reflecting on a career of 18 years in theatre/performance/dance and wondering what it all is for? Contemplating the delusion needed to believe that this work is important when it so often does not seem to go beyond the walls of the theatre. In a practice where pretending that things and people that not there are in the room and attempting to sway the audience to this reality seems almost bizarre at times. Not that entertainment, make believe and imagination are bad things but when one considers the money, energy, sweat, and dedication people put towards these projects it makes me wonder.
Is pretending and bullshitting really what I want to dedicate my life to?
Now I suppose that is why I am more interested in performance, live art, performance art and socially engaged art because it also asks the question why? Why create more delusion, more noise, more fake stories when there are so many interesting and exciting stories and people around every second? Not that every single person should have a play done about them but that seems much more interesting to me then knowing how good you are at making stuff up.
The thought of everything being a documentary is also a little over the top to me but somehow I cannot escape a deep feeling that more is possible. More engagement, more attempts to look at contemporary life rather then spending 10’s of thousands of dollars pretending it is the 1800’s, more wisdom to know we are all feeling lonely and that a conversation is better then passive ingestion.
I have questions more then answers but I can’t help wondering what else I can do, how do I create something more in a time when disposable culture seems to be the norm.
Chad Dembski 