“Why? To build better humans,” Dean Bareham said, looking me dead in the eyes and then continuing his frantic search for a quiet corner in Home Depot.
Dean and I were connecting over Zoom, parsing the intricacies of being both an artist and a teacher as he attempted to buy supplies for the upcoming school year. I had asked him why he taught while simultaneously being an acclaimed creator and artist. Hadn’t he heard the phrase, “those who can’t, teach?” As the artistic director and co-founder of Green Fools Theatre, Dean is the epitome of a tour de force. I’d known him from his years as wild weirdo Gustavo the Impossibilist, delighting Calgarians in the kids’ area of the Calgary Folk Music Festival when working as Artistic Associate in my early years of arts administration. Dean has performed and taught workshops all around the world, from Europe to South America, New Zealand to Japan. As a fellow teaching artist, his words made me pause, and as he settled into a corner between leaning door frames and windowpanes, I asked him what he meant.
Welcome to Why We Create, an ongoing collaboration and partnership with Werklund Centre that endeavours to explore the creative processes of artists working in Alberta. My name is Kenna Burima, musician, songwriter, producer, educator and writer. I am also a lover and cheerleader of artists.
Werklund Centre is reimagining their Arts Education programs as they step into a campus model. With this shift, it will be artists who help bring this vision to reality. But not just any artists; teaching artists. We’ve all heard the weary phrase “those who can’t, teach.” A lie if there ever was one, and one that laughably misrepresents the original quote from the 1903 George Bernard Shaw play Man and Superman. But enough of stuffy misquotes. Let’s talk about hot glue.
Hot Glue Burns
There's a uniqueness to the perspective of the teaching artist; the artist that stands in the door frame between the wild garden of creativity and the hallowed home of education. Two different art forms, creative processes and functions of the brain, but two imperative halves to a whole that make teaching in the arts powerful and essential.
“With the Green Fools we teach a lot of social circus,” says Dean. “It’s great for learning how to communicate, learning how to ask for what you need, to advocate for yourself, learning how to be respectful to each other and teachers. Core human things that we need to be shown and taught to do as humans. Be kind to each other, share, collaborate.”
I think of all the teachers in my life. I have too many to list. In truth, each artist I’ve ever worked with has been my teacher. But I really think it’s been the students I’ve learned the most from. It’s through teaching that I have learned not only how to build a better human, but how to be that better human. I am and will always remain a humble student first and a teacher second."
Dean agrees admitting being wrong is an important aspect of what he teaches as well. “Sure, I don’t always like to admit it either, but it’s important,” says Dean. “Maybe you're not always right. Just because it's your way doesn't mean that that's the right way. How about we try a collaborative approach? I bring this to the table in my workshops. I always come back to teaching kids advocating for themselves. What kind of education do you want? Do you enjoy this stuff? Is this something you like? We’re helping them recognize there's other things to consider. Hot glue burns. You know, that's an important life lesson right there.”
Glimmer of Genius
I’ve had the immense pleasure of listening to theatre artist Elaine Weryshko share her thoughts and feelings on creativity. When desperate for a creative pep talk, I’ve tromped down the stairs from my studio on the main floor of BonnyBoom, and found Elaine doing or making something I can’t quite explain. She is a magical and strange being who has taught me as much in a five-minute conversation as I learned in all my post-secondary education. As the co-Artistic/Education Director of the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry, along with Old Trout Peter Balkwill, she is well known for creating work that breaks boundaries of artistic disciplines and pushes limits of what is pigeonholed as “theatre."
“I always say to younger artists, you have to develop a creativity that is truly just for you,” says Elaine. “Not for the purpose of feeling seen or validated by others, although that can help, but your creativity is your genius. Your curiosity of your genius, that is your creativity. If you want to be creative, you must live through a face-first curiosity of you and the world you walk through.”
Facilitating curiosity and then how to follow that pull, that feeling of being caught by something; I believe it’s the most important thing we can do as teachers. To be able to follow it ourselves as artists is our life’s practice.
Be A Better Human
“Teaching is really about empowering youth to empower themselves,” admits Dean. “To be better humans, and so I look for the kid that no one's talking to. I look for the kid that is often in a corner by themselves. It’s maybe them that have this little glimmer of genius. By being a performer, artist and a creator, I think it brings this sort of energy to the work that is actually essential. Art is essential to learning, though it’s one of the first things that gets cut in budgets. I mean, we all know that art is essential. It’s through arts that kids find themselves. I see it when I teach circus or whenever I do physical theatre workshops making puppets or masks, and they become more aware of their own bodies and the world around them. We create these positive experiences, positive affirmations that bring them into their lives.”
The way Dean spoke about his work had me considering my own teaching practice. Though his focus is working with kids and building better humans, mine presently is helping build happier adults; those who have lost their artistic practice, whatever the discipline, or for various reasons have ceased to create. It's never about writing a hit song, or even a great song. It’s actually about writing a shitty song and getting out whatever needs to get out. And sometimes it’s through a shitty song or a lump that we find our way through our lives, bumping up against each other with our beautiful lumps in our hands, saying, “see? I made something!”
“It just doesn't matter, right?” laughs Dean. “Who cares if it looks like a lump? Be proud of that beautiful lump. We can't fight the darkness with other darkness. We have to fight with light. We have to keep doing what we're doing. Even more so now it's more important that we get in front of kids and that we inspire them, that we teach them love, we teach them compassion, we teach them some worth, yes, those things that can really help you understand how to navigate the world, you know, because what are we dealing with? Each other.”
And every single one of us is worth it. Thank you, Dean, thank you, Elaine, and thank you to every artist who plants a seed within a soul that builds a better human.
Write a symphony and tell no one
Create poetry and show no one
Wander to the top of a mountain and paint a picture that no one will see
Always remember to do creativity for you
and SOMETIMES that outputs art, and then share that!
it is a tool
it must be learnt
practiced
re-tuned
As a full life practice
- Elaine Weryshko