PuSh Play Podcast Episode 38 Transcript: SWIM –What Begins When the Show Ends?
00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I’m Gabrielle Martin, Push’s Director of Programming, and I’m speaking with Tom Arthur Davis and Jiv Parisram, the artists of pandemic theatre who, along with theatre conspiracy, have created Swim.
00:20
But today’s episode goes further back, reflecting on their 2018 Push show Daughter and the trajectory of their practice to Swim. Swim will be presented at the Push Festival January 30th to February 2nd, 2025.
00:34
Swim is an immersive, sensorial experience that imagines challenges endured by refugees who brave the treacherous crossing between Turkey and asylum on the Greek island of Samos. Harnessing cutting -edge technologies to stimulate audio and tactile sensations, Swim invites the audience to meditate upon the emotional toll of displacement and sacrifices made in pursuit of new beginnings.
00:56
Jiv Parisram is a multidisciplinary artist of Indo -Caribbean descent based on the unceded Coast Salish territories. He grew up in Mi ‘kma ‘ki and spent the first decade or so of his artistic career in Taq Aronto, where he co -founded Pandemic Theatre with Tom Arthur Davis.
01:13
Tom is an arts and culture worker who is based on unceded Lekwungen and Songhee territories. He was also Push’s 2023 Interim Director of Programming. Here’s my conversation, recorded on location near the studio where they recorded the sound for Swim with Tom and Jiv.
01:32
Just to start out, to give some context, we’re here on the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil -Waututh. We are also next to Sound House, is it?
01:47
It’s pretty close, yeah. Just down the road that way. That way? Where you’re about to be recording some audio for swim. Indeed. So I’ve caught you in the middle of your residency, thanks for taking the time.
01:59
We’re gonna talk about swim in a moment, because it’s actually a very exciting kind of sneak peek for Push 2025. But let’s go back to the beginning. So you have a relationship with Push that, well, started at least in 2018 when Push presented daughter.
02:16
But why don’t we, why don’t you tell us what was the beginning of your relationship with Push was? When did it start and how did it develop? It was the year before, maybe two years before we became for a pitch, before they say he fell, which was a project we had done with our, with Dawn of Michelle St.
02:33
Bernard and near Barracat. And so, yeah, we came to the pitch sessions and that was kind of our first kind of introduction to the festival. We’d heard about it, we’d met some folks kind of at, like, Magnetic North, I think, at the time.
02:48
Back when Magnetic North still existed, made rest in peace. Yeah, and kind of made that connection. So it was, it was really, you had to try to also get over to Vancouver to see what was happening because I think it can be pretty, you’re Toronto based at the time and you can be pretty isolated in Toronto, kind of in the center of the universe situation where you don’t really know what’s going on elsewhere.
03:10
So, yeah. And it was pretty key for us to develop a lot of the international relationships we had and national relationships. That’s true. So yeah, so like in Vancouver, that was really important to connect with that community.
03:20
But also it got us in touch with a bunch of folks like from, like Wes from who used to run Sydney Festival, who ended up then taking one of our shows later. So like, yeah, that was the start of that.
03:31
And that was like a multi -year relationship really the kind of like it started back at that pitch and then we stayed in touch and eventually we found the right project and you know so it’s good in that way.
03:41
Yeah and as you mentioned you were not based here at this point and now both of you are here or relatively local to here and how did you end up being involved in the pitch did you did you have a relationship with Joyce or Norman or did you just apply out of the blue without having a connection?
04:01
I had met Joyce at Magnetic North and to be honest I hadn’t even heard of the festival really before that I kind of vaguely knew that there was something like this out here again towards its Toronto thing but yeah so we were chatting at Magnorth about it a little bit so that gave a bit more context for me and then I think that was really it otherwise it was just an application yeah we lucked out.
04:29
Yeah we did luck out. I think it was more than luck but anyways and then the next year so how did you how did you come to have daughter presented at Push 2018 maybe you can also tell us about this project and the process of realizing it for the festival right here.
