#CivilDebates 3: Idle No More is Tuesday June 18 @ 730pm in The Theatre Centre Pop Up – Queen St. W @ Dovercourt
After rigorous debate on Creative Cities theories and the Role of Arts Boards, we’re excited to announce the speakers for #CivilDebates 3: Idle No More.
Resolution to be addressed:
The issues that created the Idle No More movement require extreme methods to achieve change.
Speakers:
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, dramaturg and director. Her plays include BLADE, Job’s Wife, Video, Annie Mae’s Movement, Scattering Jake, from thine eyes, Ham and the Ram, The Unplugging, The Birds (a modern adaptation of Aristophanes’ comedy. She is the editor of Beyond the Pale: Dramatic Writing from First Nations Writers and Writers of Colour, and of Refractions: Solo, with Donna-Michelle St Bernard.
Directing credits include Justice, Café Daughter (Gwaandak Theatre), Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, Salt Baby, A Very Polite Genocide, Death of a Chief, Tales of An Urban Indian, The Unnatural and Accidental Women, Annie Mae’s Movement (Native Earth), The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Western Canada Theatre/National Arts Centre), The Only Good Indian…, The Triple Truth (Turtle Gals). From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, Canada’s oldest professional Aboriginal theatre. She is currently working on a book on Native theatre in Canada.
Hayden King is Pottawatomi and Ojibwe from Gchimnissing (Christian Island) in Huronia, Ontario.
He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Ryerson University.
In addition to work in the academy, Hayden has served as the Senior Policy Adviser to the Ontario Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Director of Research for the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, Scholar-in-Residence for the Conference Board of Canada and Governance Consultant to BeausoleilFirst Nation.
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinabe-kwe mother, curator, image and word warrior from Beausoleil First Nation.
Nanibush has published in FUSE magazine, Literary Review of Canada, MUSKRAT magazine and in the book: This is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades amount others. She is an Idle No More Toronto organizer and history buff. ”
Unlike the previous two #CivilDebates, this debate will not be modled on the Parliamentary debate system. Discussion will be broken into five sections:
1
5 minutes from each of the speakers responding to the statement:
The issues that created the Idle No More movement require extreme methods to achieve change.
2
Up to 5 minutes each for each of the speakers to respond to any of the ideas put forward by the other speakers.
3
Reading of 21 Provocative Statements. 7 each provided by by the speakers, but not-attributed.
4
Opportunity for audience members to respond to one of the statements for two minutes. Debaters may also participate.
5
Conclusion. An opportunity to define the final portion of the discussion to discuss any actions, opportunities or ideas have been illuminated by the discussion.
#CIVILDEBATES
Debate 3: Idle No More
June 18, 2013; doors 7pm, debates 7.30pm The Theatre Centre Pop-Up, 1095 Queen St. West, at Dovercourt PWYC at the door. No RSVP required. Hashtag: #CivilDebates
Click here for more information about the Civil Debates series in partnership between The Theatre Centre & Praxis Theatre.
Andrew Kushnir with Julie Tepperman, Mayko Nguyen and members of the Ensemble in Passion Play. Photo: Keith Barker
The Canadian premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Playbegins tonight! Produced by a tryptic of indie theatre companies Outside the March, Convergence Theatre and Sheep No Wool, Passion Play explores the collision of religion, politics and theatre and the impact playing iconic biblical roles has on individuals and communities. Outside the March’s Katherine Cullen explores the meaning of the word ‘passion’.
The word Passion is an ambivalent word. It has a few somewhat contradictory meanings. According to ye olde, Online Etymological Dictionary Passion can mean the following:
Passionate (adj.): “early 15c., “angry; emotional,’ from Medieval Latin passionatus “affected with passion,” from Latin passio. Specific sense of “amorous” is attested from 1580’s. Replaced Old English polung, literally “suffering” from polian (v.) “to endure.”Sense of “sexual love” first attested 1580’s; that of “strong liking, enthusiasm, predilection” is from 1630’s.
Maev Beaty as Queen Elizabeth. Photo: Keith Barker
Suffering, pain, emotional, desire, love. That’s a real cross to bear for one word. Its various meanings bring forth a varied pallet of human emotions that speak to a duality of experience. It is possible that the word Passion contains in it, then, a promise of what it means to be human: to live in a state of utter ambiguity and vulnerability.
In many ways, Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play explores this social and historical drive of human beings to eradicate this ambiguity from our experience. One way to clean up the mess of human nature is to impose rules and order through various ideologies (organized religion, monarchy, political systems), icons (Jesus, Queen Elizabeth), and leaders and dictators (Hitler, Ronald Reagan). That way we don’t have to feel our passionate discomfort. To be told how to think and act can be easier than thinking for yourself.
To legitimate and sanctify only certain modes of being closes down the countless ways that we perform our humanness. There is a massive ethical price to be paid for the eradication of our inner diversity. Some of the characters in this play step outside the boundaries of arbitrary power and pay for it with their sanity or their lives.
