Ep. 19 - The Beginning of PuSh (2005)

Gabrielle chats about the early beginnings of PuSh with Camyar Chaichian, who helped create one of the shows from the first festival in 2005.

Show Notes

Gabrielle Martin and Camyar Chaichian (Neworld) talk about:

• Norman Armour’s influence in developing both PuSh and Vancouver’s theatre scene

• The veritable artistic renaissance occurring in Vancouver at the time

• PuSh’s role as a megaphone for local voices and artists, as well as a touchstone that brought international work to the city

• How Camyar’s 2005 show, Crime and Punishment, was created with PuSh alongside from concept to realization

• The artistic struggle of maintaining a core, original vision and how this was always treated as a priority

• How we forget the past at our own peril

• How art, as well as those who make it, must rise from the ashes and create something from nothing

About Camyar

Actor, director, writer and producer, born in 1968 in Iran, and raised there and in England and the United States. His family moved to North Vancouver British Columbia in 1980, when he was 11 years old. He graduated from the University of British Columbia (Acting, 1992; M.F.A., 2007), and currently lives in Vancouver.

In 1993 he founded Neworld Theatre in Vancouver which produced the site specific collective Devil Box Cabaret (1999), based on Four Boxes by Iranian author Bahram Beyzaee; and an adaptation of Crime and Punishment by James Fagan Tait; and the cult hit that propelled its own company, The Leaky Heaven Circus 1999-2002). He served as Artistic Producer at Neworld until 2007.

He wrote and performed in I Am Your Spy: A Day In The Life of Mordechai Vanunu with Rumble Theatre. This production toured to Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto in January, 2001. His adaptation of Quest, Trail of Mystic Poets, Rummi and Attar was produced at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He co-authored Hurl Hemmhorage and Heal, the Nurses Musical, which toured for the British Columbia Nurses Union.

His other plays include The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the Axes of Evil (Neworld Theatre and Cahoots Theatre Projects 2004) created with Guillermo Verdecchia and Marcus Youssef), published by Talonbooks; The Asylum of the Universe (Neworld Theatre 2003), published in Canadian Theatre Review 116 (Fall 2003); and Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings with Verdecchia and Youssef (Neworld 2010).

He returned to Neworld in 2016 for the twentieth anniversary of the theatre with a production entitled "Doost" (which means "friend" in Persian) that combines narrative, music and poetry to express his Sufi faith and its concepts of friendship and community.

In April 2019, his adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III, entitled King Richard and His Women, was performed at Seven Tyrants Theatre, with Chai as director and scenographer. As Richard lies dying on the battlefield, he is haunted by the women he has loved, hated, and destroyed.

Camyar Chai has also written two librettos, Rosa and Elijah’s Kite for Tapestry New Opera in Toronto. For the CBC he has written and broadcast sketches and commentaries. He has received a Jessie Richardson Awards for his writing.

As a director, he has worked for New Works, Touchstone Theatre, La Luna Productions and the Solo Collective Theatre. He received The Ray Michael Award for Most Promising New Director in 1999.

As an actor, he has worked for many Canadian companies including Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Touchstone Theatre, Rumble Productions and Green Thumb Theatre for Young People, as well as appearing in many film and television productions. He has received a Jessie Richardson Award for his acting.

Camyar Chai is currently Program Manager, Community Cultural Development at the City of Richmond.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

Gabrielle Martin 00:02
Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin, Push's Director of Programming, and in this special series of Push Play, we're revisiting the legacy of Push and talking to creators who have helped shaped 20 years of innovative, dynamic, and audacious festival programming.

Gabrielle Martin 00:20
Today's episode highlights the very first 2005 Push Festival, with Commier Chai Chan's being on new world theaters, crime and punishment, and much more. Commier has been involved in Canadian theater for several decades.

Gabrielle Martin 00:33
Multi -faceted, he has worked across the country as an award -winning director, actor, writer, and producer. As the original founder of New World Theater, he was part of the wave of arts leaders along with members of Electric Company Theater and Boca del Lupo, but to name a few, that created a rise in the prominence of the indie theater scene in Vancouver, helping, in part, to create the fertile soil from which the Push Festival emerged.

Gabrielle Martin 00:56
Here's my conversation with Commier.

Gabrielle Martin 01:01
So just to frame where we are, we're here on the unceded traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil -Waututh. And yeah, it's a really, it feels nice to be in the presence of the mountains and the water.

Gabrielle Martin 01:18
It's a real absolute pleasure and honor to have this conversation here as we kind of go back in time to 2005. So our conversation is really framed around the very first official Push Festival, because Push, there was a couple of series, but 2005 was the first festival.

