Year: 2019
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Don Bouzek, a co-founder of the Alberta Labour History Institute, has created live theatre productions and digital media works on a variety of social issues and on behalf of various progressive organizations in Ontario, Alberta, and Birmingham, UK. He produced From A Different Perspective, a nationally syndicated radio series for Toronto’s Development Education Centre for a decade as well as radio materials for many unions. Moving to Edmonton in 1998, he founded and became artistic director of Ground Zero Productions (GZP Edmonton). He has collaborated both with Alberta singer-songwriter Maria Dunn and with Birmingham’s Banner Theatre on various productions. His awards include two from the Canadian Association of Labour Media for his work with unions. He also earned an Alberta Centennial medal for his contribution to the arts. While he has produced many videos for ALHI, the ALHI interview focuses on his film, “Great Labour Revolt, 1919” which was sponsored by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, whose founding in 1919 coincided with general strikes in Edmonton and Calgary and the province’s coal mines. Actors in the video give voice to those who joined the 1919 protests via composite characters whose words emanate from surviving documents of the period.
Keywords: Alberta Labour History Institute; Banner Theatre, Birmingham, UK; Canadian Association of Labour Media; Development Education Centre; Ground Zero Productions; Labour videos; Maria Dunn.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees; Great Labour Revolt, 1919