>>PREVIEW
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Wednesday, October 12
Jack Singer Concert Hall (Epcor Centre)
Late one night last week, I had a conversation with a woman I had never met before about passion. She was an older woman, and as I sat in my sweatpants eating my Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs, I realized that although we had never spoken before, I had seen her and admired her many times. Her name is Anna Deavere Smith and she is a genius – a sage of intellect, culture and performance.
During our conversation, I convinced her to come to Calgary to spend some time with me. Now when I say "I," I mean the Alberta College of Art and Design, and when I say "to see me," I mean that she is coming as a guest of ACAD’s newly launched Institute for the Creative Process (ICP) and its first manifestation, the Stirring Culture speaker series, which is free and open to the public.
We need more discussions about cultural development and community advancement, and Smith is just the woman to spark the conversation. She’s won two off-Broadway theatre awards, two Tony nominations and a MacArthur Fellowship – known to the layman as the "genius grant." She’s currently a professor at New York University and is the founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard.
To the average person, however, she may be best known for her magnificent portrayal of Dr. Nancy McNally, the national security advisor on NBC’s The West Wing. Our conversation went a little something like this.
Fast Forward: Where in the world have you come across some of the most creative peoples; which groups, cultures, cities and countries?
Anna Deavere Smith: New York City for sure, and I have come across some incredible creativity as a result of the tragedies in Rwanda, suffering in Uganda, and have just recently returned from South Africa, where I saw some amazing cultural expression. I also remember South America and especially Brazil as a hotbed of performance artists.
What are the ingredients to that recipe of a creative, vibrant cultural city?
Its people. Not only the artists and the performers, but those who want to watch, those who want to support, to make a contribution. The whole place needs to demand creativity and become receptive to that creativity – a place that will watch it and fund it and pay for it.
Have you ever been to Calgary?
Not yet, this will be my first time.
What was your first memory of creativity and inspiration?
My mother was an elementary school teacher, so I remember watching shows and plays and dance recitals with people dressed in pink and purple, and thinking that was absolutely magical and I wanted to be a part of that world. We also had a French-Canadian woman with red hair come into an overwhelmingly black school and teach us French, so that was a fascinating doorway into a culture that was different from what I knew.
The themes of justice and morality continually permeate your work, especially your plays. How do you not give up knocking on this door and just resign yourself to all kinds of horrible shit going on?
Early on I was inspired by Dr. Cornell West (a Princeton professor, theologian, activist and author), who told me of the "blood-stained banner of struggle," how many people in the world have carried that banner and, in doing so, have raised the bar for the rest of us. Every one of us is capable of being a change agent – why give in to gravity until you have to? Until you are forced to make that final dive, why not stand up?
Anna Deavere Smith’s talk takes place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Free tickets are available at the Epcor Centre box office and the ACAD reception desk. They are also available through Ticketmaster for a $3 service charge. |
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