Gabrielle Martin 01:37
And Kamra, you were a big part of that festival through New World Theatre and through Crime and Punishment. So we'll talk about that work, but I just want to start by asking you about your relationship with Push, how it started, how it developed, yeah.

Camyar Chaichian 01:52
Yeah, so I feel especially in those days I had a close relationship. I knew both Norman and Katrina. They were colleagues and we worked together and I had a respect for both of them. But really my relationship was with Norman because we had worked together quite a bit on different shows.

Camyar Chaichian 02:17
We had a French show together. Norman was a bit of a mentor to New World. He was the person who encouraged me to move it out of my living room and into an office and gave me an office space in the in the in the rumble theater like a desk in the corner.

Camyar Chaichian 02:37
So I had a very collaborative and as colleagues an intimate relationship with Norman Armour at the time and he was very generous and he sort of he he set an example of of generosity and and bringing people up as opposed to holding his cards close to his his chest.

Camyar Chaichian 03:00
Now he was also a great wheeler and dealer so when you negotiated he was really good at holding his cards close to his chest. But his general ethos was that we're a community that are going to do better if we have vibrancy going in between us and we have good vibes between us because that's what's going to attract others to come and be our audience.

Camyar Chaichian 03:23
And if we just silo away from each other we're doing each other a disservice. What are we hiding from each other? Let's let's make it a big tent. And so that for me was always the the the ethos of really when push started as well.

Gabrielle Martin 03:39
but in 2005 was push still working out of what was that relationship with Rumble were you still in the same office was

Camyar Chaichian 03:49
Oh my god, now you're asking me. You're going back in time. I'm just trying to picture it. No, by that time, by that time, no, I think we had moved, we had moved to a different office. I think we were on, no, later we reunited.

Camyar Chaichian 04:02
So New World offices joined the first push offices or one of the first push offices on West Broadway. So I think I, by that time I had moved to a different office and then we moved back together again.

Camyar Chaichian 04:13
But I can tell you, I remember very, very distinctly having a conversation with Norman, not unlike this conversation, where we were sitting some, somewhere like this. It was outdoors. The weather was very similar to this.

Camyar Chaichian 04:25
And he ran this idea by me and he said, well, what do you think? I'm going to take this big risk. I'm working with Katrina. Here's the idea behind it. And I knew that he was going around and sampling the idea with people that he trusted.

Camyar Chaichian 04:40
And I just said, I think it's the right time. And I think that if anyone's going to be able to pull it off, it's you and Katrina. And what are you waiting for?

Gabrielle Martin 04:48
I love that. What are you waiting for? And what do you remember what the idea was that he pitched to you like how he framed it?

Camyar Chaichian 04:57
I think that the idea was that we were in a really great renaissance of theater in Vancouver at that time. Theater in any town has its peaks and valleys. And we were a bunch of people who had certainly weathered some valleys, and we were on this upswing where things were really peaking.

Camyar Chaichian 05:17
So there was Rumble and New World, but that was when Electric Company and Boca del Lupo and, you know, but to name a few, were sort of making their ascendancy. And we all really had a feeling of camaraderie between us.

Camyar Chaichian 05:31
And we all respected each other's work, even though we all did very different work. But we all had this ethos of just because we're different doesn't mean I like what you're doing. I don't like what you're doing.

Camyar Chaichian 05:44
In fact, I'm going to decide I like what you're doing. So there was a vibrancy and an energy, and we were proud of the scene that we were creating. And we wanted to share that scene with the world. At the same time, we wanted to be part of the world as well.

Camyar Chaichian 05:59
We didn't want to be this isolated, provincial town somewhere because it's a lot of people in the globe. Where's Vancouver? Right. Yeah. I mean, now in 2005, it wasn't as well known as it is now. It was a provincial backwater.

Camyar Chaichian 06:13
We wanted to be integrated with the global theater scene because we respected it. We would read about it, and some of us would go and see plays in Europe or wherever.

Gabrielle Martin 06:24
And I have to say, it worked. I'm still surprised when I travel internationally and people, I'm always pleasantly surprised by how many people know Push and know Vancouver because of Push. And so at that point, New World, I mean, New World has toured internationally since.

Gabrielle Martin 06:41
At that point, though, did you have international relations or was Push really kind of a way to, yeah, for your company to make this work?

Camyar Chaichian 06:50
Push really was, and I'd say New World was gaining a national reputation, but in terms of going beyond that, I think, you know, we'd done high -performance rodeo, for instance, with Norman. Well, New World had done it, but I'd done it in different shows with Rumble.

Camyar Chaichian 07:09
But that was really the doors opening to a larger scene. And even nationally, being more recognized in some ways, it was an amplification, I mean now we use this idea of amplifying ourselves through social media a lot more.