04:51
Yeah so we worked with I mean you could probably speak better to the actual project because you’re co -creator on it but we’re working with Adam Lazarus who’s a like kind of a master bouffant clown in Canada and the world I think and he’s up there yeah so yeah we did the workshop presentation with him on that project as a part of summer works and that’s where Norman saw it and then had interest to bring it over and we did it as a part of the club Push in 2018 where we learned a lot about the project but maybe I’ll let you talk about like what the project actually is.
05:25
Sure it’s a surprise I mean it’s it’s a bouffant show but not really classic bouffant and we came up with some different. terms for it to try to describe it in grand terms, but essentially the difference really is that Adam is not in any way wearing a mask and he is to assert, he is kind of wearing a mask in the sense he’s performing, but it’s not that kind of grotesque, clear bouffant where you can tell the difference,
05:48
and that was an interest for him. But it kind of started with this project, you know, he was concerned or he was, you know, expressing I think what a lot of young fathers expressed, which is like, oh I have a daughter and the world’s messed up, how do I protect my daughter?
06:05
And that kind of question around protection, like what exactly do you mean by that, unpacking it more? It’s like, are you talking about protection? Are you talking about ownership? This is now going into the artistic project, not his actual relationship with his daughter.
06:20
And so it became this thing that’s, the game of it really is, I’ve done some bad stuff, I’m gonna tell you the bad stuff and you’re gonna see if you’re still okay with me. And gradually that game starts to wear away in the sense that he stops asking, he just tells you that you’re okay with him and you kind of tend to go with it.
06:40
Yeah, and like, I guess there is an actual moment of asking, but it’s actually more, it’s more like, as long as you’re laughing, you’re telling me it’s okay. Yeah. And that’s kind of the game, so like when I first saw it, it was like, oh, I was, I thought it was funny up to this, this point and it was, the point was about like, oh, he talks about how he’s had STIs and he kept sleeping around and not telling people about them.
07:03
And that’s where I drew the line. That was your line, yeah. And just to be clear, this is not Adam himself, this is the character. The character, yes. Don’t want to disparage Adam. The father, yes. So that was the line that I drew and then, and then it gets more grotesque after that.
07:16
But then I had to, then after the thing, after I saw it for the first like, you know, rehearsal presentation, I then had to go, oh wait, why was I okay with this and this and this and this and this? And that’s kind of the game that’s happening with the audience, particularly the men in the audience.
07:28
Yeah. And I would say that’s where the target audience really is. It’s, it’s, um, I think after we started doing it, it really established a lot of people don’t need to see the show. It’s not a show that everyone…
07:39
I mean, it’s a great show, but I don’t know that it’s going to be eye -opening for everyone who sees it. But for the people who it is eye -opening, it’s quite eye -opening and shocking. There’s people who immediately see who this man is, and then they have a miserable time.
07:53
Or maybe they see it and they’re like, oh, I see what you’re doing, and they appreciate the craft of it. But you can see certain people walking out and they look like zombies after the show because they’re like, yeah, they’re contemplating some stuff about their own lives.
08:09
And it is, and maybe we can be a bit clearer too, like what it really is doing throughout that kind of work back is it’s showing this layer of toxic masculinity that’s been there the whole time, but just when do we recognize it and when do we question it.
08:22
And I think that what made it really interesting in terms of specifically what happened to the push was that was also around the time of Me Too, it was also in the Toronto center of the world context around the time when there was a big falling out with an artistic director of a major theater company who sucks, and it was all kind of coming out.
08:43
And so it was a sensitive time around the subject matter, I think, of toxic masculinity, of assault, of where those lines are. I mean, yeah, it became very, very topical. It was always topical, but it became really off the moment, I think, in a way that even that was programmed a push even before that happened.
09:07
It’s true. I think when it was when it was part of summer works, it definitely had an impact. But I think part of what we thought was a part of the art or the experience was the deceit of the piece, was that it takes you a while for many people to understand what the piece is actually about.
09:22
So then we took, I think, Norman experienced it that way, and then we took it to push that way, and then we kind of framed it more as like a comedy thing. We did it in the Fox cabaret. In the Fox, yeah.
09:32
it was very like laid -back kind of atmosphere and then I think because Me Too was like right in the midst of its peak at that moment, just emerging, I think it had a very different impact. So then we learned a lot because we saw the effect that that was having on some audience members who were coming.
