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Richard Ouzounian: So this is going on. You're having a nice second space to work in, you're
learning stuff in the big house. How long did this last?
Jorn Weisbrodt: I was there for five years. And then I got a call from Wilson asking me
if he would... If I would come and work for him, and his manager and agent, and the director
of that, of the Watermill.
RO: Of the Watermill. Now at this point, I guess financially and practically, how large
an operation is that?
JW: You mean...
RO: The Watermill.
JW: The annual budget is about three... It grew over the years. It's about 3.1 million
dollars.
RO: And on a given peak point of the summer as you have there, what would go on?
JW: We had about 80 students from all over the world there. And there were usually about
10 different projects going on, and mostly like four projects at the same time and then
he would bring in or we would bring in Wilson's collaborators, like Isabelle Pierre was there
or Philip Glass, and Lucinda Childs would've come there to do a workshop. Then we also
more and more started to encourage the artists that we invited to create their own projects
under the guidance of Wilson, and did offside performances. Created huge installations on-site.
We had a lecture program for the whole summer.
JW: The last few years we did a very beautiful workshop. We brought together artists and
scientists, neuro-scientists to talked about phenomena of creativity. And what it means
to have an idea, both really scientifically and creatively, that changes the perception
of our reality. And that resulted actually in a piece that Marina Brownridge did with
a whole group of scientists from Columbia University and showed in Moscow just recently.
RO: Okay. So, this kind of material, I'm figuring, at one point, when did the idea of remounting
Einstein happened? Because this was years before the thought of bringing in Luminato
ever happened.
JW: It was actually... Yeah, it was actually I started working for Wilson and I had never
seen that piece. And I have heard so many stories about it, and I felt all these people
told me that they were at the Metropolitan Opera in 1976. And I thought, "They must've
had 10 performances of this piece", but actually it was only twice. And people told me that
they were... People were sitting on, they were lying on the floor at the Met and sitting
on the backs of the chairs and they were smoking hash or whatever. And it was really apparently
the first time that downtown art went uptown. And I always say, because Wilson was broke
after which downtown art went uptown and then returned back home broke.
JW: And, so I really quite almost not as selfishly as it sounds. But I was like I want to remount
this because I have never seen it. So it was almost a labour of love only for myself, but
of course that's not true. Because so many people have not seen that production and I
felt it was really time and this is really the last time that Wilson and Glass are going
to work on it, that it can be still seen in their lifetime. And I think really Einstein
for someone who loves operas, theatre or any kind of performative arts. Its an experience
you really do not want to miss.
JW: So I only can encourage everyone here on this room to go and see this performance.
Because it really is a life changer. If you are interested in the visual arts or in painting
and you haven't seen a Picasso, or you haven't seen Mona Lisa, you've missed out on something.
And so this is coming to Toronto and it really is a great gift to this town. And to see this
piece I know that you saw it and you think basically...
RO: I also was impressed in that realizing all the other artists who have, I don't wanna
say borrowed from it, but it's made their work possible. Like a lot of what Robert Wilson
does and that made a lot of what Robert Lapage does possible. By stretching the boundaries
and making us think differently.
JW: No, I've spoken... I spoke to Peter Sellers about it some time ago, and he said he went
to see every performance at BAM when they revived it at 1986. And he went to the Head
of BAM because there were no tickets anymore. And he said, "You have to get me in because
I need to see this". And he said, "Well, the only thing you can do is you can stand in
the back". So Peter Sellers stood in the back every time for five hours to see that show.
Andy Warhol apparently was at every show at BAM. He wasn't really sitting so much in the
audience all the time because I think he's probably too nervous or hyperactive or whatever.
But he loved being in the lobby because all these amazing people that came to see the
show were like coming in and out and he used to be like the monarch or grand [inaudible]
and receive them and everything.
RO: One of the most interesting things about Einstein, and I remember I took a picture
of it with my iPhone and send it to everyone, is this little notices up saying, "There is
no intermission. Please feel free to take your own personal intermission whenever you
want." And so there was that little insecurity at first, for about the first, about the two-hour
point, you can see people starting to cross their legs and fidget a bit. And wonder should
they leave? And in fact I had asked Robert, "I know I can't sit for five hours". And he
said, "We'll leave during one of the knee plays", but he has these little short play-lets
between the major sequences. And he said, "If you have to go, go during a knee play".
