Ian Martens

The cast from Clean Slate get their names sorted ahead of the performance.

DETAILS

Sage Theatre's Ignite! Festival
Pumphouse Theatre
Thursday, June 10 - Saturday, June 12

More in: Theatre

When the conditions for a prairie fire have been building for a long time, a few sparks is all it takes. From modest beginnings, the flames can spread rapidly, far beyond their point of origin.

Such is the case with Ignite! Now in its fifth year, Sage Theatre's festival for up-and-comers has expanded in both size and intensity since its inception. It has evolved into a multidisciplinary display, giving artists of all kinds the chance to perform, present and also learn. This year for the first time, participants will have access to free workshops during the festival — part of its continuing focus on professional development.

The festival’s founders, Sage artistic director Kelly Reay and artistic associates Adrienne Smook and Geoffery Ewert, are veterans of NextFest, an Edmonton showcase for emerging talent. Inspired by that festival, its southern counterpart debuted in 2005, featuring five plays and 45 artists, mostly in theatre. Fuelled by steady growth, this year Ignite! will feature over 100 participants, in disciplines including dance, music and visual art. NextFest, which involves over 400 artists, still dwarfs it. But festival director Ellen Close believes the differences are about quality as well as quantity.

"We're not ‘NextFest Calgary,’" she says. "In some ways we're much more involved in providing support throughout the process. We're really conscious of trying to hook up teams with as many supports as they need to enhance their learning process, and there's a lot of emphasis on professional development."

Ignite!'s mentorship program matches festival participants with established members of Calgary's arts scene, in order to help them develop and stage their work. Mike Czuba, who recently moved to Calgary from Montreal, found this assistance invaluable in preparing for his first play in this city.

"It's great to have these experienced people in the community who've been here and done a lot of work, to be able to stop in," says Czuba, writer and director of Waiting on the Thunder. "It's really been great, because there's nothing in it for them."

But the relationship, Close believes, is a two-way street. She notes that artists often ask the program's co-ordinator if they can serve as mentors, something she attributes to generosity and the beneficial perspective it provides.

"Once you're put in a mentorship position, you have to find ways of articulating your own practice, and passing that on to someone else," she says. "And that can be meaningful in your own artistic life to have to say ‘Well, how would I approach this role and what kind of preparation would I do?’"

Close doesn't envision the festival growing any bigger, though she notes there's audience demand for a longer run. But she thinks it can still provide better learning opportunities for the artists, and may only achieve that if kept to its current size.

"I think it serves us to stay small," she says. "I think we want to be really careful about how we grow and really maintain those quality relationships, and the sense of professional development that's throughout the festival."

Close won't be involved in that process. After performing in the festival in its first year, and then becoming an assistant director before assuming her current position, she's finally moving on. But she believes the prospects are good for maintaining a vibrant, but controlled, creative blaze.

"It's really about looking at each of the disciplines in the festival and going ‘OK, how can we offer something that is currently lacking in the community?’" she says. "Trying to innovate within the structure of what we do to provide an opportunity that's unique and meaningful for every artist.”