09:49
For when we eventually did an Edinburgh year or two later that we were like, oh we have to put a lot of context around this piece for people so they understand what they’re coming into and then we need to add a component after the show is done of audience discussion where that’s so that we can grapple with these things together because I think just throwing people on the street felt a little careless.
10:13
And quite literally like with the Fox you were just like okay show’s done, lights on, out onto main. And you know that’s not ideal and we knew that wasn’t going to be ideal. We tried to be like kind of get the idea that we need to do some onboarding or something but the post -show aftercare I think really emerged after the presentation of Push and I think has become, it’s a pretty essential part of doing the show now.
10:36
It would last longer than the show. The show’s about 75 minutes and those talks would last two hours because people just had to grapple with it or had to tell us, get mad at us about the show or had to thank us for what it was.
10:51
I remember one person with that show who was quite upset because they felt like that was a representation of their father and they didn’t want to be in the movie. They were quite upset and were like I’m really sorry we wish we better prepared you for this.
11:04
And then immediately after that person left someone else came up to us and said I just want to thank you. That was also my father and I want you to bring it to England. I want to bring him to it. So it was you know it’s one of these things of yeah we learned a lot and I think we’re still learning a lot about audience care around that kind of work and how to really prepare people for that kind of project.
11:25
And I think Push was an integral part of that learning. So it was nice to have that environment. And those are big questions too with regard. to work that is intended to subvert, and how do you prepare the audience well at the same time being able to have the desired theatrical effect take place.
11:44
That’s quite complicated. How would you say that, how does that work relate to pandemics other work? Like is that audience care piece, does that continue to be really prevalent in your work because of the themes that you’re working with, and because of how you’re drawing the audience into those themes?
12:11
I think to some extent it’s a project by project thing, but certainly our awareness towards responsibility for audience care has shifted. I feel like generally, at least in Canada, there has been a shift that takes that a bit more seriously.
12:29
When we were doing Daughter, it was still a point where people were very skeptical of trigger warnings or anything like that too, whereas now I think that that’s pretty normal, that you would have content advisory that’s available if people would like them or something like that.
12:44
And then in terms of the pandemic work, I think all of the stuff that we try to do is connected to there’s some political action, whether it’s in the creation or whether it’s in what we’re asking the audience to do.
12:57
And I think maybe now, looking at it, there’s more of a consideration of what is their experience moving through it rather than maybe before it was more of their experience being impacted by it. So it’s a bit of a more relational moment to moment thing for me, yeah.
13:16
Yeah, I think for lack of a better word, like buzz term -y thing is the audience engagement component then became, okay, well, how do you actually integrate that into the art itself? Because that was around the time we did another project called The Only Good Indian, which is…
13:32
about it’s basically dissecting what your identity while wearing a suicide vest so there’s different performers every night and that we all share like 40% of the same text and then 60% is our prompts that we work with the artists to build based off of who they are and how their bodies are othered or are not othered within within the world and what does it mean for that body to be wearing a suicide vest with an audience so that was also I mean that was a pretty direct ask of the audience just to stay in the same room with someone who is you know we all know it’s a fake vest but like I think there’s a few people were like there was like a 10% chance I wasn’t quite sure if it was equal or not so I think that’s a that was another one where we feel like okay we’re actually building in an ask of the audience and then with that one we do also we included the big post show which was like doing a long table that’s right that’s right and so that one was about like let’s unpack what we saw let’s unpack what is bringing up for you yeah and there’s take the milk as well yeah and that one that one does no aftercare per se but it’s a gentler show I think but they’re certainly asked hasn’t asked the audience to self identify in that case and if they identify as having a marginalized experience as we define it in the show we get them to stay and if they don’t we ask them to leave for five minutes it really pisses a lot of people off but you know it is I still think it’s it’s gentler than arguably most of the stuff we’ve done sure in my opinion so let’s talk about swim so swim would be presented as part of the 2025 push festival it’s a work we’ve co -commissioned that we presented with touchstone theater and the cult and it’s also a project between pandemic and theater conspiracy can you tell us about this project and where you’re at in the process Yeah,
15:34
so this has been developing for quite a long time. We started off with a residency with Crow’s Theatre in Toronto in 2018, 2018 -19 year. Yeah, I think it was 2019 and we actually started on it maybe.
