Unlike many of the more conventional movements of the past, Occupy is unique in several distinct ways. It is leaderless, democratic, highly inclusive (with the central slogan being “We are the 99%”), community-building, DIY (do-it-yourself), it targets corporate oppression and it has staying power. It is also extremely theatrical.

Indeed, the central symbol of the movement is a mask; the infamous V-for-Vendetta mask signifies “Anonymous”, an anti-oppressive Everyperson, whose computerized voice frequently expresses solidarity with activists and encourages their important work.

Born in this Occupy movement are several new techniques that fall into the category of theatre activism, or the use of drama and theatricality for activist purposes, such as awareness-raising or direct intervention.  Here’s a list of some of the latest theatrical innovations to come from the Occupy Movement, as well as some dramatic strategies for the future.

MIC CHECK: This voice projection technique was allegedly created after megaphones and other projection equipment were prohibited at Zuccotti Park. To project the voice, a speaker announces “mic check”, which is repeated by the crowd, then proceeds to relay a message in sentences, which the crowd repeats it in unison and at a high volume, in order for everyone to hear. The mic check technique has since moved on to corporate locations where it has been used by activists to challenge corporatist discourse and help unionization drives at places like Walmart.

ROBIN HOOD TAX: Occupy protesters have been demanding a “Robin Hood Tax” on speculative corporate transactions – $1.3-trillion that’s sloshing around the global casino each day – to “fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world”. To theatricalize the message, roving bands of actors dressed as Robin Hood have been taking the message to financial districts around the planet.

TENT MONSTERS: One of the central reasons encampments of the Occupy Movement have been consistently attacked by police forces across the globe is because they allegedly broke anti-camping by-laws and other ordinances against staying in parks overnight. Politicians across the world have tended to agree that activists may express themselves so long as they do not occupy space, viscerally challenging the core message of the movement by invoking insignificant by-laws. In Melbourne, Australia, Occupiers created an ingenious “tent monsters” plan, a scheme that transformed tents into costumes and a playful  performance that left the police outwitted.

HUMAN RED CARPET: This holiday season, several dozen Occupy DC protesters rolled out the human red carpet for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s holiday party at their Washington, DC headquarters. The Chamber is the nation’s largest corporate lobby group. As guests entered, protesters shouted, “You walk on our rights, now walk on us!” encouraging attendees to trample on the activists laying underneath the red carpet painted with “99%.” A man dressed in business attire encouraged the participants to walk all over the people, suggesting they do so on a regular basis.

BANK THEATRE: Activists have re-appropriated Danger Tape and created “Occupy Tape” and “Foreclosure Tape”, then went about, playing anti-corporate ninjas, and “foreclosing” banks as theatrical gestures of culture-jamming. Meanwhile, in London, England, Occupiers actually managed to occupy a real bank by citing the UK’s liberal squatting laws, and created The Bank of Ideas as an anti-corporate community space from the failed UBS banking enterprise.

Here are some further suggestions to continue facilitating theatre activism and the human right to Freedom of Expression within the Occupy movement and beyond:

SPEAKER’S CORNER: One good way to ensure police cannot harass or molest protesters is to install a Speaker’s Corner, preferably a permanent one with the blessing of city officials. In Montreal, where Occupiers took over Square Victoria until evicted by police, McGill University Professor John Gradwell has intensified calls for a permanent Speaker’s Corner. While Montreal Cultre Minister Helen Fotopulos has been promising one for years (since the beginning of the Iraq war, in fact), there has been no action despite recent announcements that a Speaker’s Corner would be opened on Mount Royal, at the Gazebo, to honour author Mordecai Richler. Inexplicably, when Occupy protesters showed up to try and use the area to express themselves, they were evicted yet again by the police. Is the Culture Minister merely paying lip service to a permanent Montreal Speaker’s Corner? Ask her – Helen Fotopulos can be reached at hfoto@videotron.ca.

INFRINGEMENT FESTIVAL: The infringement festival draws together like-minded artists and activists for creative performances and events that challenge the oppressive status quo, all in a community setting that is free from corporate interference. Originally designed to protest the corporate takeover of the Fringe Festival (the words “fringe” and “fringe festival” were actually trademarked in Toronto in 1998), the infringement festival now exists as a tool to empower artists and communities in several cities such as Montreal, Buffalo, Brooklyn, and Hamilton.

Given that the Fringe Festival has been excluding and censoring artists who object to their questionable financial policies, the infringement festival offers a much-needed antidote and alternative to this glaring corporate takeover of activist culture and arts. For information on empowering your community by starting your own infringement festival, see the help guide book. For those in Montreal, the 2012 infringement festival will run June 14 – 24, and  organizing meetings will be held at 7pm every Wednesday in 2012, at L’Escalier, starting January 11th. Artists and activists are all welcome!

With the Occupy Movement in its infancy, acts of cultural resistance will continue to develop and pioneering strategies of theatre activism are bound to emerge. These are very exciting times for activism – and theatre!

Optative Theatrical Laboratories is also marking 2011 as a special year because it is the 10^th anniversary of being kicked out of the Fringe Festival. In 2001, OTL show Car Stories became the only show in the history of Fringe theatre to be kicked out of a festival, on orders of a corporate sponsor. The trend to corporatize the Fringe began in 1998 when a Toronto-based  organization called CAFF trademarked the word “Fringe” in order to sell products such as “T-shirts, caps, brochures, programs, posters and mugs.” In addition to becoming trademarked, the Fringe began charging “service fees”, insisting that artists “pay to play”, and allowed a flood of corportae sponsors and advertisers to take control of the agenda. Artists were horrified that an authentic, community-based event could be so easily co-opted. The realization that corporations now took precedence over artists at the Fringe Festival sparked local Montreal theatre activists to create the international infringement festival movement. A network of festivals in cities across the world, it was designed to protect culture from corporate abuse, to highlight arts activism and critical thinking, to challenge the idea that the arts need to be co-opted in order to “succeed”, and to demand the democratization (instead of corporatization) of the arts.

