People You Should Know: Theatre In Public Spaces Crusader David Anderson
Posted August 26, 2010 5:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Meet David Anderson, founder and artistic director of Clay and Paper Theatre.
Witnessing his friend’s arrest during a Vancouver street performance spurred David Anderson to give up graduate studies in philosophy back in 1969 and become a crusader of performance in public spaces.
A terse exchange between a cop and Anderson’s actor friend that ended with arrests for causing a public disturbance, a shortened show and a “totally pissed off” audience more than four decades ago sparked Anderson’s interesting career. He was left to pack up the small stage and props and eventually bail out his buddies.
Anderson founded Clay and Paper Theatre in 1994 — a company with firm roots in Dufferin Grove Park. Anyone who lives in or frequents the area has likely spotted the bespectacled director, writer and musician pedaling around towing his wooden blue trailer, also referred to as a “heart-building pollution solution”. (instructions on how you can build your own here)
“I had never been in theatre before and within a week I joined the company and in three weeks we were touring across Canada with that very play,” he said.
“What attracted me then is what is still at the core, the root of what I do here, which is that it was a Commedia Dell’ Arte style piece which worked in public space … that it’s really about doing this kind of work in public space.”
Anderson spent a year with Vancouver Street Theatre, five years with Bread Bakers Puppet Theatre and then moved to Toronto in 1975 where he co-founded Whole Loaf Theatre, performing in parks around the city.
Clay and Paper is known for bringing local stories and ancient folktales to life using music, massive puppets, stilt walkers and funny scripts laden with local and irreverent political references.
The company has also established Dufferin Grove as an interesting venue for live performances. The park has hosted Dusk Dances and is the site of the annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival.
Clay and Paper recently wrapped up its month-long run of “The Circus of Dark and Light”, a funny play about labour rights. It uses the Commedia style to tell the story of clowns trying to unionize who fear reprisal from their mean boss and circus owner Little Mr. Big Man (a tiny hand puppet) and Prime Minister No Body, played using a large puppet that bears a striking resemblance to Stephen Harper.
“We wanted to play with the images of clown and of the importance of thinking about of what this world is that we live in, this incredible excess and yet there’s so many people in bad shape,” Anderson said.
Some of the inspiration for this summer’s show came out of research Anderson and co-writer Krista Dalby conducted for their 2008 play “Horse Feathers”, which told the tale of how the Dufferin Mall came to be. The shopping centre was once the site of a horse racing track.
“I’ve been thinking of the idea of circus for a long time,” Anderson said. His interest was piqued when he learned there used to be a circus in the neighbourhood. He came across a photograph from the early 1900s that showed a troupe of elephants near Bloor and Lansdowne.
Anderson has managed to put up a Clay and Paper show every year despite dwindling funding. When he started the company he received enough grant money to hire on 15 student actors for a portion of the summer. He now only has the resources to take on five performers for a nine-week stint.
“I have been doing this for a long time now and one of the things we’re realizing is what an incredible history of young people there are that have been through the company,” he said.
Next summer Clay and Paper will officially merge with the Cycling Oriented Puppet Squad (CYCLOPS). Anderson spoke excitedly of plans to stage one show in various parks with audience members following the performers to various sites.
“There’ll be act one in this park, act two in another park, act three in another park and we’ll get the cycling community to bicycle from one to the other,” he said.
Anderson is also the creator of the annual Night of Dread, an event started in 1999 that he describes as his “preemptive strike” at the commercialization of Hallowe’en.
Giant puppets representing the community’s collective fears are built and then paraded along Bloor Street West between Lansdowne and Dufferin on the Saturday before Oct. 31. Last year about 4,000 people took part in the parade, Anderson said.
“Hallowe’en is such a great festival and it’s so commercialized and it’s not what it was or could be,” he said.
After the parade, participants bring their puppets back to the soccer field at Dufferin Park.
“The idea is that we laugh at our fears, mock our fears,” Anderson said.
The group then moves to the nearby fire pit where written expressions of fear are burned and “bread of the dead” is served. A country-western band then plays “lugubrious songs of death”.
You can find out more about Clay and Paper Theatre here.
Anyone you’d like to know? Send your suggestions here.
Others we’ve introduced you to:
Suresh Joachim, Canada’s #1 World Record Breaker
Yvonne Bambrick of the Toronto Cyclists Union
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