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SWS Take Over: Scene Study Selfies

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Every year at Western Canada High School in Calgary, students in the grade 12 drama class are asked to choose a section of a play to direct.  This is a long-standing tradition and has become a rite of passage for young theatre artists at WCHS. Below are some of the Drama 30 students of Western Canada High School and their plays of choice for the directing project. As Nika says “It is a challenge, but it is worth it. Honestly, I’m S H O O K at the beginning of every rehearsal.”

Haylee, a high school girl, is holding a copy of the script for The Trigger by Carmen Aguirre.
Haylee is directing The Trigger by Carmen Aguirre.
Jane, high school girl, holds a copy of Never Swim Alone by Daniel MacIvor while standing in front of a portrait of the author.
Jane chose Never Swim Alone for her directing project. We unabashedly love Daniel MacIvor around here and we will shout it from the roof tops.
Joy, high school girl, holding a copy of the script For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The End of the Rainbow is not Enough
Joy is directing For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.
Jaquie holds a copy of the script for The Drowning Girls, she chose this play for her directing project.
Jaquie is directing The Drowning Girls by Beth Graham, Charlie Tomlinson, and Daniela Vlaskalic.
Trent, high school boy, holding a copy of the script for Red by John Logan.
Trent is directing Red by John Logan.
Ava, high school girl, holding a copy of the script for Hannah Moscovitch's Little One for her directing project.
Ava is directing Hannah Moscovitch’s Little One.
Grace, a teenaged girl, holding the script for her directing project.
Grace is directing Sue Balint’s Pagan Love Songs For The Uninitiated.
Nika holding the script for Time by Geoffrey Simon Brown
Nika is directing Geoffrey Simon Brown’s new play Time. World premiere. Not bad for your first directing project.

Every year I am so grateful to see my students take on such challenging material for their first formal stab at directing. They choose their material themselves, after perusing our big bookcase of plays. Sometimes I help them out by suggesting a few based on what they are interested in or who they want to work with. I try and suggest a diverse selection of plays. In the end, it is my hope they are making a statement about the kinds of stories they want to tell and about what it takes to fully commit to a piece of theatre as a young theatre artist.

– Ms. G (Caitlin Gallichan-Lowe, Drama Specialist and Program Coordinator, Western Canada High School)

Tune in next week as the Grade 12 Drama Kids from WCHS open Exploder – a devised collaboration with Calgary’s Ghost River Theatre and the SWS Take Over continues!

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SWS Take Over: Meet the Drama Kids of Western Canada High School (Calgary)

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The drama kids of WCHS

Meet the Grade 12 Drama kids from Western Canada High School. We’re handing over this edition of CdnTimes to them as they finish the school year and build their performance Exploder – a collaboration with Calgary’s Ghost River Theatre. Along with their drama teacher Ms. G, the drama kids from WCHS reflect on what they love, what they’ve learned, and what they look forward to next.

The WCHS Drama program is one of Western Alberta’s oldest high school drama programs. The program really began to gain recognition under the amazing and inspired work of Betty Mitchell in the early 1940’s. Betty Mitchell set up a tradition of creating and producing bold, forward-thinking work in what could be (and still is) a conservative city. Graduates of the WCHS drama program have gone on to work in theatres across the country (including SWS’s own Adrienne Wong!). WCHS is an inner city school that is populated with a diverse, wildly curious and bright group of humans. The drama kids at WCHS, ever inspired by the spirit of Betty Mitchell, strive to create our own pocket of radical artistic thought and action in our school.

Ms. G: Okay, so can everyone say their name?

Everyone answers: Davina, Jane, Arman, Trent, Shaurya, Jaqueline, Layla,Grace, Ava, Haylee

Ms. G: The world wants to know – what blew your mind this year in theatre?

Everyone answers at once: The High Performance Rodeo/Mouthpiece/The synchronicity of it was amazing/The passion behind the words/Brotherhood/Oh- I loved Da Kink in My Hair.

Ms. G: Why do you think some people don’t go on in theatre? People who may want to as kids?

Davina: Although I am not going on into theatre, I want to keep participating in it as an audience member. As a kid, my mom always told me there are no jobs in theatre and not to go on in that life, which is maybe more true back home than in Canada. In Canada there are lot more opportunities in theatre.

Jaquie: I am kinda the same because I was told I would not have a solid job or make a lot. So I am going into education and minoring in theatre. Then I can still have it in my life.

Grace: What’s wrong with not having a lot of money? I guess it depends on the person.  I don’t care, I mean, it is only one part of my life. I don’t mind if I don’t have the best things. But I guess it depends on the person? What they need?

Shaurya: Other professions are easier to maintain. I want to become a doctor and that is easier financially in the sense that I will have a job. In drama, you can go years without working as an actual actor.

Davina: Also it can depend on how you were brought up. I have a single mom who struggled, and I remember when she was out of a job and it was really, really hard. And she has two jobs now, but it is still hard to have enough even when she has work. So, being unsure of when I will work next is not something I want to worry about, especially if I have a family.

Jane: I feel lucky to come from a place of privilege and choosing theatre is scary because of the lack of financial stability. But the lucky thing I’ve had is to be able to meet lots of artists and hear about how they do it. So, that has been really inspiring because it makes me believe I can do it. And it will be hard, but I feel like this is what I have to do with my life.

Grace: I had it set in my mind that visual arts was all I wanted to do, but I came to this school and joined drama and it really opened up my world. I am still going to school for visual arts but I really don’t want to limit myself as an artist anymore. I realize now I can incorporate so many different things into visual art like movement. You can have a lot of things. Theatre has helped me with that.

