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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.

CdnTimes Volume 8, Edition 5: Contemporary Performance in Practice

By and

Last fall SpiderWebShow was invited into a residency at Queen’s University. During our time there we co-taught a class in the Stage and Screen Program that explored the range of activities found at SpiderWebShow and how these relate to concepts of “liveness”. By way of practice, students created their own Thought Residencies, Wiki Articles, CdnElder Videos, and we built the course towards the class creating original performances tailored to the demands of CdnStudio. The course concluded with a live performance, including all of the above, in the black box theatre at The Bader. There was a sizeable crowd for the student named event: MetaFriction.

IDIS410 @ QueensU. Aka the first artists to put together real scenes in a virtual environment connected thru wifi.

A photo posted by SpiderWebShow (@spiderwebshow) on


Participants also created their own articles for CdnTimes, using the same parameters that artists across the country use when curated by our Co-Editors. We never imagined that the work would be so good. All were strong, but here are three that really stood out. Publishing them in this special edition is actually a great way to put our values into action. It affords us the opportunity to share terrific writing and for you to meet new voices that you are bound to hear more from.  This week we are pleased to present three articles that our students created under the broad rubric of addressing “gender and/or the body”.

Vikki Sprenger addresses how disability is and can be incorporated into professional live performance; Hannah Brown investigates how technology is transforming gender roles relating to voice and performance; Megan Thomson unpacks how in Portlandia, drag is the crucial element that makes the humour work.
Sarah Garton Stanley and Michael Wheeler

From this edition

Drag: The Device That Makes Portlandia What It Is

Megan Thomson -
What is performance? Is it reciting rehearsed lines to an audience? Is it adopting new behaviours? Is it getting into a costume? Is it...

Re/De-Gendering the Singer through Electronic Manipulation

Hannah Brown -
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...

4 Strategies Towards a More Inclusive Theatre Practice

Vickie Sprenger -
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...

Facing the Fuck-Ups

By
Debbie stands on stage in all white, with one arm extended above her pointing her crutch up to ceiling.
Workshop presentation of How It Ends a new piece in development with my company Sick + Twisted Theatre. Pictured are Arne MacPherson and Debbie Patterson. Photo by Solmund MacPherson.

In 1999 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I knew a couple of people who had it and who showed no outward signs of the disease, so I was pretty optimistic that I would be the same. I wasn’t.

Like most actors, I enjoy physical challenges; I had danced the tango with Mack the Knife and swung a broad sword at the King of Scotland. But I stopped auditioning for plays when I could no longer walk without an obvious limp. All my training, all my experience told me that as an actor, I needed to be in peak physical condition. If I couldn’t be, I had to stop performing.

Having made my living in the business for 20 years, not only was it hard to imagine entering some other profession, it was devastating to think that all the other skills I had worked so hard to develop were now useless to me. How could I continue to do this work while remaining comfortably seated? So my first strategy was: to find a way to ignore it. 

I began to develop as a playwright, which was great, but I missed having that direct relationship with an audience. I missed the intimacy of that shared experience. But because I was now a playwright, I could write plays that would allow me to hide my disability. This was my second strategy: finding ways to work around my disability.

 I began working with Iris Turcott on a play I had been writing about a neighbourhood in decline, called Sargent & Victor. It was a one-person show I intended to perform myself: seated in a chair, with no movement or blocking so that no one would ever know I couldn’t walk. On the phone Iris asked me, “What’s wrong with you?” I told her a little bit about what was happening with my body and she said that that’s what I should be writing about. “What’s happening to your body is the same thing that’s happening in that neighbourhood, Dumbdumb.”

At first I resisted; I didn’t want to write a play about “me and my disease”. What could be more boring? But I learned that resistance is futile when you’re working with Iris Turcott. With a “here goes nothing” attitude, I began writing Sargent & Victor & Me. As is always the case, by being specific and digging deep, the work became profoundly universal. It was produced by Theatre Projects Manitoba to record-breaking attendance — and standing ovations.

Thanks to Iris, I finally landed upon my third and most successful strategy: to move towards my disability, to fully incorporate it into the work I was doing.

4 performers on stage in a circus style show. One on stilts, Debbie using a wheelchair, all playing instruments.
Molotov Circus presented at SummerWorks Festival. Pictured are Debbie Patterson, Arne MacPherson, Gislina Patterson and Solmund MacPherson. Photo by Leif Norman.