It is a fitting time for reflection because Montreal is currently witnessing a Cultural War of unprecedented proportions, pitting local artists and citizens against powerful corporate forces that are attempting to transform Montreal into the equivalent of Times Square or Disneyland. Corporations that have been spamming the city with visual pollution, co-opting the festival scene for advertising purposes, and attempting to destroy heritage buildings and living culture in the Red Light District, amongst other oppressions. It has reached such a point of saturation that Montrealers of all stripes are starting to take charge of the situation and  fight back! Indeed, the art of infringing has even spread to the Canadian Parliament, where rogue page Bigitte DePape recently culture-jammed the opening Throne Speech of the right-wing Harper government.

For its 8^th edition, running from June 16 to 26, the Montreal infringement festival is celebrating by joining the good fight! Celebrating Freedom of Expression, activist performances and a broad range of eclectic, independent, and controversial art of all forms, the Infringement Festival is modelled on the original 1947 Edinburgh Fringe, which was an artistic protest against corporate elitism and exclusion of local artists.

Artists and audiences of all backgrounds are invited to create a charged environment where people come together to take chances, push boundaries, explore uncharted territory, and to do so without corporate interference or having to pay any fees. Designed as an arts democracy, the Infringement Festival empowers communities, artists, and audiences to take charge of the culture and to use it as an incredible tool for social justice.

Set mostly in the Plateau, Mile-End, and Quartier des Spectacles, this year the festival features over 50 shows and events, including street theatre, experimental performances, visual arts, music, spoken word, strange picnics and new activist films.

OTL is very pleased to offer these seven unique projects for the Montreal infringement festival. One common theme that links the projects is Oppression vs. Activism in the City. The projects all highlight what Montrealers are doing to stop corporate harassment, reclaim public space, protect living culture and demand positive social change and justice in the city.

OTL’s 2011 infringement schedule

Greening Montreal Walking Tour and Picnic (Sat, June 18, 11am)

Plan an afternoon of green ecological delights with hosts Melanie Leavitt and Donovan King. Discover hidden and unique initiatives to green Montreal, and enjoy a secret urban garden picnic where everyone is invited to share foods. Starting in the community-created garden of the Masion de l’Amitié, the tour visits green alleys and rooftops, guerrilla gardens, and other urban ecological projects. Bring food and wine to share!

Saturday, June 18, 11 am sharp, at the Friendship Garden of Maison de l’Amitié, 120 Duluth Street east. Bilingual.

Pique-nique et visites guidées des espaces verts de Montréal

Venez passer l’après-midi rempli de plaisirs écologiques en compagnie de vos deux guides, Melanie Leavitt et Donovan King. Vous aurez l’occasion de découvrir une variété d’initiatives uniques et bien cachées créées en vue de faire de Montréal une ville plus verte qu’elle ne l’était. Vous serez invités à un pique-nique qui se déroulera dans un jardin communautaire de la Maison de l’amitié, et se poursuivra dans des endroits urbains écolos tels que des ruelles et des toits et des jardins « guerrillas. »
Nous vous prions d’apporter du vin et des la nourriture à partager!

Montreal Red Light District Walking Tour (Sat, June 18, 4pm)

Join burlesque queen Velma Candyass and cultural worker Donovan King on a walking tour of Montreal’s storied Red Light District. This tour looks at the Red Light District from the days of New France through the Victorian era to Prohibition and right up the 21^st Century, and the unsuccessful attempts by various authorities over the centuries to control, destroy, or re-brand the area.

Saturday, June 18, 4 pm, Starts at Midway Bar & Salon, 1219 boulevard Saint-Laurent. In English. $10

Visites guidées du Red Light de Montréal

Joignez vous à la reine du burlesque, Velma Candyass et guide culturel Donovan King qui vous guidront dans une visite du quartier Red Light de Montréal. Dans le cadre de la visite, on vous présentera l’histoire du quartier Red Light en partant de la nouvelle France en passant période victorienne et la Prohibition. Nous aborderons également le 21^e siècle et les différentes tentatives de contrôle, de destruction et du rebranding de ce quartier par les autorités. En anglais.

Car Stories (Sun, June 19, 2pm – 6pm, new shows every 30 minutes)

June 19^th is famous in countercultural circles – it is the day Car Stories got kicked out of the Fringe Festival on orders of a corporate sponsor in 2001. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this cultural disaster, Car Stories is rumoured to be booking a limousine! The one-day-only show starts in the Parc des Amériques, the site where Car Stories was originally expelled from the Fringe Beer Tent in 2001. It is sure to be a theatrical joyride of unprecedented proportions – for only three spectators at a time!

Sunday, June 19, 2 – 6pm, Starts in the Parc des Amériques, Corner of St. Laurent & Rachel. Pay-what-you-can. RSVP early (optatif@gmail.com)!

Le 19 juin est reconnu dans le milieu artistique de contre-culture. Ce jour là en 2001, Car Stories a été retiré du festival fringe à la suite des directions du commanditaire principal. Pour souligner le dixième anniversaire de cette désastre culturelle, on a entendu dire que l’évennement Car Stories allait réserver une limousine! Seulement durant une journée, le spectacle débutera à la tente fringe où sera servie la bière.
Nous vous guarantissons une aventure théâtrale de proportions gigantesques, et
qui ne pourra acceuiller que trois spectateurs à la fois!

King’s Birthday (Sunday June 19, 2 – 6pm)

Join the party and celebrate infringement festival creator Donovan King’s 39th birthday with beer, cake, and infringing!

Sunday, June 19, 2 – 6pm, Parc des Amériques, Corner of St. Laurent & Rachel

Célébrons le 39e anniversaire du créateur du festival infringement Donovan King avec de la bière, du gâteau, et du infringing!

Inaugural Grassroots Arts Leadership Award (Sunday June 19, 6pm)

OTL will be presenting the inagural Grassroots Arts Leadership Award (GALA) during the festival to honour a member of the Montreal Arts Community who has demonstrated leadership at the grassroots level and who shows potential ability to protect and enhance authentic Montreal culture.