The drama kids of WCHS

Ms. G: Who is inspiring you these days? Who is keeping you going?

Davina: I am really inspired by this kid at U of C, Connor, who I met at the High Performance Rodeo and he gave me lots of ideas of how to keep creativity in my life which has really helped me out. He is really comfortable just being himself. I think that is amazing.

Jane: Karen Hines is really important to me right now. There is something about the soul of her work that speaks to my soul. I love her ideas and looking at her heart in her work. She is so raw and honest.

Arman: I really loved Brotherhood and Sébastien Hines. I loved hearing about his thought process. And Judith Thompson. I love her work. Working with her words has been so incredible.

Trent: My aunt and uncle work with Cowtown Opera. They inspire me because they have their own jobs and it doesn’t stop them from doing work with Cowtown Opera. They can still be actors.

Shaurya: Sébastien Hines for me was so easy to relate to – his upbringing was so relatable to me. I really loved his show. I wish we could have spent more time listening to him because he was so smart and had such cool things to say about theatre and how he sees it.

Layla: Anyone doing work with teens and not because I don’t think we are understood, but because I thnk people are afraid of us. We care and we are not scary. We have a lot to offer. We can make theatre too – we can do this and we have something to say.

Grace: Andy Moro and Tara Beagan. I met up with them to talk about set design and that was really inspiring for me. And the creators of Mouthpiece. And you guys [the class] – being away from you while I was sick was hard. You guys are inspiring to me and this space is inspiring to me.

Ava: I think that a theatre I love a lot and expect a lot from is Vertigo Theatre and want to see do cool things. I love murder mystery and have since I was a kid, I’m all about Agatha Christie. I think a theatre that focuses on one genre is hard and amazing and I want to see them go forward and do well.

Haylee: Someone I’ve been finding inspiring and encouraging is Montsy Videla [graduated from WCHS in 2016, currently studying theatre at SFU]. She is the best young actor I know and she has found her way at University even though she may have setbacks. She is a great example of that idea of going after what you love, but being open to change. I take a lot of inspiration from that.

Drama kids in motion at WCHS

Ms. G: What kind of work excites you? What do you want to make?

Jane: I saw a show a little while ago called Mess. I was like, “thank you, thank you.” I am familiar with the subject matter. I reminded that I want to make theatre to heal. There was this gorgeous clown element to it. I just walked out feeling good and yet it was so dark in its own way. I think it just got to the heart of it so well.

Haylee: Good theatre about mental health in general. Things like depression and eating disorders have been romanticized, especially on TV. It’s ugly, it’s not easy. I like to see the ugly, the realness.

Ava: The High Performance Rodeo All’s Well that Ends Well. That show got me going. It is important to see Queer representation in the show. There was a Queer relationship that was not completely defined but lived in the show in really great way. I love to see elements of Shakespeare’s real life bleed into the work.

Jane: I want to make art that is for the audience. Not for myself. I saw a show recently and walked out thinking this is a show that was all about “look at how smart I am, look at me.” With Shakespeare it feels so easy to walk out and feel stupid – I think that is a real danger.  I walked out of All’s Well That Ends Well and felt really good, I got it.

Ms. G: Cool, thanks everyone. It is good to hear from you.

The drama kids of WCHS

Tune in next edition as the Western Canada High School Theatre Class takeover continues on CdnTimes. 

 

 

Building the World We Want To See

By and
A panel of 6 speakers sits in front of a lit stage. An audience watches them attentively in the darkness.
#BreakingTheBinary panel dialogue, January 2017 in Oakland CA. Photo by Leonardo Claudio leographicphotography.com

Dear Canadian Colleagues:

Hello.

It is a Thursday morning in Oakland. It’s California and it’s raining, which means no one knows how to drive or take buses or in generally get anywhere, which means we are meeting up late at a shared co-working space downtown. After struggling with outlets, bathrooms, and checking in about life, artists, cultural workers, and big ole queermos Lisa Evans and SK Kerastas sit down to reflect on the morbidly hilarious state of the union.

Lisa: There is a particular type of comedy to the political moment we’re living in. Watching the ridiculous (and frightening) antics coming from the White House feels akin to watching a poorly scripted dramatic sitcom: it’s completely nonsensical but hilarious because you know someone was completely serious.

However, under the laughter is a legitimate fear.  As much as the U.S. has a reputation as a blusterous, gun-toting, violent country, it is important to name that we have not had a president like Donald Trump in our recent political history.

SK: Yeah. In the prompt for this letter, you all mentioned that you were riveted, reacting, and reeling watching us. And let me tell you, we are riveted, reacting, and reeling watching this administration. For many, it feels like a day-to-day escalation of danger and risk.

For folks who’ve been doing movement-building work for years, there’s this sentiment of, like, continuing that work, building the movements, and keeping steady. However, there are millions of people in this country who are JUST NOW becoming activated and tuning into the systemic and daily threats and struggle of historically marginalized and oppressed folks. These are the folks I don’t quite know what to do with. There are a lot of well-intentioned, reactionary impulses.

L: Right though! I feel like this moment is touching people in a very specific way. For folks who haven’t been engaged there is a burgeoning awareness that the system has not been helping a lot of people. There is the realization that the whole “not talking politics” thing has actually just created an environment for bigotry to thrive.

For folks who have already been targeted, it feels like folks are figuring out how to try to survive, both physically and spiritually. Figuring out how not to lose hope.

Which brings up the question of what is the purpose of our art now. We are no longer in a moment that allows for navel gazing. We need art that depicts the world we live in. That bolsters our spirits and encourages action. I think we have to start reconsidering what are we are pushing to the forefront.

