Don’t stop - just pause
Renée Salewski is a doer. Teacher, coach, writer, singer, director - stopping is not in her vocabulary. The opportunity to press “pause” hasn’t passed her by, either. We talked about talking a breath, watching and listening.
Who am I? I’m Renée Salewski. I’m a Canadian, cis-gendered female, who lives in Toronto and spent much of my grown up life in the UK. In broad terms, I create. So – I write, direct. I sing and act, thereby interpreting people’s work, which is still part of being a creative, I think? I teach, I mentor, I parent. That’s basically what I do, when you say “what do you do?” – and you’re thinking about the verb that describes what you do. Then my brain went to – “and I endeavor to take care of myself”. That should count… but that’s not really the descriptor that we tend to use when we’re telling people about ourselves, in a formal setting. I drink coffee, I drink cocktails and I eat good food!
In the arts – I’m a creative. I try not to describe myself as being anything, but doing things – so I appreciate the question about what do you do.
I find myself watching a lot and not particularly worrying about the hows, the whys, the whens, but the eventuality of just having something to say. When people have something important enough to say, they’ll find a way to say it. Especially when it comes to a live presentation. If it’s something that is going to be impactful and done in the way that that person expresses their creativity, what they want to express will be done live and in front of people – whether that’s five or fifty-five. I find myself thinking a lot about that and at what point am I going to be thinking - this is something I want done in front of others and here goes!
How am I going to make that work? If I’m directing a project, how do I make sure my artists are safe? I find myself pondering how to get back to people experiencing live things in a safe environment, but also, how do we artists work together? Because it’s one thing to say – oh, people need art, they need their audiences – but that can’t be the be-all. My need or anyone else’s need to have our work seen or our voices heard cannot come before the safety of the artists who are going to interpret that work. And at the same time, there is the need of those artists to create and to find a way for everyone to come together…
It’s also important to remember that change is a wonderful thing. I’m not going to say that this is any sort of “yay”, I’m not going to say that this is some sort of wonderful blessing – not in any way. But – remember - this is what the arts do – they tell stories. This story is going to get told. How it gets told remains to be seen and in what form. You know – maybe I’ll be hiring some strapping young people to pull my cart around and go from house to house! Travelling theatre from house to house! I have no objection to that!
As a teacher, teaching on line is not proving an issue for me or my studio. We are doing very well. I think a lot more care needs to be taken around the mental and emotional health of the people I’m working with and their careers and how they’re feeling. If they don’t feel like singing, do you encourage them to sing, do you push them to sing? Or do you let them do what they need to do? And when you are caring for twenty or more people in that way, you start to wonder if you should devise some sort of an emotional checklist system for them to check in easily. For the most part, my studio is made up of young graduates. I find myself quite concerned with how they’re coping and what I can do to guide them through this.
There is a tendency in this time to go “ohhh – this is the PERFECT time to work on this and that and you have ALL the time…” Do we really, though? I know I have less time. I have two ten year olds at home to homeschool, on top of teaching, on top of my partner working full time from home. It’s actually a busier time for me. I know, for a lot of people, they’re very busy creating at home and putting things out there. If that’s giving them a sense of purpose and a sense of forward movement in their lives, they should absolutely be doing that. If they’re doing it out of a sense of desperation, to just keep things moving and to stay visible, then I get a little concerned. You can’t help but see it all – it’s just all out there! You start wondering – I actually start wondering - is everyone alright? It’s very difficult – do we press pause? Everyone is going to be different.
I was supposed to sing yesterday for my building and I practiced and I was excited and it was just for fun. I’m singing songs that I don’t normally sing, because – why not?! My allergies said otherwise. I decided that with all the teaching I had to do in the week, I would not sing. Even though it was a two minute song. I said to my partner – “Augh! It’s only two minutes!”. He said – “if you were one of your students, would you tell them to sing?” and I said no, I’d tell them not to bother and to sing a couple more next week or something. But I felt guilty, because this is something that we’re all doing and I’m going to stand on my balcony and not contribute? If it were a concert and the voice cut out five minutes before, you’d probably just take some steroids and do it. I’m not going to take a bunch of steroids to sing on my balcony. I didn’t sing. But this wave of guilt and emotions – what is going on? It’s just a two minute Strauss song!
I said yes to these balcony concerts because – at first I thought it would be something to cheer people up. I was very careful to choose songs that were full of coloratura and happy and not in any way languid. My next door neighbour, who’s 97 now - I think I do it just for him because it makes him happy. I see these posts saying “when will we ever perform again?!” and I think – I’ve actually sung more in front of people since this started than I have in forever! I’ve learned more new songs for a reason!
There are certain neighbours who really love the music that we’re presenting and t makes them feel better. And I’ve really enjoyed learning songs. I’ve made a point of learning songs that I’ve loved too much to sing and just singing them and not worrying about it. And actually having a really nice time doing it. So – that’s why I do that and will continue to do that. It’s not just “something to do”, it’s something really fulfilling. It’s a real sense of community – our building has really come together. Neighbours are coming out on purpose, masks on and distancing. We went to the front of the building and cars stopped. There are certain things that wouldn’t have happened that are happening now.
To my point earlier about showing up in front of people’s house to do a play, or the concert or the one-act opera or whatever – what’s to say that that can’t be part of the “solution”? Things being shutdown sucks but they’re shut down for a reason. And they will resume when it’s okay for everyone. Not when it’s okay for someone’s bottom line.
I think I’m going to get a lot better at film and directing remotely – just for now, I’d say. I think that is something I can to offer to people – if people are going to continue to make all of these videos from home of themselves singing, well, it’s an opportunity for them to work through that whole character for that aria and maybe direct those snippets for people. I would really like to do that with people. And even duets, when they’re doing things remotely – we can sort out eyelines, we can pass things to each other. As we’ve seen from those amazing stunt videos, it’s very doable to this very well, even when people are just “farting around”! I’m going to have to - no, I choose to develop a new skill set. Direct remotely and coach people from home.
I don’t feel as if I’ve stopped. I feel as though some projects that I was excited about are not going to happen for a while. I haven’t stopped. It’s different. I’ve been pretty stoic about the whole thing and naturally so, because I do feel that – as I said earlier – it’s going to be the job of the people who want to tell it, to interpret all this and have it reflected in all their future work. Especially if this has been something that has affected them. I think it’s something that is going to be reflected in everyone’s work. But, if you don’t take the time to be there and notice it and you’re busy scurrying around, just trying to be out there, you may not notice it. So, I think, if I have stopped, it’s to experience and try to understand what other people are going through, so that I can accurately reflect it.
What she said…