A reminder that the deadline for Email nomination (optatif@gmail.com) is Saturday, June 18, 2011 at midnight. The Award will be presented on the afternoon of June 19th around 6 pm!

THE AWARD? A FREE TRIP TO THE BUFFALO INFRINGEMENT FESTIVAL!

The GALA winner will receive a free trip to the 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival (BIF) for a duration of their choice! Running from Thursday, July 28 — Sunday, August 7, the BIF is Western New York’s largest arts festival and is considered the most successful grassroots, community-based festival in the USA.

With no corporate interference or fees compromising the festival, the Buffalo Arts community blossoms each year with diverse, powerful, critical, and meaningful performances in an energised community environment that is protected from corporate interference! The Award-winner will have ample opportunities to learn from (and collaborate with) the best in the field of grassroots arts management!

Film – Shorts: A night of Cultural Resistance (Mon, June 20, 7:30pm)

Documentaries to be screened include OTL’s “Global Invisible Theatre”, as well as “Remembering Bagua”, “Mines Bases” and more! Pay-What-You-Can.

Monday, June 20, 7:30pm, XPression Gallery, 5334 De Gaspe, Suite
308

Infringement Therapy (Saturday June 25, 2 – 5pm)

Individual, couple, and group “clients” are given appointments for infringement therapy: after being diagnosed by a theatrical Doctor, they are prescribed an interactive, dramatic and therapeutic journey. The goal of infringement therapy is to purge the “clients” of their deepest, darkest oppressions, and empower them to transform their daily social reality!

Saturday, June 25, 2 – 3:30pm (appointments), Ends @ 5pm, Starts in the Parc des Amériques. In English. Pay-What-You-Can. RSVP by emailing optatif@gmail.com

Thérapie d’Infringement

Nous donnerons des rendez-vous aux individus, aux couples, et aux groupes pour assister à une séance de thérapie Infringement. Un docteur théâtrale dirigera la séance et préscrira une aventure intéractive, dramatique et thérapeuique. La visée première de cette thérapie est d’éliminer les oppressions les plus encrées et les plus sombres du patient. Ils auront par la suite le courage de transformer leur réalité sociale au quotidien! En anglais.

It is looking to be a red letter year for the infringement festivals, and OTL encourages you to support the amazing infringement artists who are putting on over 50 shows this year in Montreal – and over 700 in Buffalo, New York! Please spread the word. Join the infringement, and reclaim the culture!

Café Cleopatra hails from another era and symbolizes the city’s once thriving Red Light District. Situated within “The Main” historic site, everything about the Café Cleopatra, from its Victorian architecture, historic performance spaces, and ongoing burlesque shows, hails back to earlier times when Montreal’s Red Light District was booming, such as during the days of Prohibition. Located in the heart of Montreal’s new Entertainment district, the Quartier des Spectacles, and employing over 100 talented artists, the historic Café Cleopatra seemed like a major asset within Montreal’s culture, heritage, performing arts and tourism milieus.

However, beginning in 2008, developer Christian Yaccarini and the Société de Développement Angus (SDA) began purchasing nearby buildings, with the goal of buying up the entire block for a project called Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent. Ill-conceived from the beginning, the SDA’s plan called for the demolition of a block of Victorian heritage buildings located in “The Main” national historic site – in order to build an office tower.

The irony that SDA was planning on destroying several historic performance venues within the new Quartier des Spectacles was not lost on local working artists, who kept a close eye on the situation as they began mobilizing. Heritage activists joined in, observing the fact that “The Main” national historic site is guided by the policy that “initrusive elements must be minimal”.

The SDA systematically bought-out or relocated long-time resident businesses, devastating the living culture and heritage of the area and leaving a cultural vacuum in “The Main” national historic site. Irreplacable historic businesses were ejected, such as the famous Montreal Pool Room (in operation since 1912) and Épicerie Importations Main, Montreal’s first Middle-Eastern grocery store (established in 1924). Popular performance venues such as Katacombes, Opera, and Saints, crucial to the living culture of the area, were also shuttered and given the boot.

After gutting almost the entire block of its living culture, heritage, and business, the SDA ran into one final obstacle – the Café Cleopatra refused to sell. Owner Johnny Zoumboulakis said at the time: “This is a historic part of our city. It should be restored, revitalized, not just bulldozed. History, once you break it down, you don’t bring it back with an office tower. What we have now is the real thing. It’s our heritage, it’s part of our history.”

Not to be deterred, in January 2010, the powerful SDA teamed up with Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and his administration to appropriate the last remaining holdout, Café Cleopatra. By now the artists had assembled a “Save the Main”coalition of community stakeholders, artists, and intellectuals, and they began fighting back on various fronts. On the legal front, Zoumboulakis refused to negotiate with the SDA, and hired a lawyer.  Save the Main created a petition to save the café that garnered over 1000 signatures, and made their case through lobbying, the media and public consultation process.

On the cultural side, artists tried just about every trick in the book to save the Café. They created awareness-raising performances, lobbied politicians, and attended public meetings in burlesque costumes. They also created a viral video campaign that included critical parodies of the Tremblay/SDA alliance, and, when artists realized that politicians were not listening, they made pleas to heritage buff Prince Charles for his intervention, generating substantial media attention. Finally, the artists created a new urban plan for the area that repositioned Café Cleopatra as a major asset within the Quartier des Spectacles. The artists’ urban plan was presented by cultural worker Donovan King and burlesque performer Velma Candyass to City officials in May, 2010, as part of a PechaKucha series.

As the battle for hearts and minds dragged on over the summer, with legal costs mounting and Montreal’s brand image taking a beating in the press, it appears as though City officials began to reconsider their unpopular position.

