|
MayWorks in Vancouver Review by Faith Jones
It was billed as a celebration of “the culture that has arisen from BC's colourful Labour history”, but Vancouver's first Mayworks festival, held May 1st to 8th, suffered from a lack of consistency. In what was supposed to be a grass-roots celebration of working people, big name performers were out of place and only served to diffuse the theme. Heather Bishop is all well and good, but what does she have to do with working life? Perhaps the organizers hoped to appeal to as many people as possible instead of just reaching those already aware of union and work issues. In any case, this ambivalence of purpose left audiences confused and gave a certain inertia to the week of events. Mayworks seemed afraid of its own shadow. Part of the problem of a broad appeal is that minority experiences can be isolated or overlooked. There was obvious difficulty in incorporating non-white experiences into the over-all design of the week's events, for example. While there were several performances by non-white groups, events detailing the experiences of working people in general did not address race issues. As well, women's working lives were, with one notable exception, dealt with separately from men's and were also devalued in a practical way in that no childcare was provided for any of the events. But while the organizers may have diluted the political focus of MayWorks, many performers acknowledged the working roots of their art in productions that were not only political but also moving and empowering. Two examples of this were the plays of Vancouver Sath, a Punjabi theatre troupe, and an evening of songs and poetry called Working It Out. A Crop of Poison, a play about pesticides, and Picket Line, about organizing, are usually performed in Punjabi for audiences of farm workers. Their aim is to educate workers who have little access to the English-language media and whose interests are not adequately addressed by that media in any case (as the play points out). But they also address issues of cultural change that the East Indian community is facing in North America. Picket Line attempts to help the community by dealing with male and female roles in a way that empowers women to demand change and teaches men why they should accept it. In the play, a workplace is being organized by the Canadian Farm workers Union. The women workers, skeptical about their power to change working conditions and restricted by a culture that prohibits public action for women, are hesitant. Gradually they gain respect for their power as individuals and as organized workers, and they convince their husbands that by learning to speak out they have improved their collective lives. Working It Out was a collaboration between two singing groups - Fraser Union and the Euphoniously Feminist and Non-Performing Quintet - and poets Helen Potrebenko, Kate Braid, Glen Downie, Sandy Shreve and Calvin Wharton. Men's and women's work experiences were about equally represented and were well integrated. The flow of the songs and poems was remarkable. One sequence began with songs about food industries (such as fishing), moved to a song about baking, and finished with Braid's "Recipe for a Sidewalk" which explains how to pour concrete by comparing it to a cake recipe. All the women who performed in Working It Out touched on the theme that the world's attitudes toward women are a part of women's working conditions. Braid in particular addressed this, since she works in the construction trades. In her poem “These Hips” she says: When the men carry sacks of concrete |
| Back | Contents | Next |