‘EXTRAORDINARY TALENT HERE’: Pinch Cabaret puts spotlight on area artists with help from WRCF
Aashay Dalvi - Photo credit: Phi Doan
His days of staring at frogs are over.
And that’s music to the ears of Ben Gorodetsky.
“I need shows. I need people. I need art in my life,” Gorodetsky said. “I need to connect passively or actively with people who are interested in getting together about art.”
Gorodetsky – a Vancouver-raised artist who moved to Waterloo Region from New York during the pandemic – had been stuck at home throughout the rolling lockdowns, unable to do what he loves.
While spending time looking at amphibians was nice because it meant the 33-year-old father of two could spend time with his toddler, he had an itch that needed to be scratched.
Eventually, the world re-opened, meaning the new-to-town Gorodetsky could get back to work.
Enter Pinch -- a “community arts hub,” “performance base” and “performing arts laboratory” in Waterloo Region that includes a comedy show, improv classes, and its flagship Pinch Cabaret monthly variety show.
In 2021 and 2022, Pinch received financial support from Waterloo Region Community Foundation’s Arts Grants Fund, established in 2020 to provide funding to small or medium sized arts organizations and collectives, as well as projects focused on the arts.
From its roots on the back deck of The Branches yoga studio in Kitchener, Pinch Cabaret has seen slow and steady growth and today holds well-attended monthly cabaret performances at Button Factory Arts Centre in Uptown Waterloo.
“The only way I know how to find my people is to start producing a show -- start making a little platform, a little play space arena, and I’ll find the artists who I want to create with or create alongside or feel a kinship with, and I’ll find the audience that wants to be a part of live art and art in general,” said Gorodetsky, Pinch’s Creator, Producer and Artistic Director.
Pinch Cabaret celebrates artistic cross-pollination, spotlighting performers across the artistic spectrum including poets, playwrights, dancers, comedians, drag queens, storytellers, musicians, burlesque artists, and beyond.
“Slowly, slowly, gradually, gradually, it was about continuing to build this network and continuing to kind of toot the horn of cross-pollination, which is the whole MO of what I’m trying to do, which is, ‘let’s be curious about one another’s little silos. Let’s be interesting neighbours to one another in these adjacent and sometimes segregated disciplines -- poetry and music and theatre and comedy,” Gorodetsky said. “That comes out of my own relentless, insatiable interest in interdisciplinary stuff. I come from theatre and comedy and dance and video and I do all these things sometimes together, sometimes separately. But they live in different worlds, so I’m constantly trying to change my vocabulary and change my point.”
Pinch Cabaret’s concept – multiple performers each presenting 10-minute sets – has lent itself to reaching a wider audience within the community.
“As a young artist who’s performed in one Pinch Cabaret and loved it so much that I’m slated to do it a second time, I’d like to express how fond I am of the show and the community environment it fosters. Pinch is hilarious, moving, disparate in the best way, and incredible to both witness and be part of.”
“People are more permissive with these short-form variety formats and are more adventurous,” Gorodetsky said.
The cabaret’s ability to pay fair wages to its performers – a direct benefit of WRCF’s Arts Grants Fund -- has been a critical element in being able to not only grow as an organization but also retain the services of talented artists.
Miriam Stewart-Kroeker - Photo credit: Phi Doan
“The grant has allowed me to be able to work as a producer on this thing. I don’t have to do it after I put my children to bed. That’s amazing. The even more amazing thing is we get to pay artists professional fees. It’s not a hobby,” Gorodetsky said. “There’s extraordinary talent here and it’s worth investing energy and time into cultivating that talent and platforming that talent and professionalizing that talent. Paying them real money. And giving them regular ongoing opportunities to hone their bit, whatever it is: Contemporary dance, music, comedy.”
The arts industry remains behind others in terms of fair pay, the Artistic Director added, and having the financial means to attract top talent is everything.
“It just elevates the quality,” Gorodetsky said. “What we’re doing is valuable, professional, inspiring art. And it needs to be valued. And the way to do that is to pay the people who are pouring themselves into it. The grants allow that to happen. It couldn’t possibly happen without them.
Also offered under the Pinch banner is the Together We’re Boisterous Comedy Show (running monthly at Together We’re Bitter Co-Operative Brewing in Kitchener) and various improv workshops.
“That’s another part of the community-building piece is that people who start taking improv classes oftentimes start performing on the Together We’re Boisterous stage or the Pinch stage,” Gorodetsky said. “You can very easily become a performer. You just have to want to (do it). Feel the burn of the lights or the wave of laughter. It’s a hell of a drug.”
For more information on Pinch, visit pinchpinchpinch.com.
To learn more about the WRCF Arts Grants Fund, go to wrcf.ca/artsgrants.
