Dan Watson returning to Huntsville to take the reins at Huntsville Festival of the Arts

When Huntsville Festival of the Arts (HFA) announced in March that its long-time general manager, Rob Saunders, would be retiring this fall, the organization’s board wondered if they’d be able to find someone to fill such big shoes.

But they found that someone in Dan Watson.

Many in Huntsville will be familiar with Watson’s work—he’s the creative mind behind the popular summer street festival Nuit Blanche North, which he has partnered with HFA on since its inception in 2011.

He grew up in Huntsville and earned an HFA scholarship before heading off to study theatre at Toronto’s Humber College and then in Paris. He returned to Toronto where he has been a theatre artist making his own work for the past 12 years and has been teaching at Humber. But he periodically returned to Huntsville with the theatre company he runs with his partner Christina Serra, Edge of the Woods Theatre, producing outdoor travelling plays and community arts projects with youth and elders in the area. It was that work that led into Nuit Blanche North.

But whether here or in Toronto, he has always told people he’s from Huntsville, and he is delighted to be making his return.

“Through the arts in Huntsville—it was really things like the Black Hole Cabaret, or community plays with the McTavishes, or playing in bands—Huntsville really sparked my interest in the arts and in theatre,” says Watson. “And the Festival has been really supportive of my work. I was a scholarship winner ages ago, and I think more importantly they took a chance on me…I told them how I wanted to run an outdoor festival and they gave some seed money to make something happen and it’s really grown from there.

“They are responsible for so much of what I do up here in Huntsville, but also my development and my skills as becoming a producer of arts and events. Without them I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing.”

Outgoing general manager, Rob Saunders, has high praise for Watson. “I couldn’t be happier when I heard the hiring committee had chosen Dan as the successful candidate,” he says. “Having seen Dan as a Festival scholarship student and having worked with Dan both as a presenter of the skit Splash H2O and as co-presenter of Nuit Blanche North, I’ve seen the qualities he brings to the table. The Festival will be in good hands moving forward with Dan as their administrative head. It’s also great that he is a young, energetic ‘local guy’ who is returning to our community and to his family roots.”

HFA President, Karen Cassian, agrees. “Dan had most of the critical aspects of the job and we were asking for the world—Rob does so much. He’s such a lovely guy, he’s personable and pleasant, and he’s an artist and has a passion for the arts which is what we were asking for. He’s got it all.”

She adds that they were thrilled with the experience of all of the candidates who applied, and that the hiring process was bittersweet. “Rob’s been running the Festival for so long and we all like him and we all think he does a wonderful job. Dan will take us somewhere new, I’m sure—he’s young, he’s innovative, and he’s a creative thinker. We have no doubt that Dan will have some wonderful ideas and take us in different directions.”

Those directions include more of a physical presence for HFA in the community, an increased focus on arts education, outreach and engagement, increasing support for local artists, and offering more opportunities and programming for young people, all while maintaining HFA’s commitment to downtown Huntsville and to the Algonquin Theatre and to presenting artistically excellent works.

He also wants to continue his interest in “creating original theatre or events that engage and are inclusive of lots of different people.” In Toronto, he’s been running a collective called Ahuri Theatre that has evolved into working with people of different abilities either through making theatre or through community-engaged arts projects. “That has spun out of my own life,” says Watson. “My oldest son Bruno has cerebral palsy. My partner, Christina who is also a theatre artist, and I wanted to start to make work with people who are like Bruno, in particular people who use communication devices. They are nonverbal so they use other ways of communicating.” One of the Ahuri shows will be touring in early 2019, something he will have to juggle with his new HFA role.

“There’s lots of thinking to be done and lots of listening to be done, I think,” says Watson of his new position. “I wouldn’t want to just come in full blast and say this is what we’re going to do, I want to hear from people and we’ll go from there.”

Watson will be moving to Huntsville with Serra and their children Bruno, Ralph and Simone.

“We are excited to take our circus up north. We love the energy in Toronto but we are also happy to maybe find some more space and time up in Huntsville,” says Watson. “The Festival has just been so important to me over the years, and I know it’s really important to other people. I want to give back that energy that I was given. I am excited to jump in.”

Related story – Doppler Dialogue with Dan Watson: building connections through theatre and art

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