Writing/ We’ve drawn the first line
A reflection on Theatre Replacement’s very first edition of the Accelerator Lab International Fellowship
In 2024, Theatre Replacement (TR) launched Accelerator Lab because we could feel something shifting — or perhaps disappearing — from our known experience of international touring. For 21 years, my company has been navigating this terrain: figuring out how to show work abroad, how to connect across cultures, and how to sustain those relationships in ways that feel mutual and meaningful. Our work grew up through being in conversation with other places. But post-pandemic, with the landscape increasingly fragmented and the systems strained, it felt like the time had come to try something new. As a company that has long invested in internationalism and cultural exchange in the arts, we were questioning whether — and how — these priorities still held.
Accelerator Lab is a program that is rooted not in speed, but in depth. We were eager to make it happen, but we also wanted it to feel substantial and sustained. We designed it to be a year-long fellowship for four Vancouver-based, experimental theatre artists. Each artist would be paired with an international mentor — someone who had spent years creating, producing or presenting contemporary performance across borders — they’d meet remotely over 6 sessions. Very early on, the cohort and members of the TR team would travel to the Noorderzon Festival in the Netherlands to see work, and meet with festival programmers and artists. Throughout all our time together we’d debrief, reflect, experiment and share knowledge. Further, we’d present what we had gathered and gleaned with the community through a public conversation at HOLD ON LET GO, all the while building something we could pass on: a growing, living document of case studies, strategies, and insights (now over 200 pages long).
I’ve been fortunate to be a part of a few international programs like this, focused on artist-centred mentorship developing work inside a global context. So I had a sense of what it might offer artists (and more specifically — a generation of artists). I’ve said this a bunch, but what actually occurred went way deeper than just knowledge transfer.
What international connection gave these artists was a sense of forward motion. A feeling of not being alone. Of hearing one’s own artistic language reflected back in a new context. This newer and bigger context was ever-present; it was cultivated through our shared adventures in Groningen, and through individual mentorship sessions, and it continued to stretch around us like a cozy, fun blanket whenever we were together. Accelerator Lab offered friendship, new perspectives and perhaps most importantly — possibility. It revealed the essential-ness of being able to talk about art as artists (and not just its impact); to share what feels exciting, and to feel validated when something felt, well, the opposite of exciting.
Although we were constantly gazing at international contexts, we were also always reflecting on our shared experiences as artists living and working in Vancouver. As much as our findings were about what we were trying to parse around (re)building outward connections, they also revealed a lot about local/regional trends. Certain things echoed over and over: the decline of touring as we knew it; increased scarcity of resources concentrated in fewer projects; hyper-local/regional focus; the pressure to address social impact and community relevance; a shift toward smaller-scale, identity-centred or politically charged works; and — curiously — a proliferation of cryptic projected text with titles and ‘credits’. What is going on??
At our final full-group Zoom call last April, a theme emerged: change — big change. All of the international mentors were experiencing transitions, leaving (or soon to be leaving) their organizations — organizations that they had either founded, built up, or been a part of for several years. One announcement literally took place while we were ON the Zoom call! We reflected on change: how we view it, whether we choose it or it chooses us, how the pandemic reshaped our relationship to it. Most of all, we affirmed that change is essential to art-making — and that the arts make space for change in powerful ways. That last conversation was incredibly energizing and enlightening; perhaps all the transition talk made us brave to speak even more openly with each other.
Accelerator Lab created change for these four artists. And I predict that this will create ripples of change for our city, throughout each of their individual networks and communities. One of the key criteria for the program was the response to a question on the application form: How might you use this opportunity to benefit the wider artistic community in Vancouver? Each of the artists in the cohort responded to these questions in ways which stood out to me — they spoke about sharing, intersection, presencing and affinity. In their own ways, Aryo, Keely, Davey and Kyle are instigators within their own circles and within the city’s larger art scene, and so imagine my delight when it turned out they also had incredible chemistry as a group.
My biggest takeaway from these last several months? THEM. These four artists. Their generosity, smarts, talent and their amazing spirit of camaraderie. And I want to celebrate each of their superpowers: Aryo’s charm and playfulness; Davey’s intuitiveness and keen interpretation skills; Keely’s integrity and craftiness; and Kyle’s grounded-ness and commitment. Doing this with them has been a tonic.
What I’ve also learned is this: mentorship works. That direct, generous conversations work. That when you demystify the idea of “international touring” — when you move away from extractive networking and into something reciprocal — artists begin to build something real. And that for TR — for me — international connection is still really important. I’ve always been fed, inspired and reassured by being a part of a creative community away from home. Not because it’s ‘better’ or ‘more glamorous’, but because it helps me to understand this place better — it helps me to know more fully how I can be part of my community here.
So that’s a wrap. The first Accelerator Lab International Fellowship is complete. Kind of. We’ve drawn the first line. Or the first several lines. We’re still looking at it — this sketch of a new structure — it’s a different kind of map, now connected to a growing number of dots on the page. Here’s to more artistic friendship and adventures.
—Maiko Yamamoto
Special Thanks to: Katie Roberts, Matthew Austin, Ragnheiður Skúladóttir, Juliet Knapp, Meiyin Wang, Francisco Frazão, Brad Krumholz, Raydun Bolk, Dolina Wehipeihana, Jin Yim, Dan Kok, Mark Yeoman, Ant Hampton
Accelerator Lab was funded through a Sector Innovation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and a Cultural Learning and Sharing grant from the City of Vancouver. Produced by Theatre Replacement.
