Denise Clarke a choreographer director playwright dancer actor and teacher who is best known in Calgary for her work with One Yellow Rabbit will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Calgary’s faculty of fine arts on Wednesday June 11. The degree is being awarded in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding work in which she’s helped shine a spotlight on the city’s arts scene.
This year marks the first time the faculty of fine arts has awarded degrees and Clarke joins two other recipients: CBC radio host Stuart McLean and internationally recognized anthropologist Emôke J.E. Szathmáry .
Clarke says she was at home on Christmas Eve when she received a call from Jim Dinning chancellor of the University of Calgary. Assuming he wanted to ask her a favour — to attend or speak at some upcoming function — she says she was shocked when he told her the news and basically flopped onto the couch. In fact when her husband artist Chris Cran saw her reaction to the phone call he thought she had received some terrible news.
"I don’t know if I’ve ever been so honoured and humbled at the same time. It’s just so amazing. You really don’t expect to be told you’re going to get an honorary degree" Clarke says. "I just about fell out of my feet."
Clarke has worked with various companies in Canada and Europe including 30 years with One Yellow Rabbit (OYR). She began working with the local performance company in 1983 and became associate artist and a permanent member of the ensemble in 1986.
"We were just kids and we were punk kids and we had such a strong you know desire to play together" she says about the troupe’s early days. "It was Calgary in the early 80s — there was a lot space to play in there were no rules we weren’t encumbered with any kind of template that we felt we had to fit into. We just had such an incredibly good time — and worked our asses off."
Clarke says her relationship with her OYR colleagues and the quality of the work they create is something you don’t often find in life and that is what has kept her in Calgary.
"You don’t need to be from New York" she says. "I’ve made peace with the kind of level of celebrity that I thought was necessary for my work and that wasn’t the issue. Once I understood that you can do amazing work anywhere."
Clarke who was a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary from 1980 to 1987 continues to teach give master classes and lecture throughout Canada. She is also director of the OYR Summer Lab Intensive which started in 1997.
She says the people coming through the summer lab often seem to need permission to do something. She encourages them to "just start" and take their chances. "It’s like you know do it — do it your own way make your own song invent your own thing" she adds. "The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? Do something else."
Clarke speaks from experience. When OYR was starting out she says they were told there was no money no room they were too weird and nobody would come. "It was always sort of a naysaying. If we had been looking for permission it was not forthcoming" she adds.
Thankfully they went ahead without it.
