The Rhubarb Festival 2021: It's a book! "The exact details, however, are a surprise"

07 Feb 2021 - photos courtesy of publicist

Njo Kong Kie - photo by Ao Leong Weng Fong

The pandemic is keeping theatres closed and artists are having to struggle to continue to create and find an audience when audiences cannot gather. A usual February highlight is Buddies in Bad Times’ Rhubarb Festival where artists from all disciplines gather to experiment and push the boundaries of art, form and expectations. This year Rhubarb, as the press release says, “takes the form of a limited edition book that seeks to embody live performance and the essence of Canada's longest-running festival of new works. The format allows the audience to engage with the works however, whenever, and wherever they please. Each of the 888 copies of The Rhubarb Festival is customized by hand. Artist interventions are performed by chance across the entire set of books, making every copy unique. From a choreographic score, to colouring pages, to a fever-dream drag performance: the festival gathers new works from over twenty artists.”

While eagerly awaiting the arrival of my copy, I posed a series of questions to Rhubarb’s artistic director Clayton Lee, and angelica schwartz and Stephanie Wong from the collective happy/accidents who have contributed the piece (chapter?) "pollinate," and composer/musician Njo Kong Kie (Mr Shi and His Lover, No Strings (Attached), Infinity).

Clayton Lee

Clayton Lee: For me, the immediate transition to the online context was a disorienting one. In the midst of attempting to survive in a reality of social distancing, isolation, and mass death, lots of arts organizations were clinging to online almost instantly. Churning out what they would’ve done in-person but now with a camera, sort of. It felt, back in March and April, like a real loss. Like this was a moment to step back and reconsider what, how, and why we do the things we do and attempt to make productive changes and to disrupt the status quo. 

I wanted a project that would allow for this kind of flexibility and responsiveness and, in a practical sense, conceive of a project that would be COVID-proof. 

A book is (mostly) COVID-proof. 

 Within this, of course, is thinking about the audience’s relationship to the screen versus live performance versus the page and wanting to ensure that the artists’ projects were framed and received in the most ideal conditions, given the circumstances.

With the screen, we’re used to navigating multiple tabs at once, scrolling through Twitter on one hand and watching Netflix on the side. The form of the book, like live performance, resists this kind of continuous partial attention and instead demands that you engage with it. I’m interested in what can emerge from this relationship between object and audience, especially in a moment where we have almost no choice but to be glued to our screens. And for the artists, most of whom work primarily in live performance, it’s been incredibly compelling to witness first-hand how they can take this prompt and really stretch their own - and my own - imagination about the possibilities of this book and, ultimately, of this moment. 

Rhubarb is a collective experience, reading is a solitary one. How did that affect the artist's creative processes? 

Clayton Lee: Reading may be a solitary experience, but its roots - the act of learning to read - is a collective one. In thinking about a performative publication that attempts to recreate the experience of Rhubarb or of live performance, the artists across the Festival have interpreted that in a variety of ways: some of these require additional partners; some explore the audience’s relationship to the physical object; and some are realized over the collection of 888 books, requiring the audience to engage with other audience members. 

Happy Accidents image by Stephanie Wong

happy/accidents: We thought less about the solitary experience of reading and engaged more with the idea that the reader is a scene partner. We created seed paper that is intended to be planted and cared for by the reader. This seed paper becomes a living thing and creates an ongoing connection that the reader has with this story. 

Njo Kong Kie: My creative process, at least when it comes down to putting notes down, has always been pretty solitary too, so I think there is a parallel there. Also, typically with my own stage work, I concerned myself with the overall arc of the work. In this case, I really don't have that. So I am pretty focused on just doing my own part. I am curious to see how it all fits together. As you said, Rhubarb is a collective experience.

Rhubarb's usual core disciplines - "theatre, dance, music and performance art" - are by their very nature ephemeral, a book is designed to last forever. Did that add extra weight or considerations to your curating? 

Clayton Lee: Throughout this process, we’re consistently weighing the form of the book against this desire to recreate live performance in book form. There are any number of markers of liveness within this that go against the idea of a book as a forever object. As an example, we’re containing this project as a limited edition, single print run of 888 copies that only lives in physical form. Once the festival happens and these books leave the space of Buddies, they’re gone.

happy/accidents: Wanting to capture the ephemeral nature of theatre, we created an intervention that was temporary, that could change over time. From beginning to end there are varied experiences of interaction, and it was exciting to instill transformation in a medium as ‘fixed’ as a book might be.

