100 Days/14 Shows

A short post long on numbers for those into keeping count (and/or accounts)...

This past Wednesday marked the 100-day point till the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. The occasion coincided with a new role for VANOC: strike-breakers. That's right, the provincial government is preparing back-to-work legislation for striking paramedics in the province, in part based on a document forwarded by Olympics organizers stating that in the wake of a likely escalation of the H1N1 pandemic, the government would either have to put an end to the strike or ensure that some contingency plan was in place should emergency health care workers potentially still be off the job come February.

Needless to say, this wasn't being played up in various symbolic ceremonies around the city celebrating the countdown event. Among those ceremonies, perhaps none was more weighted with significance than Mayor Gregor Robertson handing over the keys to the False Creek Athletes Village to VANOC CEO John Furlong. Media and invited guests were treated to a tour of of the facilities, and the rhetoric surrounding the whole event was decidedly more upbeat, conciliatory, and even congratulatory than the doom and gloom scenarios painted a year ago by the newly elected Vision Vancouver City Council, who upon examining the books, forecast a billion dollar deficit for the Village that taxpayers were potentially on the hook for. Now, it seems, things are looking up, with condo king (and contemporary art collector) Bob Rennie on hand to assure everyone that post-Olympics sales in the development were looking golden.

Today, however, we learn that the overall economic benefits of the Olympics for the 2003-2008 period have been much less than predicted by Games organizers and government politicians alike. As Vaughan Palmer notes in his Vancouver Sun column today, parsing the numbers outlined in the 4-part report on Olympics impacts prepared by PriceWaterhouseCooper, you eventually discover that the mega-event boosted both the provincial GDP and job creation by, respectively, one-tenth of one percent.

Whooeee, baby! Let's not spend it all in one place--like on wage increases for those paramedics, for example, or, heaven forfend, on arts and culture!

Arts and culture in this city was in fact precisely what I and 100+ other people were celebrating yesterday at the VanCity Theatre on Seymour Street, as we gathered there to witness the launch of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival's 2010 line-up. Full disclosure: while I was there as a supporter and fan, I also attended in my official capacity as a new PuSh Society board member, a role I am very excited about.

But just now I'm even more excited about the program Executive Director Norman Armour and his talented team of colleagues (including new Associate Producer Dani Fecko) have assembled for this coming January and February: 14 shows totaling 93 performances over 18 days at 11 different venues across the city, and featuring artists who hail from 12 different cities and 6 different countries working in at least 6 related disciplines (theatre, dance, music, film and video, installation, and multi-media). How about them numbers?

Or how about these, cited by Norman in his program guide message, and repeated at yesterday's event: "BC's arts, culture and heritage industries generate 80,000 jobs in the creative sector and $5.2 billion of annual revenue." In strictly monetary terms, then, art is a good investment, and would that Liberal politicians who've been anticipating windfalls from the Olympics that have yet to materialize pay closer attention to the wealth of creative resources we have immediately to hand.

Then, too, as those of us who listened yesterday to an excerpt from Stefan Smulovitz and Eye of Newt's new PuSh-commissioned score, to accompany a January 28th screening of Carl Dreyer's classic 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc at Christ Church Cathedral, were undoubtedly thinking at one point or another, there all sorts of other ways (aesthetic, social, political, ethical) that art's value far exceeds one-tenth of one percent.

The Festival officially launches on January 20th with a performance of Jérôme Bel's The Show Must Go On at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodward's. The first chance to get a glimpse of this amazing new venue (even before Robert Lepage touches down in it with The Blue Dragon later in February), the show itself promises to be truly "spectacular": in its showcasing of the potential for emancipated response in live performance; and in its use of the talents of 20 dynamic local performers, some professional dancers and actors (Noam Gagnon, Billy Marchenski, Adrienne Wong), some not, or no longer (Jim Green, Max Wyman). Definitely not to be missed.

PuSh passes are now on sale. Visit the Festival website for purchase details, and for descriptions of all the shows. Or pick up a free program guide at any JJ Bean location across the city. For information on how you can become a member of PuSh's new Patron's Circle (and reap fantastic benefits in the process), contact our Fundraising Manager extraordinaire, Bobbi Parker at 604-605-8285 or bobbi@pushfestival.ca.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by...

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Gregor's First 100 Days

Well, he may not have scored a sit-down with Jay Leno, but Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson did at least reach the 100-day mark before Obama. Here's the update he and his Vision Vancouver team put out yesterday on their progress so far:

"We have just passed the 100-day mark since being sworn in to City Hall. These first few months have been as challenging as they’ve been productive. Despite the hurdles thrown at us, we’ve demonstrated that a Mayor and Council who are prepared to show leadership can get things done. Today, I would like to give you a brief report on what we’ve accomplished since taking office in December.

