OPINION
GARETH K VILE What legacy will the Commonwealth Games cultural programme leave?
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B efore accepting his honorary from Edinburgh month, Eugenio Barba offered a few thoughts on the purpose of theatre. ‘It is,’ he said, in his lilting accent, accentuating his words with l orid hand gestures, ‘about making the familiar strange.’ A legendary director, who has been making imaginative and original work since the early 1960s, Barba has inl uenced generations, and his style – which utilises a combination of text, vocal dexterity and movement – has helped open up theatre to new ways of communicating and entertaining.
If theatre before this revolution was stuck indoors, it now spends much of its time running about the streets getting people involved. The Commonwealth Games are accompanied by the nation-wide Culture 2014 and Glasgow-based Festival 2014, which have enlisted artists from across the performance spectrum to help celebrate the arrival of the athletes. Despite the occasional pointed response to the inl ux of sport, the creatives of Scotland have jumped at the opportunity and are taking over the city, and touring the country, with events on a massive scale. It’s admirable to see so many events, especially those taking an uncompromising moral stance (Drew Taylor’s 44 Stories, pictured, questions the treatment of LGBT people in certain countries) or the efforts of the Touring Network to bring international art, such as the Junk Funk band of Lesotho, into villages that rarely host gigs. But the question that hangs over both Culture and Festival 2014 can still be asked during the fun.
The legacy of Culture 2014 could stop with the
10 THE LIST 10 Jul–21 Aug 2014
Its value depends on whether it leaves anything behind
celebration: while it might make Scotland an impressive tourist destination, its value for the people depends on whether it leaves anything behind. The youth dance festival at Tramway has a wonderful programme, offering performances and masterclasses; yet unless it provides a benei t for future generations, it will simply become a set of memories. In the same way that the athletes’ village could either provide affordable housing or expensive residencies, the aftermath of the Commonwealth Games arts programme will dei ne its worth. On a simple level, this might mean ensuring that young people or communities who have become involved are supported in future years, or that the Touring Network is regarded as a vital organisation in provision beyond the central belt. It might see existing projects, such as Toonspeak, which recently won Scottish Charity of the Year, being helped to take the Games’ spirit forward. The worst case is if the Games are merely a jamboree, a special occasion, that then undermines on-going activity by spending all of the money.
Returning to Barba’s idea of theatre ‘making the familiar strange’: art is capable of remaking the way we understand the world, revealing either the sublime, even sacred, moments of life or the hidden horrors. The intensity of performance during the next few months has the potential to make the familiar exciting and dynamic, to prove that art is part of daily life and a way of enhancing discussion and community. The social revolution that Barba’s theatre rel ects is not yet completed, but events such as Culture 2014, despite their corporate veneer, offer hope.
Gareth K Vile is The List’s theatre editor and a freelance critic and performer