15:49
Right, yeah, it’s just summer I think. And then so yeah, we kind of got started and we managed to build like a first draft of the script and then this thing happened in the world. Also called a pandemic.
16:01
Yeah, it really changed how cool our name was. So then, yeah, we didn’t really work on it for quite a long time. But Laura Nanny at SummerWorks had heard about the project, I think you talked to her about it.
16:14
Probably, yeah. She was talking about creating over distance and at the time, Tom was still in Toronto, I was out here. So we were actually creating over distance and the piece is kind of about distance, so it was a good pitch for Laura I think.
16:25
So yeah, so then we got to kind of develop it there and do a first draft of like what an audio version would be. I think you heard that then and then you were like, oh, this is neat. And then, so then we got you guys commissioned it, which is very generous.
16:37
And then we’ve been working with theater conspiracy since then to yeah, to develop what the project will be like in its full iteration. Do you want to talk about what the project actually is? Sure. So, I mean, like we’re trying to make it sound as least pretentious as possible, but if I go, it’s an immersive audio meditation, but it is that.
17:02
But the idea of it, we were closing or opening a show and kind of just thinking about what the next thing is. And we were just talking about, at the time there was a news story about this Italian sea captain and she was standing trial for harboring refugees, I believe, which was the exact phrasing of the charge was.
17:23
But by the law of the sea, if you’re a sea captain, you’re out there and you see somebody drowning or in need of help, you have to take them in. It’s Italy’s laws are different in terms of bringing those people into Italy It really highlighted the what was being called the refugee crisis at that time So it got us reading a bit more about what’s going on in that migration path and the migration path that we were interested in is this eight kilometers trek that’s between Turkey and Greece and It is something that people swim people have swam it and we we wanted to delve into this topic Kind of like so as I’m saying like that our work is kind of has a political ask of the audience or has a political ask Of us in some ways this one I would say the political ask of ourselves was to really delve into Imagining what that experience might be like not necessarily too Appropriate or have that but for us to try to connect with it in some way We had been doing a lot of identity based work For the past few years And I think it was important for us to try to do something that’s actively thinking beyond our Experience too and this was a very extreme situation So we wanted to kind of delve into it there And so what you what happens in the show is and it’s taken different forms But you are kind of becoming this character and it’s kind of a stream of consciousness of what might go through someone’s head Doing it and then in making it actually we swam a bunch and kind of that was what Helped us come up with where would the mind go like and we didn’t sort of full eight kilometers But we swam like maybe like one or two and that was exhausting even in the pool So to think about that we’re also very out of shape.
19:10
Yes, that is true. That is true Still though the Mediterranean. I mean, I wouldn’t have lasted 20 20 meters. I think I would be I’d be dead. So personally for sure. Yeah, but Yeah, and the original idea actually of this project.
19:24
So it’s it was also So yeah, but you mentioned that story of the Italian sea captain, but there’s also a story of a refugee who went through Turkey and did this specific swim. So yeah we were just curious what would go through their mind.
19:43
What was my point? The original idea we can talk about. Oh that’s what it was. Okay I’m gonna go back. Yeah so we we’ve heard about the story about the Syrian refugee who swam from Turkey to the nearest Greek island, that eight kilometer trek that you mentioned.
20:02
And then that kind of inspired us to be like oh what if the audience actually has to do that physical journey themselves. So the original idea as maybe insane as it was was to have the audience swim during the duration of the audio piece and somehow have some waterproof headphones and you know design in your local swimming pool or in lake or in the ocean or something.
20:27
Then when we did it in summer works we kind of realized oh we don’t actually need to do that. There are other ways to allow someone to feel immersed in it. So then we thought we started thinking about walking, what’s it like if people are walking while doing it.
20:40
And now because we’re working with theater conspiracy, David Lucia and Gavin Shima, they do a lot of really cool immersive work with different types of tech. So we’re looking at doing vibrotactile vests that have multiple vibrating points in them to give like that kind of immersive quality and also binaural sound technology which is basically like it’s like kind of a 3d version of sound.