Camyar Chaichian 07:24
But back then, we didn't have those means necessarily. And also, you didn't get lost in the noise as much either. So it was a true megaphone for Vancouver. And Katrina and Norman, you trusted them when they said that as much as they wanted to bring the outside in, they wanted to honor the local scene as well.

Camyar Chaichian 07:46
And it was about enriching the local scene and being proud of the local scene, saying, yep, we can stand up to what's going on elsewhere as well. Yeah.

Gabrielle Martin 07:55
And so, can you tell us about Crime and Punishment, like what was that work, and then how did it end up being presented at PUSH, yeah, how did that conversation, or how did that project get realized in that context?

Camyar Chaichian 08:08
So one of the things about New World that was always very important for me from the beginning, I created New World, I founded it at the time, and originally there was an ad hoc group of us that were UBC students, actually a little trivia.

Camyar Chaichian 08:24
The first play that New World ever did was directed by Tom Schulte, who's now a professor at UBC, but also very well known in the indie film industry, very accomplished in his own right. And he actually named New World Theater because I don't know, I was like, what do we call it, right?

Camyar Chaichian 08:41
And that's how the name came about. It's a great name.

Gabrielle Martin 08:44
And so you were UBC students? We were UBC students. And now you're directing, you're teaching students as a director or teaching directing at UBC? Sometimes, yeah. So it's a full circle. It's full circle in some ways.

Gabrielle Martin 08:55
Nice, yeah.

Camyar Chaichian 08:56
But the ethos of New World for me always was, it was not only about bringing new stories to the world but it was also about doing things differently. So a lot of the theatre companies at the time were, and this is not a judgement, this is the way it was, I wanted to direct shows, there wasn't enough work to get hired, so I'd create a company and direct shows.

Camyar Chaichian 09:19
But really it would have been about me, the director. I didn't want New World to be that because I've always been multifaceted, I liked acting, I liked directing, I liked writing, I liked being, I was even a stage manager sometimes, I liked producing.

Camyar Chaichian 09:33
So for me it was more about a vehicle, a company that could highlight all the great artists that we have. People that I respected and I thought were hidden gems that I was like, more people need to know about this person.

Camyar Chaichian 09:46
And one of those people was James Fagan Tate, who I actually met, the first time I saw him was when I saw the Caucasian chalk circle up in the Caravan Farm Theatre. And he played Azdak in that. But then we worked together for Touchstone when Katrina Dunn and Diane Brown were co -directing, with Vancouver Moving Theatre, the good person of Szechuan.

Camyar Chaichian 10:12
And that's when Jiminy and I collaborated and I was like, he's such a dynamic and wild but deeply intelligent theatre creator. I said, I want him to mentor me, I want to support this artist, I want to learn from him.

Camyar Chaichian 10:31
And so what I would do with New World is I would decide who's the artist that I'm going to go to for the next show, basically. So I determined that Jiminy was really someone that I wanted to create a show, so I had gone to him.

Camyar Chaichian 10:46
And simultaneously Norman was talking to me about, oh, do you want to pitch a show in a New World show for the Push Festival? So I went to Jiminy and I was sitting in his apartment one night and he said, well, I do, I have a show.

Camyar Chaichian 11:01
And I said, well, what is it? And he got up and he performed and sang and physically got into 30 seconds of what later I would see on stage in the full production of Crime and Punishment in his living room.

Camyar Chaichian 11:21
And they say love is blind because I loved them as an artist, but I just knew, I just knew he had something there. It fired up something in me. I said, I'm going to produce this show. Just in that 30 seconds.

Camyar Chaichian 11:36
And it was crazy, this adaptation of Dostoyevsky's massive block.

Gabrielle Martin 11:45
done many adaptations at that point was that like part of your practice? Oh it was part of the practice for sure.

Camyar Chaichian 11:51
like the first New World show was a was a Persian play that was a puppet show that we've adapted for people to play for instance devil yeah so the devil bucks cabaret which is our breakout show that we did at a Joe's cafe had a empty storefront beside it and we did it there was an adaptation of another play so and also his idea of integrating community actors from the downtown east side community was very New World II and this idea of a learning exchange between professionals and community actors and really the show being about Vancouver as much as it was about this relic from Russia from the past was very intriguing to me and I also thought that was perfect for push as well for what push was trying to do so but of course it was huge he was talking about a cast of like 20 musicians right so when I went to Norman with this Norman saw it too so Norman trusted me as a producer he had a great degree of respect and trust in me he knew Jimmy and he could see my passion when I was describing the show and we had this back and forth where he said I never forget and you know these are one of those things where I don't remember who thought of the conversation who thought of the talk you know who said what first yeah it became a jam but essentially Norman as producer was okay you know you want to go for this big cast hmm what's the minimum you could do it with so let's let's let's make this happen no matter what right but is there a minimum you feel you can do it where it's not compromising Jimmy's vision yeah and that was something really really key for push a new world where we always put the vision of the artist at the forefront before the budget before anything in politics before anything else is how can we realize the actual vision of the artist and how can we be servants to that vision which was just where you want to be as an artist and a creator right so I just said well I think that is

Gabrielle Martin 14:12
really the power of, can be the power of an artist driven organization. Yeah. Festival.

