The Commoners’ Almanac: Spring Break From Capitalism
The Living Room Theatre
2353 Agricola Street
To April 15
While many folks can’t afford a tropical March vacation, plenty of us could stand to take a break from the daily grind of our capitalist society.
That’s the premise behind The Commoners’ Almanac: Spring Break From Capitalism—a project by Zachary Gough. It’s almost a literal a slice of the beach in Halifax, featuring a slushie machine and a patch of sand in The Living Room Theatre. If the sun’s not shining, one can take advantage of the daylight-simulating lights (the kind sometimes used to treat seasonal affective disorder). For an extra dose of sun, some of the slushies contain vitamin D.
“Within this space, we seek to engage with each other in a different way,” says Gough, who teamed up with local organizations such as DaPoPo Theatre and Starfish Group to make the project happen.
“We hope that it can be a little bit of a break from regular activism,” he adds. “Regular activism is often really hard, heavy, never-ending.”
The space, Gough explains, is somewhere activists can be together and relate to each other while also having fun. Dancing and speed friending are part of the exhibition’s events, along with more serious gatherings. Those include a panel discussion on fascism and a discussion about mental health.
Participants can also take part in workshops from theatre and dance to dumpster diving. Esther Fraser is leading the Commoners’ Contra Workshop to choreograph, write and develop a “contra dance that depicts cooperative economy.”
“So that’s taking the form of contra dance and adapting it,” says Gough. The workshop followed by a potluck as well as a performance.
The Spring Break events will be capped off with a dry dance party on April 13, with the exhibition ending two days later.
Gough feels “carving out a little space that is devoid of capitalism” gives people the chance to imagine “how our relationships might look in a post-capitalist society.”
“I think it’s a kind of utopia.”
A publication coinciding with the Spring Break From Capitalism theme is forthcoming.
See commonersalmanac.org for full event details.
Update: The Gentrification Walking Tour has been canceled and the article has been edited to reflect that.
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2017.
carving out a little space that is devoid of capitalism
If you pretend…yes. I mean dude it’s a nice try I suppose but it’s far from being devoid of “capitalism”….as witness this…”Its almost a literal a slice of the beach in Halifax, featuring a slushie machine and a patch of sand in The Living Room Theatre. If the suns not shining, one can take advantage of the daylight-simulating lights (the kind sometimes used to treat seasonal affective disorder). For an extra dose of sun, some of the slushies contain vitamin D. “
You see the thing of it is, that “living room” with those “slushy machines” and those daylight simulating lights, along with all the energy required to run it weren’t developed at Ross Farm Museum by a group of locals using nothing but wheat and home-made bailing twine to put it all together.
No…they were purchased. It was that “capitalist machine” that put this all together for you. And except for the energy it probably gets even worse than that, because those items weren’t made in Canada I bet, right? So that gets us deeper into Capitalism and past the “Globalism” checkpoint.
The dumpster diving (reuse/recycle/re blah blah blah) may seem like a delightful environmentalist add on, but frankly it gives me the creeps because it just highlights the fact that most people have been restricted in what they can afford to purchase and are forced to root through the garbage for their belongings…there’s nothing “environmental” about that…it’s an economics/poverty issue, driven by Capitalism and all its faults.
I have felt for a long time that millennials are so far down the rabbit hole they don’t even know they’re in a rabbit hole anymore and this kinda highlights that for me.
Anyway, enjoy the exhibition…but you’ll need to use your imagination to make it real.