In a December, the City of Montreal sent out a press release and and invited special guests to a cocktail party in the gallery of the new Maison du Festival, where plans for the future of the neigbourhhood were to be unveilled. Behind the scenes there had been a process whereby artists and community stakeholders were able to express their opinions, and the event signalled the culmination of these consultations, and recommendations for future action.

At the event City officials conceded that the artists’ vision of the Lower Main had lots of merit, and even issued a booklet about the envisioned future of the area that incorporates many of the artists’ ideas. Interestingly, 7 of the 11 recomendations are directly related to Save the Main’s new urban plan. The document calls to “re-establish commercial activities (Principle 2)…maintain the area’s diversity (Principle 5)…rennovate the buildings (Principle 6)….commemorate history (Principle 7)…highlight existing cultural institutions (Principle 8)…promote a multi-functionnal area with nighlife (Principle 9)…and to encourage quality, audacious architecture (Principle 11).” It appeared as though the artists were finally being listened to.

Finally, on Thursday March 10, in a flip-flop of enormous proportions, the City of Montreal announced that it would no longer seek to expropriate the Café Cleopatra, effectively ending the lengthy (and expensive) legal battle. Likewise, the SDA must now work around the Café Cleopatra, with spokeswoman Genevieve Marsan saying: “We don’t have a choice.”

Artists are ecstatic now that the Café Cleopatra is safe, and reaffirmed their support for the historic Red Light District and its preservation on CTV News.

The lesson learned is that artists need to be proactive and create superior visions for our society, because, as this case so clearly illustrates, nothing is safe when corporate powers get into bed with government officials. Given that this is a systemic problem across the globe, artists need to be bolder and more persuasive than ever before, and must challenge oppressive behaviours and demand their right to be heard in the decision-making process. The fact that corporations, with the government’s support, can run amok in a national historic site, destoying culture and heritage, shows just how sick the society is.  Meanwhile, developers like the SDA need to realise that artists should be treated as valuable consultants to be included in the decision-making process, because not only can they provide better visions that will ulimately lead towards higher profits, but also because it is a really bad idea to get on the wrong side of artists, as this case so clearly illustrates. Finally, politicians need to wake up to the fact that the artists are currently doing their job, alebit unpaid, and they need to start taking their duties more seriously. To date, municipal, provincial, and federal governments have shrugged off protecting The Main national historic site, each of them passing the buck and denying responsibility.

In one final irony, Café Cleopatra, the symbol of the real Red Light District, was snubbed when glowing red lights were installed on the outside walls of all performance venues within the Quartier des Spectacles. The idea behind the design is specifically to recall the era of the Red Light District by illuminating venue sidewalks with pools of red light.

After being snubbed initially, perhaps now the Café Cleopatra will finally get its own red lights to indicate it is, most definitely, a part of Montreal’s new Quartier des Specatcles - and a unique window into the city’s Red Light heritage at that!

To celebrate, a Victory Party and burlesque show (hosted by the fabulous Reena) is planned at Café Cleopatra on Saturday, March 26. A $5 donation is suggested, and the burlesque show starts at 9 pm (doors open open at 8). Everyone who supports local culture, heritage, and burlesque entertainment is invited to raise a glass, celebrate, and hear about the artists’ next step in saving “The Main” national historic site from further devastation – and demanding their say in the development of the Quartier des Spectacles!

The Montreal infringement festival is moving into high gear and is beginning preparations for its 2011 edition. Now in its 8th year, the festival celebrates activist performances, critical discourse and a wide variety of infringement arts. Artists and audiences of all backgrounds are invited to create an anti-oppressive environment where people come together to take chances, push boundaries, explore uncharted territory, and challenge the omnipresent corporate worldview and all its spamming of the culture.

Optative Theatrical Laboratories is proud to work with individual and group collaborators (such as the FTB collective) to organize the annual festival of culture-jamming, activist arts, experimental performances and a wide variety of events, all created by a diversity of people with important messages to get out. With no censorship, no fees to participate, no unethical sponsors, and no corporate environment, this is a true Do-It-Yourself festival that is designed to empower people through the arts and reclaim culture. Infringement is also a stark reaction to the corporate takeover of the Fringe movement, which began with the trademarking of the word “Fringe” in 1998.

MONTREAL INFRINGEMENT NOW SEEKING COLLABORATORS!

The Montreal festival is currently seeking collaborators, and anyone who agrees with festival’s mandate is most welcome to participate. Infringement collaborators do everything from making art, producing shows, handling media, booking venues and advising artists to culture-jamming and  building the infringement movement, a global network designed to reclaim culture and democratize the arts.

In Montreal, the dates have been set from Thursday, June 16 to Sunday, June 26, 2011. There are currently meetings every week for collaborators interested the festival, which are held every Monday at 6:30pm at the artsy “Resto Bar Culturel” L’Escalier (522 Ste. Catherine Est, metro Berri-UQAM).

All are welcome to drop by, meet the Circle of collaborators, and learn more. For more information or to RSVP your place at the meeting, please email optatif@gmail.com!

BUFFALO INFRINGEMENT

The Buffalo infringement Festival is a “non-profit-driven, non-hierarchical grassroots endeavor bringing together a broad range of eclectic, independent, experimental, and controversial art of all forms.” Taking place in multiple venues in and around Buffalo’s Allentown District, the festival is an annual eleven-day event running from the last weekend of July through the first weekend of August. Visual, theatrical, performing, musical, and media arts are all welcome here.

This year the incredible Buffalo infringement festival runs from July 28 – August 07. For those planning on going this summer, the deadline for your online proposal/submission is May 1:

http://infringebuffalo.org/submit/

BROOKLYN & HAMILTON INFRINGEMENTS

There are also newer infringement festivals being staged in Brooklyn and Hamilton, Ontario this year! Brooklyn infringement, now in its 3rd edition, runs from May 19-22, 2011. Please note that the deadline for submissions is March 30.

The Hamilton infringement festival will be announcing their dates and other information soon. “Entering our 2nd year, we’re seeking input from all interested parties,” says festival founder Gary St. Laurent.

