Thinking Spaces: Kate Story and Ryan Kerr—Death in Reverse: Performance in Precarious Times

Artists Kate Story and Ryan Kerr will share what it means to create meaningful work within conditions of precarity, and on the unusual, often improvised ways artists find to stay connected with audiences. They will share experiences from curating a contemporary theatre piece marked by setbacks: limited funding, collaborative challenges, shifting resources – while also finding unexpected forms of support through local politics, partnerships, and community networks. Reflecting on “Project Baroness” (https://ttok.ca/death–in–reverse-project-baroness/), they will also consider festival and DIY theatre, arts and “non-arts’’ collaborations, residency models, and the fragile balance between fundraising and public funding that shapes small-scale performance ecosystems. “As Death in Reverse made its way toward the stage, our work continually evoked echoes of DADA-era New York: periods of conflict, displacement, authoritarian tightening, censorship, and the suppression of movements for racial, gender, and LGBTQ2IA+ justice. Artists may have been worn down by their circumstances, yet they continued to create. This conversation invites us to sit with those parallels—and with the quiet insistence of art that persists.”

Ryan Kerr is the founding artistic director of The Theatre on King, a radical black-box space that, soon after being established, became the hub for new and risk-taking performance in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough Ontario. At TTOK, Kerr oversaw countless original performances as outside eye, lighting designer, director, and mentor, featuring a wide range of artists – emerging to established, including theatre artists, musicians, writers, dance artists, comedy, and multidisciplinary artists. With Kate Story he co-ran the Precarious Festivals, four multi-disciplinary, multi-artist, multi-week festivals featuring regional artists in collaboration with non-arts groups and initiatives. Kerr is the winner of the Arts Catalyst Award (Peterborough Arts Awards).