Faye Daydream is December’s featured Thought Residency artist of the ‘Class of 2020 – Fall Term’.
About Faye Daydream
Faye Daydream embodies intersections of oppression 1-4, she tells you this to justify her place within art making, and perhaps, so you will give her money?
She is the last one in a ridiculous, yet expansive list of women ranging from the masterful to the cautionary tale. She’s a nod to the interconnectedness of the whole thing, and perhaps most importantly, she is an attempt at finding some clarity.
Shaista Latif is November’s featured Thought Residency artist of the ‘Class of 2020 – Fall Term’, as selected by October’s featured artist, Tsholo Khalema.
About Shaista Latif
Shaista Latif is an artist.
Thought Residency
Thought Transcriptions
Follow Shaista Latif on Instagram, or visit this link for more information.
Tsholo Khalema is October’s featured Thought Residency artist of the ‘Class of 2020 – Fall Term’, as selected by September’s featured artist, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.
About Tsholo Khalema
A multifaceted artist currently based in Toronto. A South African Transgender man born in the midst of apartheid and witnessed the fall of an era while assimilating to life in Canada. The last born in a Methodist house hold, growing up on the westernmost prairie provinces of Canada where he began his lifelong pursuit of learning the art of theatre and film. An Actor, director and a self-taught film editor/ photographer, his art practices aims to enhance the Black and Transgender voice(s) showing the many different diverse intersectionality of blackness. Tsholovisions is currently the 2019 | 2020 RBC Apprentice Director for The Musical Stage company.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard was September’s featured Thought Residency artist of the ‘Class of 2020 – Fall Term’.
First Thought
#1 FIRST THOUGHT EVER
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my first thought.
Ever.
This is the very first thought that I have ever had.
I mean, obviously I’ve had thoughts before
but I was asked to introduce myself in that way –
this is my first thought –
and I’m not a liar
so I threw away everything that I ever knew before
and I thought to myself,
“well if it was true before and I knew it before,
then it is true still and I will surely come to know it again”
They say that the joy is in the learning so I will have that twice,
the learning.
I will get two times to know
the thing that I thought that I knew
before I thought that they told me to throw it away,
though now I think that maybe nobody said that
but it’s too late.
It’s all gone.
And this is my first thought,
and I haven’t really thought anything yet
so I’d better get started thinking.
What am I good for.
That’s my first thought.
What am I good for.
I didn’t say it would be a complete thought.
What good what that be? // (music credit: Days by Everest Media)
Second Thought
#2 RESISTANCE/RELEASE
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my second thought.
Last night I dreamt of my brothers, both runners.
We all were. That was a thing to do, in my family.
A thing to be excellent at. Running.
One thing I picked up off of them was the trick of training in water.
Conditioning.
Getting into a pool knee or waist or shoulders deep,
running across its width as hard as possible, back and forth.
For runners, accustomed to and striving for speed, it’s frustrating.
the water pushing back against your efforts,
the dissonance between your labour and the outcome.
It’s hard.
But by the time you get back to dry land,
you are an earthman landing on the moon.
Gravity is a non-factor.
After engineering all of this resistance, the race is a release,
a flight, you can achieve a seemingly superhuman speed.
Now, in this moment, there is no need to engineer resistance, it is there.
We are in it, and unless we stand still,
we are strengthening beneath the surface.
When I get back on dry land, I will be released, and I will fly.
Now, I just need to understand, in this moment,
what is the water?
And what is the race?
Good teaching, bro.
Third Thought
#3 HOW LONG IS A WALK?
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my third thought.
Today a friend invited me to go for a walk.
That’s nice.
Having a friend, them wanting to see you, wanting to see them, saying yes.
I can dig it.
She says two o’clock at the entrance to the park and i say yes.