Njo Kong Kie: As a musician, recording is part of our process, so in that sense, the idea that my contributions to the book will leave on is very familiar.

What were the most common challenges of adapting, creating or reinventing work on a text and visuals form? 

happy/accidents: It was challenging to navigate the shifting circumstances that shaped how we told this story. We had conceptualized this dystopic queer love story as a digital theatre piece, and transitioning that story to where it has landed now has asked us to be as creative and as innovative as possible. We had to capture the dense lore of this world within two pages in a way that fulfilled our vision but was not too didactic. Also seed paper is hard to do across distances, alone. It’s hard to be alone. 

Njo Kong Kie: I don't know how much I can say without revealing how my contributions are positioned in the book, so I will sit this one out.

Rhubarb is known for pushing boundaries both in content and artistic form. Does this Rhubarb stretch the boundary of the pages of a book? And if so, how? 

Clayton Lee: This book is not a book. It’s book as festival and festival as book. What this means, to me, is the kind of lens that should be used when engaging with the object. This process, while manifesting in the physical object of a book, has more to do with live performance than it does with traditional publishing. The creation time, for example, was constrained to a four-month period of time. It’s the kind of in-process work that audiences can expect from Rhubarb. Which is to say, yes, the book in many cases gestures towards an outward expansion beyond the physical pages of the book. The exact details, however, are a surprise. 

happy/accidents: “pollinate” offers new experiences of what a book can do. This non-conventional storytelling centers a fairly linear love note that hides the lore of its world between the lines. The world is dangerous, the stakes are high, the details of the note are cryptic because those are the rules the “author” is forced to comply with. The reader can take the role of a bystander, a security guard, the lover, etc., but no matter who the reader is, they will be asked to continue the story through the planting of the seed paper, fulfilling the “authors” wishes.

Njo Kong Kie: That I will leave for the audience to decide. 

What forms of literature do you consume in your daily life and did it influence your conception of Rhubarb? 

Clayton Lee: Particularly influential readings during this time have included: Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings, Eduardo Corral’s Slow Lightning and Guillotine, Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism, Theresa Has Kyung Cha’s Dictee, Taqralik Partridge’s curved against the hull of a peterhead, and Elwood Jimmy and Vanessa Andreotti’s Towards Braiding. While none specifically influenced the conception of Rhubarb as performative publication, there are visible and invisible (conscious and unconscious) traces of these works in this year’s Festival.

happy/accidents: angelica reads a lot of queer autobiographical pieces, but more recently they read the brilliant dystopic book, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, which was in the back of their mind the entire creation process. Stephanie’s access point into this concept and format is actually through video games, drawing from its interactive form and themes of moral consequence (not literature, but that’s cool). She was playing Last of Us 2, Hollow Knight, and The Ghost of Tsushima at the time of creation.

Njo Kong Kie: I have been reading more poetry. Now that I think about it, I guess it does influence how my contributions to Rhubarb turn out.

What will people find most surprising about experiencing this Rhubarb? 

Clayton Lee: It’s a book! 

happy/accidents: Experiencing the intimacy of the piece and how it changes over the course of several days, especially once the paper gets planted and starts to grow. Despite the pessimistic world, we envisioned this piece to inhabit, our goal was to offer something beautiful and to seed hope.

How has the pandemic and lockdown affected your artistic process? How have you adapted?

happy/accidents: We have collaborated primarily across distances, and the confines of this pandemic have given us time and opportunities to explore that working dynamic. We’ve really fine-tuned our communication over digital platforms. Google docs are the best (we have not been sponsored to say this). 

Njo Kong Kie: I have come to discover that when we do digital pivot, tech eats up even more time than doing theatre. I am glad to be expanding our circle of collaborators and to lean more on other people's expertise and artistry.

What are you most looking forward to when the pandemic is finally over? 

happy/accidents: Hanging out in person! Eating donuts together in the dog park! Friendship!

 Njo Kong Kie: Be physically together with people.