Photo C/O socrates.mcmaster.ca

By Nisha Gill, Staff Writer

The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed plans for McMaster University’s Socrates Project. Launched in 2018, the Socrates Project began as a two year-long initiative intended to foster stronger connections between the University and the broader community through events such as lectures, debates, round tables, concerts and artistic exhibitions. 

Due to the closure of the University and the Ontario’s restrictions on gatherings, the Socrates Project has had to cancel the remainder of their planned in-person events for the winter and spring semesters. Additionally, other initiatives run by the Socrates Project, such as the Cod & Steel summer exchange program, have had to be cancelled.

“COVID-19 has had a major impact on the Socrates Project, requiring the cancellation of many, many events exhibitions, guest speakers, conferences and a long-planned student summer employment exchange,” said Socrates Project director Rina Fraticelli. 

Although the events have been postponed indefinitely, this is not the end for the Project. Since the cancellation of classes on March 13, the Socrates Project has posted hints on their social media that  something new and exciting will replace some of their previously planned programming. Recently, the Project announced their new YouTube channel. The channel currently features six of the past year’s lectures, including Designing Reality: the Third Digital Revolution by Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and Towards a New Politics of Migration by Bridget Anderson. 

The Project is also planning to run two live lectures through Zoom: Learning Lessons from COVID-19: With Dr. Ahmad Firas Khalid, which took place on April 9, 2020 and Breckenridge Memorial Lecture: Legislating in Polarized Times with Sarah A. Binder on April 22, 2020. These lectures are not only part of the Socrates Project’s plans to adapt to current circumstances but also a way to help viewers adapt to and learn from these circumstances. To participate, you will need to register ahead of time on the Socrates Project’s website

“I think the world is far from being at a standstill in fact, if anything, this pandemic is showcasing our capacity for invention, for resourcefulness, for community. The level of intelligence and generosity that has been in evidence is extremely heartening. It gives me hope that we can see it applied to building a better ‘new normal’. What this catastrophe reveals, if we’re willing to look, is the need for maturity and vision in the design of our policies. That’s the job we have now; to analyze the policies and practices in our societies that propelled the worst impacts of pandemic, and those that are helping to mitigate them,” said Fraticelli.

The Socrates Project is not focused on only adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also on maintaining a positive outlook by continuing their planning for the next academic year. They will be planning for better and brighter days ahead.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-fi1bKHFsO/

“[W]e’re continuing to work hard on a very exciting and far-reaching festival we’re planning for the end of September. The festival, SHIFT 2020, will bring together scientists, artists, scholars and community members for a series of events that aim to shift our attention from the source of our crises to the sources of solutions [. . .]  SHIFT 2020 is the final event of The Socrates Project,” said Fraticelli.

Furthermore, the Socrates Project recognizes the importance of individual impact in both adapting to the current situation as well as maintaining a positive outlook.

“I’d love students to remember that the future is up to them. Each student has a unique capacity to influence, for better or for worse. And this pandemic is an unprecedented classroom for studying the world as it is and the world as it might be,” said Fraticelli.

The Socrates Project’s response can help us to remember not only the importance of adapting and re-strategizing in difficult times, but also the importance of remembering that there will be better and brighter days to come in the future.

 

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Photo C/O Social Distancing Festival

Renaissance London is frequently hailed as a landmark of performance and culture. You may, perhaps, have heard of writers like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe; however, during the years of 1603 and 1613, the theatres of London were closed for 78 months due to the plague. With people trapped in their homes and terrified of becoming sick, it was difficult to share performances. Today we are facing a similar situation, but fortunately there is now a place for us to come together and experience all the theatre the world has to offer us: The Social Distancing Festival.

The Social Distancing Festival was created by Toronto playwright Nick Green. When Green and his co-writer Kevin Wong found out that their musical In Real Life was cancelled, Green reached out to fellow artists and realized that performances everywhere were being halted midway through their rehearsals. The Social Distancing Festival was born out of a desire to save those shows and give them their spotlight.

Theatre from all over the world, in numerous forms, is available to stream and enjoy from the festival website, and the response has been hugely positive, with review articles being written by dozens of news outlets. As much as we all joke about bingeing Netflix and Disney+, there is clearly a desire in all of us to be able to experience live art and theatre.

The Social Distancing Festival is a place where artists can submit their work for viewers to see and enjoy. Clicking on the "Featured" and "Live Streams" tabs will take you to pages that feature everything from spoken word to opera. The Featured page has a more curated selection, whereas the Live Streams page has a calendar option so that you can see what streams are available to you on a given day. Some streams require registration, so if there is something that catches your eye, make sure to double check that there is room available.

The festival only started on Friday March 13, but it has been growing and evolving daily, and as a result Green has needed more people to help him organize it. Matthew Reid, a fourth year student at Sheridan College in the honours bachelor of music and performance program, is one of those helpers. He met Green at a theatre workshop last summer. Like students here at McMaster, Reid found that his final semester of undergrad was suddenly and abruptly cut off. At the fifth rehearsal for their upcoming performance of Guys and Dolls, Reid and the rest of the class were told that the show was cancelled.

“[W]e all went into rehearsal on Friday and were told that our rehearsal process would be stopped and our productions were going to be cancelled. So that was a bit of a shock to the system, especially as fourth year students, because this is our last, final project before leaving school. We realized that all we had left to do was a couple of online meetings and then we were done with our degree, we were done with this whole undergrad experience, and it all happened in the blink of an eye,” said Reid.

World Theatre Day took place March 27, with theatres across the globe sitting empty. The artist community has been hit hard by COVID-19 closures. Many performers rely on theatre in order to pay their bills or, like Reid, in order to finish their degrees. Not only that, performers live and breathe theatre. It’s how they express their talent and creativity, and for many it is their driving passion. In the wake of the closures, Green saw both himself and his friends suddenly left rudderless, with the energy that they invested in their projects seemingly going to waste.

“[Green] wanted to create a platform where artists could share work . . . that had been cancelled or postponed or stopped, as a way for them to continue to create what they were creating, as a way for them to get feedback and to celebrate their work, to connect with other artists internationally. It seems people are very grateful for their work not to be lost. It's always good to have a project, especially in a weird, very unpredictable time like this, [to have] a project to focus on,” said Reid.

Theatre has always had to adapt to funding cuts and shoestring budgets, and artists are nothing if not adaptable. Green’s show In Real Life has been continuing to rehearse remotely despite the barriers put in its way. The show is set in a dystopian future where the students live in cubes and can only communicate with one another online. This hits disconcertingly close to home as we all practice physical distancing, only able to see one another through our screens.

“They are, very fortunately, still managing to meet as a cast and as a team online . . . So it's kind of like they're actually living [the show] right now. They're all doing a 30 person Zoom call and rehearsing their songs and working on scenes, and it all has to be online from the comfort of their own room[s] because that's where we we have to be right now, so it's kind of like they're method acting, experiencing the world of the cube while they're rehearsing for the show,” said Reid.

None of us know how long we’ll need to keep our distance, or when live theatre will be able to start up again. Until then, The Social Distancing Festival is hoping to continually evolve and improve to help both the artists sharing their work, and the people watching from home. As it continues, the festival is working to include not only theatre, but also music, dance, traditional art and spoken word. If you’re an artist, you can submit through their website, and if you’re not, hopefully you can find some joy in the work being shared. And when this is all over, we should all remember that the arts can play a large role in helping to get through difficult times.

 

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