I’ve never been to the park. I don’t know where the park is.
instead of looking up where the park is, i look up who it’s named after to see how i feel about being there, and then i go.
now, had i looked at a map i would have seen that the time it took to get to the place where our walk would begin is approximately the amount of time after which i think that a walk should end. but i am here, she is here, we are beginning.
we walk, and we walk, and we walk.
til i’m like, “oh, that’s a nice bench. let’s go look at it.”
we sit. then we walk some more.
and it’s nice, because i like her and we are spending time together.
but that walk was like jumping into a collaborative project without asking any questions upfront because i like the people involved. because they asked, and that was nice, so i got excited and committed to a thing that i thought ended where they thought it began, and i don’t know my own way home from here, so here we go, i’m walking.
Today, i agreed to the walk, but if we had walked one more minute than we did, i might like my friend just a little bit less, and that would have nothing to do with anything that she did.
next time i’ll ask. but now that i know her definition of “a walk”, she could probably get me to go anywhere.
Fourth Thought
#4 COLLATERAL ANIMALS
When I was a young Catholic schoolgirl, I thought Jeanne d’arc was the most badass. wearing pants, hearing god, sitting up on a horse, riding into battle, on fire, for some reason. She seemed to be on fire. At some point it occurred to me that never in history, not once, not ever, has a horse asked to be ridden headfirst into a rain of arrows or a wall of spears. Anyhow, today what I think is that if PETA really wants my attention, they should get to work liberating every police dog who never asked to be weaponized, and every police horse who wasn’t born to tread pavement and terrorize protestors. Get them all out of the way so we can abolish those slave catchers without collateral damage. I’m saying.
Fifth Thought
#5 YOU ARE ENOUGH
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my fifth thought.
It’s for you.
You are enough.
No bells, no whistles, just you. It’s enough.
Not because you’re better than you used to be
not because you’re as good as someone else.
Forget that.
Just be with yourself, out of context.
Don’t measure up.
Don’t measure anything.
That’s uncomfortable
cuz if your value is not tied to your accomplishments, your intelligence, your earnings, your status, your face, your birthplace or your family name, then how can you use any of those things to judge other people’s value? something has gotta be worth something, right? else how will i know who sucks and who’s the best? i’m not trying to let go of that, i’m trying to be the best, i basically am that, but somebody else is always getting better so i need to keep ahead…
this is my fifth thought and it is for me.
Me, you are enough.
Calm down.
(photo by Keith Barker)
Sixth Thought
#6 WORTHY
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my sixth thought.
(Photo Credit Keith Barker. It is a picture of a 6 car pileup. The cars are 1970 vintage toy cars)
Seventh Thought
#7 FIND JOY, TOO
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my seventh thought.
whenever Desmond Cole shares photos of flowers, I smile.
I can’t read more than a chapter of
“The Skin I’m In”,
not in one sitting, without hitting a nerve
and needing a breath
before reading the next.
thinking this substantial text
holds just a fraction of the actions undertaken
to receive the story, and to convey it.
I am stilled by a portion of what he relates,
a small shard of what he has heard,
stilled, though only ever glimpsing the edge
Of the people and pages
and pixels and grief that the writer receives
and distills for us,
the guts that they spill for us
and what it takes to pack them back in again,
never mind the ones that won’t fit anymore,
so full of new truths, crowding out room for you
some people do that every day,
on public pages, in private homes,
alone in the long dark night of the soul.
If someone is willing to do all that, then I want them to have joy, too.
I’m so happy when they find joy.
Have you seen this guy’s smile?
(photo credit: Desmond Cole. music: Smile by Nat King Cole)
Eighth Thought
#8 PRETTY
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my eighth thought.
I rarely use the word “pretty” without irony.
It’s like “nice.” Essentially positive but so banal as to be back-handed.
Lately I think it’s curve-related:
The air is so thick with hyperbole that if you’re pretty, you’re several levels below drop-dead gorgeous – so attractive that you could literally end someone’s life, aesthetically. And we don’t even know what the top of that scale is yet, but pretty ain’t it. We’ve gone so high that pretty is about one up from plain.
I understand that language evolves. I just don’t like when words get taken away in bad faith. Not over time, with usage, but in front of our eyes, with malice. Which is happening.
