pigeon or frog poses. It's painful to do the kind of one leg balances where your body is not upright so not so much on the dancer's pose on the one side. But I can do a lot and in the year I've gained balance, strength and flexibility. Most people seeing me would not know that I have an artificial hip. A friend once commented that I could be the poster child for hip replacement surgery.

15 years ago I learned that sometimes situations that seem devastating, can, given time and nurturing, become life affirming. I learned that it's ok to need help. Following surgery I couldn't care for my son or myself. My husband, parents and friends were invaluable. Learning to ask for help was humbling, but a precious lesson. I have an understanding of living with a disability which was my life before surgery, as well as some of the trepidations that people feel as they are confronted by the possibility of needing surgery. This has made me more compassionate and, probably, a better pastor.

Now I have three hips to thank for the ways in which they have carried me through life. Thanks be to God.

Addendum:

I will not add to Kimiko's blog any of the pictures that I took of the surgery. This was one of the most awful moments I  ever witnesed. Suffice to say that the noise of the miniature power saw cutting through bone and the smell of burning bone is enough. No photograph is necessary.

Alex Waterhouse-Hayward - June 12 2015

Guest Blog

Nina Davies - Dancer/Artist

Nina Davies - May 2009 - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

I have recently been thinking about Arts Umbrella and how it has shaped me as an artist and when Alex asked me to write about my experiences as a student at Arts Umbrella I was excited to finally have an opportunity to share these thoughts.

It is hard to know where to begin explaining what a great program Arts Umbrella is as it is like trying to explain how your parents made you into the person you are.  There are so many layers to Arts Umbrella’s practice and years after leaving the program I am still trying to deconstruct the effects that their method of teaching had on me. There has been a bit of press about the kind of dancer they produce that can meet the high standards of the dance industry today. But I feel as though there is a whole other side to this program, which is equally as important and applies to both the students who pursue a career in dance and those who do not.

“Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.”

                                                                                                - Bill Gates   

During a lunchtime discussion with some of my colleagues, we were talking about the value of humility and how it is an essential part of being an easy person to work with. Due to social media my generation has a false sense of self-importance and as a result makes us unbearable to work with. Plenty of students think there is the perfect job waiting for them after they graduate from high school or university, and for most this is just not the case.

I thank Arts Umbrella for teaching me from a young age to do anything that gets thrown at me to the best of my abilities and that no job is negligible. When we were preparing for a school show or coffee concert (both fairly small shows in comparison to the season finale at the Vancouver Playhouse) rehearsal director Emily Molnar was disappointed with our run-through in the morning. She told us that it did not make any difference as to the size of the audience or who was in it, because if one person in the audience enjoyed your performance then it was worth doing. We were probably 12 years old and no one had taught us these principles before. Those words still resonate with me and I apply this theory to almost everything I do.

I started studying at the Arts Umbrella Dance program in 2002 and left it in 2008 before I would have carried on into the graduate program. In my first year in the professional training program and Arts Umbrella Dance Company there was one thing that was made clear from the beginning, and that was to never let your parents fight your battles for you. Director Artemis Gordon told us that having our parents ask her why we were not given a specific part would not help our chances of getting the desired part in a performance. For the first time in my life I had to be reasonable for my own failures and learn from them in a professional way. This taught me about independence from an early age. For most, this kind independence is achieved in their early twenties and I was lucky and I’m sure I speak on behalf of all my peers that we were able to enter adulthood with a strong work ethic.

As well as attaining a professional work ethic from my dance training I left with certain knowledge of dance and the human body. My interest in dance has influenced the work I have been making on a broad spectrum. 

After I left Arts Umbrella I moved to London to pursue a “career” in cabaret. I met a woman called Marisa Carnesky and got a job in a few of her shows as a contortionist. I then began work as a freelance performer, doing my acts around Europe. Fulfilling all my desires to be a showgirl, I decided that my interests lay within the realm of art after interning for artist Gavin Turk. With some encouragement from my colleagues I submitted an application to study fine art at Central Saint Martins. To my amazement I was accepted into the program without any fine art experience. The program at Arts Umbrella was so vigorous; there was no time in our day to take extra curricular classes like art in high school.

At the beginning of the course I felt pressure to make politically charged work. As a result of this the work I made was terribly cliché and I was not engaged with it on any level. One of my tutors told me to have a think about what I was interested in and I would find criticality within that. In a guest artist talk at the university the speaker mentioned that there was no way of writing dance. This comment intrigued me and this eventually formed the basis of my practice. 

