2020
The Pivot Series
See the printed matter: Series postcard
See the series web page with programs and full lineups here.
As we know, 2020 was no ordinary year. One week after Public Energy presented Broadleaf Theatre’s Chemical Valley Project in the Market Hall and a month prior to presenting our 23rd edition of the Emergency Festival, we all went home. See you in two weeks we told each other. Ha.
The Pivot Series became our first stab at in-person programming during the pandemic. We had already presented an online series of recordings from past events called the Rewind Series, with the artists in attendance via Zoom to talk about their work and take questions. But six months into the pandemic, and with no end in sight to the limitations on indoor gatherings, we decided to go outdoors. Outdoor programming was no stranger to Public Energy; we’d been doing events in parks and sidewalks and parking lots for years. But this had to be done quickly if we were to beat the cold weather. The call went out in late July for proposals due August 19th , with performances to take place mid-October. We asked artists to choose an outdoor site and tell us why their work would be suited to it. Of 19 submissions 10 were accepted and 8 reached fruition. By the time artists got the word, they had just a little over one month to put their work together, which could be a version of earlier work already developed. Some did that, while others created entirely new material.
It was a thrilling variety of proposals and, to our surprise, three came from Toronto-based artists excited about the chance to perform in Peterborough/Nogojiwanong. Interestingly, those three all aimed to perform on sites next to water. They used three different sites along the Otonabee River: at Trent University, at Inverlea Park, and, at Millennium Park, the boathouse and a small nearby island in the river. Local artists also identified surprising locations. Two chose sculptures to perform on; another danced on railroad tracks and one performance was staged outside the Theatre On King, a venue that could not open to the public but could bring seating, sound and lighting systems out into the adjoining parking lot to provide a fully theatrical experience for the first time in so many months. That opportunity – to perform in front of a live audience – was hugely appreciated by artists and audiences alike.
Little did we suspect that a year later we would still be faced with gathering restrictions and would find it necessary to present Pivot 2.0. Check out the Pivot 2.0 lineup here Opens link in new window.
An unexpected but completely welcome late-breaking development came our way when Amy Seigel at the ReFrame Film Festival invited us to collaborate on a short documentary about the local artists in the Pivot Series, with the goal of presenting it at the next festival a few months hence, January 2021. Titled Pivot: Performance in a Pandemic. You can watch it here. Opens link in new window .
-Bill Kimball
