Preview
THE 2004 BETTY MITCHELL AWARDS
August 30
Stage West
Calgary’s professional theatre community will be celebrating the achievements of last season at the upcoming seventh annual Betty Mitchell Awards. On this page and the next, Fast Forward profiles two more of the nominees.
"Theatre is a great background for all kinds of wonderful things," says Theatre Junction’s resident designer, Terry Gunvordahl, nominated this year for two Betty Mitchell Awards for his work on Boy Gets Girl (lighting design) and The Edible Woman (set design). "Right now, for instance, I’m designing an amusement park at West Edmonton Mall called KiDTROPOLiS.
You just can’t beat a theatre background when big companies decide that they don’t want to hire you anymore. I still get my theatre fix and it’s like starting all over again."
Gunvordahl came to the burgeoning Theatre Junction after years of working for the big houses, including Alberta Theatre Projects, and the relationship has so far been a rewarding one. In his six seasons with the company, Gunvordahl has garnered no fewer than six Betty nominations for his lighting and set designs.
With more than 26 years of experience as a freelance designer, Gunvordahl’s work has embraced a range of mediums, including sculpture, film and television as well as production design. And with Theatre Junction’s recent acquisition of the old Grand theatre, he’s extended that range to add building design. He has taken an involved role in the company’s vision for the new space, co-ordinating artists and designers to create a striking, historically chic venue.
"It’s going to be a space that is a European idea of a culture house," he says with obvious enthusiasm. "Something is going on in there and we want to show how artistic events and artistic creations happen. It’s about involving as many different artists as we can in as many different ways as we can to provide them opportunity to show their work.
"It’s still very collaborative," he adds of the planned renovations for the historic site. "Myself and Jeremy Sturgess, our architect, will create a canvas and say, ‘Here’s the envelope, create.’ The canvas can be a very exciting space to develop."
It is this freedom that ultimately draws the American-born designer back to theatre, to a place where collaboration between artists is the norm and the product is fantasy. While corporate work may often pay his bills, the world of the stage is far more interesting.
"You do have to live in the real world," admits Gunvordahl, "but I love creating heightened realities. I guess that’s why I haven’t designed movies for quite a while. I don’t like movies – they eat your life up and you’re creating reality. It’s way more fun to push the bounds of reality. And if I can push the bounds of reality in a corporate world, that’s even more fun, when you get the opportunity to introduce theatrical elements into something like a museum or an amusement park.
"I’ve had people tell me, ‘We love your designs, but they’re too far outside of the box,’ and so you have to kind of figure out when you’re not designing outside of the box and when you can push the boundaries. On the one hand, it hurts when they say ‘No, we’re not going to use you,’ and then they say, ‘because your designs are too far outside of the box.’ And you say, ‘Well, that’s OK then, it just means you’re too far inside the box.’"
As a student at South Dakota State University, Gunvordahl originally shied away from his theatre inclinations, choosing instead to finish his undergraduate degree in geography rather than change majors. In 1974, however, having taken a master’s degree in design from the University of Minnesota, he began to work professionally as both a designer and an educator.
A year later, Gunvordahl found himself in Edmonton at the University of Alberta, where he and two other designers were given the task of overhauling the school’s design program. In 1978, he struck out as a freelance designer. The choice, as he explains, has not been without its drawbacks.
"I always thought, Maybe when I’m old, I’ll go back," says Gunvordahl of his abandoned teaching career. "Now, of course, they don’t hire old teachers. So it’s completely scary. I mean, I could wind up selling cheese at the Bay. I’ve been very lucky, very fortunate to have had great jobs. But you never bank on them, they could dry up in a second."
The fear of cheese sales notwithstanding, Gunvordahl’s career has seen a dizzying array of opportunities, from serving as the head of the art department on the TV series North of 60 to designing the exhibit Blackfoot Life for a European and North American tour. From crafting the ominous lighting design of Boy Gets Girl to devising a scale-model city built for children, Gunvordahl has found his career has been anything but mundane.
"I look at my career and, where I suppose most people’s careers are a bit like a ladder – the corporate ladder – my career hasn’t been like that," he says. "My career has been spreading, getting broader and broader, covering more territory. I design museum exhibits that are travelling the world, I’ve designed a show for a cruise ship and now I’m doing an amusement park. How many other people get that opportunity? I think if you limit yourself and say ‘This is what I am,’ if you allow yourself to be categorized, you’re shutting the door to so many fabulous opportunities.
"So, when someone says, ‘Can you design an amusement park?’ I say, ‘Absolutely I can.’ Just don’t ask if I’ve ever designed one before."
To see a selection of Gunvordahl’s work, visit his website at www.beyonddesign.ca |
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