Happy birthday to us!

We’re a year old! Ha! (Academy Award Acceptance Voice) - “We’d like to thank…” Everyone. Thank you for talking to us and sharing so generously. As we look back, what is most striking are the accurate predictions of a year in flux. We are celebrating with a few (!) quotes that have struck us with their honesty, vulnerability and inevitable strength. Here’s to a second year, exploring the enormity of now.

TIM MCCOY

We can ask for help if we need it.  We can be compassionate.  We can be gentle with ourselves and with others.  We can take life one day at a time.  We can know that life will return to normal.  We can be scientific in evaluating our situation.  We can be patient.  We can share our love.  We can seek out humour always.  We can meditate.  We can breathe.  We can do.  And we can be.

CATHERINE WYN-ROGERS

...the one thing that can bring me to tears is the thought of being able to hug my friends again.

FELIX CROSS

I need very little to create work; encouragement, money and deadlines, and a warm, quiet, private space, where I will not be interrupted until I’m ready to be interrupted. I need a desk, a piano, a guitar, a laptop and an agent. Working life in this lockdown therefore is no different from how it has always been.

PHILIP VENABLES

I sympathise very much with performers, whose music-making and livelihood is much more sociable (and therefore precarious at the moment), than my solitary version of music-making.  I have no idea what the future of live performance holds right now…

TONDERAI MUNYEVU

I think that one, big thing that is going to set it (the return to theatre) off, will happen.  It’s hard to predict what it will be.  But there’ll be one, big fuck off thing where everybody will be – “I don’t care what I get, I’m going!”  It’ll probably be football or something!

ERIC STERN

The essence of musicianship is togetherness.  If you don’t like working with people, be a painter or a novelist.  Music requires presence, synchronicity, proximity, inspirational interaction.

RENÉE SALEWSKI

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.

ADELE THOMAS

It was the first day of tech when the pandemic shut us down.

By tea break, we wondered if it would play beyond its first weekend.

By lunch, we wondered if the show would ever see a live audience.

By dinner, we were closed before we’d even opened.

It felt like standing next to an implosion. Next to negative space.

CHRISTIAN BALDINI

As a society, we must remain strong, positive, but also vigilant. We must be ready to help. Music feeds our souls like no other art form does. It accompanies us and enhances our lives in every moment, from dancing to healing, from mourning to celebrating.  Music making (and/or listening) is undoubtedly also one of our human needs; it is not a luxury.

TREVOR A TOUSSAINT

What is the purpose of performing?  Connection and growth and love and support.  Engaging.  Life. It’s an integral part of us.

INGRID MACKINNON

As a black woman, this conversation about racial inequality has always been spotlighted. In fact, the spotlight never dims.

ANDREW WATTS

We can not wait any longer. We have to take things into our own hands and rise up and make the case that culture, art and music is a vital part of society and community.

JAMES GARNER

We can collaborate sideways: seek out mutual support and bridge the voids between our own often isolated sectors and sub-sectors, from theatre and opera to dance and cultural heritage. And we can plan radically: to invent, as well as restore.

DOMINIQUE LEGENDRE

While I have little reason to believe this present government is the one that will usher in meaningful change that allows us to work together towards a future with respect, equality, consideration for our planet and justice at its heart, I know that things will not be the same. What we CAN do as artists, friends and people with integrity, is to insist on accountability, demand equality, press for the spaces where we too can be seen and heard and show that our difference is equal to all differences…just different.

CAROLE STENNET

If we can start to see change in the decision makers, legislation, have open and honest conversations, then we'll start to see change in our world.

KAREN VAN SPALL

Now that everything has gone quiet, I am searching for what it is I really want to do in the next phase of my life… I have discovered that the niggling, negative inner voice that criticised everything I tried to make and do was in fact a loud bellowing, outer voice and lockdown has shut it out.

TORIA BANKS

I mostly feel like being disabled by chronic illness has made it really, really hard to claim a professional artistic identity for myself in the way that some (non-disabled, middle class) people take for granted, and I’ve done what I can.

ANNA POOL

Perhaps, one day soon, my thought process can look something like:

Be excited about writing. 

Write.

Enjoy.

Repeat.

ELIZABETH KENNY

...looking into the revealed void of the last few months is making us all question what “the profession” looks like, and we do have an opportunity to re-negotiate the old hierarchies. There seems to be much more openness about sharing ideas on how to make musical survival possible.

HAZEL HOLDER

We have to make space in our hearts to listen to each other.  With our hearts.  Our hearts.  Because until we start to listen, until certain people start to really listen we can’t make steps towards change.