JW: Yeah.
RO: So, I saw one coming. Had to go to the bathroom, raced out and came back before the
knee play was over. So, it worked out well.
JW: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
RO: But I said... And there were people socializing in the lobby and stuff but everybody came
back.
JW: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely.
RO: Again, okay, we're bringing you now, bringing the ship home toward Luminato. What was your
first awareness of it again? It was even before talking about Wilson wasn't it?
JW: I was... No. The first festival happened when I was already in New York and I had heard
about the first program because Linda Brumbach of Pomegranate Arts who was the producing
entity for 'Einstein on the Beach'. She also, she works very closely with Philip Glass and
she produced the 'Book of Longings'. So, she told me, "You know we're doing the 'Book of
Longings' for this new festival called Luminato" and she said, "You know it's a really amazing
festival and blah, blah, blah." So, then when I had a two month into me being with Wilson
and I had known her from my time as being his assistant because Wilson had done another
project with Philip Glass called 'Monsters of Grace', which nobody really needs to see
and I... Nobody really needs to look up. And I think both of them would agree with that.
And so I called her after two months, I thought, "I have to see Linda," and she was, we always
got along very well, and I said to her, "Linda, why not let's revive 'Einstein on the Beach'?
I want to revive 'Einstein on the Beach'." So many people haven't seen it, it's such
an influential work, I think it'll be a really interesting also to see is it still relevant
today?"
RO: Right.
JW: Is it still something that is really groundbreaking, that really activates your senses or is it
like something that, "Oh no this is really 1970s rubbish or whatever," like a lot of
the clothes that are being revived nowadays. And So, she was like at first her reaction
was like, "I don't want to do this anymore. It's too much of an undertaking. It's too
big. It costs $2.5 million or whatever to just put the show up and to rehearse it and
everything". And then because she had tried to put it together again in 2001 and then
that fell apart with 9/11 and a lot of the performing arts institutions lost a lot of
their support, so... And then she wanted to let it rest, and I said, "Okay. Well, what
if I get you $1.5 million, can we then start talking?" And she says, "Okay, sure. Call
me back."
JW: So, I went to Gerard Mortier who was, to different people and basically got commitments
for that much money together. And I called her back and said, "Guess what Linda? We're
doing 'Einstein on the Beach'". And she was like, "Okay." And then her enthusiasm really
hit as well and that was the first time then that I met with Janice about and Chris Lorway
my predecessor, about four years ago and talked to them about doing Luminato, doing Einstein
here. And she really quite wonderfully said, "Well, if a festival like Luminato can't do,
such... Can't support the re-creation of such an extraordinary and important cross-disciplinary
and really strongly defining work, we are not fulfilling our mission." And also Graham
Sheffield told me that he told Janice that. And so, it's a great coincidence and really
great honour for me to have that piece that I didn't put into the program, but she did
or, and Chris did as part of my first season here.
RO: Alright. Again, I'm thinking back to the parts of how you just described when you did
the alternative version. What are some of your other visions and little things like
that, that you might want to see here to stretch things beyond just, "Oh, I'm bringing in shows"
?
JW: Well, I never really... I think this idea of a presenting and inviting festival is a
little bit an idea of the past. I think, especially with the increased mobility of people, with
the Internet where you can actually see things with the Metropolitan Opera being now in all
the movie theatres, which I'm sure is something that's going to grow more and more. This idea
of bringing produc... And especially also in a city as multicultural as Toronto is.
This idea of bringing productions from around the world to a city is not necessarily a valid
one anymore.
JW: I think it's to really work with artists and to create new works and to enable artists
to work and to give them a platform to work and to bring them together and also make them
meet and make really Toronto a home for artists and for creation and make the citizens of
Toronto and hopefully, the world, come here together and experience this and make the
citizens of Toronto proud of this city that creates this art that might originate here
and then also travel into the world and bring the essence of Toronto with it, is really
something that interests me much, much, much more. And that's the kind of work that I've
been doing very much with the Opera House in Berlin and that I really hope to do here
as well.
