With its emphasis on video content and live-streamed performances, the upcoming edition of UNO Fest bears only a passing resemblance to previous editions of the festival of solo performance.
But the COVID-19 pandemic, which nullified plans to stage the festival in various venues across the city, has created something interesting in and of itself, from opera and theatre to puppetry and dance.
“The in-person experience is a foundation of the festival,” said Heather Lindsay, executive director of the Intrepid Theatre Company, which produces the event. “But we took the time to dream and talked with each other, and threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck. We just kept brainstorming and looked at ways to adapt.”
UNO Fest Online will be presented through next week in a variety of formats, including Facebook Live chats with producers and creators. The mandate throughout the process was to be “creatively simple,” in order to meet the demands of the new medium, according to Lindsay. She said the 10-day festival and its collaborators still wanted to offer something valuable. “This isn’t our main platform. But the artists have been so inspiring.”
Intrepid Theatre was forced to adjust quickly when restrictions on gatherings were imposed last month. Originally scheduled to run April 30-May 9 at the Intrepid Theatre Club, Metro Studio, Baumann Centre and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the festival has now moved entirely online. Lindsay and the Intrepid Theatre team had three weeks to implement a new plan, whereas the previous version took months to assemble.
“The train had left the station — we were ready to go [with the original festival]. Everything was dialed-in, and then it just stopped.”
What remains of the original festival (some productions were not able to be produced online, according to Lindsay) will be presented with additional content starting Thursday night on both intrepidtheatre.com and the company’s official Facebook page. Both free and paid programming is available, from interviews with the artists and free streaming solo performances to Happy Half-Hours on Facebook with artists and artistic staff. Those who pay for the exclusive content will have access to it until May 9, Lindsay said.
The realities of staging a festival online have resulted in some original work being created for the newly reimagined UNO Fest. As a result, some of the programming that will be unlocked for patrons this week features work being presented as in-development, from J McLaughlin’s new solo show, But Wait! There’s More!, which will be performed from her backyard, and Gemini, which was written by Lindsay Delaronde as a response to COVID-19, to a tour-de-force performance by Victoria tenor Isaiah Bell in The Book of My Shames.
“This was a response to the moment,” Lindsay said. “All of these artists have taken a really creative turn, or a full pivot. These are all brand-new works that had to be fully paused and creatively adapted to their environment.”
Programming next week includes offerings from three national companies, including Monstrous by Sarah Waisvisz (Ottawa), Sansei: The Storyteller by Kunji Mark Ikeda (Calgary) and Who Killed Gertrude Crump? by Ryan Gladstone and Tara Travis of Monster Theatre (Vancouver). Lindsay is eager to see how the festival plays out over the next 10 days, how audiences adapt and what impact that will have on public performance in the months and years to come.
“We’re taking this and melting it and remolding it,” she said. “We haven’t started from scratch, but we have created new works and ideas that are all under the umbrella of what UNO Fest is. It really is theatre outside the lines now.
“Performing arts and creativity are really important parts of us getting through this incredible moment we’re all facing right now. Thinking outside the box is healthy for us. Escaping into a puppet show with your family is like a nice, warm blanket.”