It’s probably the thing I appreciate most about African American vernacular – a survivance tongue that can’t be taken: it’s resistance to codification, it’s improv-adeptness, both in creating and interpreting new configurations of old symbols, old syllables, the reuse of existing expression invested instantly with new meaning by context. It’s verdant, sprawling and variegated. It’s complex and alive, and I love it. It’s pretty.
(photo by Desmond Cole. Sounds from zapsplat)
Ninth Thought
#9 STRONGER
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my ninth thought.
You are not stronger thanks to your trauma. Don’t fall for that. Maybe your strength got you through it, but that was yours. Maybe you grew through it, but that was you. You don’t need to thank your trauma, you deserved to live without it, to be strong without it, to grow without it.
I’m not trying to diminish your struggle.
I just want to give credit where it’s due.
Check it out.
You survived.
You did that.
You made you.
Thanks.
(Photo by Desmond Cole, music by Adot The God)
Tenth Thought
#10 RED BOOTS
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my tenth thought.
I have these red boots. I love them. As soon as I saw them I knew my life would change if I could only have them. Then I got those boots. I love them. And I almost never wear them. They are those things that are so special, too special, no occasion is ever special enough for me to unsheathe their majesty. They’re not gonna get muddy or wet or worn shiny on that one toe I like to rub against the back of my calf. You can barely tell they have anything to do with me. They just sit there, pristine and neglected. Like the phone numbers of all my most cherished friends.
And since this isn’t new behaviour, I can predict that by the time I finally decide to put those boots on, they will no longer fit, and I will have wasted a very good boot. My boots deserve better than that.
Eleventh Thought
#11 HAN SHOT FIRST
My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my eleventh thought.
I recently got into a thing with a collaborator about whether Han shot first. Not really about if he did or not, but about whether it matters if he did or not, and whether that is a thing worth saying. It matters, I assure you. If you’re a nerd, ten times more. But if you’re outside the culture, you might not see why. And if I try to explain it to you I inevitably bring more niche terms into the conversation that move you further from understanding and closer to confirming your theory that no one will know what I’m talking about. If you are not receptive to understanding, ten times more. More importantly, things matter even if they don’t to you, even if they don’t to most, even if you don’t understand why they do. Han shot first. Because the past is what happened, not what you wish did. He shot first, that’s a fact. I’m passionate about it. And no amount of CGI muzzle flashes will convince me Greedo did anything more than walk into the Mos Eisley cantina. Holler at me, nerds.
(image from Rigzsoft.co.uk)
Twelfth Thought
GE DIGITAL CAMERA
#12 – I CAN HELP
This is DM, and we’re at number twelve.
I used to work at a nursing home, at the reception desk. As a result, I was often the first point of contact for families visiting residents. This one guy would visit his mother about three times a week. He was nice enough, but never chatty. One night he comes in, heads my way, leans over my desk with urgency in his eyes, and says, “I can help.” I ask him, “Help with what?” He says, “Your problem. With your hair.” I say nothing, he goes on. “What you need is margarine. That’ll weigh it down. Fix your problem.” I said thank you.
Maybe this had nothing to do with the new afro pick I bought the next day. Maybe. Nowadays, I often have a good intention checked by hearing Yvette Nolan’s voice in my head, echoing from our days together at Native Earth, “Donna, don’t help.”
(photo by Isidra Cruz)
Thirteenth Thought
#13 JUST VISITING
This is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard. This is thought number thirteen.
I never want to be a tourist
A person who observes the external from a distance that they are at pains to retain because the view down the bridge of the nose is quite pleasing. Everything is quaint. Your time in another person’s life is like a dream if you don’t look past the seams that are sewn to contain what is shown to you. If you only get and take and enrich yourself with experience.
I prefer to be a guest, one who is invited, who sees that it is more than an offer to be accepted or declined, but a door being opened to come closer, actively0. My time in another person’s life as a sacrifice of their privacy, their patience, their hospitality, a sacrifice that I should not meet empty-handed.