SK speaks into a microphone on stage, holding papers.
SK Kerastas. Photo by Leonardo Claudio leographicphotography.com

S: YES. I mean, Lisa and I were joking cause we were originally asked to comment on Lady Gaga’s performance at the Super Bowl and, in my opinion, the statement she made was that this right wing current has suddenly reframed our more basic politics to be radical and making a statement. As artists, I think this is THE WORST thing we can do right now. Let this current take us with it. It is imperative at this moment that we actually fight for and create the radical world we want to see. Theatre is a perfect platform for this.

In a lot of on-the-ground social justice movements, there is a strong push to envision. What does a world without prisons look like? What does a world without cops look like? It is this imagination and world-building that we as artists — specifically theatre artists– have the capacity to put on stage and expand our cultural visioning.

To keep performing the same stories (of dominant culture) that we’ve been performing for years, and assume some how they’ve been radicalized because of the current political climate– now THAT is a missed opportunity.

L: I also feel like it’s an opportunity to make space for voices who have not been centered previously. What would it mean to fund and support work for emerging artists whose identities have either been co-opted or used as a metaphor for more privileged communities to understand loss? What would it mean to center undocumented people, trans people of color, folks with physical and/or cognitive disabilities in creating and presenting theater? I think it would not only meaning changing what stories we tell but how we tell them.

I think there is also a crucial need to take our art outside of what we have determined to be “arts” spaces.

S: *SNAPS*

Yeah, we have been doing a lot of work with larger arts organizations in the US who are feeling this panic of needing to change. They’re like, help us! And it’s a great impulse. AND a lot of what we are working through with these institutions is how to restructure them, how to create pathways and accessibility for folks who’ve been strategically kept out. This means really changing our system of values — which is such a sensitive subject when it comes to art. Who gets to decide what is meaningful, what is good? Where it takes place?

It’s about space, it’s about structure, it’s about the folks who’ve historically been in power and benefitted from these systems stepping back. Supporting from behind.

I mean, that’s such a powerful move to make — stepping back. That’s what alliance building is about.

I’ve had some experience living, studying in Canada — I went to McGill and worked a bit in Montreal and Vancouver, have done some exchanges with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. In my opinion, I think U.S. artists could learn a lot more about cultivating spaces of difference from Canadians. I also think that Canadian artists — specifically white Canadian artists — can learn from us about the ways U.S. artists are interrogating white supremacy right now.  

Lisa pauses during her speech, standing on a lit stage.
Lisa Evans. Photo by Leonardo Claudio leographicphotography.com

L: Yeah, I think interrogating power and privilege in the arts is still something folks are tip-toeing around a lot. Like, something I feel like we’ve been talking about with #BreakingtheBinary has been the need to have folks from systemically marginalized communities in positions of power, the subtext of which is that it means folks with more privilege moving out of those positions. And I think that this parallels with what’s happening in our country right now.

You have people (primarily white folks if we’re going to consider voter data as well as, you know, sense) who feel like they have either been left out of American “social progress” or who feel like they’re being asked to give up something in order for other people to have their basic needs.  I feel like this is an affront to the belief of meritocracy that is so rampant in our culture.

S: Yup. So true.

So, #BreakingtheBinary is this programming that Lisa and I are working on, and being reached out to a ton about right now. Large organizations are reaching out to us because they want to do trans work or they’re producing a play with trans characters in it, but have no structural support for this kind of content and/or to make work for audiences who share these identities.

Our strategy has been, when large companies with large resources reach out to us, to leverage that interest and power. To really ask ourselves how we can make this situation actually really benefit trans people — particularly the most marginalized trans folks: trans women and femmes of color. So, often what we’ll do is say, yes, we’ll do training and some workshops, but we also want you to produce work by local transPOC artists to accompany this show and we’ll support you in doing this so we can model what ethical partnering looks like and also build some pathways for folks to get paid and to get their work seen!

L: Exactly!  I think the thing we are asking folks to reflect on is not just how to produce work that speaks to the moment we’re in, but also to proactively interrogate what the purpose of the art is. It can no longer be just simply putting challenging narratives on our stages: we have to develop practices that help both our organizations and us as individuals to challenge systemic oppression and build to the equity we want to see in the world.

A discussion on how to end the article trails into a conversation about other community and artistic projects in the works. Lisa (who is, as always, behind on at least 7 different projects) immediately scrambles to throw all their stuff in a bag and run to pick up posters for an event before the printer closes. SK strategizes which location in the co-working space they are going to hole up in to finish invoices for some upcoming #BreakingtheBinary work. This marks the end of a moment for reflection and a transition back into action. They are, after all, cultural workers in Oakland, and the fight for change doesn’t pause for an article.

 

“Building the World We Want” is the third article in CdnTimes Volume 8, Edition 6: Letters to Canadians. Other works in this edition are “New York Dispatch” by Tanya Marquardt, and “Irresistible Revolutions” by MJ Kaufman. Visit HowlRound.ca for its companion, Letters to Americans.

Irresistible Revolutions

By
New Sanctuary Movement training session.

“Think about what kind of ICE agent you want to be. Are you the kind who is totally behind Trump or are you uncomfortable with the changes?” I look at my feet. I take a deep breath. I summon strength and authority. I have been cast in the role of an ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) Agent. I have been cast as a person who rips parents from children, who pounds on doors in the early hours of the morning, who takes people whether or not they are supposed to, who keeps them locked in detention centers, who assaults, tortures, intimidates and rapes, who chases hungry, dehydrated human beings to their death in the desert. And Trump just authorized hiring 10,000 more of them.