ELEANOR LEWIS

There’s just something about getting on that stage and, no matter who it is you’re performing to and no matter what that stage is, there’s something about going out, doing what makes you feel good and makes other people feel good as well – sharing emotion in one big room.

PETER BRATHWAITE

What I’ve learned [from it] is that I have to use my art to answer questions and fight for things that we’ve always been fighting for.

LAURA HUDSON

I think I will sing, no matter where I am in the world. If you put me at the South Pole, I'm sure I'll find a flock of penguins somewhere.

ADEBAYO BOLAJI

We may not be in physical galleries anymore or physical theatres any more.  That doesn’t mean that what’s coming through us stops.

LEA CORNTHWAITE

We’re social animals and that aspect of music is about being with other people.  It’s really important that that’s not left out… It’s more than just a hobby for some people.  It’s actually helped them stay well.

ROB BIRCH

It’s a weird time.  You have to maintain your mental strength and mental shape.  If you’re not surrounded by a little community of like-minded people where you can all thrive off of each other’s buzz, it can be a little tricky and you can start to go a bit – your envelope starts to shift.  It’s a bit odd out there.

LAURA ATTRIDGE

I’m a reasonably strong willed, intersectional feminist. I’m not perfect but I’m doing my best.

SÈVERINE HOWELL-MERI

I can love the act of reading a script or singing a song without an audience - that’s where my joy starts, but I don’t think theatre works without an audience.

SARAH TAYLOR ELLIS

...I am less invested in the digital possibilities at the moment. I don’t think there’s the same communal experience online.

TUNDE OLANIRAN

For me, it’s been a journey to help reframe, for other people as well as for myself, an understanding that being an artist can and should be like any other work, any other career.

ANNA DRIFTMIER

Pre-pandemic, many of us were rushing, rushing, rushing. Now there is time to really (in the pre, making of and post production) work through things in a systematic manner and give it the time it deserves. It’s made me realise how much time it actually takes to really create a great piece of work.

LUNG

I think the question should be – “how can theatre spaces be adapting and changing? What are the roles of arts venues?” During the pandemic, have arts venues made a case for themselves? Will theatre go back to how it was before?  Probably not.  Is there a hopeful conversation to be had about – is it time that arts venues re-calibrated their ideology and policies?  Maybe.

SASHA HAILS

I feel that I am still emerging.  When you say “who are you?”  I feel really quite lucky to be here, because it’s quite an exciting place to be.

CLEMENT ISHMAEL

Have I written a happy song recently? Hmmmm… It’s difficult to write something carefree when you’re in the middle of a pandemic and people are losing their jobs. You can’t, as an artist, not be affected by it.

HAM THE ILLUSTRATOR

Music was the passionate love. It’s like the love you find in your adult life, where you’ve already had experiences, you’ve had girlfriends and you’ve gone through the dramas.

JOHN DEVENISH

I know who I am but too many people think they know who I am and like to throw titles at me.

SUSIE MCKENNA

When we come out of this, we should be healing. Our industry has got to be about bringing people together and that isn’t the Brexit fucking festival. We’ve got to find a way of telling the stories, of doing that.

SHARON D CLARKE

What do you mean, who am I? I’m one of God’s children, baby.

NJABULO MADLALA

I have used the time during this pandemic to reflect and celebrate life beyond just being a singer.

MARTINA MARSHA LAIRD

I don’t want my voice to shut anyone else up, though I want my voice to be heard.

LORE LIXENBERG

As musicians, I would love that out of this time comes a true sense of community, where musical tribes are dissolved, where everyone has access to support, music, lessons and performance spaces when they open again, whoever they are, whatever community they come from. I am not holding my breath.

ELAINE MITCHENER

Institutions, colleges and opera houses, concert venues etc can’t claim ignorance because the information is out there. I want them to do the work, do the research, and if they need help, credit those whose expertise and knowledge they have gleaned.

WALTER VENAFRO

Just because there’s a pandemic doesn’t mean that you should stop creating. What I’m seeing is that artists are going back to the main reason they got into this in the first place, and that is to make sounds from the inside.

RICHARD WATTS

[George Floyd’s death is] a moment of social and political epiphany, that relates to a hugely extended period of inequity, violence, embedded white supremacy within institutions, both in terms of the work that they have been promoting and how they’ve been interpreting it, as well as how they make people feel and who is making it.

HEATHER BAMBRICK

I feel our job is to draw attention to the plight of musicians and artists, to encourage people to keep supporting them, to think outside the box.