Spotlight on Jillian Keiley: (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit Featured Speaker
Jillian Keiley is someone who needs no introduction if you're familiar with the local, national or international arts scene. An award-winning director, Founding Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, former Artistic Director of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and a teaching artist in the Directing Program at the National Theatre School in Montreal, she has been leading artists and audiences towards creative discovery for over three decades, and providing boatloads of inspiration along the way. That's why we're so excited to have Jillian as one of our featured speakers at our (Un)Common Threads Creativity & Innovation Summit on November 7 at the Sheraton Hotel in St. John's.
During her keynote "Purpose Led Creativity," Jillian will speak to the courage it takes to create and how focusing on a project’s mission can help unlock the divine sparks of creativity, ingenuity and expression.
We recently chatted with Jillian about her own creative path, what she does to get into the creative zone, what business and arts can learn from each other, and how laughter really is the best medicine.
(This interview has been edited for length.)
Jillian Keiley
Business & Arts NL: When and where are you most creative, and what per cent of your workday "feels" creative?
Jillian Keiley: In the theatre, there's all kinds of methods that we use to get people to open up that part of their brains and spirits. I walk my dog every morning as part of my personal ritual. I take him up in the woods...and that freedom - I always have a little thought up there. That's a really good creative personal space for me. And always in the shower and in the bath - and people will tell you that. But I think it has very little to do with the shower...The Greeks used to say that somebody has genius, not that they were a genius. And I think that's a really important thing - and a humbling thing for people who win prizes for being creative. It's like, I'm just delivering. And so, people who are professionally creative...they hone the skills, the channel. They're good at that channel....There's a lot of people who talk about the spiritual aspect to that. And it's not about religion, but it is about being open to that. And I think when you're getting a shower, you are out of yourself for that minute. You're out of your everyday, "I've got to clean off the table, I've got to feed the dog, I've got to put out the garbage." So you're out of that business. Your body is put into another way of being, and your brain turns over... and you get out of your own way. And as you get out of your own way, the light can get through...and I think everybody's capable of it.
Business & Arts NL: How do you deal with mental or creative blocks? Do you just leave or get out of your space? Is there something specific you do?
JK: There's a really amazing director whose name is Anne Bogart...and she says: "If you're ever stuck, just stand up and open your mouth and walk towards the actor." And I use that as a way of life. So sometimes, if I'm stuck, it's because there's something in the way, there's something blocking the light...if you want to create something and you don't know what, you just stand up and you start walking - so your body thinks you're moving, your body thinks you're working, and your mouth is open, so your body thinks you have an answer, and it frightens it out of you. Good stuff can come out of that.
Business & Arts NL: As someone who has collaborated with different people throughout your career, what do you look for in a creative collaborator, and what do you think it takes to make these kinds of collaborations successful?
JK: The successful collaborations always have a lot of laughing. We end up laughing all the time...there's a certain childlike quality to a great collaboration. There's a sense of play, and that sense of play is what actually allows the creativity. You can't be fearful and curious at the same time, you know? So if you feel safe enough to joke with somebody, and safe enough to laugh with somebody, then your channel is open and their channel is open. And then those two lights join together and it's quite exciting. It's really exciting to work with somebody whose work you love, but also, they make your work better. Robert Chafe - the playwright I work with - we've been best friends for years and years. He stood for me at my wedding and we're really, really close. And we've made a lot of shows together, like 20 shows. But the thing we've done the most together is laugh...If you don't have a laughing relationship, you end up with this kind of seriousness so that a small slight happens and there’s suddenly fear or tension - a block.
Business & Arts NL: What, in your experience, would you say the private sector has to learn from interacting with the arts? And why would it be beneficial for the arts and business communities to work together?
JK: I think there's a ton of benefit. And you'll see that at some of the most successful companies, Google and Apple and these places, for example, the main feature of their campuses were playing fields...they wanted to have people play together, so they had tennis courts and foosball and all that. And that was really strategic. The notion of playing together was really, really important because of the creativity that happens when people are not afraid of each other...
Competition doesn't always fuel creativity, unfortunately, but teamwork does. So while we see competition as a good thing in business, and it is, competition with your external forces is what's beneficial, not internally. So if you have people on the team who are scared, people on the team who are made to feel small, their contribution is just going to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And then you've lost the opportunity to get ideas from some pretty important thinkers. So I think that's a really important aspect that we can share, as a way of being, as a way of working.
I believe something that business and the arts do similarly is also interesting to note - both benefit from opening small and going large. You don’t open a new work on Broadway - you do your best to creep it up through workshops and small runs - you hone it 'til it’s great. Business benefits from that - you can’t pre-imagine every single one of the things that you could be doing better, or what could go wrong, until you test it. Theatre and most of the arts has some kind of system in place like that. Usually we are both in the business of trying to make the world, or at least individual lives, just a bit better. Maybe that is by increasing someone’s security, maybe that’s by increasing someone’s joy. We are both working towards elevating others.
I know there's a lot that business can teach us in the arts…I was lucky enough to study with a business guru when I was in Ottawa and I learned a ton! I was turned on to so many great ways of thinking about success and how to serve the audience - the customer - and how to measure how you are doing by the lessons learned by big companies. What a gift. Those ways of thinking are all applicable to not-for-profits but were developed by the capitalists. I think in the arts we are nervous about the idea of art being transactional the way that capital is. If our currency is not money, but instead joy, or awe, or love - it’s the same principle. If a star in a show belts out the first verse of an absolute heavenly performance, she gives that love, joy and awe to the audience. The energy coming back from the audience in that moment is palpable and gives something back to the artist. The artist swells the performance - the whole thing gets larger - and in the finish the energy in the room is amazing, the roof shakes - the power in that room is incredible. That’s a back and forth - a transaction of significance - the most perfect of synergies, greater than the sum of its parts.
I think companies being engaged in art is really important, because it's about getting a new perspective…it drives empathy and awe. And empathy and awe is what helps remind you that you are an important part of a larger society and a larger universe. And what business doesn’t benefit from recognizing a higher calling?!
Business & Arts NL: As someone who has lived and worked in Newfoundland creatively, and also outside the province - what would you say is different or unique about working in the creative industry here? And how has this place influenced your own creative path?
JK: I never went anywhere that I ever thought, "Oh, this is home." I never went anywhere that I was ever going to stay. When I moved to Ottawa for 10 years, I always said, "When I finish, I'll go home."
I get very inspired by our community. We have a lot of good artists for our population, and we don't have some very important infrastructure pieces here. It's pretty impressive what this community can come up with. We don't have - in my industry we call it an "A-house”- theatre producing company...and that's a theatre with 400 seats plus. Almost every other province does but we were so committed to developing the Newfoundland voice, that is where we put our energy. And that paid off for us! To add to that success now the government announced that they're going to build an A-house theatre in Newfoundland. It's a massive deal for us. We've never had it, so we never were able to make a lot of work at that scale...So we're barely catching up to the rest of the country for resources and yet, we're producing a huge volume of big stars for Canada. So I think we're in an interesting place right now, creatively. The writers we have here, the visual artists, the film community - we are very fortunate.
There is also something in the way people are with each other - the turn of phrase, the sense of teasing and play - it is a creative way of living. And there is a lot of laughing.