21:06
So if you know it’ll sound like someone is whispering in your ear or like behind you kind of thing. So that’s what we’re working on with it now. Yeah. And can you take us back or can you reflect on from 2018 or even 2017 when you first started your relationship with Push to Swim 2025?
21:28
How has your practice evolved? stayed true, what are you thinking about differently? Either as a pandemic or individually. I know that you both have other artistic projects, G of U, also Artistic Director of Rumble.
21:46
Tom, you’ve been interim Director of Programming at Push and you know are working on your own projects independently, so whatever you’d like to share there. I mean like I think in terms of how it shifted since getting involved or coming to Push, maybe in our work.
22:04
You can just see if you agree with this or not, but certainly I will say speaking for myself like the range of what is contemporary performance that can live in Canada I think has changed in that time.
22:20
Like not to say that we were all, I don’t know that we were ever like very conventional, conventional like theater, like you know Norm Foster style theater, respect to Norm Foster. But I think it pushed the boundaries of what we were seeing.
22:37
Like we had the opportunity when we were like coming out of school actually to see a bunch of stuff in Europe because of some weird relationship the school had and that was good. But to see what kind of here too I think was, it impacted me at least in terms of thinking about how I might approach a project and where that project could go and where it could live and what life it could have after just doing it in a pretty significant way.
23:09
Yeah, which felt like it actually it really informs what the art is to understand like if you want it to move and you want it to be able to speak to a wider audience than just your initial community and how do you do that in a way that’s ethical and not just feeling like you said this before like the airdrop mentality of just like coming in doing your show and like you know and then leaving like okay well like what does it mean to impact that community and how do you engage?
23:32
with the community. I feel like that all started to kind of come together around the time of push and seeing the impact that daughter was having and the conversations we were having around that and wanting to do that you know do to be able to do that in other places but also do it in a better way.
23:47
So yeah that really felt like it really does feel like that was actually kind of a turning point I think for us as a company I think prior to that you know we had some stuff that was okay but like it felt like you know a bit very young and very messy and around that time was allowed us to kind of a see some really cool art I remember seeing Lee Mediad at a push of having my mind blown and being like oh cool I want to be on this level not that I’ve ever achieved that because that show was cool as hell but but like yeah wanting wanting to to reach that level so it’s impactful for me personally.
24:26
Maybe on the flip side too I would say like it has helped me separate one of the projects that I look at in a more international arena and one of the projects I look at in a local arena and they’re not always the same sometimes they are the same but they don’t have to be the same and both can exist and both can be practices onto themselves because the relationships that certainly like now that we both live here too like the relationships off just the way people kind of are out west is a little bit different the way people are out east and the community aspect of it is I don’t want to necessarily say stronger but it is perhaps more connected more web -like than the kind of isolation you can have out east for better or worse so I think that that lends itself to a certain different way of thinking of even just doing political work because I think our stuff was always kind of like you know it had relevance locally but we were often looking at topics that were these large global issues like iced tea versus a like you know some of the stuff we have coming up really is about integrating more into who is here in the moment and how do we work with them.
25:38
Yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s like I mean doing stuff that’s hyper -local and is meant for hyper -local is super important and like I think actually we need more of that. Like these Fanpanto, Jiv and his partner Christine did this past year.
25:52
Legit one of my favorite things I’ve seen in a long time. It was such a blast. It wouldn’t really work. Not that they showed us a tour. Yeah but it was a goddamn blast and yeah so yeah that’s a good distinction to kind of say to understanding what’s that what the difference is.
26:08
Like okay how am I gonna serve hyper -locally or how am I going to serve communities that we’re not from. And what are your thoughts on the cultural context and significance of the push? I know that you I mean have a relationship with push even beyond what we’ve spoken about.
26:25
I’ve touched on you know that Tommy were curating with push. Jiv you’ve been working with Push as a co -presenting partner over the years. Yeah I can go. I’ll put on my old years. Tell me. No I mean I think Push obviously has a really important role.
26:45
I think I’ve even touched on this as we’ve been talking here. I think it’s really connected a lot of Vancouver and Canadian artists internationally and kind of helped to kind of show that I think I think what Push has helped do is actually kind of deteriorate some of the mythology of Canada internationally.