He adds: “We’re hoping to be bigger and make a statement that we’re here to stay. Let’s nail the Hammer! All who are interested can contact me at Gary@infringementfestival.com or 905-512-1964.”

DO-IT-YOURSELF INFRINGEMENT!

Infringement festivals have been held in various cities across the globe since 2004. In addition to the 2011 circuit, festivals have been held in places as diverse New York City, Regina, Ottawa, Toronto, and even Bordeaux in France! At the root of each festival is always at least one dedicated person with a will to bring the infringement movement to their community.

As a Do-It-Yourself festival, collaborators are always welcome to create news festivals anywhere in the world, and there is even a guidebook explaining how to do it. Please spread the word – and the global infringement movement!

Stay tuned to this blog and www.infringementfestival.com for updates and information!

To mark the 10th anniversary of CAR STORIES’ ejection from the so-called “Fringe” festival, the OTL has decided to try and collect the ticket sales it was defrauded of over 10 years ago. It appears as though Jeremy Hechtman, the man responsible for transforming the Fringe from a grassroots community event into a corporate feeding trough, is finally stepping down this year. Filling those capitalist shoes is Amy Blackmore, a long-time Fringe afficianado and talented artist. The question on the minds of many artists in the community is whether she intends to continue with the corporate program that has essentially destroyed what was once one of the city’s most poular grassroots festivals, or if she has enough courage and vision to restore the festival to a semblance of its former self. OTL decided to ask her, and sent the following letter:

———–

Dear Amy Blackmore,

Congratulations once again on taking over responsibility for the Montreal Fringe Festival from Jeremy Hechtman. As the only artists ever kicked out of any Fringe Festival (by Hechtman in 2001), we feel that we are in a unique position to offer constructive criticism directed at improving the Fringe Festival, and indeed encouraging it to return to its original grassroots approach. We are keeping a close eye on developments, and are extremely hopeful that you will do a better job respecting the rights of artists and the local theatre community for the duration of your mandate.

Unfortunately, your new post does not come without baggage. As you may recall, 10 years ago our show (Car Stories)  was ejected from the Fringe festival, according to Jeremy Hechtman because we offended then-sponsor The Gazette by writing a satirical critique of their theatre critic Pat Donnelly, who cancelled all Fringe festival reportage until we were given the boot. Hechtman also stated that The Gazette had threatened to withdraw $15,000 in sponsorship money, making it very clear that The Gazette was in a conflict-of-interest as both corporate sponsor and media responsible for covering the event. It became very clear in 2001 that the artists at the Fringe now played second fiddle to corporate sponsors, effectively negating the concept of the original festival (which was activist in nature).

Furthermore, Jeremy Hechtman refused to pay us the ticket sales Car Stories earned for the week run before it was ejected ($822.00) or the projected sales from the sold-out run (around $1000), nor did he reimburse our “application fee” of $253.06 which was required simply to appear in the Fringe schedule (we brought our own venue). Ten years later, with accrued interest, we figure the Fringe Festival you are inheriting still owes the artists it defrauded in 2001 close to $5000.00. We have the documentation to prove our claim, which we can put online if you like to ensure there is no confusion as to what actually happened.

I am asking you firstly, as the new Fringe Festival director, to reimburse us fully for the amount owed. Secondly, I know our artists are still waiting for an apology regarding their shabby treatment at the hands of the Fringe in 2001. Lastly, if you meet these conditions, we at the infringement festival would be happy to consider forming a new relationship with the Fringe, this time based on mutual respect and potential collaboration for dealing responsibly with artistic issues in the community.

Please understand that for authentic fringe artists like us, 10 years is a long time to wait for what is owed. As such, if I do not hear back from you by June 18, I will have no choice but to send theatrical “Collection Agents” to the Fringe festival to try and collect our ticket sales money. On June 19, 10 years ago, Jeremy Hechtman told us we were being kicked out of the Fringe. It is a day artists will never forget, and, failing the immediate reimbursement of our money, it is the day we plan to raise a theatrical ruckus at the Fringe beer tent to remind everyone about the corruption still affecting the current Fringe.

I truly hope you will do the right thing and get in touch immediately to work out a payment plan, or at least to try and explain your own position. We are flexible, and can avert the (very public) theatrical protests/media campaign if you demonstrate a serious commitment to resolving this issue in a timely manner. I can be reached at 514-842-1467 or via email. I hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Donovan King

——-

It should be noted that Ms. Blackmore did respond promptly and in a  courteous manner, but she did not deal with any of the issues or arrange a plan to rectify the situation. Speculation is rife that as the “co-producer” with Hechtman (for this year only), she does not actually wield any poltical clout (yet).

The OTL has responded, as promised, with a theatrical campaign to collect the ticket sales and spur social justice.

COLLECTION AGENCY is a piece of Do-It-Yourself theatre whereby those wishing to participate create and assume a theatrical “Collection Agent” character, and proceed to investigate 3 dramatic people or companies to collect what is owed. Using primary documents within a theatrical matrix that includes both the Fringe and the infringement festival, the first participant to collect from all three people or companies wins a $500.00 prize (or 10% commission on what the fringe owes OTL). To participate, find someone at the Fringe beer tent distributing the instructions and documentation, or download them. The Documents:

Collection Agency P2 (Collection #1)

Collection Agency P3 (Collection #2)

Collection Agency P4 (Collection #3)

Collection Agency P5 (Media article about Car Stories, 2001)

Collection Agency P6 (the letter that got OTL kicked out of the Fringe)

Collection Agency P7 (letter from Levack, resigning from OTL and begging media to restore coverage. Note it is CCed to Jeremy Hechtman)

Collection Agency P8 (media article from The Gazette about show’s expulsion)

Collection Agency P9 (letter to Fringe from Car Stories artists for box office sales and compensation)

Collection Agency P10 (letter from Hechtman refusing, note he claims he received “no documentation whatsoever” about Levack’s resignation from OTL – he was CCed the resignation in document #7.