I’d rather be a guest than a tourist. Though I know that, often I think that I am one, when I am in fact the other.
At the beginning of our collaboration based on his very personal story, photographer Nir Bareket Wright said to me, “I gladly invite you into my soul. I only ask that you first take off your shoes.”
I felt that. You should see where my shoes have been.
You should consider where yours have.
Tread gently with each other.
(music by Blunted Beatz. photo by Brenda St. Bernard)
Fourteenth Thought (Final Thought)
#14 NEVER NOT TRYING
This is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard with my fourteenth and final thought.
I am trying my best. I have grown so much and changed not at all. There is a small part of me that is untouched by injustice and cynicism. A part of me still open to criticism. There is still a portion not smudged with distortion. A part undiscouraged by not-yet-but-nearly. That prays just in case God hears me. There is still some unreasonable faith that people of purpose can drive out the snakes. That people can be their best selves if they choose it. That there is healing in music.
That the world is sick
That loneliness afflicts.
That we’re in the same ship.
And it’s a all-of-us fix
That it’s not on me.
That what I do matters but it’s not all on me. It never was.
We are many. We are ready. We are strong.
I am a part of something I could not do alone.
And my whole entire job is the same as it always was: to try my best.
And not just any old thought residency but ones coming from the Class of 2020 and the Fall Term Residency!
This semester of questionable schooling decisions, the thoughts are going longer and themes are being considered.
Resistance revolution resilience reclamation and relay.
However they arise. It is time for something. That’s for sure.
This 4-pack of Fall Term Residents are going to pass the baton from one resident to the next. Starting with Donna-Michelle St Bernard, each thinker will have been tapped by the thinker that went before them. I can’t wait to see who will cross us over into 2021.
Launched in 2014, the thought residency was one of our first. I love it, a lot.
In short samples, you can hear and/or read, theatre folks sharing their thoughts, ideas, and feelings. My first impulse for the Thought Residencies was to offer a brief holiday from the mantle of our own thoughts, to create a space to virtually unwind over brief interludes with some of our country’s most interesting performance creators.
In the ‘before times’, each month, I invited an artist to join us. In turn, we invite you to listen to their thoughts. New thoughts are born online each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And with the class of 2020 you can find thoughts on the same release schedule but the curation process has changed.
It is completely free and digitally intimate. If you would like to respond to the thoughts please feel free to write to us at help@spiderwebshow.ca.
Sarah Garton Stanley
Curator/Creator, Thought Residencies, Executive Producer, SpiderWebShow
September 1, 2020
Class of 2020 Thought Residents
Click on an Artist to experience their Thought Residency! You can find their videos, images, audio and transcriptions here.
My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number twelve.
My mind is particularly busy this morning. Front of mind is those who are most vulnerable, those who are experiencing systemic inequalities, and how they are amplified and exacerbated during COVID-19. I am thinking about universal basic income. I am thinking about how to live more with less. I am thinking about sharing resources in new ways. I am thinking about Necessary Angel. And I am thinking about the need to play, whatever that means. SpiderWebShow, thank you for having me. Take care all and be well.
My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number eleven.
Approbation – who receives it? From whom? For what? It is an important human experience to receive approbation. It is very healthy, arguably even necessary, especially at key moments in one’s life. In terms of giving, I do think it is common or perhaps easy to give approbation to those one identifies with. Today I am thinking about the giving of approbation to those one does not identify with. Perhaps obvious, but maybe not.
My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number ten.
I am thinking about the balance between stillness/silence and action. Earlier I was thinking about stillness and silence, more specifically about silence and stillness less as an escape or getaway from life, more a letting go, an opening of the gates for something to move forward- for the release of something. Now the question… what is that something? And what was getting in its way in the first place?
My name is Alan Dilworth and this is thought number nine
The encounters I have witnessed on the street have become more casual. Children seem to be getting closer together. There is sunshine. Did I wash my hands properly when I came inside? Halifax is bubbling.
