Mayworks Halifax Festival!
May
1st is marked throughout the world as International Workers’ Day, or May Day.
Recently we spoke with Sébastien Labelle, artistic director of the Mayworks
Halifax Festival, about what attendees can expect at this year’s celebrations.
When and why did you first get involved with the festival?
When and why did you first get involved with the festival?
I first became involved as a featured artist in
2012. I was a member of Puppets Et Cetera!, a street theatre group with whom I
presented a show about food production through the use of migrant labour. I
presented another show with Puppets Et Cetera! in 2013. This time about the
history of May Day. In that same year, I joined the volunteer organizing
committee that produced the festival through the Halifax-Dartmouth &
District Labour Council. In 2014, I took the lead as volunteer organizer of the
festival, and in 2016, following the incorporation of the festival as a
non-profit, I was hired as the Festival Director. I became involved initially
as a performer and artist interested in politically charged art, and also as a
trade unionist. After performing once in the festival it became very apparent
to me the importance of a festival that provided a venue for artists to present
art that was politically engaging and challenging. There are few opportunities
for artists to be politically free of corporate sponsorship interests and where
they can also be paid for presenting this kind of work. At Mayworks Halifax,
the inclusion of politically charged work is encouraged as part of an artist's
career development rather than as part of an activist side-project often
provided for free or with little support.
Are
they the same reasons you do it today?
Absolutely.
What
are the challenges involved?
As with any arts organization, there are many
changes - available funding support being one of the primary ones. The arts
funding climate in Nova Scotia is not favourable, especially when it comes to
operating support. Provincial government grants toward operating support have
been frozen for over a decade, making it very difficult for arts organizations
established since then to grow and remain sustainable for very long. Generally
speaking, this has encouraged a heavy dependence on corporate sponsorships
within the arts sector. However, we make a point of curbing that trend as much
as possible and instead rely on a strong network of partnerships with unions
and labour organizations across the province.
What
are the rewards?
Fostering a politicized arts scene where
challenging the status quo is the new norm and also fostering a culture of
solidarity through our audiences. Inevitably, this leads to the curation of
artwork that originates from a very diverse range of voices and communities,
which, in itself, is very exciting and enlightening.
May 1st is marked throughout the world as
International Workers’ Day, or May Day. A day when the workers of the world
take to the streets in every major city around the globe demanding justice,
fairness and dignity for all. In North America, May Day has not been as
prominent as it is in other parts of the world, but it is still celebrated in
most major cities with a variety of political and community actions.
However, May Day isn’t simply a celebration of labour. It is a rallying call
against our current economic system, a public declaration that “Capitalism
Isn’t Working For Workers,” and an affirmation that a better world is possible.
One of the ways various labour councils and unions mark May Day is through the
Mayworks Festival. Mayworks was originally conceived in 1986 by the Toronto and
York District Labour Council and the idea has since spread to many cities
across the country. The goal behind Mayworks is to bring workers and artists
together and to use art to explore themes of justice, solidarity and
liberation. Art has always been an important way of expressing political
statements and Mayworks continues in a long tradition of building bonds of
solidarity between artists and labour organizations. The first annual Mayworks
Halifax festival took place in 2009 thanks to the organizing efforts of
volunteer union delegates to the Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour
Council. Our festival has since grown exponentially from year to year and has
now become Nova Scotia’s largest social justice themed cultural event.
Annually, our festival attracts over a thousand diverse audience members who
take interest in issues of social, economic and environmental justice.
Moreover, the multi-disciplinary nature of the festival allows us to draw
followers from multiple arts communities including theatre, dance, visual art,
film and music. What sets Mayworks Halifax apart from other local festivals is
its close ties to the Nova Scotia labour movement and its ability to bring
together the labour movement and the arts community in cultural projects that
encourage the use of art toward positive social change. In its programming, our
festival seeks out partnerships with cooperatives and artist-run centres and
places a particular focus in supporting local artists. Furthermore, our
programming attempts to redress the under-representation of certain communities
or certain issues in artistic venues. We don’t shy away from highly
marginalized issues such as the examination of working conditions in the sex
industry, or from contentious programming such as bringing to stage former
prison inmates to reflect on their lives as a means to reconcile with their
communities. Mayworks Halifax celebrates the history of working people in Nova
Scotia. It pays homage to famous human endeavours such as the difficult strikes
lead by miners in Cape Breton or the inspiring cooperative movement born out of
Antigonish. But, it also challenges narrow conceptions of working class culture
and depicts it as complex and diverse, and yet containing common experiences,
values and desires for fairness and justice. As such, our mission is to draw
correlations between social issues in order to generate empathy and cooperation
between groups and organizations in an effort to build a better society for ourselves.
How
has it evolved since last year?
We've received more submissions than ever for this
year's festival, leading to a very interesting curating process. As a whole, I
would say our 2018 program is our strongest yet featuring some well-established
artists in a number of different disciplines alongside some very promising
emerging talent.
What
can attendees expect at this year's festival?
For the first time this year, we are providing sign
language interpreters for some of our events that rely on speech for
communication - i.e. spoken word and theatre events. Economic accessibility has
always been at the forefront of our considerations by making sure that our
events are either free or offered at much lower admission costs than the norm.
However, making our festival more accessible to those living with various
physical disabilities has been a growing consideration of ours. We make a point
of making sure our venues are wheelchair accessible, for example. And now,
we're inviting deaf and hard of hearing Nova Scotians to join us by providing
services that will allow them to enjoy our festival and appreciate the work of
our featured artists.
What
are the event's future plans?
2019 will mark our 10th anniversary! So, we're
already thinking about how to celebrate this landmark year for us. Stay tuned!
