Welcome to Plank Magazine

The sports section does it right. Alex Ferguson made this point when we held our first planning meeting for what would become Plank. The amount of in-depth coverage available for the Canucks is simply phenomenal. You’ve got beat reporters who follow the team game in, game out. You’ve got senior columnists who put the current play of the team into context of both the season and the history of the franchise. You have phone-in programs and websites where fans can let their feelings be known. When Roberto Luongo arrived a couple of seasons ago, comparisons were immediately made to Kirk Mclean, Richard Brodeur and Glen Hanlon. The knowledge of the team remains and is built upon.

Knowledge about people, seasons and shows in the performing arts? Not so much so.

But Vancouver’s a hockey town, right? To be honest, this wasn’t always the case. Vancouver was once known for having fair-weather fans and for many years there was an implied threat of the team moving.

What changed? Well, crucially the quality of the team improved. But another difference had to do simply with time: a couple of generations of fans grew up supporting the team. As the raw numbers of Canucks fans increased, they started to demand more coverage specifically about the team. And the media sensibly responded: space, and lots of it, was made available for the Canucks. The increased coverage engendered more interest until suddenly the team was fused with the identity of the city.

Just as we were once not a “hockey town” there are many who don’t recognize Vancouver as a cultural centre. We passionately believe that not only is this perception grossly inaccurate there is a danger of it becoming a self-creating prophecy. If the “mainstream” public is largely unaware of the performing arts, it must – in part – come down to not knowing where to look; of not enough space being made available to cover the breadth of work being produced in our city.

So, if there’s a model we’re following with Plank, it’s the sports section of the Province. We want to provide the space that will allow for in-depth consideration of the performing arts in Vancouver. You won’t find star systems or thumbs up/thumbs down ratings. If we do capsule reviews, they will be deliberately pithy. We will not resort to short-hand praise or off-hand dismissals of work. We’ll track performers and companies over their careers; we’ll keep track of the development of productions; we’ll ask about ideas, directions, successes and crashes. If we feel a work has fallen short of the goals that have been set for it, we will try to explain how and why we believe this to be the case.

We particularly want to create space for artists and companies that are currently not receiving the coverage they deserve. While we believe that a healthy arts ecology includes both Beauty and the Beast at the Arts Club and the latest hybrid dance-performance piece at Video In, we will always prioritise the latter over the former.

The profile of the Canucks really changed when the ownership made a commitment to invest in the team. Plank is investing in the performing arts by providing time, space and passionate discussion.

We want to encourage both artists and audiences to participate in the cultural forum we’re creating at this site. We welcome your views and comments not as a bolt-on but as embedded within the concept of this magazine.

Plank is a place for you. Come and spend time with us.

Andrew Templeton