Shortly after I started working at Bruce Mau Design, I had the privilege of working on the Harbourfront Centre "account" (we didn't really use that word, but I guess that's what it was). I was really excited because Harbourfront Centre was on my list of places that I wanted to work. I was, and still am, a fan of what they are able to pull off down there, from avant-garde music, dance and theatre, to more community-oriented world music, dance and food festivals, the Power Plant of course, recreational activities, and much more.
We had the task of figuring out how to celebrate their 25th anniversary without doing the usual things. This was typical Bill Boyle (their long-time CEO and artistic director): X but not X. I quite enjoyed challenges like that, and knew where Boyle was coming from, so we had a pretty good time, despite the usual frustrations along the way.
After developing a communication campaign in the first year (2000) along the lines of "25 Years of Brouhaha and Hullabaloo," the next year we were able to do something that didn't just say "we're 25" but modelled the best Harbourfront Centre behaviour. We proposed a campaign based on innovation and world leadership. Bill hated the words, rightfully objecting that they had become cliche, but we argued that they had to own them in a different way, that Harbourfront Centre could stake a claim to 25 years of consistent artistic leadership (and "world" had all kinds of layered connotations that were right for them). Why not a festival of genius. No more festivals! said Bill. We understood where he was coming from, but when our mock creative was tested with audiences, all they wanted to talk about was the festival of creative genius. So we ended up doing it.
It took a year to organize 14 gala events, each revolving around one of our invited creative geniuses? Who were they? We decided they had to be people who, through their work, changed their field forever so that, even if you didn't like what they did, you had to confront it in your own work. Miles Davis was my example. If he was alive, we would invite him. Many revere him, and many dismiss his work, or large swaths of it, but there's no getting around him if you play jazz. We had a committee that chose the artists. I can't remember everyone on the Harbourfront Centre side, but it included Bill (the final arbiter), Tina Rasmussen, Marc Mayer (I think), and a few others; plus Bruce and me. The final list:
Frank Gehry
Philippe Starck
Issey Miyake
Robert Rauschenberg
Harold Pinter
Stephen Sondheim
Quincy Jones
Peter Gabriel
Joni Mitchell
Guy Laliberte
Robert Lepage
Pina Bausch
Lily Tomlin
Bernardo Bertolucci
OK, they're not all the Miles Davis's of their field (or fields) but Pina Bausch, Harold Pinter, Stephen Sondheim, Quincy Jones, and Frank Gehry are for sure. Gabriel for sure if you consider the career from Genesis to WOMAD. Guy Laliberte in his own way. The case can be made for Lepage (very strongly by some people), and Miyake. Not so sure about Starck anymore, or Bertolucci would not have been my first choice but we knew someone like Brakhage wouldn't have attracted the 1000 people we needed to make it work, and we didn't want to pursue Godard. Altman was busy. I couldn't convince people to consider Greenaway. Can't remember who else was on the list, but many were recently departed.
We ended up doing the events at the Liberty Grand, a bummer that we couldn't do them on site at Harbourfront Centre but the spaces were just too small. We had to have dinner for 500, and then the events, which were sometimes like a roast and sometimes a simple, poignant performance (eg, Pinter reading from a new play), had to accommodate 1000. Liberty Grand worked pretty well. Feeling bad about this situation, as well as the whole elite nature of these expensive tickets for "world leaders" Bill had his staff organize another 100 events that focussed on Toronto creative talent that fall. Very Harbourfront Centre.
Each participant was given the "Harbourfront Centre Prize", which was a sizeable sum of money that some of them donated back. They also got an actual prize that was designed by Toronto artist Micah Lexier (one of my favourite creative people for sure).
Lily Tomlin cancelled because her performance was on September 12 (or 13?), and she was freaked out about 9/11. She later felt she over-reacted and donated a chunk of her revenue from a Massey Hall performance to Harbourfront Centre.
Helping shape this event with Harbourfront Centre and my colleagues at Bruce Mau Design was a major highlight of my life. Some of the actual events are still resonating with me, especially Sondheim, Gabriel and Pina Bausch.
Three of the people we presented died shortly after, and I appreciate how fortunate I was to see them at the time: Harold Pinter, Robert Rauschenberg, and Pina Bausch.
Though we had a robust website designed by Michael Barker, worldleadersfestival.com, Harbourfront Centre took it down, and there are very few images, videos, or even articles online. This all happened in that moment just prior to our culture's fuller embrace of the web, not to mention ubiquitous smartphone photography/videography. That may be for the best, but I'd sure like to see some of that Sondheim evening again!
(I'm leaving an image from the website that I reconstructed from the Wayback Machine.)