My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number eight.
I am thinking about minds and hearts. In particular during this time of crisis when there is so much uncertainty and anxiety. I wonder how peoples’ minds and hearts are doing. I sit on a cushion everyday, in the morning, and am still and quiet. But inside are storms. Calms. Outside the sun is shining. I cut an apple. Children are social distance playing. Two neighbours fought last night, no punches but yelling. With their children beside them. Real conflict. Different ways of seeing things, some shared and unique anxieties. I stood between them. My daughter witnessed it all and couldn’t get to sleep, later waking in the night. Fireworks in the sky, fireworks in hearts and minds.
My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number seven.
With the opening of some isolation restrictions around the world it is hard not to default to the hope of a return to the way things were. Hmmm. How have things changed? For one, our house is beginning to enter a new chapter. I can’t help but think that somehow we have incorporated some more eclectic approaches to how we arrange objects and use space that reflects both more recent years, and an earlier period in our lives together. To me, it’s like we are time travelling as we move forward moment by moment. Three of us now. I think this time has invited us to take stock and thread together – not too neatly, mind you- many experiences that, before lockdown seemed harder to hold, or remember as one continuum with many chapters. Now it seems less a series of books on shelf, and more a book of many stories.
My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number six.
This morning I am thinking about the joy of two way radios, or walkie talkies. My daughter asked for a pair so she can chat with one of her best friends who lives in a townhouse across from us. They have a date at 11am this morning to walkie talkie talk. This morning her friend shared her handle- Matilda. My daughter’s handle is Madonna. After a short chat about airwave stranger danger, my daughter and I talked about some of the joys of two way radio life. I flashbacked to the late 70’s, I was a little kid, and we were on a road trip to a wedding in North Carolina. My sister’s boyfriend had a CB radio- he did some sideline truck driving. We spent hours listening to and talking with trucker drivers. I can’t remember what my handle was on that trip, but today my handle would be Lockdown Busy Schedule Dad. Over.
My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number five.
I am always curious about how ideas and experiences are shaped by the containers we use to contain them. Some containers are conceptual, some spatial, intellectual, metaphorical, spiritual, financial, and in our moment most certainly digital. So many of us are experiencing Zoom as a container for our professional and personal communication. Zoomunication. When it comes to containers, I am always thrilled when I experience the experimenting with the use of the container, with its opportunities and its limitations- its boundaries, and in the process stretching and developing the ideas contained by the container. I like determining whether the container and the idea or purpose are a good fit. Sometimes this work with a container results in a breakthrough in the possibilities of what the container itself could be, and/or sometimes a breakthrough in the nature of the idea contained. I love these breakthroughs. I love these transformation-moments. Small t, medium t or BIG T moments. I love them.
My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number four.
This curtain is the curtain that I sit in front of every morning. This morning it struck me how much an object, like this curtain, can sum up part of this experience of staying at home. We are spending so much time confined in our spaces. We are encountering the same objects over and over again. This morning sitting in front of the curtain, I was struck by the curtain’s curtainness. It moves in a gentle, lazy way when blown by a breeze, it diffuses and softens sunlight, and the fabric is textured but soft. And for a moment I am completely insignificant to myself. What a relief! Just this curtain. Extraordinary ordinary. And then off I go.
My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number three.
This is my daughter two days ago riding one of two bikes that she was regifted. This bike was given to her almost three years ago. It’s too small for her, but she is riding it anyways because she is motivated to master this bike thing, and anyways the other bike was not yet in Toronto. This image is her rocking it during homeschool recess. She was buzzing up and down our street wowing me with her new going-downhill-pedal-break-technique. A middle aged man walked by us, smiled, and said. “Riding a bike… it’s great… it makes the young feel old and the old feel young.” Ten minutes later, a young couple driving by rolled down the window -yelled “Yay!”, and applauded her fresh success. Exhilarating. Time to get out my Masi Uno and pump up the tires.