I realize that much of my resistance to doing this work was based on my own internalized ableism. While it’s obvious a person’s worth shouldn’t be contingent on their gender or their race, I hadn’t wrapped my brain around the idea that a person’s worth isn’t defined by their abilities. You can’t say men are superior to women, but it takes a little more work to recognize that a person who can walk is no better than a person who can’t walk.

When a person loses a sense, like sight or hearing, other senses become more acute. I’ve discovered that living with MS is no different.

My muscles don’t automatically do what I want them to do. When I move, I’ve become extremely mindful of what my body is doing. I am far more attuned to my movement now than I ever was before, despite all of the physical training I was given at theatre school.

Every day I do things that are dangerous: climbing stairs, handling things that could cut me or burn me. The clumsiness associated with MS makes all of these things potentially fatal. The risk now involved in completing the daily tasks of my life has made me more willing to take risks in my work.

In my daily life I come up against problems that I have to solve, stupid simple things like getting in and out of a vehicle, or navigating an opening night reception while juggling two crutches and a cocktail. These stupid little problems force me to think laterally, to find new ways to do ordinary things. This need to adapt, to use my imagination in very directed ways to solve problems has filtered into my work.

These three qualities — mindfulness, risk taking, and adaptive problem solving — have made me a better artist. As a performer, I’ve discovered my superpower is the way I move, which automatically brings with it something I call the “Cirque du Soleil effect”. When I walk across the room everyone is on the edge of their seat, wondering “is she going to fall?” No need to rig up the trapeze, I bring the danger.

There are two narratives that we attach to disability in popular culture: the cautionary tale (Don’t drink and drive or you’ll end up in a wheelchair and your life will be over!) and inspiration porn (She’s disabled, but she still has a job and raises children. What a hero!). But the truth is somewhere in between these two extremes of tragic or prosaic. And most tellingly, both of these narratives are directed at an “abled” audience.

Having a disability gives me the opportunity to tell the truths that no one seems to be telling. It gives me a window into an aspect of the human condition that, though it is universal, is seldom reflected in the stories we tell.

3 actors perform outdoors, under sunny green trees. Debbie is centre, snarling at the audience in a golden crown. She is using silver crutches.
Two images from Richard III produced by Shakespeare in the Ruins. Pictured are Toby Hughes, Debbie Patterson and Sarah Constible. Pictured below are Toni Reimer, Tracey Nepinak and Debbie Patterson. Photos by Dylan Hewlett.

Disability is scary. We’ve all had the dream where we’re trying to run away from the monster and we just keep falling down. Now, here I am, living the dream. I’m forced to deal with something that most of us are afraid to even look at. As an artist, this is an amazing opportunity, to travel into the abyss and bring back the treasures I find there. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to do the work I do, at this time when representation of disability is beginning to be seen as an area of great potential.

But on the other hand, as a person with a disability I feel incredibly lucky to be an artist, to have a way of dealing with these changes that is fruitful and rewarding. MS is so capricious and unpredictable that if I hadn’t already learned, through my practice, how to be comfortable moving forward from a place of not knowing, how to embrace difficult truths, and, most importantly, how to fail, I would have a much harder time of it.

In clown, we talk about fuck-ups as gifts: the prop that falls apart, the door that doesn’t stay shut, the floor that squeaks when you’re trying to be sneaky. All of these things are gifts from the gods that we must accept and incorporate into what were doing. If we ignore them, we deny the truth. If we embrace, them we are rewarded.

3 actors perform in a sandy outdoor space, in front of a stone wall. Debbie, in a crown, angrily points towards another crowned actor who is seated. An actor dressed like a bishops laughs in the background.

Last spring I was richly rewarded with the chance to play Richard III — the first time in Canada that a disabled actor had been cast in that role in a professional production. Imagine being the first female Juliet, the first black Othello. What an amazing opportunity!

Who knew? I thought disability would be the end of my work as an artist. I tried to run away from it, I tried to ignore it, I tried to deny it. But by embracing it, it has become the gift that has propelled me into a deeper, freer, more embodied practice.

Finding Faith in Oblivion

By
Downstage, Jonathan sits on the ground with his hands folded in prayer in front of his mouth. Upstage, a woman in all white stands at a pulpit.
Workshop of oblivion at the University of Calgary, with actors Adam Schlinker & Jacqueline Tran.

I am a gay Christian. You may have heard of us; we’re mythological creatures that live outside the comfort of the church because of our queerness, while also living outside the comfort of the LGBT community because of our bent towards a faith that has so wounded non-heteronormative people. I am also a theatre artist.