The Homelessness Crisis

Since taking power, Vision has hit the ground running. On our first day in office, we created the Homeless Emergency Action Team. After one week, we were able to secure funding from the Province and the Streetohome Foundation for five new emergency shelters. Over the last 100 days, these shelters have provided a safe and secure place to sleep for up to 500 people a night. Earlier this month, I was also pleased to announce that we’ve secured funding from the provincial government to keep the shelters open for another three months.

Both the VPD and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association can attest to the positive impact the HEAT shelters have had on reducing mental health calls, aggressive panhandling, and street disorder. The HEAT shelters are working.

The Olympic Village

Dealing with the Olympic Village mess left by the previous NPA administration has been one of the toughest problems we’ve faced. Nevertheless, I’m proud to say that your Vision team has risen to the challenge. As promised, we held an open, public council meeting to reveal the financial situation of the Olympic Village. We were up front with the people of Vancouver about the amount of financial risk the city was exposed to. We hired KPMG to provide an external review of the Olympic Village finances.

Thanks to the quick work of the Provincial Government and the Official Opposition, the City was granted the tools necessary to borrow money to finish the project. The new financing deal we’ve negotiated will save the City roughly $90 million in interest payments. We’re now working hard to make sure the Olympic Village stays on track and is done on time.

Public Safety

Vancouver, as Police Chief Jim Chu said earlier this month, is in the midst of a brutal gang war. The brazen nature of the recent gang shootings and the complete disregard for human life are unacceptable. Gangs do not care about municipal boundaries and we need a strong regional response to deal with them. Chief Chu and I met with the Prime Minister several weeks ago, and we made the case for more police officers throughout Metro Vancouver. Our city is doing its share in terms of funding our police. To fight gangs across the region, we need other municipalities to do the same.

Managing Your Money

The recent economic downturn has put a major strain on the City’s finances. As a Council, we’ve already taken bold steps to cut costs. Since December, we’ve cut $42 million from the City’s budget while maintaining services. We cancelled the expansion of the controversial Downtown Ambassadors program and implemented a hiring freeze. We’re working hard to keep taxes down in the next City budget.

Greening Your City

Vision has pledged to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world. To do this, we’ve reached out to ‘green’ business and sustainability leaders and formed the Greenest City Action Team (GCAT).Whether it’s expanding car-free days or community gardens, we’re making progress, with more to come. GCAT will be working to tackle climate change, increase sustainable transportation, and create green jobs in the weeks ahead."

I'm more or less in agreement with most of this; I just wish we could get past the partisan finger-pointing at the previous administration. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to lay much of the blame for the Athletes Village mess at the feet of the NPA and former City Manager Judy Rogers (whose severance package topped $570,000 according to yesterday's Vancouver Sun and Globe and Mail). But Robertson has inherited the fallout, and so he should just get on as best as possible in dealing with it.

On the Olympics front, I have just been approached by a group of colleagues in Urban Studies at SFU to join their group studying the outcomes of the Games on Vancouver. Very exciting, indeed, and I shall be sure to share some of our discussions with readers of this Blog.

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$1 Billion

That’s the total estimated costs for Olympics-related security in 2010, as finally confirmed by the federal government today. Organizers had originally budgeted one-fifth that amount. I guess this helps pay for all the helicopters that have been buzzing overhead in Vancouver during the past week as part of various “training exercises.” Nothing like going into full lockdown mode so we can all safely watch men and women hurl themselves down mountains or slap a little black disc across the ice. And so what if that means residents and business owners in the line of fire, as it were, have to put their lives and jobs on hold for two weeks or more as perimeter fencing is erected around their homes and stores? It’s all in the spirit of fun and cross-cultural bonding.

It’s exactly one year from today that the whole spectacle begins, and as you can tell I’m starting to get worked up. There are all sorts of celebratory events taking place across the city today, including a torchlight ski extravaganza on Grouse Mountain. I recommend, instead, hauling ass to the counter-torchlight parade being organized by the Olympic Resistance Network at Victory Square at 6 pm: details at www.no2010.com. This follows upon the 2nd Annual Poverty Olympics, which took place in the DTES on Monday. And a talk by Helen Lenskyj, a noted critic of the Olympics industry, on Tuesday (thanks, Myka, for the notice); I quote Lenskyj in my book, but alas I couldn’t go to her talk as I was at another event (see below).