My name is Alan Dilworth, this is thought number two.
I am thinking about the rhythm and experience of change today, about being raw, the knife’s edge, glowing coals stepping out from behind what is the known into the… unknown. I am thinking about uncertainty, about texts and words and ideas and experiences that rob one of the ground under one’s feet. I am thinking about Erin Shields and Jose Saramago and Edward Bond and Spike Lee. I am thinking about writers and directors and choreographers and actors and designers and artistic directors. I am thinking about art. That’s today.
My name is Alan Dilworth, and this is thought number one.
I’m in the process of translating something I created called The Stillness Room to a live digital platform. The Stillness Room is the coming together in a room, most often with a group of theater-makers, to experience silence and stillness but with a simple but clear container. The Stillness Room has been about making time and space, literally and figuratively, through stillness and silence and buildings where people are making theater, with unique challenges, pressures, and rhythms that we might recognize as of the theater. Those rhythms have been disrupted. What is The Stillness Room now? As I wrestle with translation from room to digital room, I am reminded of how centrally people who work in theater have figured into the vision of the whole thing. What does it mean to be a theater worker in this moment? I’m curious about what will be lost and what will be gained in translation.
Mariah Horner, Dakota Jamal Wellman, Christine Quintana and Maddie Bautista in rehearsal for the Revolutions (2016) on cdnstudio. Photo by Derek Chan.
SWS has learned a lot over the last 7 years about collaborating digitally across distance. We’ve experimented with online platforms that already exist and we’ve built our own, but most importantly, we’ve learned lessons we want to share with you in this precarious time.
We are all looking for ways to connect while rapidly transitioning our lives to a digital first approach. While the digital is not a substitute for life (and should not be treated as one) it does offer incredible tools for connection and collaboration. This is an unprecedented time but we are eager to work with the #cdncult community to learn new ways of working together…from our living rooms.
Over the coming weeks we’re going to walk you through some of our current systems in hopes you can adopt them to your communities, networks, and organizations.
On our website you’ll find how-to guides for:
DIY Livestreaming: multi-camera livestreaming with a free app and Apple devices
Slack: a collaborative communication tool for teams
We know from foldA that many folks have already adopted these systems and are well versed in how they work. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we continue to update this page with additional resources as we all level up together.
If you would rather talk to someone to help you set up these systems, SWS is offering consultation with Mo Horner and other members of our team. Mo has worked with SWS for the past 3 years as foldA’s Digital Content Producer and she’s a self-proclaimed #slacklord. We kindly ask that you read these how-to guides before you message us but we’d love to talk to you.
We are sharing these guides online for free but if your organization has the means to offer a donation for consultation, we’d really appreciate it! 🧼 stay safe #cdncult
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my fourteenth and final thought.
Here’s The Compassion Project Part 2. I’ve had a hard time making art without a deadline, without someone to make it for, without a gallery exhibit coming up, without an opening night looming, without a holiday to exchange gifts. But today I started my first piece of art that is only for me. New rug, new project. I want to stand on this rug and feel my own intentions through the bottoms of my flat feet. How can we use our own art in our lives?
So to end my thought residency during these chaotic lockdown times, I invite you to create art, to make, but do it for you. Thank you for listening. That’s the end of my final thought.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my thirteenth thought, and this is part one of The Compassion Project.
I am too hard on myself. I am everyone else’s hype person, and I struggle to be there for me. I work so hard on so many projects and still feel I’m never doing enough. I crash and burn often, my eye crashes every Thursday from overuse and fatigue. I’m exhausted.
So I decided to start saying it out loud, the gratitude, the things I wish I could feel the truth of: Thank you for trying. Thank you for feeling your feelings. You are doing great things. And I write them down. And I’m searching for a way to feel this truth.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my twelfth thought.
And I’m gonna be honest for a second about online performances and how I don’t think its interesting or engaging or useful for performance creators and performers right now to be trying to recreate the experience of in-person theatre online.
