art smarts

Chapter 5. Training and Development

After I graduated from college, I was in Montréal, alone, with nobody else to do integrated dance with, and I was thinking, “Oh my God, what’s next?” So I sent an email to CandoCo, an integrated dance company in England and said, “I’m in Montréal, I’m a dancer, and I would like to learn more, I’m a student.” I received an email back that said, “We’re doing a workshop in August.” That was in May. And I thought, “Oh my God! OK. I have three months to find money to go there.” I called everybody... and I found the money finally and went to England for the workshop. It was an intensive workshop, one week. And at the end of the week, we did a performance.

I learned a lot of things. When you go to a place like CandoCo, you see many wheelchairs. Everybody works with a wheelchair and does research, you know? And you are not alone. You can see everybody. When I’m alone, the only way that I can look at myself is in the mirror. It’s when you can see another person with a wheelchair that you can see that it’s interesting to see a back.

I understood many, many things. After just one week, Kuldip, who was my teacher, said to me, “You are ready for CandoCo.” Can you imagine? CandoCo is big in England. Like La La La Human Steps, or Holy Body Tattoo here in Canada... it’s very big. And I’m thinking, “OK, I’m ready for CandoCo. What does that mean?” And he said to me, “I would like to work with you in Montreal.”

We worked three months, very, very hard. He pushed me, every day, pushed my limits. Sometimes it was too hard, and sometimes it was magic and fantastic and unbelievable. Kuldip taught me half of what I know right now. Half and maybe more.
france

Often, artists will find like-minded artists that they can collaborate with, as equal partners.

We are a team: me, my teacher and my mom. Of course, we have our respective roles. My role is to perform. My mother’s role is to rewrite the traditional stories to suit the choreography my dance teacher does and to suit the audience.
rasika

Yeah, the Kiss and Tell Collective definitely have our skills and our division of labour. I do stuff like put together scripts and make timelines for what we need to have accomplished when. I do a lot of the internal organization that doesn’t have to do with dealing with the outside world. And that works really well. Also, because I’ve had to learn to really organize things in order to deal with my own day-to-day life, I’m used to doing lists and charts and stuff like that.
persimmon

For my one-act play, I hired a director one month before the first run of the play opened, a friend who was experienced as a director and had a connection with me already. When she directed me she was very open and flexible.She was working with the way I move as opposed to some standard, working with the way I speak as opposed to some standard. That’s very important, to have a director who’s not tied to specific forms of moving or acting or specific forms when it comes to voice. That’s what being connected with the disability arts movement has taught me: that it’s OK to break the rules. And often it’s even better to break the rules rather than trying to perform in the same way that other people do.
alan

Whether or not you’re working on the same piece, having a few supportive artists around you to discuss things and share ideas with can be very helpful.

Other comics have put in a good word for me and said that I can hold a show. I’ve been actively trying to build up that support system for myself. Inevitably, that’s what all of us do – we develop that kind of moral support system with fellow artists. Other comics have been very supportive of me and of what I do. One piece of advice I would give to emerging comics with disabilities is to try and forge friendships, or a support base, from other artists in your field.
alan

Two or three of us work together. We call each other and say, “What are you doing tomorrow? The weather’s good – let’s meet at such and such place.” That kind of thing is nice. Sometimes, at the end of the day, we ask each other how our paintings turned out. We learn that way, because three or four painters on the same spot will do completely different paintings. The colour is different, the composition, the drawing. But you do that with special people. Like going fishing. You do that with people you’re comfortable with, who go at the same speed as you. You have to be with people who have the same style – not the same style but who like to paint the same way. If you’re a plein air painter, sometimes you prefer wild scenery and sometimes you prefer urban.

Then we also go to symposiums with maybe forty or fifty artists. That’s a time to do work to present to the public. You might share at supper time with some people, but not with all forty people. I prefer a small group.
roger

Me and the comics get along pretty well for the most part. Perhaps, as much as anything, because my act is so different from most other comics. They don’t feel that they’re in danger of me stealing their material. And they’re certainly not going to steal my material, because there’s little that they could do with my blind jokes! Sometimes you get great jokes from out of the blue from another comic who’ll say, “Maybe, doing this joke you should try it this way.”
gord

I’ve often felt that I’m trying to break new ground, so a lot of this is self-learned and trying to get my own thing going. I don’t know if there’s anyone else out there who’s successfully done what I’m trying to do. I’ve got peers who work in theatre, work in television, and I call on them for advice and support and reinforcement and whatnot. And at times they call on me. It’s more of a support system than a mentorship. But that’s something that I want to be part of too. I want to be able to mentor people. I would like to be able to help the next person who comes along to get through some of the crap that I’ve been up against.
james

As an artist, you may also reach a point where you’re able to teach others.