Moving Forward: a conversation with Stefan Dzeparoski

Thank you, Stefan Dzeparoski, for reading ‘Moving Forward’ and for getting in touch with me. The name of this theatre company has been intriguing since I’m learning more and more about it.  I’ve never attended any productions but am hoping to get the opportunity to review a show there once it’s safe for us to return to the theatre.

Stefan Dzeparoski (He/Him) is the Director/Creative Producer of BirdLand Theatre.  He holds an MFA Theatre Directing, MA Theatre Studies, and BFA Directing for Multimedia. He is Serbian born, Toronto based renowned international director and creator of visually arresting live productions. He is known for his interdisciplinary stage practices merging digital and live performance. Stefan’s work has been seen on stages in Europe, Canada and US. He has successfully branched his creative practices into the realms of film, television, and digital performance.

He directed Off-Broadway productions of Wide Awake Hearts by Brendan Gall, (BirdLand Theatre at 59E59 Theaters), and The Birds by Conor McPherson (BirdLand Theatre at 59E59 Theaters) At BirdLand, Stefan has directed works by John Herbert, Rajiv Joseph, Brendan Gall, Conor McPherson. His other selected directing credits among others include After the Fall and The Creation of the World and Other businesses by Arthur Miller, Roberto Zucco by Bernard Marie Koltes, 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.

Stefan’s production of Whoʼs Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee was showcased at BITEF festival in Belgrade, Serbia, as a part of New European Directors Showcase. His multimedia project Delete was featured at Prague Quadrennial in 2015.

Stefan collaborated with Daniel Brooks, David Ferry, Michael Ondaatje, Andre Sills, Erin Gruber, Peter Mooney just to name few. In Canada he collaborated with companies such as Necessary Angel, Citadel Theatre, Workshop West Theatre.  He was also chosen by Peter Brook for his masterclass at BAM in New York.

Stefan is an accomplished educator teaching at University of Alberta, lecturing at University of Toronto, New School for Drama-New York. He is an alumna of Directors Lab at The Lincoln Center in New York, and fellowship recipient of International Theatre School at University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

We conducted our conversation via email. Thank you so much for participating:

It has been an exceptionally long eight months since the pandemic began, and now the numbers are edging upward again. How are you feeling about this? Will we ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion?

We have been here before. There is no comfort in that statement. It is rather a striking warning that despite having some sort of collective memory we still stubbornly refuse to look into the past. Yes, life is happening now, but if we do not transcend the experiences from the past in the now we keep repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different outcome. So, probably madness is our perpetual condition.

The situation of the pandemic has been politicized to the point of open aggression and oppression. It is not just the numbers that are rising. The radical fractions, dangerous infective ideas are rising, and we are having pathogen extremes on both ends of the spectrum. Wearing a mask has been claimed as patriotic duty. It should be a common sense of caring for the well being of your fellow citizen. The new kind of nationalism is at the door.

We are witnessing the birth of Pandemic Generated Nationalism. The question is not just the emergence into the new way of living, but the battle for human conscience and consciousness. This new Pandemic Generate Nationalism is more dangerous than any authoritarian regime. It is subversive and perverted in how it attacks the idea of common sense and destroys consciousness.

The battle is actually not just about the virus.

How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last eight months?

One of my grandfathers was a carpenter and the other one a baker and candy maker. Both disciplines require persistence, patience, and trust into one’s own ability to endure. I believe that I must inherited something from them.

Moving forward is the only option.

So, all my energy is focused in that direction and is motivated by the incredible presence of my wife and daughter. I am forever grateful to my wife for being so resilient. Her resilience is the main strength of our little family unit. Providing the calm and inspiring environment to our daughter is essential to us. We are trying to introduce her to many creative outlets that she can have.

Thanks to the internet she is having the access the knowledge and inspiration I could only dream about in my childhood. So, we are sailing through this moment accepting what comes and planning our future projects and activities.

I am more actively connecting with colleagues from other parts of the world investigating new ways of collaboration. There have been moments when all this turbulence caused some sort of soul-sickness. At those moments I remember my grandmother who always reminded me to never forget on how far I have traveled in life.

I have been through the crisis of civil war, bombing, economical sanctions but this crisis somehow for me carries a different kind of weight. I will probably analyze that feeling in some of my future project. My wife is concentrated on re-envisioning the structure and operating model of BirdLand Theatre. That requires a lot networking, reconnecting with colleagues and making new meaningful connections. She has not stopped in creating and developing. She is seeing BirdLand Theatre as a company that embraces Digital Theatre and ventures into film production and education.

For a long time, she had the idea of BirdLand Theatre offering the series of courses based in creativity and open to wide audience and not just theatre community. For her creativity is not a skill it is a way of life and she wants to share that with everyone. Our daughter is at the moment fully emerged into the world on visual art but starting to discover singing as something that might be focus of her attention for some time.