This may sound like a play or theater class, but it is not. I am playing this role at a training session for New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. I am being trained to be part of a rapid response team who will rush to the site of any ICE raids at homes or businesses in Philadelphia and pray, sing, and sit-in to prevent deportation. In order to practice this, we are role-playing the scenario. And we are rotating so that everyone gets to play protestor, family, and ICE Agent. It is my turn as ICE.

I am stationed outside a huddle of chairs and people that we have assigned the “house,” or location of the immigration raid. My job is to block the entrance from the oncoming protestors. If any of them gets close to me I am supposed to let them know they are risking arrest.

As the role-play starts, I watch a daisy chain of arm-linked protestors approach me. Their eyes are determined and their voices raised in song. I notice myself thinking their prayer is beautiful and then I silence that thought. My job is to stand guard until I receive orders.

New Sanctuary Movement training session.

As the role-play goes on I have to arrest a member of the household. As I take her arm and carry her out of the house actors scream after me, “where are you taking her?” Protestors rush to surround me singing at the top of their lungs. I push through them and they move to surround us again. I raise my voice and push through. Again they block me with their bodies and their songs and again, I push through. Every time I feel nervous or discouraged I scan the room looking for a higher-up. Someone will tell me what to do. My job is simply to take orders.

While part of the ICE Agent role tears me up inside, a part of it feels frighteningly familiar. How many times have I shut off my empathy, my sense of truth or justice because of some kind of higher-up? How many times have I thought, if I do that I’ll lose my job, if I write that it’ll never get produced, if we do that no one will come to see it, if I say that others will be uncomfortable. While the job of an ICE Agent and a playwright seem nothing alike, the feeling inside was familiar. How many times have we in the theater forgone revolutionary programming, accessible ticket prices, transferring power to marginalized artists because of excuses that echoed my ICE Agent character: I’m following orders, my hands are tied, not my decision to make, I have a family to feed, I’m just trying to finish the workday and get home safe.

Production still from Kaufman’s play “Sagittarius Ponderosa” at National Asian American Theater Company with actors Bex Kwan and Daniel K. Isaac.

I can’t express the wave of release I felt when the trainer blew his whistle and I was allowed to drop character. As we debriefed we discussed the protesters’ tactics- how did they divide the ICE agents without escalating? How did they make it difficult for them to communicate through singing and chanting? Had any of this shaken our commitment to our jobs? Would it shake the commitment of a real ICE Agent?

When I trace the chain of command an ICE Agent follows to the top it ends with President Trump. When I trace the line of command I am following as a theater artist where does it lead? I certainly hope to a different place. We in the theater are as complicit as everyone else in this country. We have enabled the racism and misogyny that led us to this moment. We have participated in it and we have remained silent. Who have we been serving?

I thought about some of my ancestors who refused to follow orders in life or death situations. I thought about the ones who jumped from the train taking them to the concentration camp. I thought about the one who wrote protest papers against the czar and, according to family legend, had his fingers cut off and bled to death. I want to choose a line of command that honors them. I think of the lines from Toni Cade Bambara:

The task of the artist is determined always by the status and process and agenda of the community that it already serves. If you’re an artist who identifies with, who springs from, who is serviced by or drafted by a bourgeois capitalist class then that’s the kind of writing you do. Then your job is to maintain status quo, to celebrate exploitation or to guise it in some lovely, romantic way… As a cultural worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.

I am taking orders from the ones who are filling the streets and the airports and the train station, from the ones staying up all night to write statements and songs, and to paint banners. I am taking orders from the hundreds of glittering queers dancing outside the republican meeting, from the Yemeni shop-owners on strike, from the teachers, students, and parents chanting outside the Senator’s home on the weekend.

I am taking orders from the ones like me, the ones living between genders every single day – in the streets, on the bus, in front of classrooms, behind podiums and behind bars; those of us who bend language to make space for ourselves, the ones who make a home in the invisible and in-between places. We always knew this system would never work for us. And our revolution is already irresistible.

 

“Irresistible Revolutions” is the second article in CdnTimes Volume 8, Edition 6: Letters to Canadians. Click HERE to read “New York Dispatch” by Tanya Marquardt, and check back on February 28, 2017 to read the final installment by SK Kerastas and Lisa Evans. Visit HowlRound.ca for its companion, Letters to Americans.

CdnTimes Volume 8, Edition 6: LETTERS TO CANADIANS FROM AMERICANS

By and
The international boundary in Derby Line, VT. Centre for Land Use Interpretation photo.
The international boundary in Derby Line, VT. Centre for Land Use Interpretation photo.


Earlier this week, all eyes were on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he paid a visit to the new President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. With our two leaders sitting side-by-side for a polite photo shoot, we had to wonder: what distinguishes us? What makes us the same? What will happen to NAFTA? Will Trudeau continue to withstand Trump’s handshake?

Across the much-discussed border, we are exchanging letters here at CdnTimes. Letters from Canadians and letters from Americans, connecting artists in collaboration with our friends at HowlRound – an online knowledge commons by and for the theatre community based.

CdnTimes will publish letters from our American colleagues to hear what it’s like on the ground, now, for theatre artists working in the United States. Meanwhile, HowlRound will be publishing letters from Canadians about what’s affecting our work now. Artists from both countries share warnings, worries, strategies of resistance, generosity, and advocacy – messages of solidarity. What can we learn from each other? 

The first article “New York Dispatch” relates, Canadian ex-pat Tanya Marquardt’s response to the Trump win on Election Day.

“Irresistible Revolutions” by MJ Kaufman draws connection between the roles we take on in theatre and those assumed in direct, non-violent activism.

And in “Building the World We Want to See” Lisa Evans and SK Kerastas consider the opportunities a Trump administration present for radical imagination and community-building.

New York Dispatch

By

Note: I wrote this three days after the election of Trump. Since then there has been a Muslim ban, the elevation of Bannon to the National Security Council, the removal of the LGBTQ page on the Whitehouse website, Trump’s conflicts of interest, the promise to tear apart the NEA, and worse. I have been protesting and mobilizing, and have been witness to acts of strength and determination, compassion and fierce love. But the initial feeling of the election results still lives in me. It keeps me fighting, and it also keeps me up at night.

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I went to bed before the announcement because I knew and I didn’t want to hear his acceptance speech, which came as we all know, near 3am, falling from his flabbergasted mouth into the mouths of lions.

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And when Tuesday happened <there are no words, no words, no words>  it felt like this:

(

)

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For two full days, the subway rides felt like funeral processions, traveling from graveyard to graveyard, the mourning commuters like parishioners – a procession of silence.

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And then the violence – almost immediately the violence. Coming home on the train from who knows where, two older women got on at the Hoyt Schermerhorn stop. I’d seen them before, two harmless old ladies with greying hair. One of them had an aging poodle in a baby carriage.

They started yelling.

– I voted for him, but I’d never tell my son that. He’s gay.

– Yeah.

– They think they can just get married?

– I don’t think so.

– No.

(Then, yelling louder, looking at people as they yell)

– You can’t marry another man in the church. You just can’t do that.

– Yeah. Yeah.

– God don’t play that game.

The silence around them was deafening. I looked at another woman and she rolled her eyes. It was no conciliation.

At the corner bodega I walked in to find a Jewish man sitting at a table, staring off into space, brown snakeskin boots peeking out the bottom of his black jeans and dapper wool coat. As I paid for my orange juice he said out loud, to no one in particular:

– I was attacked. I was attacked tonight.

A younger man in his early twenties turned to speak.

– What, man?

– They attacked me. I was standing outside by the Chase bikes, near some pylons, and a white van pulled up. Three men ran out and attacked me.

– Did anyone see it? I asked.

– The neighbours came out. They ran at the men and they jumped in their van. They drove away. I called the Detectives.

– I’m glad the neighbours came, the young man said.

– Yes, I mirrored, I’m so glad they were there.

The Jewish man stared off into space.

– Yes, I told the Detectives.

– It’s going to be okay, I said to him, and partially to myself. We’re here, we will protect you.

– Yes, the Jewish man agreed.

Then, he went back to staring into space, repeating to himself in disbelief.

– They attacked me. They attacked me.

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It’s only been a week. Less than that. Or is it more than that? The days don’t make sense right now. I’m taking Rescue Remedy to fall asleep. I don’t want to dream. I don’t want to remember anything. I don’t want to believe anything.

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A facebook post from an agnostic friend:

– I’m not religious, but I can’t help but wonder…what would Jesus do?

And the first comment:

– The Jesus I know would be torn limb from limb at one of his rallies and left for dead.

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On a bike riding to rehearsal, I come to a red light and a car pulls up beside me. The man inside stares at me and will not look away. He’s wearing a green army cap. It is night and I can’t help but be afraid.

Is that fear in his eyes or anger? I hate that I have to think about that question. I don’t want to find out. I ride through the red light and peddle faster towards my destination.

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What truly scares me is that I have no idea what to expect.

But always now the rotting stone in my belly and the endless instinct.

This is not normal.

Danger. Danger. Danger. 

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Why am I not on a plane back to Canada? I’m not American. I could easily lie to myself,  believe this is not my fight.

I say this, and then turn onto my side. The person I love more than breath, my darling one, asleep beside me. A few weeks earlier, the first time at a synagogue for Rosh Hashanah, I danced in celebration of the Jewish New Year.

Swastika’s sprayed on school lockers. An African American boy’s neck held in a noose by 12 year olds. They pulled it tight.

This is not normal.

Danger. Danger. Danger.

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Last night, I sat in the audience at St. Marks church. Two men dancing a piece that was choreographed in the early 90s. They talk about the AIDS crisis, about being young, being black, being gay. One of them starts dancing in a pair of devils ears, speaking in broken French. They lick each other’s necks and embrace. Then they pull people out of the audience as 70s funk music starts to play, blasting through the speakers. Everyone forms two lines, couples dancing down the space in the middle. The crowd cheers, and I look across the aisle.

– Oh Gawd! I laugh, recognizing the reference to Soul Train. Oh Gawd!

My face feels hot, and I touch my cheeks. They are hot.

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I don’t know why I’m writing this, other than the fact that it’s really all I know how to do. Signing petitions and calling Senators of course. Busy signals in all directions.

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And then today, minding a friend’s 4 and 6 year old boys. Charlie likes to hold hands with his guy friends, which I’ve never really seen boys do before. He gives me a handmade card that says LOVE on it.

– Melinda gave me that, he says.

– How lovely, I smile.

– Hold onto it, Charlie says. Keep it safe.

 

“New York Dispatch” is the first article in CdnTimes Volume 8, Edition 6: Letters to Canadians from Americans. The next article is coming February 21, 2017. Visit HowlRound.com for its companion, Letters to Americans from Canadians.

Drag: The Device That Makes Portlandia What It Is

By
Armisen as Nina and Brownstein as Lance. Source: IFC.com

What is performance? Is it reciting rehearsed lines to an audience? Is it adopting new behaviours? Is it getting into a costume? Is it a series of truths and lies that we tell to ourselves in order to become someone who we aren’t? If it is any or all of these things, then one can understand how performance is intertwined with our everyday routines. Performance is not an act that is restricted to the stage or the screen, rather, it is the simple act of making choices that affect how we present ourselves to the world.

