Power and Pedestals:
By: Dan Canham
Tags: Art, Power, Theatre

some thoughts on the culture of work in theatre.

“Post a sentinel at the border of what you attend, what you ignore.” -Dirty Projectors

. I’m receiving a phone call, out of the blue, to be told my services as choreographer are no longer required and my contract is terminated. When I enquire as to why, the director tells me they feel like I’m suspicious of them and that I don’t trust them.

. My friend is being released from her performer contract after 3 performances. We’ve rehearsed for 4 ½ months and the rest of the company will tour together for 12 months more. She is released for no clear reason, having been side-lined throughout the process, despite being a consummate professional and one of the most kick ass performers I’ve ever seen.

. My partner and I are half way through an 8-week rehearsal period for a large-scale dance production. It’s a process that involves 8am starts and mandatory sweat lodges. My partner is being “asked” by the director for her permission to be removed from the role of dancer and to become an understudy. It’s a project we’ve uprooted our life for, giving blood, sweat (see above) and tears for the last month. She is then shut out of the rest of the process. When challenged, the choreographer counters that he “has the right to ruthlessly defend his vision at all costs.”

. I’m being asked by a director to lie on the floor in front of the group and then I’m having my hand taken by him and having it placed firmly on his genitals. This is done under the guise of a demonstration for the group about qualities of touch.

. I’ve just finished 150 performances of a show. My friends from that show tell me it’s going to Broadway. Each of them are going. I’m never informed by the company. I later glean my role, being relatively small, is being taken on by a local performer.

. I’m on a residency for a project I’ve put no small amount of work and hours into. I’m wrangling with the lead producer over £175 because none of the 3 proposals I’ve made for the project are to her liking. I’m having that used against me as a breach of contract and the money is withheld.

. I’m a newly graduated actor being told by the director of the show I’m on, whom I admire greatly, “You’re not an actor.”

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I want to talk about abuses of power in the theatre. I want to do this because it’s my sincere hope that theatre can come out of the wreckage of Covid 19, having had a good look at itself, ready to do things differently. I’ve worked in theatre as a performer, director, choreographer and movement director for the last 17 years and it’s taken this space for me to reckon with just how harmful so much of what goes on in the name of good art can be. Specifically, what happens when we silently acquiesce to the idea of the genius director, the uber producer or the super company, whose vision justifies “tough” and “bold” decisions.

Each of the above instances have been incredibly painful to me and to the people they’ve affected. They’ve left thorns that in some cases have taken years to remove. And yet I know it only scratches the surface in terms of what goes on in the performing arts. For all the wondrous work in the industry, many people working in theatre will have their own such instances of such abuses of power and far worse.

It’s taken me an age to write this — partly because it’s not something I’m used to doing — writing from a personal place and putting myself out there like that. But with everything that’s happened over the past 12 months, and with a tangible sense of wanting to reimagine how much of theatre might work in the future, I‘ve dragged myself to writing something. I had hoped that maybe with space, some of those in power would do some work on themselves and their blind spots — undoing repeated patterns of toxic power play. But god dammit if the first of those instances listed above didn’t happen to me in the middle of lockdown.

So yeah, the fear of losing one’s job or of upsetting the applecart is real in rehearsal rooms.

The background hum that you might be replaced if you step out of line or don’t drink the Kool Aid, as my good friend describes it. I’ve even been in a room where the director was fully transparent about it — clearly stating to us that we were all replaceable. As intense as that is, I also want focus on a wider culture of hero worship, of putting people on pedestals, that creates the conditions for all this stuff to happen.

For me, part of the root of it lies in our collective willingness to buy into the mythology that directors and theatre companies often surround themselves with. The idea of the genius lead artist whose artistic vision must be held above all else. One who can ride roughshod over the people they are working with in the name of making their “best possible work.” People who have “told the mythos of themselves so well and so often that they get lost in it,” as another good friend once described it to me.

It is an ethos that puts “the work” before the people involved. And it’s especially tricky to spot when the work itself deals in compassion, the deeper shades of our humanity and big emotions. Too often it’s held that the theatre industry is somehow above the inconvenient practicalities of decent behaviour, insulated from such trivialities on account of its own noble quest to shine a light on the human condition. That the “rehearsal in progress” sign on the door or the Equity Safe Spaces document read at the beginning of a process automatically makes that space safe.

In buying into the idea of the untouchable lead artist (be they director, choreographer, producer) we are complicit in upholding a theatrical culture in which abuses of power happen all over the place.

If we’re to have any hope of change, the people involved in making the work, have to be recognised as the work itself as much as the lead artist’s vision. The culture in the room is the show. It’s not a trade-off between the quality of the work and being able to empower the people you’re working with. It’s not about defending your vision or having the courage and strength to “make difficult decisions.”

“Collaboration is about choosing the right people to work with, and then trusting them.” –Jonathan Burrows.

It’s important to say I respect the right of the lead artist to follow their curiosity. Absolutely. But let’s look at power and how it’s used. And let’s bring dialogue and empathy and honest reflection and an openness to compassionate challenges in the room. Too often I’ve seen artistic directors of companies petrified of losing their hard-earned reputation, surrounding themselves with people unwilling to hold them to any kind of account. How do we take a sledge hammer to organisational and institutional practices that rely upon a culture of appeasement of the director’s ego in order to keep the beast fed.

How can we decentralise power in how we go about our business, in how work gets made and how it is described? There are some amazing companies doing this work brilliantly already. Company 3, Common Wealth, Slung Low, Talawa, The Pappy Show are some on my radar, not to mention many independent artists.

And I know there isn’t only one way. Of course the skills and talent of exceptional individual artists can be celebrated. I’d argue though that theatre is nearly always collaborative and relies on the people in the room whichever way you cut it.

I’m aware I write this from a position of privilege. My path through the industry has been seriously ameliorated by virtue of being a cis white man, able-bodied, confident in my own opinions and used to being listened to. And I don’t claim to have always done things perfectly in the past. I’ve made mistakes when leading. I’ve stood by silently when abuses of power have taken place. I’ve played the game and massaged director’s egos to keep my own prospects with them healthy. I’ve been the beneficiary of people putting me on a pedestal. I’ve also had the great fortune of meaningful and nourishing long-term working relationships.

It’s also important for me to articulate that I recognise these issues are entirely connected to and intersect with wider societal abuses of power. And that it is an ‘imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy’ that ultimately allows these things to exist.*

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We all make mistakes. I’m interested in where the learning is when things break down. How might we be able to hold each other accountable so that we might find the courage to reflect properly on our own behaviour? How can we call people out in ways that leave an opportunity for reflection and growth, and draw boundaries if that’s not met appropriately?

I’ve been totally inspired in a series of sessions with Ned Glasier from Company 3 and their Social GRACES document: https://www.companythree.co.uk/social-graces. Well worth a read as a marker for accountability in the room.

In my own work I’m attempting to leave myself open and accountable for when I don’t meet other’s needs. To work on my own blind spots. To devolve power in the room where at all possible. To model new methods of leadership.

Because if ever there was a time for a shift from the old set of values, values in which the most important thing is the lead artist’s vision, in which the ends justify the means, surely this is it.

*thank you bell hooks