Emerging into light from pivot to darkness

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/10/2021 (1855 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After a year-and-a-half, the stage lights are finally coming back up.

Winnipeg’s theatres have real 2021-22 seasons planned. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet begins its season next week, followed closely by Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers. Manitoba Opera will follow in November.

Country star Eric Church packed out Canada Life Centre at the beginning of the month, heralding the return of full-spectacle arena shows; Winnipeg’s smaller music venues also have honest-to-goodness concert listings. And early-bird tickets to the 2022 Winnipeg Folk Festival should go on sale in December, as per tradition.

It almost feels like a normal fall here in the Free Press Arts & Life department. And after nearly 19 months chronicling the heartache and uncertainty of cancelled festivals, shuttered venues, altered or abandoned seasons and, in some cases, layoffs — all casualties of being “the first to close and the last to reopen” owing to the pandemic — it’s been a relief to see headlines cautiously celebrating the return of the arts.

But then, Winnipeg’s arts and culture scene never really went away during These Times, even when live performance was no longer possible. It has been dancing as fast as it could to survive.

Organizations had to pivot and then pivot again; it’s notoriously hard to plan during a pandemic, and things change quickly.

Last fall, as Jean-François Phaneuf, the vice-president of artistic operations and community engagement at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, was walking the musicians through the new return-to-stage safety protocols, the public health orders changed again — while they were talking.

Over at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the company was divided into cohorts; only those dancers who cohabitate could do a pas de deux, which places limits on what ballets could be performed.

Practically everyone had to do a hard pivot to video, creating online content that people could enjoy at home. Everything from concerts to improv shows have been staged in backyards and on front porches.

Thanks in large part to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, many people working in the arts and culture sector were able to keep their jobs. But they also wanted to be able to do their jobs. Creativity bloomed under the limitations placed upon it. Art, like nature, finds a way.

And so, it has been 19 months of fatigue and stress, but also adaptation and agility, collaboration and passion. The pandemic has also been a stark reminder of what the arts mean to Winnipeg; many organizations were buoyed by this city’s continued support, whether it was through donated tickets and subscriptions or a simple note that said, “we miss you and we love you.”

Because ,wow, we missed so much. Laughing in the dark with strangers in a theatre. An arena lit up by iPhone constellations during a ballad. The faces of a crowd, illuminated by stage lights or a movie screen. The anticipatory cacophony of an orchestra warming up. You know, the pleasures that make life worth living.

Makes you never want to complain about parking again, doesn’t it?

Vaccination, of course, has been our front-row ticket, our festival pass, to normalcy. But we’re not out of these particular woods yet. Those who attend indoor events in the foreseeable future will see reminders that we’re still, indeed, in a pandemic, including spaced-out audiences and masks. Even with vaccine requirements and public health measures in place, people may not be ready to be part of an audience yet.

And audiences are key: limited capacities will necessarily mean limited ticket revenues. And so, the message is the same as it ever was: if the arts are important to you, keep supporting them, however you can.

But let’s also give our arts and culture scene its roses, not just for staging a mass comeback the likes we’ve never seen but for working so hard throughout the pandemic to get here.

To all of them: bravo, brava, bravi.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti