Raining Revolution: JEDI in the Arts

Meharoona 0:05
You're listening to Raining Revolution JEDI in the arts. That's justice, equity, diversity and innovation in the arts. Tune in to hear conversations with various artists about these themes brought to you from CFUV 101.9 FM, and I'm your host Meharoona Ghani. Raining Revolution is coming to you from the traditional territories of the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships continue to this day.

I'd like to welcome Clara Shandler. She's the Sidewalk Cellist a very passionate educator, and adaptive performer and a musical activist, sharing songs of love all over the world. It's so wonderful to have Clara join me today. I absolutely adore her. I met her in Vancouver when I was living there. And she and I have collaborated on different things at different times. Clara, I'd like to begin with you introducing yourself. And if there's anything more you'd like to say, identify which Indigenous territory you're joining me from today.

Clara 1:44
Hi Meharoona, and thank you so much for having me today. This is absolute delight. Yeah, my name's Clara, the Sidewalk Cellist and I've also recently been returning to the piano, I was very lucky to be gifted a piano from from one of my students. And yeah, working on some new songs these days. Just exploring what it means to live in this time and age with all the craziness and also trying to be very sensitive. I am living on the Musqueam Squamish and Tsleil-wauthuth territories in South East Vancouver.

Meharoona 2:32
There's a lot of crazy thing, crazy things going on in this time. One of the lead questions I often ask my guests, and I think it can connect to what's happening around the world or locally with all of us. What does JEDIin the arts mean to you? And that's justice, equity, diversity, and I say innovation. And what what does that mean to you in the arts?

Clara 3:00
For the arts, for me, it means that the gatekeepers have opened their eyes to the reality of the modern world, which is that by and large, we live in a system designed by white Europeans, for white Europeans. We live in these systems that are in place that have been in place for quite some time. Some work has been done, but a lot more work needs to be done. And part of that includes opening the gates so that people from different classes, different ethnic backgrounds, different physical capabilities, diverse genders, diverse languages, be accepted and have opportunities so that we don't have this benchmark of if you have all your limbs and speak English and are heterosexual and white, then you pass and if you were anything else, go to the back of the line. And it just boggles me that we have this discrepancy in the world between billionaires with private jets and 100 mansions and a dozen servants and you know somebody to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush for them. And yet we have people that don't have drinking water that have to walk 10 kilometres to pump water, even just to wash their dishes or something like how do we live in this world? And I'm in the top 10%. Right I'm in the top. You know, I've I've been allowed to university education. I've been allowed access to an instrument, I had an opportunity to have private lessons. So, you know, all of that is an incredible privilege. And what would it look like if we lived in a world where everyone has access? Right. And you know, when you have a means of expressing yourself, you have empowerment. When you have empowerment, you can have the energy to better your life. If you're in a poverty trap, and you're just barely getting by hand to mouth, you're hungry all the time, you're cold all the time, because you can't afford the electricity to put the heat on or, or you, you know, live in the middle of a desert, or have access to anything, you don't have water. If you have a voice, if you have a way of expressing yourself, and then demanding that you have these things, you know, we, if we add all of our collective voices, we might just make it happen. Yeah, JEDI in the arts means that we are allowed or maybe we create this ability for our voices to be heard. And to demand justice to break down this crazy pyramid into something a bit more equitable.

Meharoona 6:33
Beautiful, beautiful, I love everything you said, and it's so profoundly deep, actually filled with a lot of layers, and a lot of intersectional areas that I'd like to unpack and go further with. One thing I will go into is, it leads into a really beautiful, next question. So how does these themes inform your art practice? Or, I mean, has it in any way? And how, how does it?

Clara 7:07
I guess it impacted my path by creating this vacuum, where I I abandoned as much as possible the the elitism of classical music and this idea that if you're not a wunderkind prodigy, by the time you're 12, 14, 16, then you're not really worthy of any attention, and you should just get in line to be in an orchestra and play in a section and do as you're told, and to do that for a salary. And, you know, playing in an orchestra can be great, but it's not for me, I am not the kind of person that can try to be like everybody else. So I kind of broke out of that path, and just started busking. And I wanted to play for people, and not just those that had money, but play for anybody and everybody, including the animals, you know, yeah, just whoever was walking by. So that that was a bout a decade of my life, I busked, I haven't busked since COVID. Also, because I was in Cambodia when that happened. So it wasn't Cambodia is not a really good place for busking.

And that's how I met you. And you also inspired me actually, that's how I got into poetry, busking. I was busking in Vancouver on the streets, through initiative. And yeah, you inspired me. The other thing that inspired me quite a bit was how you turned around various pieces of music and put it into a classical repertoire, using class traditionally classical instruments. Well, the cello which is one of my favorite instruments, what I saw you do was change up a system to the system of music and a system of classical repertoire to something else and, and that is what intrigued me. Is there anything you would like to add around that? Like I'm, I'm really terrible in in the titles and I just remember, oh, it was it's this one, and I'm gonna fail in saying this correctly. I remember this one song, is it green day? No, there's this one... Nirvana. That's it.

Yeah, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Meharoona 9:56
Smells Like Teen Spirit. And you switched that up. I love that so much. And that's what what attracted me this innovative way of making people stop and listen to something in a totally different context. And that's changing up system.

Clara 10:18
For this, the cross genre songs and my covers, and a lot of the songs that I've written, it was, you know, partially fueled by, okay, I'm busking, this is my, this is my job now, I would like to, I would like to eat. So what do people like? What do people want to hear? What is nice to listen to? And or, you know, what, what gets people groovin because so many people like so many different things. And it was incredible to just be able to sit there and kind of improvise and make stuff up. And somebody would say, Hey, can you play this song? Wow, well, let's let's follow up. Do you have the chords? Or do you know how to sing it? Can you sing it for me? Maybe I can play it for you if you can sing it for me. So I did all sorts of random things that way. And just to tie it back to the gatekeeper thing, that was another way of sort of rejecting that elitism mean, like, all right, you know, the snobs and classical music is not all snobs. There are some absolutely wonderful people in the classical music world. But there are a few snops, there really are. These are, you know, the stereotypes and they're the minority of the community, but they're still there, they would totally turn up their nose at a cellist playing a grunge song, a Nirvana song, a song by that Kurt Cobain drug addict to you know, like, totally not their cup of tea. And so to play things like that was also just like, hey. And it was so it was fun. It was for the people. It was just to see what would happen to get different reactions from from folks, and I got so many wonderful reactions to that. And yeah, it was a way of rejecting this system that said, if you are not perfect, then if you play one note out of tune, if you don't practice eight hours a day and devote your entire life to this, then you're not worth it. So I was like, Okay, well, I'm gonna do something else. And, we'll see if anybody likes what I do. And so far, yeah.

Meharoona 12:44
So then what is your definition of art?

Clara 12:48
Hmm, anything that makes someone feel something? Because nature can be art. It doesn't have to be man made. Right, but something that makes you stop and go oh... Anything that gives you a feeling can be art. I think. So like, you know who was it that you know put a toilet in an art gallery like, Oh, this is art now like, alright, well, that made somebody feel something. Right? Was it you know, a Monet? No, it was it was a different kind of art from a Monet it was a different feeling. But it made you feel something, or, you know, like the nests of bowerbirds, or just like, like the dances of paradise, because like there's so many things that are art, and some of them are manmade.

Meharoona 13:35
I want to come back to the comment that you made earlier around, which I think is quite fascinating. The reality of the modern world designed by you white Europeans, for white Europeans. And this I want to connect back to art. How does art get layered into the systems of colonization and making sure we evolve that, do you see that happening?

Clara 14:11
Well, everything that is existing, sort of in this in this Western system is is tied to capitalism. We've only had a capitalist system for a couple 100 years, few 100 years, and this system isn't really working, because it doesn't factor in the environment. And it doesn't properly account for human well being. It's just all based around money. So unfortunately, to live in this modern world where we need money, you have to participate in the capitalist system. I mean, I know people that have rejected that world and they live completely off the grid and they don't touch money at all and they just do services and they get fed and they're living their life, there are people that have gotten out of the trap. But for most of us, we're kind of stuck in this system where yeah, we need money. And what is the capitalist system designed to serve? It's designed to serve rich Europeans and their descendants. Have some people of color broken through and make it made, you know, made their way into that top tier? Absolutely. Absolutely. We've dozens, hundreds of celebrities, and, you know, millionaires, billionaires, you know, it happens, but it's far from equal. And it's far from equitable. We have still millions of people, billions of people on this world on this earth with food insecurity, and yet, how much food did these rich people waste? Caviar flown in on their helicopter to their yacht. Their yacht has to have helicopter pads that can fly in fresh caviar every day. Like, are you kidding me. So we're stuck in this system, and we can do our best to do our art and try not to make garbage or, you know, share our, whatever it is that we're doing, through people with people that are doing the best they can, you know, but until we see a big shift in government, and the way we run our economy, these systems will continue to serve the people that they were designed to serve. So bit by bit, we can make small changes in the bar at the bottom in our own lives, you know, try to do our best like, I never ever ever shop from Amazon of boycott, Nestle, I don't go to McDonald's, I don't go to Walmart, like the things that I can do because I have a certain amount of privilege, where I have a certain income level, I don't make a lot, but I make enough, and I know how to make my own clothes and cook for myself. So because I have those skills, I can save money, so I can, you know, not support these big industries that are sort of in a race with themselves to lower prices, squish their employees and make maximum profit.

Just ah, yes,

Meharoona 17:38
Thank you for naming, naming capitalism. Does your art itself, do you feel that it's connecting people to bring these themes in the forefront, and allow this some kind of conversation?

and you will, you will. It's beautiful what you said about going into the cave and the bubble. And sometimes artists as creatives we need to, we need to shut out of everything. And, and also, part of that is to regenerate ourselves rejuvenate ourselves. And if you're going through some kind of grief or loss, part of that connection to the self becomes really important. And finding another way of dealing with some of those things could be another creative source, which is reading books, walking in nature, being off the grid, going into nature, connecting with the water, the earth, all of those things are important for that reconnection to the heart, when you come out of the cave and out of out of that bubble, then that spirit you have rejuvenated that spirit. Rebuilt your resilience is what others can feel. So I wanted to come back to a question around how do you think you have evolved through your art?

Clara 17:53
I think so. I hope so. I have had wonderful experiences, beautiful moments with, you know, connecting with people, you know, here, there and wherever. And I kind of struggle between wanting to get my voice out to more people and trying to share what I have to say, with more folks. And then bouncing back to Yeah, but I don't want to talk to people and be out all day and, oh, too much work. I just want to stay at home and I want to practice and I want to play music with my friends and you know, do small little concerts and things like that. So yeah, I sort of found this balance of just being small. And, you know, sharing what I can and, and also realizing the importance of just having conversations with friends, like looking out for friends and family members and be like, hey, like, Are you doing okay? Because you don't care about the world around you. You don't contribute to making the world a better place if you yourself are suffering and in pain. It just doesn't happen. So we can look out for our friends and just keep spreading love out bit by bit in all directions. You know, that is maybe also art. No, maybe that is also part of part of the part of the journey, because I've been, I was through a pretty rough patch for a few years, because I lost one of my very dear friends and part of my means of coping with that loss was just devouring every book that I could find about, you know, different spiritual practices and you know, the the Tao and reading teachings by the Dalai Lama. And just just getting through just reading and poring through so many of these books, and there's a lot of great wisdom in these in these pages. And also part of it is, Hey, you can't live on up on the mountain. You can't live in a cave for the rest of your life, you got to get out, talk to the people do your thing. It's part of the journey. So you know, then COVID hit, I'm like, well, actually, I can stay my cave. And I can just be in a little bubble for a while. And that was pretty great. And so now I'm slowly emerging from the bubble. And yeah, I think part of what I want to keep doing something that I've done with my albums The past few years, is release everything as Creative Commons. So not saying this song is mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. And if you want to use it me money, but Creative Commons being if you want to use this song, if you want to cover the song, go for it, do it great. Give me credit. That's it, just, you know, make it your own. Do it if you want it, you know, put it in your student film or your whatever thing. Creative Commons still means that you get money if it becomes commercial. So if a company wanted to use it for an ad, they still have to pay me but if other artists want to use my songs they can. So to just get things out that way. And I'm also really hankering to rerecord because I've gone through one of those periods where now I listen to the stuff I did a few years ago, I'm just like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, this is, this is awful, oh, I want to redo all of this. So at some point sooner will make that happen...

By learning how to retreat and connecting with myself, and recharging and healing, moving through emotions and feelings may be some that had been trapped in locked up for a long time. The more I've learned how to do that work, and really live in my body in the moment and not keep going around and around and around in a circle with all that other mumbo jumbo. I want to actually able to leave that mumbo jumbo behind and be in the moment, then the music can just pour out of me like nobody's business. And this usually happens when I'm by myself. This usually happens when the microphone is not on. There's no evidence of this. But every once in a while, there's a really beautiful small gathering. And every human being in that space, has wonderful energy and wonderful vibes and I'm able to kind of stay in that happy place for things are good and everything's wonderful in the moment and I can I can play and when I can play like that I can connect with people. But there's been so many times in my life where I have not taken care of myself or I have done everything but I have put myself at the very bottom of the to do list, and it hasn't been looked at for days, weeks, months, years. And there have been times where I have performed in that circumstance, or it's just there's a wall, there's a wall up around me, I'm so I'm in like a defensive mode just playing, right, I gotta play lots of notes, and I'll play fast. And I'll do this. And I'll do that. And hopefully, that's enough to please everybody, and nobody will yell at me. Um, that is definitely not my best playing. And now I go to performances, and now I see some people have their walls up, and some people have their walls down, and some are, you know, 50/50. And it's the people that have their walls down, that are really able to move me and make me feel something really powerful. So as I witnessed other artists doing that, it inspires me to do that more and more. And I know that if I'm going to go in front of people, and the larger the crowd, sort of, the more energy I need, sort of stored. If I'm going to do that, I have to take care of myself. And so I haven't been performing. Because just getting through the day to day and the week to week is been enough, I don't have extra right now to perform. I do have a couple of things coming up in December. But that's like the first thing since March, I don't even I can't even remember what I performed last, it's been ages. And that's after, you know, used to hustle and do like two or three things a week. So I'm glad that I'm not hustling anymore. And just kind of take it easy learning how to take care of myself, and I'm going to perform when I'm ready. And then hopefully at that point, I'll have enough energy to you know, keep my walls down, share everything, and connect with people can be really beautiful. That's how I've evolved.

Meharoona 27:11
That's beautiful. And what I hear in that evolution is you've given yourself permission, you've given your self permission to say I will do things when I'm ready. And when I've rested when I've taken a break, and, and, and that's okay. I often find we're in the world of hustling and getting so many things done, and we forget to take care of ourselves.

Clara 27:36
And actually, you know what, I don't know, if I really have given myself permission to do it. I feel like I'm going rogue on myself. And I'm saying, I'm doing this I'm taking care of myself, no matter what you say. And there's a part of me that's like, but you have to be productive all the time. You're not making money, you have no value. There's like, No, I'm gonna go to yoga class, and I'm going to lie down for an hour. So actually, I don't think I have given myself permission, but I'm doing it anyway.

Meharoona 28:14
That's awesome. That's awesome. So what what do you dream for, and this could be through your art practice, or it could be more broadly?

Clara 28:25
What I dream of, is a world without unnecessary plastic waste. And there's no garbage on the beaches, and there's no garbage in the rivers. And people all over the world have clean water. And they can grow food and eat food, and maybe learn a few things in school that are useful. And the folks that want to pursue other things, other ways of life have the opportunity to follow their dreams. Where we get rid of this poverty trap. We get rid of, like so much unnecessary pollution. Oh, that's probably the most heartbreaking thing that I found of living in Cambodia was just the, the garbage, right and people being led to believe that convenient is better. So buy this thing in a plastic package and eat it and then throw out the plastic package. And there's no infrastructure to deal with that plastic so it's just everywhere. And what that does to the water, what that does to the ground, and then the soil is poisoned and the fish are dying so people can't go fishing anymore and they can't farm anymore. So I dream of a world where we just turn off that tap and we say enough is enough. This is this is ridiculous. Like Are we really going to choose bags of potato chips over fish? Are we going to choose, you know, plastic beer rings, plastic rings from our beer cans over turtles? Right? And do we not realize that we're in the same family as fish and turtles that if they go, we will go. We're kind of in a loop here. So we are biting the hand that feeds us not not only the fingers, but we're like sawing the arm off at the elbow. Like, it's just ridiculous. So I dream of a world where human beings stop causing their own extinction. Hopefully, we'll be able to maybe put pressure on industry to say, hey, we have to adapt plastic free packaging, we have to find ways to use less energy, less water, less trees, less gasoline, we just need to do less. And part of that is buying less and being more happy, which is also how we get back to the music thing. I don't go to the mall, I don't go shopping for stuff. I don't wake up and say, oh, you know what, I really wish I had a thing. No. Why? Because I have something in my life that makes me feel complete, I have this, this art that I can this thing that I can spend time with, and it makes me feel good. So I don't have to go and buy things to make myself feel good. I have found a shortcut. And that shortcut has been provided to me by privilege. So, you know, part of my dream is to break down the gates so that more people can have access to that. So it doesn't have to be just a thing of privilege. But, you know, it's it's part of the system that keeps people trapped in poverty, just, hey, don't look after yourself. Just buy more stuff.

Meharoona 31:50
Do you see hope?

Clara 31:51
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I see hope, especially when I realized that there are so many good people doing so many good things. And the main issues, they do not get the recognition that they deserve, they don't get the attention that they deserve. So we don't know about it. Alright, so we think that nothing's being done. But there's always so much being done, large and small individuals. But yeah, they're not on the news. And again, who owns the newspapers? Tthe rich. And so like, of course, they don't want to know. They don't want us to know. So of course, you know, kind of blocking that out to some extent. But you know, when you look around at how many people care like, truly, I don't know if it's the majority. But I feel it is an exponentially increasing percentage of the population.