Camyar Chaichian 14:18
You know? A hundred percent. Yeah. And I took that vision back to Jimmy. So we had this dialogue where it was a triangular dialogue where I went back to Jimmy and I said, Jimmy, look deep in your heart.

Camyar Chaichian 14:29
Don't say what the number is that because you want to get it on stage. Tell me what that number is that you think you can pull it off with that you still think it will fulfill your vision. And that's where we came with this minimum of seven.

Camyar Chaichian 14:42
Okay. So I went back to Norman and I said, we'll do it with a minimum of seven, but we really want to do it with 21 or something like that that it was. I need your guarantee that you will play or we will all do our best to make it 21 to honor the original vision.

Camyar Chaichian 14:58
And everyone committed to that. And I think at the end of the day, we had a pretty large cast. I don't remember if it was, I think it was the full 21 when you had all the actors and the musicians on stage, it was pretty close to what, what we wanted.

Camyar Chaichian 15:11
So push.

Gabrielle Martin 15:13
was right there from concept to realization in some capacity 100% yeah yeah

Camyar Chaichian 15:20
which was also very exciting to be collaborating with a festival from the beginning.

Gabrielle Martin 15:26
And so yeah you were there from the very beginning of push and saw it in those early stages and heard you know the vision from the beginning. I would just have to hear a bit more about your perspective on kind of the cultural context for the festival then and now.

Gabrielle Martin 15:44
I mean you did speak about it then actually but I'm curious because you've maintained a relationship you know you came on as the chair of the board at a very critical time in 2021 -22.

Camyar Chaichian 15:59
Yeah, I think that we, Vancouver, this province, not just in the theatre, has always been a pioneering province. It's always about what's the next gold rush, and what's the newest thing that comes out, and that can be wonderful and have a great energy.

Camyar Chaichian 16:17
But I always say to people, we also forget the past at our own peril, and I'm always, I'm a big tent person. I always think about, you know, even when it comes to, New World was at the forefront of bringing diversity to the theatre scene.

Camyar Chaichian 16:36
And even then, I would say, yes and, why can't we have all of it as opposed to replacing one thing with the other? I always used to say, if someone wants to do, you know, costume plays from the 1600s, let them do it.

Camyar Chaichian 16:51
Why say no to one thing? Like, we should be pushing for like a larger context. So, for me, that was very important later when I came back as the interim chair. I feared losing an institution that had been created that is important to the history of theatre in Vancouver.

Camyar Chaichian 17:16
Important to culture in Vancouver, and the development of a cultural milieu in Vancouver. It's not the only thing, there's many things that are great, but greatness of a cultural milieu comes from the sum of many parts.

Camyar Chaichian 17:32
And I felt to lose that would be to lose much more than it's tangibly that was being talked about at the time. Right? Was to lose history, was to lose platforms that had launched many people, and had the potential to continue to launch many people.

Camyar Chaichian 17:51
Right? And to continue to do that could work. And I still maintain that push has that importance, and when people have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears to building that legacy, let's keep it alive for as long as it can be kept alive, and not give up on it so easily.

Camyar Chaichian 18:09
And not, I mean, the arts is all about rising from ashes and creating from nothing and transforming and recreating, and why shouldn't companies be that way as well? Does that make sense?

Gabrielle Martin 18:24
Yes, I mean, I feel like that's just a beautiful note to wrap up this conversation on.

Camyar Chaichian 18:32
Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm I'm I'm thrilled that push has made 20 years

Ben Charland 18:41
That was a special episode of Push Play, in honor of our 20th Push International Performing Arts Festival, which will run from January 23rd to February 9th, 2025. Push Play is produced by myself, Ben Charland, and Tricia Knowles.

Ben Charland 18:57
A new episode of our 20th Festival series with Gabriel Martin will be released every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. To stay up to date on Push 20 and the 2025 Festival, visit pushfestival .ca and follow us on social media at Push Festival.

Ben Charland 19:16
And if you've enjoyed this episode, please spread the word and take a moment to leave a review.