We rehearse our roles our entire lives, by making a series of choices every day that with trial and error teach us how to be the character we want to be. From a young age, we learn what lines will get what reactions out of our parents, teachers, and friends. The more we rehearse, the quicker we get at understanding the script. Soon—actions, such as crying, can be a performance of sadness, happiness, or ‘trying to get out of something-ness’. Our understandings of the play evolve and our roles become more complex and restricted: “don’t do that in public” “use your indoor voice” “say that in your interview” etc etc.

All of these everyday performances can be explicitly seen in the way we perform gender, just ask Judith Butler. To her, gender is “a stylized repetition of acts . . . which are internally discontinuous . . .[so that] the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief”

Armisen and Brownstein sketched as their season 1 main characters. Source: Pinterest

Therefore a drag performance (specifically the sub-genre of drag done in Portlandia) works in two central ways: it highlights the fact that gender is something that is performed—an person/actor of any biological sex is able to perform any gender by simply making the choices that align with ‘man’ and ‘women’. Secondly, it works to erode the idea that gender is linked to sex, and emphasizes that it is a spectrum full of choice.

We are fortunate in our society that some entertainment and television shows are liberal and conscience enough to be bringing forth interesting and dynamic discussions about gender into the forefront of our media. The popular television show Portlandia has created a format where the two main creators/ writers/actors, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, play all of the central characters. This encourages viewers to accept the notion that the body can be a blank slate for characters to be imposed on to. The show indirectly (and sometimes overtly) sends important messages like ‘it’s okay to be who you are’ and ‘feminism is cool’. Portlandia has had six successful seasons and counting.

Portlandia constantly reminds its viewers that the actors are performing. By often performing in drag and ‘bending genders’, Portlandia reveals to viewers the artifice of the characters. They show that the actors are performing, similar to the ways in which we are all performing in our daily routines of inhabiting gender. By using simple wigs, costumes, and limited makeup (i.e. no special effects or movie magic-type of make up) Portlandia aligns television performances to everyday performances. In addition, the show’s use of drag isn’t just out of ‘necessity’. While one might assume that Armisen and Brownstein only get in drag when they need to perform a same sex relationship (be it an intimate one, friendship, or between strangers, etc.), they would be wrong. The popular returning sketch, “Nina and Lance”, where Brownstein plays the male, Lance, and Armisen plays the female, Nina, is a perfect example of how the show actively explores the body and gender performances

While Armisen’s shrill falsetto and Brownstein’s digitally modified baritone do work towards creating humour in the scene, these conventions enhance the performance by poking fun at the situations the characters find themselves in. By no means are the altered voices or drag performances meant to be interpreted as an attack on transgendered people or drag performers like some believe. Instead, the show hyperbolizes and criticizes the gender binaries that our society has created.

By creating an environment where gender and biological sex are no longer linked for the purposes of creating a straightforward storyline, Portlandia evades gender binaries altogether. Portlandia is an experimental hybrid formed from the web-series, sketch comedy, and mockumentary genres, thus creating an entirely new type of show with current and poignant subject matter. The show’s use of humour entertains audiences and helps to engage them in the incredibly informative and valuable messages being explored.

Thought Residency: Tanisha Taitt

By

Th​ought #12 – The Call​

​Th​ere is a thorn in the wind
There is a wall we must climb
There is a storm rolling in
It is the call of our time
Who is to tend to the need​?​
Who is to hold tired hands​?​
Friend it is you, it is me
Because n​o one is free
Until freedom stands

_______________

This is Tanisha and Thought #12.​​​ Thanks for listening to my residency.​
​

It’s Tanisha and Thought #11.

As I’ve watched the In Memoriam reels at this year’s Oscars and Grammys, I can’t help thinking about the impact of my own life. As a daughter, as a sister, as an aunt, a mentor, a friend… I know it is deep and true. But as an artist? I’m not sure. Will there be a directing job that I do, a performance that I give, a song or a play that I write — that will be reverberating in people’s lives thirty years from now? I can’t know that. But I know that I can leave my attempts. And I know that I can leave the passion.

Often I’ll look at strangers and thin k “Might we have been friends in a different life?”   It fascinates me how the relationships that we hold dearest — our siblings, colleagues, friends and mentors — are all born of circumstance.  Where did we live?  What were our parents’ economic situations?  What schools did we go to?  What jobs did we get?  What contracts did we take or pass over?  All of these things shape who ends up being in our sphere.  And so when I’m in public sometimes and I get mad at a stranger, or irritated — I stop and as k myself: “Might we have been friends in a different life?”

 

This is Tanisha and Thought #9.

There are moments which encapsulate and cement us. I think that the most powerful breaths we ever take are in those pivotal and defining moments — the ones that divide our lives into before and after they happened. You often do not know that they will be the defining ones until well after they occur, but then when you look back… you find yourself in awe of their magnitude.

This is Tanisha and Thought #9.

I’m someone who tries very hard to live her life from a place of truth. And so watching the Trump administration lead with lies, and live in lies, is so disconcerting for me. It’s not that I didn’t know that politicians can be dishonest; of course I did. But it’s the commitment to dishonesty — a commitment that is so fundamentally contrary to the commitment that I’ve made for myself — that absolutely freaks me out.

This is Tanisha and Thought #8.

Our government is letting a lot of people down. Brea king political promises , breaking Indigenous hearts. It’s so easy – and I catch myself doing it too – for us to sit on our high horses and focus on the crap show that is happening south of the border, because it is so brazen in its horror and its malice. Ma ke no mistake, I am grateful to be where I am. But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t being disenfranchised and hurt and oppressed here. It’s happening every moment of every day, so let’s make sure that we spend a healthy chunk of time in our mirror too .

It’s Tanisha and Thought #7.

So powerfully poignant and painful it is to love someone to the depths of your being who cannot, does not, and will not ever love you back. And yet from the midst of this realness come lessons — lessons in detachment, in sacrifice, in selflessness and in grace… that are profound.

This is Tanisha and Thought #6.

Often, when a young attractive woman of colour becomes part of an ensemble that is otherwise Caucasian, at some point — either during the process or in reviews — she will be referred to as “exotic”. And apparently she’s supposed to jump up and say “Thank you” for this. A woman of colour who acts in a play or a film is an actor. Not a ferret, not an iguana, not a Bengal tiger. An actor. And if the people who love to throw the word “exotic” around like it’s the best thing in the world to be actually believed that, then their casting wouldn’t be so bloody tokenistic.

This is Tanisha Taitt and Thought #5.

Imagine Donald Trump as a theatre director. Imagine him having to collaborate with actors, designers, crew, and an admin staff to put something on stage – in which although he was helming the ship, he had to acknowledge equally the talents of everyone aboard that ship in order for that ship to set sail. Do you think he could do it? Or do you think it would be the Titanic? Cause, I’m thinking B.

This is Tanisha and Thought #4.

Here’s some advice. If you are a white person, avoid ranting about why Black Lives Matter are a bunch of morons that offend you and why they aren’t going about their business correctly. You might not appreciate their tactics, and that’s fine. But until you know where the pain and the distrust and the terseness come from — until you live in that skin and then dedicate your life to a movement where you collect the stories of people’s degradation and desperation and humiliation and subjugation — until you seek to understand that, you need to back off.

Barack Obama’s second memoir was called The Audacity Of Hope and I’ve been thinking a lot about that phrase recently, as we wake up feeling hopeless at the thought that the most powerful country in the world is seemingly led by someone with no moral compass and no intellectual curiosity. So it is up to us – each of us – to find the audacious within us and be bold and brave and loud. We can’t wait for anybody else to do it. We can’t wait for someone else to bring our hope back to us. It’s US. Now. We’re it.

This is Tanisha Taitt and Thought #2. An acquaintance said to me the other day “Well obviously you’re a liberal”, and although I have no problem being thought of as a liberal, I don’t think of myself that way. I tend to consider myself a progressive, and that’s because the word ‘progressive’ indicates motion and movement in a way that the word ‘liberal’ doesn’t quite. I am so passionate and committed to the idea of moving us forward — forward in our thinking, forward in our ability to connect and communicate — that ‘progressive’ resonates with me so much more.

This is Tanisha Taitt.  Welcome to my thought residency, and Thought #1.
I’ve been hearing a lot lately that what the world needs now is love, and that’s true.  But if you think of love as a flower… it cannot grow on its own.  What the world needs now is the seed of courage, the soil of justice, the water of forgiveness and the sunlight of truth — in order to create conditions in which that flower can grow.
We cannot leapfrog our way to love.  We have to cultivate it.

Re/De-Gendering the Singer through Electronic Manipulation

By
Metropolis

I was recently sharing my love of Agnes Obel’s new song ‘Familiar’ with a friend, and I found myself realizing something interesting: I have a weakness for strange vocal manipulations in music, especially those that skew the perception of the singer’s identifying vocal qualities. Hearing a voice being skewed beyond its usual range, tone, and flexibility is a truly disorienting experience. Singing is something we often consider such a natural ‘human’ activity, and vocal production is bound tightly to the body performing it and the perceived gender of that body.

Performing with most instruments has at least the potential to be a non-gendered experience.  In a recording or performance where the performer is not seen, the listener has no way of discerning or assuming that performer’s gender identity. In theory, all genders have an equal ability to play an instrument, though most instruments are manufactured for male bodies.  Singers, however, are required to have their gendered bodies on display no matter what. Their roles, repertoire, and identities as musicians are intertwined with the pitch of their voice. Choirs and opera singers are so strictly divided on lines of ‘men’ and ‘women’ that even when the range of their voices is similar they are categorized based on gender. Sopranos and Altos are women; a man with a voice in the range of a Soprano or Alto is called a Countertenor.

Voices that are read as female are often are met with less respect than voices read as male. Singers Grimes and Joanna Newsom have both expressed disdain for having their music regularly described as ‘childlike’, and themselves infantilized by critics because of the high pitch of their singing voices. Female voices in rock and punk music are often perceived as being ‘shrill’ and ‘annoying’ when performing in a similar ‘untrained’ style as many highly regarded male singers in the genre.

In the digital age, the possibilities to mechanized voices have become increasingly prevalent. Though singing and speaking are considered to be organic human expressions, the robotic voice has become a part of daily life (appliances that speak to us), popular culture (science fiction films, video games, and books describing sentient machines), and experimental art. Robots and female bodies have an interesting history in western culture. Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece ‘Metropolis’ portrays a terrifying female-bodied robot blending together two of society’s most feared things; unbridled dangerous technology and rampant female sexuality. Many automated voices are female, as are artificial intelligences in video games and films. Casting female voices in these roles supports the conception of women as subservient and ‘less than’ or ‘other than’ human, whilst also pairing their speech with potentially dangerous beings with infinite knowledge.