Meharoona 32:54
Beautiful, beautiful. I like toleave wi th some hope. So that's a wonderful, wonderful connection you've made. What are some new projects you're thinking about? And you mentioned, you've got something happening in December, what are your new projects?

Clara 33:13
I've been rehearsing with Rodney DeCroo and Róisín Adams. We're putting together a show that pieces together a number of Rodney's poems, stories and songs into like a theatre production, like a stage theatre production of of this work, so Róisín plays piano I play cello. She and I also sing with Rodney and his wonderful voice and guitar. This incredible stories. It's definitely an adult show. There's definitely mature content. But we'll be playing at the VIFF on December 7, which is super cool. Our performance is going to be following the I think it's the premiere of Rodney's film, Dr. Fish Pants some comedy that he he wrote partially inspired by his lgoddaughter. So just super. It'll be a really cool evening. And then Róisín and I are playing at Britannia for their coffee house series. I think that's December 18, and I'm pretty sure we are playing live and we are also streaming online. So I'm doing that and I've been yeah been in my little my little cave bubble been writing some new songs. I have about a dozen songs I'm ready to put on an album. I just can't think of what to call the album. And it was a waiting for a little grant to come through so the grant comes through then I'll then I'll really have a fire under my butt to get that going. But in the meantime, just letting it simmer, just letting things, you know, happen when they happen. And sometime next February, I'm also hoping to do a concert with my partner Tsa le and some other folks from the Myanmar of the Burmese community here in Vancouver to do a fundraising concert for the crisis in Myanmar, which is, in February will be it's the two year anniversary of the coup, which is, you know, two years of civil wars is not good. So that's kind of what's going on. And then I'm teaching at the East Vancouver Community Music School, and back to hosting Classical Revolution, once a month, most months. So that's at evey cms.ca

Yeah.

Meharoona 36:02
Awesome. Awesome. Sounds like you're gonna be busy different times. And for listeners VIFF is the Vancouver International Film Festival

Clara 36:13
The VanCity Theater downtown, I believe on Seymour.

on the theater. Yeah.

Meharoona 36:18
Okay. So where can people find out more about your work?

Clara 36:22
Yeah, my website is sidewalkcellist.com. So sidewalk spelled normally and C E L L I S T is how you spell cellist, sidewalk.com. And I have one other thing I want to mention. I'm going to be part of the Arts Moves Program on TransLink in March. So starting I believe next month, TransLink is hiring performers to give concerts on the skytrain like actually all the trains as they're moving. And the SeaBus. So I'm doing four performances for that program in March. And there are some other super cool performers in the other months leading up to March, including our Kat Single-Dain of the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. She's amazing. So she's doing one of the performances. So check out Arts Moves. I think that's on the TransLink website.

Meharoona 37:18
Oh, wow. That's, that's incredible, because that's something I always wanted to do was be with with a musician and me doing poetry along on the SeaBus.

Clara 37:30
I'll give you my dates, maybe you can join me?

Meharoona 37:33
Never know, you never know. That's so wonderful. So is there anything else you'd like to share, as a last minute thoughts about yourself, anything else?

Clara 37:44
Um, last thought would be to anybody that's listening, to really prioritize taking care of yourself. Because this has been, you know, a two year pandemic, it's not really over. And whether or not there's a raging pandemic or not, we have a planet in crisis. And just because this crisis is moving slowly, doesn't doesn't mean it's not a crisis. And if we are going to survive this crisis, we have to take care of ourselves. And then by extension, take care of those around us, human and non human. And then by extension, if we keep channeling that energy to ourselves, taking care of ourselves, taking care of our friends and family, then we may also collectively have the capacity to take care of this planet and save our species. Which would be really great. I would really, I'm cheering on go humans, we can do it. Take care of ourselves and stop, don't think you can by your by your happiness. I'm hopeful too, that maybe the billionaires will notice that and they'll be like, hey, you know, it makes me really happy solving world hunger. I'm just gonna buy enough food for everybody. Yeah. That'd be great. Elon Musk, if you're listening, that the the greatest gift you can give on Earth.

Meharoona 39:12
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Clara. We've been listening to Clara Shandler the Sidewalk Cellist musician extraordinaire. I really thank you for joining me today on Raining Revolution JEDI in the arts. Thank you for listening to Raining Revolution, JEDI in the arts. For contact information of the guests or to listen to other podcasts, please visit CFUV podcast.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai