6 minute read
Theatre group, Sun Ergos, confronts
It was 1977. Performers Bob Greenwood and Dana Luebke had both found success in the Canadian artistic community. Greenwood was the chairman of the acting-directing program at the University of Calgary, and Luebke a dancer in the prestigious Royal Winnipeg
Ballet.
However, Greenwood and Luebke were dissatisfied with their jobs and planning their leave. Greenwood had grown tired of his workplace politics and wanted to be more directly involved in performing. Luebke had grown tired of performing “crowd-pleasers” and craved more challenging choreographies and themes, such as Kurt Jooss’ The Green
Table.
It was around that time when Greenwood and Luebke attended a conference at the University of Manitoba.
Although they didn’t know one another yet, Greenwood and Luebke had both taken classes from classical dancer
Menaka Thakkar, who was also at the conference. And it was through her that their lives would change.
As the day’s conference proceedings turned into the evening, Greenwood and Thakkar were both wearing white as they emerged from the university’s light-red brick Georgian-style Taché Hall and descended the old concrete staircase outside to the grassy yard below. There,
Greenwood and Thakkar waited for a bus to take them to dinner and a performance.
As they talked, Greenwood and Thakkar saw someone approaching. It was Luebke. Thakkar introduced the two. On the university bus, Greenwood and Luebke began to plan launching their own theatre company. Combined, Greenwood and Luebke had three credit cards and $2,000 to their names. That meant they had to get creative to make their dreams a reality.
One of the first jobs Greenwood and Luebke took to fund their theatre company, Sun Ergos, was at Alberta College of the Arts (now ACAD), posing for art students. The two modelled nude and clothed for a variety of classes from sculpture to drawing to painting.
Greenwood says the experience “kept us very humble, when you’re naked standing in a cold cement studio let me tell you, it’s breathtaking.”
The hours-long classes took their toll. Both Luebke and Greenwood ended their sessions with black-and-blue limbs after allowing the class’ student to pose them for hours, with only a small break in between sessions.
That was just the beginning of Greenwood and Luebke’s long career of making and sharing art.
Greenwood and Luebke have travelled the world doing just that in their decades long career as a two-person theatre troupe. But the COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted their abilities to perform and do workshops live due to physical distancing restrictions.
Growing up, Greenwood accompanied his parents to see vaudeville shows, which they started attending to keep warm during the Great Depression.
When Greenwood was five years old, his father asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. His response: “an actor!” Despite only having a grade eight education, Greenwood’s parents did everything they could to make his dream happen.
Luebke also grew up watching plays. His father worked as a drama teacher and directed plays and musicals
After moving to Minneanapolis at the age of seven, his parents took him to Guthrie Theater to watch plays by the likes Molière and Tennesse Williams.
“There was something so magical and exciting to me about going into a theatre and sitting in my seat, and the lights would dim, and having no idea what I was going to see,” Luebke explained.
Together, Luebke and Greenwood founded Sun Ergos on August 24, 1977, Luebke chose the name, which is Greek for “working together” in part to express the goal and mission of their theatre company.
Sun Ergos’ mission is to help audiences recognize similarities in one another, celebrate differences among cultures and people, and promote greater compassion through the use of theatre, dance and visual arts.
The duo explores these themes by re-telling traditional stories from around the world, as well as through the creation and telling of new stories.
One such piece that Luebke remembers fondly is titled Clever Cherries. The piece contains four traditional Japanese stories, each from a different period in the nation’s history, and each with a different moral lesson.
> Dana Luebke
Greenwood and Luebke did all of the work for the play, making the costumes, masks, and sets themselves, drawing from traditional Japanese theatre styles like Kabuki and Noh for their piece.
Not only does Sun Ergos perform for audiences, they also work in communities and schools to teach performance arts, doing both in 24 countries.
The company’s hard work has earned them recognition globally and dozens of awards and scholarships for their efforts. During the Balkan wars, Greenwood and Luebke were awarded honorary Croatian citizenship, and in 2004, Croatia’s President Stjepan Mesić awarded the two the country’s highest cultural award, the Redom Danice Hrvatske s Likom Marka Marulica.
Despite the success and accolades, the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have been anything but easy to overcome, especially as performing artists.
Both Greenwood and Luebke believe in the importance of the arts in connecting and bringing people together, and the power of the arts to heal people.
“It [theatre] saved my parents’ lives during the [Great] Depression, They were able to go and think about something else, to feel something else,” Greenwood explains.
But unlike the Great Depression, COVID-19 has made it impossible for many people to attend theatres and connect with others in-person.
Venues are closed, gatherings are limited, and nobody knows how long restrictions will last. How can they plan for a future that is so unclear? Their conclusion is that they can’t, and instead must work with what they have available – the current reality.
“You have to deal with the reality, we’ve been in posh theatres where we’ve had wonderful dressing rooms with all that, but you also have the other experience, and the same thing I think has been true with COVID. Some days, everything seems, y’know, like it flows and everything seems okay, and the next minute some stupid thing happens and it’s very upsetting and you have to deal with it,” Greenwood says.
For Luebke, COVID-19 has given him the opportunity to work on making the most of whatever is thrown his way.
“I’ve learned the importance of resiliency, I am grateful to find out that I have resiliency… What COVID has given to me is a time to really practice that important skill that is accepting what is, and then finding out what I want to do in response to what is,” Luebke says.
In response to what is, Luebke currently teaches classes online, trying to make the most out of the pandemic and stay connected with others. Luebke has been using his skills and training as a dancer and performer to help people improve their mobility. By helping people manage their physical health, Luebke hopes that his students will be better able to manage other life challenges, such as COVID-19.
For his part, Greenwood has been spending his time lately with visual arts, painting, and working towards teaching online. Greenwood and Luebke also want to put more of Sun Ergos’ stories and performances online, and share their passion with larger audiences through digital means.
Despite the pandemic, and the challenges Greenwood and Luebke have faced, they are doing everything they can to continue doing what they love, sharing their art, and connecting with people.
“If we are to survive as a species, if we are going to survive on this planet, it is by connecting with each other, connecting to our common humanity, finding common ground, being able to listen and hear each other,” Luebke says. Dialogues for a Dead Day. PHOTO SUPPLIED BY SUN ERGOS