I think that, yes, we are given a computer screen which is a square and very proscenium but there’s no way to engage with an audience in the same way, there’s no way to connect as performers in the same way.
And so I think we’ve actually been given an opportunity to find Virtual Performance. To find methods that are unpolished and sticky and fun and rely on disconnection of wifi internets and dropped words because that is what it has to be right now. And that’s exciting.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my eleventh thought, and I’m going to tell a story today about fear.
The last time I was in London, England, I was at a show at the National Theatre and when it finished it was so dark outside, like super dark, like too dark for a Blind person to be out alone in, and I got completely turned around. I had my cane but there was no one around me, and I found myself randomly on the south bank in some sort of parking lot and I was freaking out, I had no idea what to do, who to call, how to get home… And then I looked up and I saw the lights of Big Ben. And I saw the moon shining, and I couldn’t see the buildings, and I couldn’t see where I was, but I could see them reflecting in the Thames, and I knew that that was the way I needed to go, that was Westminister station, and I found my way.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my tenth thought, and I am telling you the story today of being a blind person and going for a walk during the pandemic! So I’m out with my cane because I cannot see if I’m six feet away from people.
(sound of cane and wind)
(Jessica sniffles)
And so the cane helps folks stay away from me!
(sound of cane, a car, and Jessica breathing)
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my ninth thought and this week I’m going to tell some stories.
At the Republic of Inclusion in 2017, we ended the summit with a cocreation of space. We were prompted to do anything to make us feel comfortable and have ease in engaging with the music provided. Everyone around me found chairs, mats, blankets, sunglasses, stickers, fidget toys, temperature and light changes, vibrating vests. I found some sparkly stickers and asked someone to guide me to everyone I had met and cared for, gave them each a sticker, and ensured they were safe and okay. Then I curled up with a friend. I desire safety and closeness with those I care for.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my eighth thought.
I’m craving nature. I’m craving putting my bare feet in the sand and dirt, water, grass. I’m really craving tulips because it’s springtime. But I can’t find any that are cheap enough and support a local business. So instead, I’ve done actually the first creative thing in a while and I’ve cut out small shapes of tulip bulbs, tulip heads that have sprouted and bloomed. And I’m trying to find ways to integrate them into the indoors. You’re looking at a few of them now. We’re finding our ways.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my seventh thought.
This pandemic has brought me two insights about myself: The first is a newfound grounding in my role as a “good” facilitator. It turns out I’m trusted in the community to hold space for artists, prod, poke, and ask questions, and use the answers creatively to find solutions. This is also how I define dramaturgy, so that’s good.
The second thing is that I cannot make art from my own home. Or maybe I’m too quick to make that decision, or I haven’t tried hard enough, or my brain is so full and tired that I can’t imagine my own art right now. I have stories inside of me, but they’re not coming out right now. And maybe that’s okay?
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my sixth thought.
I’m outside and it’s damp and it’s warm. Could that be how the whole world feels right now? I’ve been thinking about intuition, ritual, routine. How do we as a species find our own individual rhythms to carry out our lives? How much do we cling to these mundane rituals when the earth shakes beneath our feet? A dear colleague of mine uses terms from the weather to report on how they are feeling. Right now I feel like the calm before a storm, I’ve been having a month of storms and brief moments of sunshine. But every time I cling to its warmth, and that feeling tries to get me through to the next break in the clouds.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my fifth thought.
And I’m having a hard time arranging my thoughts today. So I am going to talk towards a definition of what Disability Dramaturgy is… because that’s my thing. While I work with a fellow Disabled artist we focus on safety, energy, support. We normalize cancelled plans, build flexibility into our schedules, and meet virtually. We talk out our aggressions about ableism and injustice and everything else. We ensure we each have what we need. We find ways to create and exist that come from us and not from what someone else says is right. Which all have also been welcome invitations during this pandemic. And of course, we find ways to feel a little joy.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my fourth thought.
