ARTS
COVER // NEXTFEST
What comes Next Two of Nextfest's directors look back on 17 years of giving artists somewhere to meet and experiment
Thu, Jun 7 – Sun, Jun 17 Nextfest Various locations, schedule available at nextfest.ca
T
he simplest definition of emergence is probably this: it's the way in which something complicated comes to be, drawn out of and honed by relatively simpler interactions that build on themselves over time. And in terms of arts in the city, emergence is what happens at Nextfest. Edmonton's declared emerging artist festival now stands at its 17th incarnation as our city's finest chance for young artists of any stripe to find their footing. Its essential components remain mostly unchanged from its early years: young artists are allowed to develop and perform on their own material. They get paid to do so. They get to meet other artists from across the city—not just from their discipline—and start budding those artistic relationships early. It's not, current festival director Steve Pirot notes, a theatre festival with multidisciplinary elements. Every discipline gets emphasized. And there isn't any element of competition: artists get passses to everything else at the festival. Nextfest first appeared in 1996. The University of Alberta had just cut its MFA playwriting program, and the Citadel had recently eliminated Teen Fest. And Bradley Moss, then an emerging artist himself, was dealing with what looked like a damaging setback: fresh out of theatre school, he'd lined up a pair of Fringe produc-
tions, but quit one and got fired from another. "I thought it was a personal disaster for myself, starting out in this town: I was like, 'I haven't started [and] I'm done.'" Moss recalls. "But then I was turned around by the artistic director [at Theatre Network] at the time, Ben Henderson. Henderson, now a city councillor, proposed a young writer festival, which Moss considered before coming back with a broader offer. "I said, 'I think just reading more work is not enough. You've gotta do [it].' If you really want to get the young artists' attention, do it," he recalls. "And why don't you also make it a celebration and invite the other mediums, and make it a meeting place, I guess, was my language at that time, before I understood about community building and all that stuff. Just a meeting place for artists." Nextfest's genesis came at the same time as Moss was handed the reins of a show entitled Tony and Tina's Wedding, first developed in a Grant MacEwan class, but into which he added a mix of U of A performers for an independent run. That blend of the city's two educational streams got Moss thinking about the best use for his fledging festival. "What I understood through that project was, 'Oh, we've got to get Grant MacEwan and U of A kids meeting early," he says. "Get them doing projects. Get a community." Community
is
certainly
what's
formed around the festival since that first edition brought some 100 artists together for six days. Beside Moss, in a café just down the street from the Roxy Theatre, sits Pirot, Nextfest's current festival director. Between them is a tidy stack of old programs and the festival's two published play anthologies. They point to scripts that have gone on from the festival (Tuesdays and Sundays has toured the world since its Nextfest premiere), and to artists working prominently today who got an early start at Nextfest, or who met their future collaborators there, or took the first artistic steps towards what they're now confidently creating of their own accord. "It's not the projects, it's not these plays, it's these people who you're supporting," Moss says. "And they go on, and they then have the ability to give back, and they're going to give back ... and they do. People come back all the time, and do things; they're a part of something—it's theirs. It's not someone telling them what or how to do. They're just being supported to do it." After a few years as festival director Moss handed the job off to Glenda Sterling, who introduced a dramaturgical element into the proceedings. She was in charge for two years, then passed the reins along to Pirot for the 2002 festival. When Pirot took over, the festival also jumped from six to 10 days, though pure quantitative growth was never his intention, he notes. Still it's what's happened: now some 400-plus artists are involved on
VUEWEEKLY MAY 31 – JUN 6, 2012
a yearly basis, with venues scattered across the city, and thousands of audience members that anticipate the festival, which now runs 11 days. There's a high school component now, allowing even earlier exposure. Pirot and Moss and the staff are there to act as mentors, but only if need be. They're just as happy to let artists capable of developing on their own do so, simply giving them the place to do it. In its early years, Nextfest events had little overlap—Pirot notes how much easier it was to shepherd audiences from place to place. Now, Moss notes, they're occasionally "competing against ourselves" with two to three events happening concurrently in different spots in the city. And moreso now than ever they're seeing the crossartistic collaborations increasing: as an example, Pirot and Moss both point to the Nextfest Niteclubs as the festival's modern melting pot. Having emerged as regular programming in the past few years, the Niteclubs are the festival's true anything-goes programming—while the theatre, dance, music and visual art components of that festival are all part of the festival, they're compartmentalized into their respective disciplines on the bill, whereas the Niteclubs pair anything with anything: a band might follow a monologue, which followed a dancemusic collaboration. And so on. After 17 years, the festival's influence in the arts scene is clear to Pirot and Moss. "Being able to look at the creative
culture of the city as a whole, and see the connections that have happened, that you could argue wouldn't have happened without Nextfest," Pirot explains. "Just within theatre, that the University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan students meet each other earlier than they would have, maybe 10 years earlier than they would have. Artists from different disciplines meeting and influencing each other, especially when you have musicians who create and rehearse in a completely different way than theatre artists create and rehearse. They're not going to get to experience each other in performance, but in Nextfest, while they're young, they get to meet each other. "The different disciplines don't feel as isolated," Moss adds. "Dancers get an opportunity to act; musicians get a chance to go play with a show, and so they get to try something. And that influences the art form of each other." And beyond the festival, having had years to develop and collaborate and tinker, Nextfest artists emerge, but just as importantly, they get to emerge into something: a scene that's watched them grow, and experiment, and wants to embrace what they have to offer. "When I see the festival now, for me it's inspiration back," Moss says. "That's what I get back now. I have played with lots of these people later on. That's super inspiring to me, to see their energy. It's addictive, I have to say. Every year." Paul Blinov // paul@vueweekly.com
ARTS - 17