Collection Agency P11 (media report from Ottawa Citizen about the scandal)

The first “Collection Agent” to collect all three should email optatif@gmail.com to verify and collect the $500.00 prize!

With a bit of theatrical pressure it is entirely possible Ms. Blackmore will do the right thing and ensure the artists get their ticket sales from the Fringe festival – 10 years late is better than never!

AFTERWORD

OTL visited the Beer Tent the evening of June 20 to ask Ms. Blackmore in person if she had any intention of reimbusring the artists who had been defrauded by the Fringe festival. Ms. Blackmore offered “no comment” and referred us to someone named Geoff Agombar, who is apparently the Fringe’s PR hack (yes, the Fringe Festival actually has paid people on staff for things like damage control!) Mr. Agombar was not only extremely rude to the defrauded artists he met, but he was adamant that they were not to be refunded. In the frat party atmosphere that has become the trademark of the new Fringe, Mr. Agombar even referred to the infringement movement as “10 years of bullshit”.

Fringe Festival spokesmen Brand (left) & Agombar (right)

Not to be outdone, Fringe Festival Board of Directors member Tristan Brand, himself directly implicated in the scandal in 2001, also dismissed the idea that artists should be paid their ticket sales.  

And thus the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival has squandered a rare opportunity to make amends, ensuring many, many more years of cultural resistance to their exploitative capitalist agenda.

Under the bright sun, Coppertone promoters gave pedestrians free samples of sunscreen while warning them about the problems caused by the sun’s ultra violet rays. They also invited people to have a free evaluation of their facial skin to test for existing sun damage. The test was administered by a man in a white laboratory coat in the shade beneath a Coppertone branded umbrella. He performed his test with a “diagnostic camera” which took one picture, developed it in two different ways laid out side by side. On the left, the picture appeared overexposed and hid any skin blemish and on the right, the picture was underexposed revealing every wrinkle and spot on one’s face. The diagnosis was performed by comparing the two pictures. The man pointed out skin abnormalities from the underexposed picture. If he found skin problems participants were told that they could prevent further harm by using Coppertone products. If he found no damage, people were told to use Coppertone to prevent future skin problems.

Instead of thanking Coppertone for caring so much about my well being, I approached the Coppertone display to ask some very important questions. Why was Coppertone so concerned about my skin? Do they truly care or is this another marketing ploy to brand the Coppertone name? Is their diagnosis real or is it a sales tactic? How qualified is the man giving the diagnosis? I know that sun exposure can cause skin damage, but can Coppertone really protect me? Does Coppertone contain any ingredients which cause skin damage? These questions induced a little panic in the Coppertone promotion team. I guess the presence of my camera man didn’t help. Though, I didn’t get to the bottom of all these questions, I did discover some awful truths about their campaign.

Since the promoters didn’t work for Coppertone it was hard to find out anything about their products. Coppertone paid actors and event organizers from New Ad, a marketing company who delivers young people to corporations, and a nurse from Quality Health Services LTD. The nurse alleged that he could not make any formal diagnoses because he was not a doctor. In fact, none of the promotional staff could not answer any questions about how the product worked, how it was made, what ingredients were in the sunscreen or if any ingredients used in the sunscreen were harmful.

Like the glare of the sun, light shed on the true intentions of Coppertone’s promotional spectacle. Coppertone’s campaign was not designed to help people but to scare them.  If someone is told that they may develop skin cancer because they are not well protected from the sun, they should be more likely to take advice from the street promoters and apply Coppertone sunscreen. Furthermore, if people are told they have skin problems from someone that resembles a doctor, they may be scared enough to use Coppertone more frequently so the ‘damage’ doesn’t escalate, especially if the Coppertone name is associated with cancer prevention. If Coppertone was really concerned about people’s skin, they would have hired real doctors to make real medical assessments instead of contracting a nurse from Quality Health Services LTD who can only provide an unprofessional opinion. He only told me he was a nurse and that he was not making an actual diagnosis after I inquired. Those who didn’t ask may have assumed he was a doctor giving valid evaluations, prescribing Coppertone to prevent skin cancer.

If Coppertone sunscreen really prevented skin cancer, my argument could be moot. Maybe a little scare for something healthy wouldn’t be so bad after all. These tactics are commonly used in anti-smoking and anti-drinking and driving commercials. The main problem is that Coppertone sunscreen does not do very well in research conducted by independent sources.

In 2008, the Environmental Working Group conducted an investigation of nearly 1 000 brand name sunscreens. This report concluded that none of Coppertone’s 41 sunscreens met the Environmental Working Group’s criteria for safety and effectiveness. Coppertone was accused of using dangerous ingredients including Oxybenzone, which is reported to be a possible cancer causing agent (for a comprehensive list of harmful ingredients used by Coppertone, follow this link).

The other sources of research on Coppertone products are conducted and/ or  sponsored by Coppertone themselves. The Coppertone Solar Research Center is responsible for testing Coppertone’s sunscreen for safety and effectiveness. This center was opened in 1971 and is described by Coppertone as the world’s largest state of the art facility for testing the quality of their sun-care products. In addition, the Coppertone Research Fund was established to provide financial support for dermatology research in Canada. Research on Coppertone sunscreen is mainly conducted by their research center through their charity fund, a blatant conflict of interest. In addition, they hire promoters, like those at the Mainfest, who cannot answer basic questions regarding the safety or effectiveness of their sunscreen.

Coppertone’s Mainfest masquerade came to an end when members of the Optative Theatrical Laboratories drew attention to the hypocrisy of associating Coppertone sunscreen to cancer prevention, especially by promoters who know nothing about the product. Since Coppertone paid actors to promote their sunscreen at the Mainfest, we intervened by sending in actors of our own. Because of the insincerity of their campaign, they were culture jammed. Here is what transpired:

early cultural appropriation: the Boston Tea party

This event taking place in several cities around the US today, is scheduled to coincide with American tax day and is modeled on the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773 where a group of colonists threw tea into the waters of Boston Harbor in protest of the British Parliament’s desire to tax them.  Not only was this an early example of cultural appropriation (the colonists who threw the tea overboard were dressed in Native garb) but the event that many consider sparked the American Revolution and eventually led to independence from Britain.

