I’ve recently returned from a week in Montreal at the National Arts Leadership Residency at the National Theatre School of Canada. The purpose of the residency was to “create space to investigate what Leadership is through questions and shared experiences using the thematic prompts Honesty and Right Now. What is this moment asking of Leaders, right now? What’s at the core of why we do what we do?”
The week was intense, powerful and revelatory in many expected and unexpected ways. I came away with some deep connections to other arts leaders from across Canada who are at various places in their own career trajectories. I also came away with a much deeper appreciation of what it means to lean into our own work at hand – the community we find ourselves in; the values we align with; and the actions we choose regularly that reveal those values to that community.
The week away was also marked by international colleagues and friends sharing news about loved ones being lost to new and ongoing waves of genocidal and colonial violence
The intermingling of the stories emerging from inside that room and externally from others in my life, brought a new sense of urgency to the discussion of the prompt. It is only through the stories that we can truly connect; start to know each other; grow empathy and patience, respect and love for each other. It is only through the stories that we can start making sense of where we are and how we got here, and how we can make ourselves and each other bearable, as we navigate all the grief, joy, pain and confusion that makes us otherwise unbearable even to ourselves.
This is the unique power of theatre. It highlights the work at hand. It invites us into deeper shared experiences. It unifies us in our differences, reflects the universal in the specific, and insists on the truth being revealed only through the collaboration of gathered communities. Making and engaging in theatre gives us hope to get up day after day and continue to engage in acts of defiance. This resistance then ripples throughout our immediate communities and helps connect us on a scale much bigger than what we can orchestrate ourselves. Through the stories we make meaning together.
No matter how you’ve engaged with us before – and how that went – I hope you’ll join the MT Space team for the activities being planned at the Registry Theatre on World Theatre Day on March 27th. We need to be able to gather together in and around the stories now, more than ever.
Köszönettel,
Bó Bárdos
Company Manager, MT Space