Corporate Creative Workshops
Tapestry Corporate Team-building Program
Tapestry new opera works offers a corporate team-building programme that is entirely individualized to each participating company. Rooted in our wholly collaborative creative process, we provide an empowering environment in which each member of a team can stretch themselves and develop new insights and confidence. Everyone contributes and the created works grow from the company’s life and members’ actual work experiences and challenges. The results are evidenced in the case study below.
We welcome enquiries and would be pleased to develop the two-day creative workshop to meet your team objectives.
You can reach Tapestry at 416.537.6066 or at information@tapestrynewopera.com
Tapestry Takes Flight - Corporate Community Creativity
The genesis of Tapestry’s corporate workshops lay in our relationship with long-time sponsor, Aeroplan .
At the invitation of Rupert Duchesne, CEO of Aeroplan, Managing Artistic Director Wayne Strongman recently led a two-day creative workshop in Montreal with 250 executives and staff of the company. Strongman was assisted by the creative team of playwright Colleen Murphy, pianist Chris Foley and singers Jessica Lloyd and Keith Klassen from Toronto, who joined Montrealers Darren Fung, composer, and Alex Cann, conductor.
Duchesne first met Strongman eighteen years ago and has followed Tapestry’s growth with interest, as his company has dealt with the changes and challenges that eventually led to expansion, independence from Air Canada, and going public. A Tapestry sponsor for many years, Aeroplan created a poster to celebrate Tapestry’s recent 25th Anniversary. During the creative design phase, Aeroplan staff became quite excited about the corporate culture at Tapestry and, shortly thereafter, invited Strongman to devise a programme for Aeroplan’s annual Executive team-building retreat. The Aeroplan community is an extraordinary group of people, who relish the idea (and practice) of creativity. The annual programme, the brainchild of Diane Carignan, VP of Corporate Reputation, had in previous years involved stand-up comedy, improv and a rally through a sugar bush. Aeroplan was now ready for opera!
The event took place at La Fonderie Darling in Old Montreal. An historic foundry site, now under renovation as a studio facility for artists, the building was chosen for its symmetry with the Tapestry New Opera Works studio in Toronto’s Distillery District. In advance of the retreat, the Aeroplan ‘community’ was asked to fill out postcards that detailed an “Aeroplan Moment” that had defined an emotional experience, something that had provoked change. Following a keynote speech by Strongman and an on-stage interview by the CEO, the “opera brief” How Dare You by Betty Jane Wylie and Andrew Staniland, performed by Klassen and Lloyd, brought the house down.
On day two the Tapestry team offered up their five selections of the employees’ “Aeroplan Moments” to 23 teams of 11 members each. The task was to create the story, in dialogue if possible, in the hope that at the end of the day, two or three teams would volunteer to perform their scenes and song. A total of 16 teams raced to the stage to perform for their peers and the room buzzed with humour, pride and high emotion.
The ‘coup de grace’, however, was an “opera brief” created overnight by Colleen Murphy and Darren Fung. A total of seven people had submitted a “moment” detailing the difficulty of dealing with the recent tragic death of a colleague. Darren and Colleen sensitively combined the “moment” with an employee’s first day on the job. The scene climaxed to a huge round of applause and a standing ovation. Many of the participants thanked the Tapestry team for helping to begin their healing process through music and drama. In the words of Rupert Duchesne, the whole session “had a combination of high artistry and raw/real emotion. It was both wondrous and cathartic.”
We will be interested to see how this partnership develops, and how Tapestry may evolve this experience into building deeper relationships with other corporate partners. In addition to its support of artists, Tapestry is committed to the development of new arts audiences. We bring exhilarating works to first-time opera goers and opera enthusiasts alike. Our stories are many and diverse, ranging from the origins of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to, quite literally, the summit of Mount Everest. We believe that the arts can be a part of everyone’s life, providing rich opportunities for learning, understanding, connecting cultures, and through collaboration prompt the exchange of ideas and promotion of innovation. Tapestry builds bridges: between old and new, artist and audience, and the diverse communities that make up our vibrant and creative city.