Now, the GOP is using this historic example of cultural appropriation as the basis for their appropriation of viral media and culture-jamming. This “collaborative grassroots effort” (yes, that’s what they’re actually calling it) involves people dumping the contents of coolers labeled “TEA” (stands for Taxed Enough Already) into bodies of water around the US.  Online, it almost looks like the real deal: there are several blogs all linking to a main page, viral YouTube videos, a live streaming broadcast and they’re even on Twitter and Facebook.

viral marketing for old ideas

When you look a little deeper, though, you’ll discover that this “new movement” is actually run by old Republican bosses and an attempt to slam Obama’s economic policies which actually cut taxes for all except the wealthy and make it look like he’s taking money away from your average American.  There’s even a YouTube video that ends with a little white girl pleading with the president to not steal from her piggy-bank.

That hasn’t stopped Fox News from jumping on the bandwagon, even to the point of denying that they are promoting the event and then, immediately following that assertion, promoting it, have a look:

While their bias in this case is not surprising, it is funny given their unconditional support of the Bush administration’s suppression of individual freedoms.

Regardless of your view on Obama and his policies, it is clear that this “rebellion” is one for more status quo, no matter how it looks online.  Let’s only hope that people can see through the façade.

She kept a journal from when she was a small child and continued writing before and during her trip to Palestine.  That, along with a series of e-mails she sent to her parents became the text of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play edited by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner.

It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London with actress Megan Dodds as Rachel and was an instant success.  Its American premier was scheduled to be in 2006 at The New York Theatre Workshop, but was abruptly cancelled, er, postponed, according to a statement.

The play and Rachel herself had become a symbol of what was happening to the Palestinian people that people in the west and in particular the United States could identify with.  She was a passionate and talented writer and her words humanized a situation that was distant for many.  This, for some, was dangerous.

A memorial to Rachel Corrie (2007)

“In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York,” artistic director James Nicola told the New York Times, “what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situationWe found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict that we didn’t want to take.”

Many in the New York theatre community and in communities around the world saw this as censorship for political reasons.  From underground artists to Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter, voices rose to oppose Rachel’s voice being silenced once again.  Some of the voices opposed to the censorship decided to start a viral theatre project called Rachel’s Words and placed some of Rachel’s e-mails from Palestine on the web and encouraged groups in communities around the world to read them on the anniversary of her death.  They did.

In Montreal, OTL staged Rachels Words with Rachel’s e-mails read by actress Cassandra Witteman.  This was preceded by The Words About The Words, a verbatim theatre script taken from all the raised voices in the media and online debating the censorship of the play from both sides.

video from the Montreal reading of Rachel’s Words (2006)

In addition to raising awareness about Rachel’s story and what people in Gaza were going through, Rachel’s Words raised money for The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.  The foundation hosts forums, gives out a scholarship and helps to finance projects such as The Rebuilding Project to rebuild the Nasrallah home that Rachel died protecting and The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project.  In general, it hopes to continue the work that Rachel began.  Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie sit on the board.

Despite the global outcry and show of solidarity, Rachels Words were censored again by CanStage in Toronto when they cancelled their proposed production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie for similar reasons as the NYTW later the same year.

The play eventually made its way to the New York stage when the Minetta Lane Theatre  finally staged it off-Broadway in October 2006 with Dodds as Rachel and was presented in Canada as a co-production between Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre and Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre in 2007 and 2008 with Adrienne Wong as Corrie.  It has since been staged in many different cities.

promo image for Neworld Theatre/Teesri Duniya production

Hardships and war in Gaza haven’t gone away, as was made perfectly clear with the bombardment a few months ago.  Neither have the voices speaking out against occupation and oppression, be they prominent or not.  Rachel’s voice is still among them.

On Monday, Theaters Against War and Rachels Words combined readings of Rachel’s e-mails wtih a reading of Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children written in response to the events in Gaza this past January.  They also ran some videos of those events as part of an evening in tribute to Rachel’s memory.  Musicians have written and continue to write songs about and for Rachel and artists and activists around the world still continue to mark her death and remember her life.  Many use the occasion to reflect not only on her and what she stood for but for those she fought and died to protect.

Rachel Corrie’s words are still with us and the world is better for it.

While the infringement may have been mentioned several times on this blog already and anyone who knows OTL has heard of the festival, we have never really discussed it in any detail in this space.  The sixth consecutive edition of the Montreal infringement will run from June 18th through 28th 2009 and is now accepting artist applications (and still looking for volunteer organizers and helpers), so what better time to try and answer the question of what may be in store.

In 2004, the infringement was created to offer a new way of doing things.  It was a bridge between the worlds of activism and the arts and its very first edition saw over 25 acts jump on board in just a few months, including Montreal playwright David Fennario, award-winning transgendered performer and writer S. Bear Bergman performing in a real bathroom and Car Stories, the interactive theatre piece that had sparked the creation of the festival after being kicked out of the corporate St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival.  It was clear that a festival rooted in resistance to oppression and offering a place for artists and activists with something to say to speak out was both needed and welcome in Montreal and later the same summer in Toronto.

original infringement logo

2005 proved that it was also a welcome and needed change south of the border in Buffalo, where a festival was established which is currently the biggest one in the circuit (it’s going into it’s fifth edition this summer) and in New York City, which hosted a one time event in Manhattan (and this year will play host to the first-ever Brooklyn infringement).  In Montréal the same year music came to the festival full-force.  There was one music show the last night in 2004 and by 05, music made up more than half of what was being offered.

In 2006, the theatre section of the Montreal festival featured Gary Corbin’s …four one-legged men, a show about four different characters, each with only one leg.  Corbin is himself disabled and had experienced many difficulties breaking onto the theatre scene until he eventually put together his own show and staged it at the Buffalo infringement the previous year.  This was also the first year that the festival built its own black box theatre space, with lights, sound and curtains.  The music section grew in Montreal and the festival spread to Ottawa and Regina and returned to Toronto.

