Psychogeographic Excursions: Mapping Calgary’S Contemporary Theatre Scene
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2018-09-21 Psychogeographic Excursions: Mapping Calgary’s Contemporary Theatre Scene Holm, Katherine Holm, K. (2018). Psychogeographic Excursions: Mapping Calgary's Contemporary Theatre Scene (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/33076 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/108723 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Psychogeographic Excursions: Mapping Calgary’s Contemporary Theatre Scene by Katherine Holm A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DRAMA CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2018 © Katherine Holm 2018 Abstract This thesis focuses on artist responses to urban landscape as they relate to the works of six Calgary-based theatre artists. I employ the theory of psychogeography to investigate artistic responses to urban landscape, emphasizing sensorial and behavioural responses to a particular geographic environment. I also investigate the ways in which the myths and histories associated with the region of Calgary inform the representation of the city in contemporary artistic works. Using four case studies of theatrical works created about or in response to Calgary’s urban landscape, I explore how notions of landscape are evident within theatrical works in an attempt to bring psychogeography into the field of the performing arts. I conclude that a psychogeographical awareness of landscape allows for new ways of experiencing the urban landscape, contributing to diversified understandings of space and spatiality within a performative context. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Bruce Barton for his patience, attentiveness, and encouragement that made this thesis possible. I also extend my appreciation to my committee: Aritha van Herk, Clem Martini, and April Viczko. I would also like to thank the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Graduate Students’ Association, and the School of Creative and Performing Arts for their financial support. I would also like to extend my thanks to the six artists who agreed to be interviewed for this study: Blake Brooker, Kris Demeanor, Val Duncan, Celene Harder, Sharon Pollock, and Makambe K Simamba. Finally, I would like to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their constant support and unwavering belief in me. ii Table of Contents Abstract.………………………………………………………………………………………….i Acknowledgments...……………………………………………………………………………. ii Table of Contents…..…………………………………………………………………………... iii Introduction.............…………………………………………………………………………...... 1 Chapter One: Psychogeography.………………………………………………………………13 1.1 Landscape……………………………………………………………………………………13 1.2 Situationist Psychogeography……………………………………………………………......15 1.3 Contemporary Strands of Psychogeography…………………………………………………23 Chapter Two: The City of Calgary……………………………………………………………26 Chapter Three: Interviews……………..………………………………………………………33 3.1 Recruitment and Interview Protocol…………………………………………………………34 3.2 Transcription…………………………………………………………………………………35 3.3 The Artists……………………………………………………………………………………35 Chapter Four: Analysis……………………...…………………………………………………37 4.1 Case Study. Making Treaty 7………………...………………………………………………41 4.2 Case Study. Blow Wind, High Water……...…………………………………………………49 4.3 Case Study. The Land, The Animals……..…………..………………………………………51 4.4 Case Study. Jan and Peg’s Vacation……...…………………………………………………60 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………71 Appendix: Sample Interview Questions………………………………………………………74 Works Cited……..………………………………………………………………………………76 iii Introduction This thesis situates Calgary as the subject of psychogeographical interrogation, focusing on Calgary’s urban landscape as it has been seen through the eyes of six Calgary-based theatre artists. The overarching hypothesis of this study is the following: where you are affects what you create, and the city of Calgary possesses an unique identity that has been reflected in artistic works created by artists who live and work there. This is based upon my observations that artistic works are shaped by the city and all its innumerable forces, and are imbued with and affected by a particular urban landscape. Further, this inquiry has been guided by my own unwavering belief that the artistic works created in Calgary would undoubtedly change if they were to be removed from their usual environment and placed in a new context. Creative processes of artists are impacted by the stimuli that is the character of a city, which has the potential to offer unique situations and sparks of creative inspiration for artists. Creative decisions that are made in the process of developing a new theatrical work are often subjected to geographical and spatial influences contained the surrounding environment. For example, a set designer may find their inspiration in the physical landscape of a particular locale, or a playwright may find themselves moved to write plays based on their own emotional attachment to the place they live. This study has been motivated by the work of the Situationist International (SI), an avant- garde group of artists, theorists, revolutionaries, social radicals, and intellectuals (led by Guy Debord) who theorized about urban spaces, conducting urban experiments in Paris, France in the late 1950s and 1960s, in an attempt to critique capitalist, bourgeois society values. Informed by the Situationists’ specific breed of psychogeography (which focused on mapping emotions), I employ various concepts of psychogeographic thought derived from the Situationist International (SI) in this study. These concepts are viewed alongside more contemporary psychogeographic 1 theories and cultural materialist perspectives in order to draw attention to urban encounters that result in the production of artistic works. Envisioning an aesthetic relationship between Calgary artists and urban landscape, this study aims to bring psychogeography into the field of the performing arts. Tracing the term “psychogeography” to Guy Debord’s initial usage of it in his seminal article “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography,” I shall undertake a dramatic analysis of selected theatrical works created in Calgary by local artists. Psychogeography has since been reconstituted and utilized in cultural studies as a form of literary localism, whereby the characteristics of a specific locality are utilized to facilitate an inquiry into the city that is depicted in written literature. Due to the fact that psychogeography has been widely adopted by scholars, novelists, and journalists, it is often disconnected from the activities and original intent of the Situationist International. The scope of this thesis resorts to these earlier perspectives (as notably articulated by Guy Debord) in order to more fully understand artistic responses to a specific urban landscape, guided by the relative emphasis the Situationists placed upon the emotions and behaviours of individuals when analyzing an urban environment. In this study, I employ both a practical and theoretical understanding of psychogeography in order to study artistic responses to the experiences of a specific geographical place: Calgary. This will be accomplished by looking at this historic usage of the term alongside more contemporary discourse in order to creatively combine spatial practices with performance, and to potentially uncover sedimented knowledge, expanding one’s own awareness of place and space. Psychogeography is a significant theory that allows for the study of urban landscapes. The relative elasticity of psychogeography as a theoretical framework has allowed for it to be adopted into a variety of academic disciplines. As a theoretical framework, psychogeography has become a resurgent discourse being adapted in literary studies, cultural studies, geography, urban 2 planning, and performance art, amongst others. It has not, however, been widely applied to the study of theatre performances. Psychogeography encompasses the meeting point of geography, psychology, cartography, and art, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of this field of inquiry. Psychogeography has become a popular term within academic discourse, referring to a panoply of writings that primarily meditate on the experiences of urban life, and the behavioural and sensorial aspects related to navigating a particular urban landscape. The many ways in which psychogeography has been employed in various academic fields and disciplines is too numerous to explore within the scope and focus of this particular thesis project. My investigations into these selected examples within the field of psychogeography has provided a theoretical platform to support my data with a set of methodologies and related conceptual considerations to facilitate an inquiry into the emotional geographies of urban spaces. This entails studying the unconscious and implicit processes that are stirred, in this case, when an individual experiences the urban environment. I employ an auto-ethnographic methodological approach, which