It occurred to me today while practicing yoga that I am so comforted during activities that take care of watching the time for me. Where it isn’t my responsibility to watch the minutes tick by but I am supposed to just… be present. This is yoga classes. This is theatre performances. This is therapy and online meetings I am not chairing. If someone else takes care of keeping time for me I am easily engaged. Time has worked so strangely for me lately, but I am finding peace in the thought that even in this chaotic global crisis we are practicing collective care, if only by keeping time for each other like a metronome holding us together.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my third thought.
I made a rug last year for the first time, I hooked it, and I made it nonvisual and tactile. And I’ve been thinking about the future of tactile art: pieces that encourage and invite touch, post-pandemic. Will we consider each other differently? The proximity? The closeness? Or will we be finding a new way to touch, to connect in a newly normal way? I am finding a little bit of peace in that uncertainty; that there may be a new normal at all.
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my second thought.
I’ve been thinking a lot about care, and how to actually take care of one another. I think this situation with Coronavirus has made me think even more, if that is possible, about how we have built the structures around us to take care of each other. And I’m stuck on this idea of carefull- not careful as in, “ooh I’ve got to be careful I don’t wake Dad”, or tiptoeing around, or trying to make
something safe- I mean carefull as in full of care (with two l’s). How do we make decisions and live our lives in a way that is full of care?
I’m Jessica Watkin and this is my first thought.
This is a weird and hard time for artists, and everyone, but I am hearing about hope popping up around me. The sky can still be blue after it opens with rain. People have started to listen and find ways to creatively support one another from isolation. As a Disabled artist and scholar I have had to creatively find support… theatre and academia are inaccessible spaces. We have been offered an opportunity to navigate the world a little differently, and as a Blind person I can tell you that it’s not so bad.
Zoom call during Choir!Choir!Choir! at foldA 2019. Photo by Michael Wheeler.
Zoom is a video conferencing tool that allows for audio and video conferencing online. You can also use Facetime, Google Hangouts, or Skype but we’ve had the best luck with Zoom.
Step one:Go to the Zoom website and in the top right corner select SIGN UP, IT’S FREE and confirm your email.
Step two: After you’ve confirmed your email, you’ll enter the Zoom platform.
Step three: Along the left side of the page under personal, you’ll see:
Profile: this is basic profile information. This will also allow you to integrate your GCAL.
Meetings: this is where you will schedule upcoming group meetings.
Webinars: this is where you can host large scale group information sessions.
Recordings: this is where you can access recorded meetings.
Settings: this is where you can adjust settings for your Zoom profile.
Step four: You will also see ADMIN which is where you can add users to your profile, assign roles, and adjust billing information.
💥 SCHEDULING A ZOOM CALL 💥
Step one: Along the left side, select MEETINGS then the button that says SCHEDULE A NEW MEETING.
Step two: Name your meeting for the appropriate topic, schedule a time (be mindful of timezone) and select the duration. If the meeting is a private meeting, you can require a password, otherwise it’s best to uncheck that.
Step three: Be sure that video and audio options are turned ON.
Step four: Decide on your MEETING OPTIONS.
Step five: Select SAVE.
Step six: To invite attendees, scroll down to INVITE ATTENDEES and select COPY THE INVITATION. Be sure to copy this entire invitation when sharing this link.
Step seven: If you have an integrated work calendar, you can also select ADD TO GOOGLE CALENDAR.
💥 ZOOM ETIQUETTE 💥
Mute your microphone if you aren’t speaking! With many different people on a call at once, sometimes additional background noise can make it difficult to concentrate. When your microphone is muted, simply press down on your space bar and hold it down to unmute your mic. When you’re done speaking, depress the space bar and your mic will be muted again.
Use headphones with a mic built in! This often helps with a clear a crisp sound.
Get permission before recording! If you are recording a meeting, it’s important you ask everyone for permission first.
Use the chat bar! If you want to make a note but don’t want to disrupt the person speaking, use the chat function in a zoom call!
Have party crashers? The good folks at Zoom have released a blog entry on keeping people from crashing your event. Read more.