In related news, Gary Mason reveals in today’s Globe that the city seems to have worked out a financing deal with a consortium of Canadian banks that will allow them to borrow approximately $800 million at a reduced interest rate of only 3% in order to pay back Fortress Investment and see that the troubled Athletes Village gets finished on time. This is good news, and while taxpayers are by no means in the clear yet, the situation is looking a lot better than it was several weeks ago. Kudos to Mayor Gregor for his quiet but intense negotiating on this one.

And kudos to City Council for also voting to cancel a plan to extend additional funding to the Downtown Ambassadors Program (DAP). A human rights complaint against Genesis Security, the private firm that staffs the program, and the Downtown Business Improvement Association, which will continue to pay for it in its current jurisdictional mandate, has recently gone forward at the BC Human Rights Tribunal. It alleges that the DAP’s coordinated intimidation of the street homeless population in the Downtown Eastside essentially amounts to a violation of the right to public assembly, and that in targeting some of the most marginalized populations in the city (Aboriginal people, the homeless, the addicted, and the mentally ill) is fundamentally discriminatory. (Lenskyj has noted that our DAP is directly modeled on a similar “hospitality force” put in place in Atlanta in advance of the 1996 Summer Olympics.) My friend Jamie, who actually covertly trained with Genesis as part of an art project he is working on relating to the DAP, gave a deposition as part of the complaint, and is keeping me informed about its progress. 

In the last post I reported on the rethink at City Hall about cultural programming and funding, and the possibility that we might get an independent Arts Council. Apparently opinion is divided on this issue, both among councillors and arts administrators: check out this item from The Georgia Straight. This is an issue I also will keep tracking. The same item in the GS also reports that attendance at this year’s PuSh Festival exceeded 24,000 and that Club PuSh, in particular, was a roaring success. Hurrah!

On Tuesday Alana and I went to see battery opera’s site-specific piece Lives Were Around Me. We were part of an intimate audience of three that assembled at the Alibi Room at 8 pm (we arrived earlier for a dinner, which was discounted by 10%, a nice surprise). After signing a liability waiver, we began following battery opera’s dapperly dressed David McIntosh east on Alexander Street. McIntosh was a charming, if cryptic, guide (“You can’t believe everything you hear” was the one line he kept repeating); he led us to the Firehall, on Cordova, where we were eventually met by Adrienne Wong (we would also later encounter Paul Ternes), who was more talkative, although no more understandable. This was because the text of the walking tour we were taking of the Downtown Eastside was freely adapted from James Kelman’s Translated Accounts, an abstruse, Kafkaesque novel made up of monologues detailing instances of surveillance, arrest, detention, and torture carried out in an unnamed police state. The effect was deliberately disorienting, forcing us to reexamine a part of the city that has historically been overdetermined with meaning, not to mention over-policed by various state apparatuses invested in the interpretation of that meaning. However, I think in the end the text dominated too much, and that the piece was perhaps overconceptualized dramaturgically, to the point where external intrusions—that is, the very space and community where the event was taking place—seemed to flummox our guide. 

This was most evident at the bar we entered midway through the piece. Like any bar in that part of town, it was filled with a larger-than-life cast of characters, and while a table had been reserved at the back for us (complete with a complimentary beer each) we were sharing the space with Bobby and his friend. We soon learned both just been released from jail and were interested in making conversation, and perhaps more (Bobby seemed to take a particular fancy to yours truly, displaying his tattoos, and offering up multiple hugs). But our guide, while polite with Bobby and tolerant of his interruptions to a point, kept telling him that she had to keep to her schedule, and consequently kept drawing us back to the tale she was telling. In other words, despite the piece being all about looking at/for/through evidence (we later had a tour of the Vancouver Police Museum, next to the Firehall, which was more than a little creepy), the material lives occupying the site in which the performance was taking place seemed ancillary to the abstract representation of various extreme scenarios of livability. To be sure, the juxtaposition of textual site and cited text necessarily prompted me to import other spaces as dramatic referents, some of which made me feel more, some less, vulnerable; none of which gave me any clearer sense of my bearings. But, overall, the performance seemed more interested in exploring the internal psychic excavation of various spatial archives (broadly and very sketchily defined) than it was in precipitating an external bodily encounter with the full repertoire of this particular place’s experiences (on the “archive” and the “repertoire,” see Diana Taylor). Nevertheless, in terms of the latter, the neighbourhood—and Bobby (who resurfaced, magically, at the end of the tour) especially—did not disappoint. Lives were around us. We, too, had an audience. All we had to do was look.

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