This time was not easy for everyone. We will all probably only remember just the moments and events that have pushed us forward. Keeping the light on is essential. Whenever in crisis I tend to repeat this to myself as mantra: “Where the light is coming from.”

Everyone has a different answer. It is of the utmost importance to see that light. Even if it blinds you.

As an artist within the performing arts community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

In the play ‘The Human Voice’ by Jean Cocteau, a still young woman is on the phone with her lover of the last five years. She can only hear his voice and she is going through a psychological crisis as love dies and he is marrying another woman. The human voice is only hers; we never hear the voice of her lover. What we cannot hear but we can feel is the man’s hypocrisy and meanness.

I am still thinking about this play. About the absence of visceral, physical connection. About the physical separation, that leads to social separation, and how all that creates a separation within us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Somewhere after the first month of the pandemic I started thinking about the time we all collectively are spending in front of the screens. Or simply listening the voices of others over the phone. We have been conditioned to accept the reality through the Zoom frame. Do we feel better if we place a different Zoom background?

Theatre is the ultimate act of collective creation. The collective is the sole definition of theatre. Without the immediate, rooted in the perpetual now, direct interaction with others it is very difficult to create theatre. Not being able to gather colleagues, even for a brief brainstorming session at the local coffee shop, is challenging. Yes, we are simulating these sessions on-line and trying to give them as much energy so that they can make us feel alive.

At the moments it looks as if we are giving a CPR to a form that ultimately depends on physical connection. We are now actively creating in this digitally simulated environment. In the performing arts we are not just exchanging information we are exchanging energies. The heart of our creation is in the exchange of energy. Finding a way how to transcend this energy through digital simulacrum is my personal and professional goal.

Personally, and professionally the challenge is in understating this imposed separation, not as an imprisonment of a spirit but rather as a call for the radical empowering action. There is a lot of hypocrisy around the fundamental human needs for closeness and gathering.

 Were you in preparation, rehearsals, or any planning stages of productions before everything was shut down? What has become of those projects? Will they see the light of day anytime soon?

Together with BirdLand Theatre we were in a preparation of a few creative projects. The biggest is the production of ‘Archduke’ by American playwright Rajiv Joseph. It is a play about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the beginning of World War I. The story is focused on the young Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princip. A lot of preparation went in research and development of this project. As a director who explores and experiments the creative use of digital technology in live performance, I have put a lot of work in ‘Archduke’.

The project will most likely see its fruition as a Digital Theatre project. My musical theatre project ‘Balkan Love’ with partners in New York was seriously affected by the pandemic. Also with our partners in Serbia we have been preparing the foundations of first Canadian-Serbian theatre festival that is supposed to grow into the first international fringe festival in that region. That project is of course now on a big hold and simply waits for a more opportune moment.

Just before the pandemic with BirdLand Theatre I was preparing our first educational program focused on the principles of creativity. The program is not primarily focus just on theatre creators but is open to anyone interested in creative development and growth. During the pandemic we gathered the elements of that program and created our first course in creative mediation called ‘The Seven Cycles of You’. The course was run for seven weeks and we will be offering it again soon in an expanded version.

BirdLand Theatre was also preparing its first film project. This project is about three women of different ages and backgrounds. It is a triptych of short films where each film is written and directed by a different creative team. The pandemic pushed this project back to the drawing board and actually allowed another round of script development.

What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time?

Besides being a parent to an eight-year old girl which is quite enough even in far more stable circumstances, few of my creative passions re-emerged.

In addition to being a stage director I also had a career as TV director, filmmaker and radio producer specialized in radio drama. These experiences started coming back and I wrote a draft of a movie script inspired by the pandemic. I also have a pilot for a TV show and have been playing with some sound design and audio recording.

I was a part of an incredible master class series led by Jillian Keiley through GhostLight. For six weeks, together with Jillian and the amazing creative people across Canada, we worked on envisioning the production of ‘Metamorphoses’ by Mary Zimmerman. That was a soul-saving experience. Parallel with that I got myself into another workshop series with director Robert Icke looking into ‘Hamlet’ from our contemporary perspective.

Photography is also my passion, so I have been combining it with some creative writing. Sometime ago I developed a series of exercises in creative meditation that I practice with actors and the entire creative team whenever I work on a production. For seven weeks with the help of BirdLand Theatre and colleagues in Serbia I have been running this meditation course. I might do it again starting in December.

In collaboration with colleagues from a creative start-up @plots.plays in Belgrade, Serbia and BirdLand Theatre I produced a video for project ‘Hopscotch’, a transmedia project that tells the story of love in the times of lies and evil. The project is about mental health through the lenses of art. It was imagined as interdisciplinary, multimedia live performance but now is shifting towards being born as a Digital Theatre project. The video was presented at the Social Distancing Festival created by the wonderful Nick Green.

