QUEERNESS IS DIVINE MYSTERY [How does a season come to be?]

by ted witzel + Erum Khan + Susanna Fournier on July 15th, 2024 in Uncategorized

a conversation between Artistic Director, ted witzel and Artistic Associate, Erum Khan,
Creatively arranged + edited by Susanna Fournier

Somebody asked me, how does a season even come to be? Which I
loved as a question because when you begin understanding how a
season comes to be it’s intuitive. But I feel it’s opaque to a lot of artists.

In collaboration together was like:
bringing in a bunch of books / works / scripts
Great, now, I’m reading. Now you’re reading.
Now I’m going to tell you how I talk about work:
what I’m seeing – how I see.
We’re practicing how we understand and speak to the works we’re
engaging with. Talking gives insight to how we both think and what we’re
attracted towards, the qualities, flavors, and textures that excite us. This
season started with developing our artistic collaboration.

(And this is rigour)

It’s iterative, working through prototyping. You can’t just sit down and say
we have seven scripts, here are all the days of the year.
As we’re reading & talking, we’re asking questions like:

~ What’s ready / not ready with the resident artists?

(There was also a tsunami of artists being like, There’s an artistic director,
Buddies – oh my god – we need to tell you about what we’re working on.
Which is great, but it was like a floodgate opened).

Also asking ourselves questions like:
~ Is this work queer? Or is it just gay? 

That is a question you’ve asked.

Yeah.

Literally.

Because gay work belongs everywhere – but it’s gotten to a point where
the word queer is used so broadly the public can’t differentiate between
those two. I hear stuff get called queer because there’s gay shit
happening in it. 

And sure, that’s part of it, but that’s like the last quality of queerness that’s
interesting for me. It’s so much bigger than that. It’s fucking expansive.

Queerness is a way of being and acting in the world.
We’re not just looking at who made the work, but at the work itself, 

~ Does the work gesture at a poetic, aesthetic or formal
expression of queerness and transgression that goes beyond the
materialism of the content? 

Is it audacious? 
Is it moving towards liberation? 

Is it expansive, divine, huge? 
Cue theme of the season…

queerness is divine mystery

It’s not like we came in with this theme.

No.

We noticed threads of transcendence or divinity emerging somewhere
between the long and short list of works that really captured us. 

I mean, you start sticking sticky notes (literally) on a wall, which creates
very visual ideas and you begin seeing thematic threads in the stories,
bodies, and narratives on the wall.

A set of connections.

It’s not just about single artists or individual works, it’s how these artists
and works are in conversation with this space and each other.

There’s also the practicalities of time / space / money, which allow us to
make some decisions.

The sticky notes shift. Partnerships or timelines or artist availability that
doesn’t work out.

Some things that were just too expensive for us fell away. And suddenly
we’re looking at three central works that have persisted through
prototyping and we begin building around them.

Works moving away from what tires us about what queerness in society
has become, which is like, you’re gay for each other… Yeah. So?

I’m really pleased with the rhythm of this season. We have work that’s
very edgy, work that’s tender, work that’s niche, and work that’s populist.
We’re also creating containers so shows can share audiences.

Season planning is a bit like writing an essay. The arguments start
revealing themselves even if you don’t have a thesis yet.
I don’t know if that’s a binary way of thinking of it but sometimes it’s
helpful for me to think of it that way.

We both came in with a desire to tighten the ways in which people make
sense of the work they see here, especially for those invested enough in
Buddies to go on the full season journey. There’s sense to be made from
seeing all these works in conversation with each other.

These stories and bodies and narratives kicking the door down.

ted witzel + Erum Khan + Susanna Fournier

ted witzel and Erum Khan are, respectively, the Artistic Director and Artistic Associate of Buddies. Susanna Fournier is a writer and theatre maker.

Read all posts by ted witzel + Erum Khan + Susanna Fournier