JW: And what really attracted me about this festival is that it wants to cover not only
like a certain discipline of the arts, which is also, you have theatre festivals and you
have this kind of... You have dance festival, but it's that I really want to think about
all fields of human creativity and up to magic, which I think is probably one of the most
underrated art forms in the universe because I think, magicians are true virtuosos. They
rehearse, they practise for like six or seven hours a day. The pianist almost doesn't practise
as much. And they also point to a world beyond our reality, which is what a lot of art does
as well. But this is a festival that really wants to embrace all these arts, and I think
even the encounter with scientists and people, great minds of all different kinds, is something
that is so wonderful. And that Toronto wants to be the place that enables this exchange
and this contact, I think is really quite extraordinary. And what I want to do more
and more, is it's almost like with an orchestra. If you put an orchestra into different rooms
and you make them play, it doesn't... It's gonna sound like nothing, or terrible.
RO: Right.
JW: But you have to bring them together into one room to create beautiful music. So I think,
these different disciplines that are very much compartmentalized till today, you have
to bring them together in order to create something new and interesting. That's basically
what opera was. Four hundred years ago opera was an invention in Florence, of some music
lovers, some poets, some, science, some historians, etcetera etcetera, that sat around the table
and said, "Something is missing here. We have to create an art form that touches us, that
links to us" and then went back to the Greeks and thought this was what they were doing.
But they combined and fused all the different elements together and brought all the different
disciplines together to create this, what we call opera today. And I think it's about
time again that we invent new forms.
RO: Again, you're one man. How are you gonna get out to even sense fully the cultural pulse
of Toronto, let alone the rest of Canada, and then the world?
JW: Well I can send you copies of my schedule, it's pretty busy [laughter].. I've been already
to a lot of the restaurants that you recommended. [laughter] So I'm getting there. Of course
it's always a team effort. You have a team, and we have weekly meetings, and we have this
tradition that each person at the programming meeting has to tell us one thing that has
impressed them in the last week, whatever they saw. To just get a little bit of these
random ideas, and I do intend to travel, and I am travelling already around Canada, obviously
also around the world but I have a really rich network of people and institutions that
I've worked with, so I can really find out very quickly what might be happening in Indonesia
these days. Or whatever. And then, nobody can know everything. But I think my senses
are pretty open, and I've always really enjoyed to...
JW: For me really the artist is always first. I really want to see what drives them and
what is... What do they want to do. And then maybe help them find more of a clearer direction,
because very often also artists are very intimidated by institutions. And they sometimes really
think within the guidelines of the institutions. Last week I was at the State of the Arts 2012
summit of the British Council for the Arts, and gave a talk there, and listened to this
discussion beforehand, and there was this theatre director who said you know "The artist
also has to serve the institution" and I thought like, "No. That's not true at all". You have
to serve the artist and not the other way around. It's for the artist that we work.
So I think if you really listen to what the artists want, you actually get really a broad
overview of what is happening in the world today.
RO: Again, one of the dichotomies that things like Luminato has to deal with is, in an attempt
to get people to come here from around the world, there's always the marquee name bait.
You know, who are the names this year? But on the other hand, you want the people who
live here to feel there's a sense of indigenous art happening and going on. Are you gonna
continue to try to balance that or do you think the idea of the marquee name is not
crucial?
JW: I think it really has to be a mixture of so many different things, and especially
in a festival, I think what you have to really think about a very broad range, you want to
reach a very large audience, you have to make an impact in a city. So I really want to create
a huge mixture of different art forms and different artists, and maybe combine the marquee
name with the Canadian artist, and make them work something together. Because it will definitely...
It can inform both. And it can create a pull that their work also gets further into the
world.