Gary Corbin

The francophone side of the Montreal infringement grew significantly in 2007 thanks to Landriault and his Chansons a Double Dose series (which later became Le Maître Chanteur).  The same year, the first infringement on European shores happened in Bordeaux, France.  Over the years, the festival had always tried to challenge corporate intrusions on the Main during street festivals that ran at the same time and this year, the Reclaim the Main campaign was fully integrated into its culture-jamming framework in the form of the fake ad company PubPartout.

The francophone side grew again in 2008 when, for its fifth anniversary, the festival ran almost the whole month of June.  This year, the pre-season saw several infringement Socials in sections of the city where the fest had never operated before such as Griffintown and St-Henri.  The festival also drew international culture-jammers Kinetic Aesthetic from the UK who aided Reclaim the Main and performed their own piece Sleep Sitting Up, to highlight the plight of the city’s homeless.

Kinetic Aesthetic

If one thing is clear, it’s that while the fundamentals of being a critical alternative to corporate mainstream arts festivals remain, the specifics of the infringement change from year to year.  This is inevitable because the festival is a composite of its parts and those parts are brought by whoever is taking part that year.  Participants are encouraged to bring what they would hope to find.

So what’s the Montreal infringement festival going to be like this year? Why don’t you get involved and tell us.

In a nutshell, Car Stories is a play containing several shorter plays, a piece of street performance that is at the same time visible and invisible and a challenge to how we see both theatre and the cityscape we walk through every day.  While a good chunk of any given show will be improvised, either along the lines of a story outline or completely out of the blue, parts of it can be and frequently have been scripted as well.

Car Stories '04: Obstruction of Justice

An audience, usually three spect-actors at a time, assembles in front of the show opener in a public place (a bar, a park, etc).  When that actor lowers his or her Optative Glasses (just a pair of ordinary sunglasses) over their eyes, it’s like the curtain going up.  The show begins and the audience is now in a different, theatrical world.  The opener establishes the show’s theme and sends the audience off on a mission with an Urban Guide who walks them, in character, down a street or an alleyway to a parked car.  There are more actors waiting in the front seat of the parked car with a 10-15 minute scene.  The audience sits in the back, watches and sometimes partakes.  Afterwards, another guide picks them up and usually brings them to another car.  The show continues until the audience is brought to the closer who finishes off the story and removes their Optative Glasses, sending the audience back to the world they recognize.

The individual car stories are self-contained pieces as are some of the guide routes, but they are generally incorporated into, add to or at the very least are related to the overall theme of the show.  The theme stays the same for a run of the show, while the individual parts of it will inevitably vary.  No two shows are ever the same. We will frequently keep a theme alive for an entire season but occasionally we will have a spur-of-the-moment theme for a particular run adopted to respond to something that is happening and very prevalent, as we did for our Buffalo run in 2007.

Car Stories '07 promo shot

We generally perform the show several times in a day for different groups of spect-actors who not only experience watching a show, but are also part of an invisible performance for everyone else on the street.  In fact, one of the thrills for the audience is not knowing who is part of the show and who isn’t.  Performers in the show get to experience dealing with unpredictable players such as the audience and people passing by who don’t know that there’s a show on.

In addition to being a jam on what is considered theatre and our perception of the often corporate-branded public space in a general context, Car Stories has also included some more specifically-targeted jams into it’s story’s matrix.  In Montreal, we have sent the show through the Pharmaprix on St-Laurent Boulevard on more than one occasion as a challenge to their violation of the historic character of the street with their glaring corporate signage.  In 2006, the Montreal opening of our show had the spect-actors play PartyPoker partiers in a jam on PartyPoker.net’s temporary ownership of the lower half of the Main.

Loosely inspired by Car Show, a production from the Corn Exchange in Dublin, which has the plays in cars element but not the guided tour through the Urban Wonderland or much of the ontological jolting our show is known for, Car Stories was first staged in 2001 at the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, where it was promptly ejected for theatrically playing with a theatre critic who didn’t quite get the joke.  The critic worked for a corporate sponsor of the festival, the festival got nervous and the rest, as they say, is history.

Car Stories ran for the next few years on its own and in 2004 helped to spark and took part in the first infringement Festival in Montreal.  That summer, it toured to Ottawa and Toronto.  In 2005, it played the Montreal infringement again, the first edition of the Buffalo infringement Festival as well as in New York City’s infringement.  The next year, it played in the first Regina infringement and inspired a version in Denmark.

Car Stories Denmark

In 2006, it also returned to play the Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Buffalo infringement Festivals with its “Church of Capitalism” theme.  The Toronto edition of this show was turned into a 30-minute video from Guerilla Video Productions that follows one group of spect-actors from start to finish.  Car Stories isn’t a stranger to video.  The close quarters of performers and audience make this theatre show a nice fit for film and our shows have been caught on camera since 2004.

Three other shows have been given similar video treatments as the Church of Capitalism, still following the story from start to finish but flipping between different groups of spect-actors.  They are 2007’s les journées de la culture outing entitled The Last Greenspace, dealing with the real causes and effects of construction on boulevard St-Laurent, the Halloween-themed sCARe Stories of the same year and 2008’s JDLC show entitled The Search for Pure Water.  The latter was staged the end of September and the video version premiers online tomorrow night as part of the infringement TV launch which begins at 7pm eastern time.

Car Stories doesn’t show signs of being put into park anytime soon.  While our Montreal group will surely mount it again for this year’s infringement Festival, there is no reason why other groups in different communities around the world can’t do the same thing.

To watch The Search for Pure Water on infringement TV, tune into www.infringementfestival.com/tv on Thursday, January 22nd at 7pm eastern.

For more on the show and to find out how to get involved, keep checking www.optative.net/carstories or contact carstories@optative.net