The Knife

Digital music technologies, such as vocoders, vocaloids, and autotuners, allow singers to escape from the confines of their physical bodies and abilities.  Musician Susumu Hirasawa, famous for creating the soundtracks for Satoshi Kon’s films, has done innovative work in vocaloid production on his way to his ultimate goal of creating all of his complex music without any performers or personnel other than himself. Brother/sister electronic music duo The Knife play with gender in their music with their appearance, lyrics, and vocal manipulation. The siblings often perform and are photographed in masks or matching makeup, skewing the audience’s perception of which one is the ‘man’ and which is the ‘woman’. Singer Karin Dreijer performs both ‘female’ and ‘male’ voices (and even occasionally ‘child’ voices), sometimes all in the same song. Through technology, Karin’s voice is thus able to transcend its ‘femininity’, and break into parts of our psyche unlocked by ‘male’ tones. She is able to converse with herself and her listeners across ages and genders, her voice becoming more of a playable, non-gendered instrument than a product of her body.

Human beings create technologies to extend their bodies; to make them stronger, smarter, and faster. Digitization of musical effects does not ‘de-humanize’ musicians, it instead allows them more space to expand their ideas past their own physical characteristics and limitations.  Technologies for synthesizing and editing voices are beginning to facilitate a breakdown in the strict gender roles that pervade vocalists and music containing singing. By de-gendering song we are not removing it from its status as a basic human activity, but instead furthering its potential to give a wide variety of individuals a multitude of ways to express their emotions.

 

4 Strategies Towards a More Inclusive Theatre Practice

By

In light of the recent first-ever Disability Inclusion Roundtable in Beverly Hills on in late 2016, it seems fitting to talk about bodies with disabilities on stage.

This summer, the Ruderman Foundation released a study that focussed on the representation of people with disabilities on television. The study revealed that although 20% of the (U.S.) population has a visible or invisible disability, less than 1% of TV characters have a disability of any kind. Furthermore, 95% of the characters with disabilities on TV are portrayed by able-bodied actors (see Artie Abrams, Glee).

Although I do not have statistics for the theatre scene, I cannot doubt that they would be similar – although perhaps slightly improved by certain theatre companies and festivals that intentionally aim to bring artists with disabilities together.

There has been a lot of criticism from artists with disabilities about these statistics and calls for change both in light of this study and before it came out, as people with disabilities and disability advocates added their voices to conversations around diversity in media and the arts.

Actor Danny Woodburn and Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Foundation, co-wrote an article this summer entitled, “Why Are We Ok with Disability Drag in Hollywood?”, in which they compare these statistics to only 5% of female characters actually being played by women, or 95% of black characters being played by white people. It would be ludicrous, and we as a society would not stand for it. Yet somehow the voices of people with disabilities are still not being heard, and performers with disabilities remain largely underused and unemployed, and people with disabilities remain unrepresented in film, television, and theatre.

“It’s a matter of access to employment,” said Woodburn at the Disability Inclusion Roundtable last week. 18-year-old actor Micah Fowler adds, “Just give us (people with disabilities) a chance.”

So here’s the question: how do we as the theatre and performing arts community, strive to include artists and performers with disabilities in the diverse landscape of the performing arts? As an able-bodied woman, I will draw on the voices and examples of artists with disabilities in order to present each example.

  1. Tell Their Stories

Perhaps the most straightforward way is to tell stories featuring disabled cast performers whose abilities and disabilities correspond to those of the characters they are playing. An example of this is Cahoots/ Theatre Passe Muraille’s production of Ultrasound by Adam Pottle, performed in May 2016.

The play tells the story of married couple Alfonse and Miranda, who are both deaf or hard of hearing and use ASL, or ASL and speech, to communicate. They are thinking of having a child and debate whether or not they should use eugenics to ensure that the child is deaf – motivated mostly by Alfonse wanting to continue deaf culture, and by his fear that he will not be able to relate to a hearing child.

The play utilized English, ASL, and surtitles to explore deaf culture and featured deaf actors Chris Dodd and Elizabeth Morris. Pottle himself also has hearing loss in both ears. It is a poignant example of artists with disabilities telling their own stories, and both deaf and hearing audiences enjoying and being enriched by the experience.

  1. Cast Disabled Actors in Roles Which Don’t Showcase Disability

Woodburn and Ruderman call for roles for actors with disabilities that neither emphasize nor hide their disability. In their article in the Los Angeles Times, Danny Woodburn and Jay Ruderman write that television studios rarely hire actors with disabilities if the story line does not emphasize disability, unlike with other minority groups who can exist on screen without the thing that makes them a minority being the center of their narrative, such as with characters of colour.

Scene for Adam Pottle’s Ultrasound, photo by Michael Cooper
  1. Cast Disabled Actors as Able-Bodied Characters

Actor RJ Mitte is best known for his role on Breaking Bad as Walter White Jr. Both the actor and the character have Cerebral Palsy, although unlike his character, Mitte doesn’t walk with the use of crutches. He is also a firm believer in the power of actors with disabilities on screen. “You will see able-bodied actors winning Oscars for playing disabled characters, and I have no problem with that. I think it’s an opportunity for that able-bodied actor to learn about that disability, to change their perception on disability. But you will never see a disabled character win an Oscar for playing a disabled character — ever. And I think it should go both ways; I think a disabled actor should be able to audition for a non-disabled role.”, he says in an interview.

  1. Use Technology

This may be the way to help achieve Mitte’s dream of having an actor with a disability receive an Oscar for playing an able-bodied character. “If we’re going to employ Computer Graphics and makeup to create the illusion of disability,” Woodburn and Ruderman write, “then we should also be willing to do the reverse. For example, in movies that center around a sudden disability caused by an accident, such as paraplegia, studios could employ CG to make a wheelchair using actor able-bodied for the parts of the movie that call for it.” I wonder, too, how we could use technology to create a similar experience in theatre.

With the creation of CdnStudio, designed to connect theatre artists from across the country, we know that we have so many more possibilities to create truly inclusive theatre nation-wide than we have ever before. Let’s push the boundaries of our creativity, our empathy and our technology and see what we can create together.

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