JW: I really heavily believe in collaboration and in establishing networks and collaborating
with other institutions here in Toronto. I had a wonderful meeting with Tina Rasmussen
from Harbourfront, and I think we have a really beautiful idea for a very festival-like, kind
of marathon-like project that we can do together that will involve, hopefully, and energize
a lot of Canadian talent. And through this kind of marathon format I think will also
be quite interesting for international people to just come and see. So... It's the mixture
I think that you have to put the ingredients, you have to put everything together. But it's
the salt that makes the sauce better, or whatever. But the one can't live without the other I
think.
RO: Along the idea of mixing things together: On one side we hear "Oh there's this Teutonic,
artistic director coming who's worked with Robert Wilson", and we immediately get visions...
JW: Yeah, Teutonic with my blond hair.
RO: Yeah, we get visions of very intellectual in this. But on the other hand I'm hearing
from you about the things that have touched you were Tchaikovsky, Tristan, Peleas Schagal.
I have the feeling that there is quite a warm beating heart in there, and is that where
the art is gonna come from?
JW: I'm very sentimental, yes. [chuckle]
RO: I didn't say sentimental, I said warm beating heart.
JW: No, absolutely. I really believe you should never underestimate your audience. I think
it's really... That to me there's no division between high and low art. I think it's...
There is only good or bad art, basically. And whatever really profoundly touches you
is good. And I really do believe that art and culture is what separates us from the
animal world. And it's in the long run really what's going to save us from barbarianism.
And it's what artists create really, that informs us about our past. You have the pyramids
in Egypt. You have the Greek tragedies. It's not the money that they had, or the pubs that
they had, or the alcohol that they drank, or... It's not going to be the cellphones,
but it's going to be what's hopefully, what artists have created. And that informs us
about who we are. And I think culture is something that is defined by all citizens, and it's
something that can enrichen us all and can really touch us all. Especially in today's
world where we seem to be so individualized, and where Internet is this... I don't know,
I'm sometimes, I wonder really what the communists would have done with the Internet. If you
think about it, it's kind of the perfect surveillance tool...
RO: Well that's happening in Canada at the moment. [laughter]
JW: Oh really?
RO: It's a big debate about Internet surveillance.
JW: But imagine if the East Germans, if they had the Internet. They would still be alive.
They would have total control over their people. So, I think the great thing about art, and
especially about performance art with music and everything is that it really creates a
human to human contact. And that it's something that touches us. And I'm a really great believer
and a great fan of people gathering and coming together and having and sharing this common...
This experience, and this moment. I think when you were sitting in "Einstein on the
Beach", you could tell that everyone was so much there, and that there was even a connection
with the audience. With the other... Between other members of the audience, because we
were all seeing this incredible piece of work. And I don't think that those were all intellectuals.
And apparently in Ann Arbor they have people travelling from 25 different states to Ann
Arbor. People took their cars and picked up people on the road to see this piece. And
it wasn't like, high brow people or whatever. But it was just people who are ready to open
up.
RO: Cool. I think it's about time I should fling it open to questions. Tina, am I correct?
Where are you ? ... Okay, good. 'Cause I'm sure people have things they wanna ask.
JW: Why not.
RO: Who's first? Questions? Oh come on, be bold. Okay.
S?: What was the one thing that impressed you the most in the past week? [laughter]
JW: Well we have a programming meeting on Monday, so I actually didn't have to think
about that yet. I went to Tiff yesterday to see the movie about Marina Abramović and
her documentary, her performance piece at MoMa, and it was really interesting to see
that this film brought back the memory of how it was to be sitting with her at MoMa.
And once again, I shed a tear.
RO: Good. So, you do cry. That's good. [chuckle]
JW: Yeah, no. I think... Actually it really took me some time. I was not a big crier when
I was a kid. I think I was a very grown-up kid. I didn't really like to mingle with my
peers, and I could never smile on a photo too. I was always looking very serious on
photos.
RO: Okay.
JW: Now I don't dare to smile because my tooth is chipped but, [laughter]
RO: See it all comes out, all the secrets. [laughter] Another question... Here we go.
S?: I'd like you to discuss a little bit about audience. I don't expect artists to perform
to audiences, and I like what you say about the involvement, and the evolution of art.