My personal goal is to emerge from this situation with the material that could be a solid foundation and source for my future projects. Daniel Brooks told me once when I asked him what to do when everything seems to be an obstacle: “Keep working.”

So, I am working.

Any words of wisdom or advice you might /could give to fellow performers and colleagues? What message would you deliver to recent theatre school graduates who have now been set free into this unknown and uncertainty?

I would like to ask them for advice especially the recent theatre school graduates. They are the ones that will carry the greatest burden of the post-pandemic world. I am here to help. I am thinking these days about my students from University of Alberta, Ryerson University, New School for Drama in New York.

It is optimistic to think in terms of two years studies and theaters being closed. Let us think about the period of three to five years filled with strict restrictions and regulations. In that case maybe it is more favorable to think about new ways of approaching the performing arts then dreaming about to returning to something that was in place.

We should all not be afraid of uncertainty. Somehow it has been shown clear to us during the pandemic that we in the arts have always been living in uncertain times. We know how to navigate them.

To the recent theatre graduates please jump on Digital Theatre train and educate yourself about technology and the creative opportunities it offers. On-line reality will be our reality for some time, and we must not let it disappear as an art form. We will eventually all return to theatre venues but if we return with new knowledge and skills just imagine what kind of exciting work we can create. This pandemic has leveled the playing field. Only the ones with the knowledge and sense how to navigate will be able to bring the future of theatre.

And the future of theatre is hybrid-it is live, and it is digital.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19? “

…for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” said Hamlet.

It is truly how we choose to look at this situation.

Since we were all, at the beginning of the pandemic, placed in isolation we looked for ways to still connect with friends, colleagues and family. The creative ways of connecting have emerged and also inspired the new ways of creating. This invention born out of necessity will serve as a essential elements of future work and art forms waiting to be born.

Can you imagine a complete theatre production done in Virtual Reality? None of the team members needs to be physically present in the same space, and the world they create will be visited and inhabited by anyone with a VR set. Experiments in this direction are already done and some amazing creations are being born.

In the context of performing arts this might be the most significant positive outcome from the pandemic. For a long time, we will not be able to have venues and rehearsal halls operating the way we knew in the past. Creating and developing Digital Theatre will be in the focus of theatre creators for the next few years. This does not mean that what we knew as a theatre will disappear.

No, this is not and ‘either-or’ situation.

The rise of Digital Theatre will simply push us to re-envision the notion of ‘liveness’ and theatrical immediacy. We have an incredible opportunity to re-invent the live performance.

Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/ Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

We are witnessing the collapse of North American performing arts scene. Structures fall, evolve and are being built again. The task is to build a new structure that will serve better the multitudes of professionals actively working in performing arts.

We are already feeling the impact. Many companies and organizations have shown the resilience by shifting to on-line active presence. What needs to be in place is a plan for the day when suddenly we are not in a pandemic crisis anymore.

I wonder will categories such as newcomer, emerging, established artist mean something after the pandemic. What is our post-pandemic future? Some many more organizations will stop existing. That is already happening. Dancemakers in Toronto announced days ago that after 46 years they are closing their doors for good. That is insane. Was there really no other way than closing an important organization?

What must get back into the focus if we intend to exist as an integral structure of society is getting back to the artists and well being of the artists. That does not mean just income for artists but also looking into creating a different structure for providing space and time for creation, care for artists with children, health care, and so on.

Ali Momen (from the Canadian company of COME FROM AWAY) had a great idea with ‘Arts New Deal’ - put artists to work. ‘Arts New Deal’ is the revolution we need now. We must take this moment as an opportunity to radically change and re-invent how we live and create. That is what I would like to see as a lasting impact of this crisis.

Some artists have turned to You Tube and online streaming to showcase their work. What are your comments and thoughts about streaming? Is this something that the actor/theatre may have to utilize going forward into the unknown?

I urge every actor, theatre creator to educate themselves about the creative possibilities of this kind of technology in the context of live performance. Digital Theatre is not some exotic, niche group thing within the performing arts community. It will turn to be the lifeline of future theatre.

Digital Theatre is expanding the art form by bringing the new possibilities not just in the way of creating and producing projects, but also very importantly in changing how the revenue could be generated. Just a couple weeks ago Digital Theatre project ‘Circle Jerk’ supported by TONY nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris sold on-line in one week close to 30 000 tickets.

Have you ever been to an indie theatre production that had that big audience in one week? ‘Circle Jerk’ itself did not had any big actor celebrity names to attract the masses. So, a new world is wide open in front of us.

We better be ready for it.

Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about the art of performance that Covid will never destroy for you?

We must trust and believe. The truth is the only goal. And the guide is beauty. To be in performing arts is to love your fellow human in spite all faults and shortcomings.

It is love I believe in. That is all.

To get in touch with Stefan and/or to learn more about BirdLand Theatre, visit Twitter: @DzeparoskiS or @BirdLandToronto or Instagram: @birdlandproducer