Athletes vs. Artists?
I went to see Blue Dragon, French-Canadian artistic icon Robert Lepage’s new play, yesterday, a piece created for the Cultural Olympiad, or “The other Olympics going on in Vancouver right now,” as the play’s introducer announced to a smattering of applause.
While I enjoyed the play, particularly the lighting and inventive staging, the smug snickering that accompanied the pronouncement, and even its inclusion itself into the evening’s performance, only echoed to me a sentiment that I have seen expressed quite often from the arts community over the past week of the games, which is, once again, the idea that the arts and sports worlds and their audiences are antithetical to each other, in tension, even adverse to each other’s plights and aesthetic goals.
CBC, The Globe and Mail, and other media outlets (as well as simply other people) have all asked me my opinion on the inclusion of Shane Koyczan’s spoken word poetry as part of the Opening Ceremonies. The fact that the inclusion of poetry in an arts spectacle has caused such a stir of controversy and discussion is in itself an indication that something is seriously wrong. Why shouldn’t poetry have a place among the other arts included in the Opening Ceremonies: music, dance, visual art, architecture, and more? Why are certain poets appalled that a spoken word poet was chosen for this role?
Shane Koyczan is an engaging, highly accessible speaker, and I know that he made a very strong, affecting impression on many people who have rarely considered poetry as an art form with any relevance to their lives. For those who love poetry and the arts, and want to see them occupy a significant position in public life, which includes arenas like the Olympics where the arts are intended to occupy a primary place (see the original Olympic mandate), this is a good thing, a step in the right direction.
And I can tell you that my experience as poet-in-residence at CAN Fund Athlete House has been a most surprisingly welcoming one. Speed skaters, hockey players, gymnasts, rowers and more, and their families, are reading my poem postings, listening to them when I read them aloud, and are, in fact, asking for copies and reading them to each other. I’m not kidding. One night, I was accosted as soon as I walked in the door by several Olympians who had heard about my recitation of “If My Lover Were a Snowboarder” (see canadianathletesnow.ca for your own copy) and wanted to read it themselves. Imagine how tickled I was as I passed by table after table reciting my poem, revelling in the play of language, the fun I was having with the subject matter of sport, something they feel has rarely been captured authentically in art.
One of the problems, I think, that causes friction between artists and athletes, is that artists can’t claim to be ranked 1st or 2nd or even 115th in the world at what they do, and so criteria for judging, accepting, and celebrating are elusive, fluid, more dependant on critical voices and commercial acceptance than in the sports world where status is, mostly, determined by achievement and objective criteria agreed upon by sports organizations. My partner, Christopher Doda, a poet and critic, once made a group of Olympians, who were shrugging as they discussed their current 2nd, 5th, and 6th-place world rankings, laugh, as he interjected, “I’d give my eyeteeth to be ranked 10th in the world as a poet!” And so would I.
The Cultural Olympiad is worth supporting, as it introduces a number of our top talents and emerging artists to a wider audience than would normally be achieved in such a short span of time. The lineups to the Vancouver Art Gallery begin early in the morning, and Robert Lepage’s play sells out on many nights. I have a large program filled with the arts programming accompanying this Olympics. And a number of the people accessing the arts are the same people accessing the sports. Why belittle one audience in favour of another—why not take advantage of the opportunities for cross-pollination?
(In the spirit of this notion of rankings, and how we react rather ridiculously to them when we sigh or dismiss a placement under the top three, today’s poem is “Ode to 4th Place.” If only I could rank 4th in the artistic world in Canada—I’d wear a T-shirt announcing this to everyone I’d meet.)