But sometimes I think, in Toronto, performers forget the audience, and I really like the
fact that you said "Never underestimate the audience." I think that's wonderful. So I
just want to hear you talk a little bit about the relationship between Luminato and the
audience.
JW: I think what's really great about Luminato, too, is that it has this idea of accessibility,
ingrained, really, in it's founding principles and that it has this huge amount also of free
programming and wants to bring in a large audience and I think there is more and more,
there's definitely a lot of artists who are very interested in having an extremely direct
exchange with the audience. I mean, Marina Abramović, again, is a great example. I think
she said in that movie, "If I didn't have an audience, why would I perform?". And so
to create this piece where she's sitting in a chair and the audience can sit across from
her, it's like, how much more audience involved can it get?
JW: I mean, there's always the chance, when you're doing art that you miss your audience.
But I think, also, it's a misconception to think that your audience might be more stupid
than what you are presenting them. I think it really is also, the way, how you present
it, and it can be extremely simple things. A few years ago I was at a performance in
a festival in Germany and the artistic director of the festival came himself, and gave an
introduction to the piece in the production before the performance, which is something
that I'd never seen. Usually it's some assistant or whatever that tells, but here it was the
artistic director himself who wanted to connect with the audience and explain, give them a
little bit of an introduction into the piece and that's something for example that I want
to do more as well.
JW: So there are a lot of different ways, I think, how to really connect with your audience
and maybe also, with a lot of... We're also trying to... I think, if you go to the theatre
very often also, you do have the urge to somehow have an exchange, maybe afterwards, about
what you've seen, etcetera, etcetera. So almost all the performances that we do will have
some, a format afterwards where you can have an exchange with the artist but where we also
bring in other people to look at the work and maybe open up areas of the work that you
haven't thought about before. With Einstein, for example, we're gonna do a collaboration
with perimeter institute which is physics, theoretical physics institute in Waterloo
and they're gonna send a group of scientists, finally I can speak to the profession that
I wanted to become. And they're going to see "Einstein on the Beach" and then they're going
to talk about what they saw afterwards, but from their perspective. So, trying to look
at things from many different angles is something that can enrich the experience of the audience
as well and can open new ways of looking at things.
RO: Okay. Another question? Yeah.
S?: I listened to you talk about your growing up. I'm envious of how much art you actually
absorbed and when I look at myself and many of the people in Toronto, I think we're real
novices when it comes to appreciation of art and I'm wondering what you can do, or what
we can do, to move us away from being a novice and more into the emotional appreciation of
the art that you're gonna be presenting.
JW: I think what I can do is to offer art that I think can open that access, but I think
you have to let go. You have to... And you have to come and you have to experience it,
and I think you have to really... I think you have to stop thinking too much when you
experience art and you have to forget, you have to not try to understand everything immediately.
I think that's kind of, very important. I think you take the impressions away and sometimes
it's weeks after where you would think like, "Oh, this is what they meant." If one tries
to understand too fast, and that's why I've never really understood a lot of the, and
excuse me for saying that, critics, or I've always, actually, I can't say that I haven't
understood them, I've always felt really badly for them. Because they have to give opinions,
and they have to have understood something immediately after they've seen it and I find
that very hard and I find that sometimes that doesn't really help me to understand a piece
of art.
S?: Just that I would say...
JW: Have you had that experience ever? Have you thought like...
S?: Well, there are say no extra barr...
JW: I wish I wouldn't have to write about this because maybe actually it could mean
or that two weeks after you have written something you are like, "Wait a minute that was actually,
now I understand something much... "
RO: It happens to be honest about once in 100 times.
JW: Okay. [chuckle]
RO: Because there's something so complex and has so many layers, you either wanna go see
it again or you wish you could have seen it again. And Einstein for example, I'm thrilled
I saw it and now I have months to think about it and then I'm gonna see it again and then
write about it.
JW: Yeah.
RO: I mean I would feel very sorry for anybody who had to go see "Einstein on the Beach"
and then write about it.
JW: Yes.
RO: In a deadline...
JW: Yeah.
RO: Especially if they've never seen it before.