It's nice to read inspirational happy stories that encourage you to train harder and feel great. It's also nice to get clear information and details to help your chosen studies. Normally, I try to give you both.
Today, I have to draw your attention to bad news.
Vancouver Playhouse Closed
I saw one of their final presentations, the creative and creepy Hunchback.
Although last Wednesday's performance was close to a full house, and the production was excellent, ticket sales cover less than 40% of costs. The rest comes from support from provincial and federal Arts Councils and donations.
Speaking of which, Ida Chong is sitting on 3 million dollars in unallocated Arts & Culture funding. I guess she has other plans on where to spend it, because the Vancouver Playhouse is now on permanent hiatus.
Rebecca Coleman wrote a concise article about the issues and the gathering to save the theatre called It Might Be Time to Retire. In it, she ruminates over moving to Europe since performing arts are losing more respect every year in Canada.
Hollywood North-East
What's in a name? Should the label "Hollywood North" reflect amount of revenue from the film industry, revenue per capita, number of films, or number of Canadian artists hired?
Well, the easiest way to count is dollars. And the AFP reports that Ontario now beats BC in film industry money. The Georgia Straight's article "B.C. drops to fourth largest North American film production centre" explains clearly the trends and differences between domestic and foreign investment, and what lessons we might take from the data.
It's not all bad news, here's a quote from the same article:
BC Film Commission data released Monday (March 5) revealed that overall film and TV spending rebounded, from a dip down to $1.02 billion in 2010 up to almost $1.19 billion in 2011.
Foreign film and TV spending in B.C. rose a healthy 26 percent from $777.89 million in 2010 to $979.72 million in 2011.
The World of Tomorrow
Don't stay focused on hobbies and local events, and miss the bigger picture. Speaking of bad news...
Depressed Yet?
Why do I teach and perform stage combat here when all these bad things are happening? Live performance will go on. Filmmaking will go on. If your talents include storytelling and entertaining others, there might be conflicts and fights within your stories. It's important to tell these stories to get messages across to people. And it's just as important that no performers get hurt needlessly in the process.
Create stories. Watch stories. Cooperate. Be safe.
Head of Stage Combat at Academie Duello and certified Instructor with Fight Directors Canada. Head of Bartitsu at Academie Duello, the longest continuously running Bartitsu program in the world. Read more from David McCormick.