27:04
Of like the polite the the meek the at least and and and the I don’t know the wholesome too because I think we’ve actually some of the works that have come out of Push or at least some of the artists that have come out of Push and gone on to do international stuff have kind of helped to highlight that Canada is not the utopia that a lot of the world thought it was.
27:25
I feel like I feel like that image is starting to change but like I don’t know I think about Cliff Cardinal or Terra Vegan. Marcus’s work, like these are, it kind of, it kind of showed the world that there are some like punk rock artists coming out of Canada and I think that’s pretty rad.
27:46
Yeah and I guess like I might just add in terms of like its significance, I have the benefit of actually being at Rumble of being able to go through and read some of those early documents when they were thinking through it that I can find.
27:58
Because Norman started Rumble. Yeah and he started Rumble and it was with Touchstone, so actually there you go, Touchstone Rumble, back at it again. So I could, you know, I’ve read a little bit about like what the thinking was in the early, when it was a series and that kind of stuff before it became a festival.
28:15
That it was about like kind of like bringing in some international, bringing some external, perhaps even more so the international, external influence into the scene here. And I think that it still does that and I think that it doing that led to what I would consider like some of the more interesting like contemporary art coming out of Canada living in Vancouver.
28:40
Like the reputation in Vancouver being out East for so long was that it’s the experimental place. We got here and actually like there’s a bit of a mix, there is a mix, let me tell you, but the experimental stuff is here too, is here too.
28:55
And I think that what that is, it’s being made by the generation that since push started has kind of, they were, they were at the right time to be very influenced by that. So I think it continues to do that for local artists here and I think as more people are coming to see the festival from other places in Canada, I think it’s, it’s good, it’s very good and it’s, we don’t have much like it.
29:23
There’s Luminato in Toronto but it’s not the same vibe. It’s a different thing onto itself and push manages to kind of maintain still like a small festival feel, they do huge stuff you know but like it still has that hub element that I think a lot of these larger international festivals that do exist in the country which are not many but like they lose that a little bit towards the kind of more pushing the spectacle and being and performatively part of the city maybe whereas this seems still quite art driven,
30:00
art and dialogue driven you know so yeah I think certainly from participating in the industry series and those conversations when Joyce was organizing it and understanding like what are the international conversations what are people thinking about influences the kind of work that we might make and position ourselves also there and find out like where it is actually interesting for us to to pursue because sometimes the conversations were not interesting to like that people like this is your priority cool I’m not into that or it’s not really it’s not my vibe and that’s cool like it’s good to know what’s going on there but that’s not that’s not the right market for us to kind of try to hit yeah and just also highlight that like Norman and Joyce like what they created with push and also the whole team prior to them with them you know I think they really created something really special with with push and for the community here and also creating what feels like like you were saying like an intimate community but somehow an international one too like it would feel like you would see people seeing old friends that live in China and live in Australia and like wherever so yeah they actually managed to create like that actual global village but like feel like doing it in kind of what felt like a more ethical way than you might see in like a really huge festival like like in Edinburgh or something so and yeah and you and Kelty have done an amazing job of continuing that legacy and it it feels like at home when you’re when you’re there so yeah that’s that’s pretty special thank you Thank you so much.
31:33
I’m so excited to experience the premiere of SWIM at Push 2025. Us too. It’s been five years. Great. I won’t keep you any more from the studio. All right. That was Gabrielle Martin’s conversation with Tom Arthur Davis from Pandemic Theatre and Jiv Parasram of Theatre Conspiracy.
31:57
SWIM will be presented at the upcoming Push Festival January 23rd to February 9th in Vancouver, B .C. Swim runs from January 30th to February 2nd at Vancity Culture Lab. It’s presented with Touchstone Theatre and The Cultch.
32:14
Push Play is produced by myself, Tricia Knowles, and the lovely Ben Charland. Special thanks to Joseph Hirabayashi for the original music composition. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.
32:28
And for more information on the 2025 Push Festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theatre, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival .ca. Thanks for joining us.
32:42
Coming up on the next Push Play… I try to find a way to keep all these people that work with me together every day, every year, day by day, doing and thinking about production in art and art of production.