Daily, I feel the turmoil of how deep the rift is between the multiple communities I belong to. The institutional church has a bad rap and the queer community is wary of engaging with Christians in response to the harm the church has inflicted. Add to that the tendency of theatre to challenge, criticize, and dismiss organized religion as a crutch, as unscientific and grasping for control (bastion of patriarchy). How does it look to you? I am on the front lines of a culture war.

I have always hated the idea that identifying either as gay or as Christian assumed a polar opposite cultural position. Coming out was hard enough in the church, but coming out as a Christian in the queer and theatre communities is also extremely challenging. The good part about holding an identity that screams dissonance is that I get to be in on the conversation, and when I have the energy, I can add my voice to it. I add the part about energy because trying to hold a gay Christian identity also makes you vulnerable to being written off. Sometimes it feels like I don’t belong in both worlds; sometimes I feel like I can’t exist in either. I decided I needed to write myself into the present and imagine in that writing how I would give myself a future.

Writing my first play, which I called oblivion, was about getting people into my mind to witness how damaging it is to try to sterilize sexuality because of religious faith. I had spent until age twenty-six trying to be good enough for the church and God, to heal my sexual orientation through reparative therapy and other damaging beliefs. Ultimately, that failed and I left the church in 2011 to come out. The reaction from my Christian community was so damning that I not only walked away from my church, I also gave up on my faith. By the time I was ready to get my story down on paper, I was no longer calling myself a Christian.

To write oblivion I ventured to tell a slightly fictionalized story of a gay man in a loving relationship haunted by his conservative Christian past and looking for a way to be cured of his faith so he could be at peace in his life. It was based on my truth: that the church had failed to cure me of my homosexuality, but by their so-called “love” response to me coming out they had cured me of my religion. oblivion is my contribution to this ever-polarizing conversation about faith and sexuality. It theatrically illuminates the very real internal struggle between sexual identity and religious conviction and reveals the harm and mental illness experienced by someone caught in the middle.

What resulted initially was a fifty-minute workshop production during the University of Calgary’s 2013-2014 student run ND Theatre season. Audiences were compelled by the show, and the post it note board was overflowing with questions and a desire for more dialogue. When I was invited to develop the show further at Vancouver’s the frank theatre in 2015 for their Aspect of Eternity series, there was a short time allotted for feedback about the show with myself and the actors. This conversation was supposed to be short, but it lasted forty-five minutes and when it ended the audience continued to chat and share stories with each other for another hour about how they were personally affected.

A messy pile of show programs and post-its. One post-it reads: We have different but similar struggles, and it's only through art like this that I've ever found the words to talk about me. My identity. Thank you for giving me the words.
Post-it note from the feedback wall of Jonathan’s first play, oblivion.

That talkback was a gift. What was meant to be an average discussion with notes for the playwright had radically transformed.

That summer, at the encouragement of my friends dramaturg-director Laurel Green and writer-activist Pam Rocker, I decided to remount oblivion with my own theatre company, Third Street Theatre, in conjunction with Hillhurst United Church for Calgary’s 2015 Pride Celebrations. We would present the script on the Hillhurst United Church altar and then invite the audience to stay for an extended time of conversation and sharing. With the addition of several new scenes, and an injection of hope in the play, something like a miracle happened in that church as we shifted to the conversation.

I would describe that evening as positively tense, intimate, challenging and healing. It felt like everyone’s walls dropped. I had shared a vulnerable part of my soul and in turn I was gifted with a room full of diverse people that didn’t all agree, sitting beside each other sharing their stories with no shortage of tears. I was emotional. I had spent a lifetime of being on multiple sides of the argument to arrive there in that room and somehow have given enough of myself that people wanted to share their hardships in thanks. It sounds reductive, but it felt like all of my pain and suffering in my journey were lifted and redeemed by that moment. It was there that I started to find my faith again. It was then that I found the show that I wanted to make. It was clear that this extended conversation wasn’t just an addition to the show, it was the second act.

With Laurel as my dramaturg and director, a talented cast of Calgary actors, and support from all at Third Street, we designed oblivion to tour. We billed it as “a staged reading in two acts”. Act one, a staged reading with professional actors on the church altar using whatever furniture (pulpits, choir benches, crosses) is in situ, and then act two, a conversation with the congregations that includes the minister/pastor of the presenting church or community. And we always include an anonymous feedback wall with the show to make sure everyone feels they can participate. We have been invited to perform in Non-denominational, Presbyterian, Anglican, and United Churches.

At first my creative team was apprehensive about what doing this type of show would be like in a church setting. There were questions about language, content, and how to respect believers and their space. There was also the concern about the second act; would there be anger, arguments, people walking out? Would there be judgement on us, or worse, more condemnation that might lead to more harm for those in the audience. After the showing for Pride in Calgary, it was clear that this show wasn’t inciting anything but compassion for the story, the team and those in real life that had experienced this type of struggle. The fears were dispelled and my team started sharing openly and vulnerably about their own stories of processing God, sexuality, coming out, and how they related to faith as a result of oblivion.

I fondly refer to the tour as evangelizing the church with theatre, but it has done much more than that. It has been a tool to deepen understanding of how the church has excluded the LGBT community. It helps congregations move towards an affirming stance on LGBT inclusion or deepens the understanding of a community that has already taken a pro-LGBT stance. The performances are always public and the LGBT community hasn’t missed a chance to be included yet. The show is versatile and has toured as part of national queer faith conferences, played during Sex Week at the University of Calgary and even to a room of anxious, closeted conservative Christian students at Ambrose University. It is moldable, it is educational, and it is a step towards reconciliation between communities.

4 actors and a dramaturg gather at the front of a church with scripts in hand. An illuminated cross hangs above their heads.
Rehearsal of oblivion at McDougall United Church, with Laurel Green, Ayla Stephen, Brett Tanner, Heather Zacharias, and Simon Tottrup.

Over a thousand people have witnessed the show to date: atheists have gained a newfound respect for those with a deep desire for faith. Teachers have asked how we could show it in schools. Some in the queer community have let go of some of their animosity and fear towards Christians. Those who lost LGBT loved ones to suicide have found healing and peace. Allies have felt they can finally understand the complexity of the challenges their queer relatives and friends have had to endure. Even trans audience members have seen themselves in the story. It was amazing to witness Christians and queers alike acknowledging the negative roles they have played in stoking division towards each other.

Ministers have said the show is a catalyst that opens up a “sacred space” for dialogue “within which minds can be challenged and hearts touched” and that the more people that witness this, the better off we all are. For me, one of the most insightful comments about the show’s impact in bringing us together was from an anonymous post-it note that said,  “Jesus would love your play and he would bring the wine to the after party!” Talk about Holy Communion! In my mind everyone in the audience is welcome at that party.

Isn’t this exactly what we need in our world? More chances to gather, share our remarkably different stories, digest and just be, together in the moment. I mean in the same room, not on the other side of a screen! Theatre does this naturally, but once the lights are up, the conversation goes internal or at best you discuss the themes with your date at a later moment. What about processing together with the strangers beside us, opening ourselves up to more than just our own opinion? That is scary. And that is exactly what we need when our go to has become the backlit media screens that connect us more to people across the ocean than our next-door neighbours.

This is the beauty of oblivion’s second act. It affords us what I believe we all need: an extra moment in time where we get to try to understand one another, to get re-acquainted with those breathing the same air. In doing so, we open up that ‘sacred space’ where we can find faith in each other. Only then do we get a glimpse of how all of our unique stories are actually wrapped up together.

As for this gay Christian theatre artist:

I will continue to use that title as a reminder that those identities are not mutually exclusive. I will keep my newfound faith and sit in the tension. I will bring oblivion to communities that desperately need to dialogue openly about this before more people are harmed. I will share my story with strangers because we are in this together and no one is immune.

We are all witnesses to each other’s lives, it’s time we stopped closing our eyes.

oblivion by Jonathan Brower continues to tour and will play in Calgary and Toronto in early Spring 2017. Visit Third Street’s website to find out more.

 

 

White Fragility in the Hour of Chaos

By

Two pictures set side by side. The right image is of an audience of white folks, smiling and clapping. The left image is a selfie taken by Paul Ryan and his very large team of all-white interns.

The election of Donald Trump is a confusing and chaotic time to be a culturally-engaged progressive Canadian. Given a dizzying array of off-the-cuff remarks about climate change, ‘Gina, nuclear weapons, Islam, women’s rights, the United Nations and reality TV ratings – it is a reasonable response to stimuli to bury one’s head in the sand. The US is a foreign country after all.

Long before Trump was elected, American politics has been our own form of reality TV. What has changed is how authoritarian tendencies have been activated in American society. All of a sudden this reality show is getting a little too real. That white culture is supreme in the US – and Canada for that matter, is a point of fact. One might even think of white culture as trump if life were game of Euchre. That this superiority complex is core to the rise of authoritarianism has been established in clear studies linking authoritarian impulses in society to racially divisive narratives. It’s simply impossible to imagine a non white-centric Trump win.

Given this, in my own artistic practice I’m trying to think hard about how not to perpetuate a narrative that empowers the same trend. As a straight white male settler Canadian, occupying positions of power, it seem incumbent upon me to be part of sorting this out, if for no other reason than I don’t want Prime Minister Kevin O’Leary to be on me. But there are other good reasons, like I’m pretty sure the Rebel Alliance are the Good Guys in Star Wars, and I’m generally passionate about social justice and this is where the struggle is headed.

At its most-basic level, I think it comes down to this:

If you create work for or in a cultural institution that doesn’t try to disrupt the narrative of white supremacy, you’re participating in creating conditions for the rise of the alt-fascists.

To be explicit about this, one does not need to identify as a racist or fascist to help create the given circumstances required for white supremacy to thrive. All one has to do is nothing.

What is required to transform our cultural institutions are sometimes uncomfortable changes to our artistic practice. So much of what we create is relationship-driven. So many of our relationships are with other similar people we have worked with before. Fighting white supremacy in Canadian culture begins with forging new relationships and working with new people. This is a risk. It doesn’t always turn out well, and so sometimes, when the alternative is so much more comfortable, it is avoided.

It also means adjusting our own internal barometers of merit. The most subjective word in the statement: “I just want the artist who is best for the part/position” is the word “best”. What does “best” mean in the context of the supremacy of a culture that empowers LePen, Farage, and Trump? It also probably means changing our own definition of leadership. Is a leader someone who has the most speaking opportunities, or is a leader someone who uses an invitation as an opportunity to find a new voice to be heard?

From a stage production of Disney's Frozen Live. Two actresses singing, facing the audience, and leaning on a large post between them.
Production still from Disney’s Frozen Live at the Hyperion, at Disneyland Resort.

When Liesl Tommy (who recently became the first woman of colour to be nominated for a Tony Award as a director) directed the stage version of the children’s movie Frozen for Disney, she cast a black actress as Elsa. The character of Elsa has already been experienced as a white character by approximately 1 trillion children and their parents ON REPEAT. In an interview with the Associated Press she described the experience:

“Disney is very strict about its character representation, but when you walk through the park and you see all of those different little children — no matter what their race is — wearing a little princess costume, you can see it doesn’t matter to them,” she said. “And so I felt like it shouldn’t matter to us.”

Tommy goes on to describe emotional reactions to the performance from the stage crew, after Disney finally agreed on the casting, “They knew they were witnessing history, […] the intensity of their support was very powerful. I realized that people really need ways to feel like they’re on the right side of things.”

From a stage production of Disney's Frozen Live. Two actresses singing, facing the audience, and leaning on a large post between them.
Production still from Disney’s Frozen Live at the Hyperion, directed by Liesl Tommy.

On January 15, Generator (where I will be Executive Director for one more week) is pairing with the Toronto Fringe at The Next Stage Festival to hold a Urgent Exchange discussion at Theatre Passe Muraille called “The White Guy Shuffle” centred on the game of musical chairs that has seen white males dominating artistic leadership positions in Canadian Theatre.

In the past year, seven major theatres companies have hired a new Artistic Director, in each case a white guy. In many cases the successful candidate moved from a different Artistic Director position at another major theatre. It’s hard to deny which culture is supreme in our medium currently.

I don’t begrudge any of the candidates that were hired for their jobs. It would be pretty hypocritical of me if I did, because the day after this event I begin full-time as Artistic Director of SpiderWebShow Performance. Which I think is what’s prompted me to write this. Statistically, I am also part of this culture perpetuating the conditions for oppression – but I am determined to be more than a statistic.

If nothing else, what I can do is not be overly-sensitive about being part of these conversations. If this cultural dynamic of white supremacy is key to how awful political leadership is gaining power, we have to be able to talk about it without worrying whose knickers are being tied in a knot. After all, white fragility would be a terrible excuse for why fascists took over the nation state.

Personally, I want to be part of positive change. History asks hard questions of people who are creators and artists in a time like this, and I hope I can make new friends and play a positive role. I can challenge the way I make decisions, the conversations I have, and the people I collaborate with. It will take everyone, not just equity-seeking groups, to create the given circumstances for a different culture and narrative that will make inclusive leaders Supreme.

THE WHITE GUY SHUFFLE: CHANGING HIRING PRACTICES IN CANADIAN THEATRE

Sunday Jan 15th 2:00pm-3:30pm
Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave

How can we influence boards and hiring committees to change homogenous hiring practices? Come participate in a community conversation that will examine the mechanics of how these decisions are made and strategize how the community can be of influence. 

Some background reading:

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