The Big Secret Book: An Intense Guide for Creating Performance Theatre

My sincere goal of this book has been to outline the tools for making, the solutions for breaking, and the survival systems that have worked for us at One Yellow Rabbit through good times and bad. Developing a sustainable practice that is healthful and life affirming, finding comradeship, and joining hands to build a body of work that could hold up to scrutiny and time has been a profoundly challenging and rewarding journey. As I begin my sixties, I am deeply grateful that I can look back on my life’s work with pride and joy and that my memories are full of rich emotions. In no way am I done yet, but there is some kind of reckoning when asked to record one’s experience and gleanings, that feels like a summing up of all the parts and inevitably leads to the question of was it all worth it? My answer is an unqualified yes. Yes. Yes! I have lived my creativity, I have used my body and the abilities I was privileged with, to their full potential. I have battled fear and sorrow and developed strength and hope. Curiosity has stretched my intellect and introduced me to remarkable ideas, discoveries, and people.

Re: Canadian Opera Company production of Hadrian, October 2018. Choreographed by Denise Clarke."This staging took some daring."Anthony Tommasini for New York Times“And now to the sex — well-scored and choreographed.”Lydia Perović for Opera Canada“Clarke invented a highly original theatrical language, a personal expression of gesture and word that seamlessly integrates both dance and storytelling into powerful narrative that resonates deeply with the human spirit and emotionally transports her audiences.”— Heather Elton, Writer, Photographer, Yogini “Denise Clarke is known for her tremendous generosity as a dance/theatre artist, and this book extends that generosity to a much broader community. The ripple effect will be extensive.”— Anne Flynn, Dancer and Educator “To be at the Summer Lab in OYR is like upgrading the operating system of my creational computer and resetting my physical capabilities.”— Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, Actress “A brilliant look inside the galaxy of principles that have made the Rabbits’ hearts tick. A kind of textbook for beautiful freaks.” — Karen Hines, Theatre Artist“The Lab is serious work for playful people. It is the laboratory for our art form: singular in Canada, unique in our profession, and something to be treasured.”— Peter Hinton OC, Director, Shaw Festival“What is striking to me is that Denise has found a way to be both rigorously disciplined and playfully spontaneous, all at the same time! It might not sound like much but this combination is to me the holy grail for all performing artists and something I know I will be searching for the rest of my life.”— Jacob Koranyi, Cellist and Educator “Wise words from one of Canada’s most beloved theatre practitioners.” — Clem Martini, Playwright and Educator“Denise Clarke is not only an extraordinary artist, she is also extraordinarily generous. For more than two decades at the Summer Lab Intensive, she has enthusiastically imparted the secrets to One Yellow Rabbit’s unique and successful style of performance theatre. Her ‘big secret’ is an open secret, a big-hearted desire to have others experience the thrill and fulfillment of creation that has sustained her through a remarkable career and is palpable in the pages of this book.” — Martin Morrow, Author, Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit “The words Denise shares with us are rigorous and yet playful. She knows how to tell a story which has a purpose that is both entertaining and mind-changing – life changing.”— John Murrell OC, Author and Playwright “It’s impossible to imagine theatre in Calgary these past several decades without the immense contribution and talent of Denise Clarke. And yet thanks to her tireless work inspiring an entire generation of artists through the OYR Intensive it runs far deeper than can be seen on the surface.”— Eugene Stickland, Novelist and Playwright