I have just graduated from my degree with an assortment of work that questions how we think of human motion in spoken, written, and notated language. Arts Umbrella (like many dance schools) did not teach existing forms of movement notation so I am not very familiar with how they work. Most schools do not teach these systems, as they are not widely used by dancers and choreographers. I really wanted (and still do) to understand why dance has difficulty existing in the written form. My first query was; how is it that music is notated and explained on paper when it is so hard to put a sound into words, while a series of body movements cannot? After making work surrounding this query I started playing around with movement in everyday language (written and spoken) and to my amazement people find the task of explaining movements like walking and running very difficult.

Enabling people to understand dance, as an art form is one of the many attributes of Arts Umbrella. My farther, knowing very little about dance before I started studying dance now attends almost every Ballet BC performance at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. This power that Arts Umbrella possesses is a quality I would like my work to have some day.  


Nina Davies - a performance         

My writer friend Les Wiseman for years told me that you write about that which you know. Just this once I feel that by not having any idea about the subject it might help me to elucidate on something that most of us are completely ignorant about. What does a theatrical director do?

The world is divided (not evenly) between people who can read music and those that can’t. I would add the same applies to those who can dance and those who cannot.  A couple of corollaries would be, “How do choreographers choreograph? How do actors remember their lines?" How do they act?

Watching someone play a baroque violin with virtuosity amazes me every time. Once, my granddaughter Lauren, 12 who dances at Arts Umbrella and plays the violin asked me to look at the music during the interval of a baroque concert. She looked at the music by Tarquinio Merula (1594-1665) and floored me when she said,”If I read this as fast as Arthur Neele was playing I would not be able to read it.” That somehow someone from this century could read and connect with someone from the 17^th century left me aghast.

I have a similar ignorance on the workings of Artistic Musical Directors (we used to call them conductors). It was only a few years ago that I discovered that in operas you not only had a Musical Director but you also had an Artistic Director who was in charge of the gestures, acting and the approach to the libretto.

When I saw a few close circuit projections at the Vogue (on Granville) I was further amazed to suspect that the Artistic Director of the live opera performance at the Met  could not also direct the  camera work (film like closeups, etc). A third director would have to be involved.

With film I was confused, too. I have seen photographs of American director John Ford (with his tell-tale eye patch) looking through a huge camera. He was not looking through those little cylinders that many directors use. I asked my friend John Lekich (a writer who is an expert on movies and taught drama to a 16-year-old in Richmond, called Scott Bellis) if it was Kosher for the director to look through the cameraman’s Arriflex. His answer was short, “Certainly.” Then I asked him, “What’s the difference between the director of photography, the cinematographer and the chief cameraman?” His reply was almost as short, “All the same guy.”

All the above are a side board menu to prepare us to that question, “What does a theatrical director do?”

My English friend Ian Bateson on Skype from a small town near Manchester told me, “For a theatrical director the stage is his whole frame not like for a film director who sees stuff bordered by the confines of the film camera. What he sees and is in control of is precisely what the audience will see.”

That may sound self-evident but to me it opened my eyes a tad.

Even though the director must steer (we hope in a friendly manner) the choreographer, the fight director, the costume designer, the set designer, the lighting director and the person in charge of the music, the vision of the play, the interpretation of the play, the nuances of the play must all be the territory of the theatrical director. I would want to know if a theatrical director has indeed more on his/her plate than a film director. 

Film directors have editors. Who edits the director? I might guess here that the dramaturg (that in-between diplomat who tries to keep the playwright and the director from having conflicts) would be the oil that keeps the director’s proceedings running smoothly. With Willie dead do you need a dramaturg?  I would not know.

I would want to know how a director who has been and is an actor as Scott Bellis does his job. I have one lovely quote about Bellis from fellow actor Colleen Wheeler. She said,"Scott is a generous man."

My friend Malcolm Parry has often told me of the Privileged View. This is to see something that most people do not regularly see. I have many privileged views under my belt:

I have been in the dressing room (many times) of a strip club, I have been backstage for classical, new music and baroque concerts. I have been backstage for modern dance (with Crystal Pite) and ballet (with Evelyn Hart). I have been in film sets. I have been in the CBC trailer where the director of a Hockey Night in Canada directs (on multiple screens) a game. I have been in the locker room of the Vancouver Canucks.  And most recently I watched Pacific Baroque Orchestra Musical Director Alexander Weimann, direct an unusual rehearsal of Handel's Water Music.I have been alone and alive in the morgue.

But I have never had the privilege of watching a theatrical director direct. I hope the remedy to that one comes soon (hint, hint Mr.Gaze!) The closest I have ever been to that was watching director Peter Jorgensen deal with entries and exits for the 2111 Patrick Street Production of The Light in the Piazza.

Before that ever happens I will attempt to see this coming Saturday (the official opening of  The Comedy of Errors) little hints of the man's presence (director Scott Bellis) that I photographed a couple of weeks ago.