For such an epic play, the show has a real humility to it. For one, it is very funny and never takes itself too seriously. There is a lot of room for humor when people are trying to fulfill roles they are not suited for. Maybe it is in these moments of laughter where ambiguity can live unencumbered by our desire to separate the black from the white.
(L-R) Mayko Nguyen, Julie Tepperman, Jordan Pettle & Katherine Cullen. Photo: Keith Barker
On a personal note, this play reminds me of being a child. Child-logic is different from adult logic. I remember accepting all kinds of ridiculous notions to be true (i.e. imagining that if I held my breath I would become invisible and could eat as many cookies as I wanted with my mom in plain sight. Didn’t work out the way I planned). I miss that way of thinking, even if it didn’t get me the results I wanted.
In the world that Sarah Ruhl has imagined, there are “big beautiful fish puppets” that carry people off in “enormous boats.” It reminds me of lullabies and bedtime stories. It reminds me that dreamland can merge with reality, and magic feels strangely possible. Maybe this is the place where we are best equipped to handle ambiguity.
Theatre Centre Artistic Director was presented with The George Luscombe Award for Mentorship at The 2013 Dora Nomination Announcement. Pictured here with Theatre Ontario PTTP supported mentee @ Theatre Centre, Zoe Sweet.
INDEPENDENT THEATRE PRODUCTION DIVISION
OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION
BOBLO – Co-Produced by Kitchenband and The Theatre Centre
The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Mr. Marmalade – Outside The March
THE WAR OF 1812 The History of the Village of Small Huts, 1812-15 – Presented by VideoCabaret in association with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Laws of Motion – Small Elephant Co-op, Dani Kind and Kate Zeigler
OUTSTANDING NEW PLAY
Adam Seybold – The De Chardin Project – The Quickening Theatre
Daniel Karasik – The Biographer – Tango Co.
Jordan Tannahill – Post Eden – Suburban Beast
Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour – As I Lay Dying – Theatre Smith-Gilmour
Sky Gilbert – A Few Brittle Leaves – The Cabaret Company
OUTSTANDING DIRECTION
Christopher Stanton – Laws of Motion – Small Elephant Co-Op, Dani Kind and Kate Zeigler
Melee Hutton – The Dumb Waiter – Wordsmyth Theatre
Michael Hollingsworth – THE WAR OF 1812 The History of The Village of Small Huts, 1812-15
Mitchell Cushman – Mr. Marmalade – Outside The March
Soheil Parsa – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE
Andrew Musselman – Catalpa – Blood in the Alley
David Ferry – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
David Fox – When The World Was Green : A Chef’s Fable
Gavin Crawford – A Few Brittle Leaves – The Cabaret Company
Mark Wilson – The Dumb Waiter – Wordsmyth Theatre
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE
Amy Keating – Mr. Marmalade – Outside The March
Cynthia Ashperger – Feral Child – Suburban Beast/ Jordan Tannahill
Deborah Drakeford – BEA – Actors Repertory Company
Michelle Monteith – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Virgilia Griffith – Honesty – Suburban Beast / Jordan Tannahill
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE – ENSEMBLE
The Ensemble of BOBLO – Co-Produced by Kitchen Band and The Theatre Centre
The Ensemble of Mr Marmalade – Outside The March
The Ensemble of THE WAR OF 1812 The History of The Village of Small Huts, 1812-15 – Presented by VideoCabaret in association with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts
The Ensemble of Laws of Motion – Small Elephant Co-Op, Dani Kind and Kate Zeigler
OUTSTANDING SCENIC DESIGN
Anahita Dehbonehie – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Andrea Mittler – The Dumb Waiter – Wordsmyth Theatre
Jon Grosz/ Mitchell Cushman – Mr. Marmalade – Outside The March
Jung-Hye Kim – Boblo – Co-Produced by Kitchen Band and The Theatre Centre
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN
Angela Thomas – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Astrid Janson – THE WAR OF 1812 The History of The Village of Small Huts, 1812-15 – Presented by VideoCabaret in association with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Jon Grosz/Mitchell Cushman – Mr. Marmalade – Outside The March
Sheree Tams – A Few Brittle Leaves – The Cabaret Company
Teresa Przybylski – As I Lay Dying – Theatre Smith-Gilmour
OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN
Andre Du Toit – As I Lay Dying – Theatre Smith-Gilmour
Andy Moro – THE WAR OF 1812 The History of The Village of Small Huts, 1812-15 – Presented by VideoCabaret in association with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Jason Hand – The De Chardin Project – The Quickening Theatre
Michelle Ramsay – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Rebecca Picherack – BOBLO – Co-Produced by Kitchen Band and The Theatre Centre
OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN/COMPOSITION
Andrew Penner – Boblo – Co-Produced By Kitchen Band and The Theatre Centre
Jake Blackwood – THE WAR OF 1812 The History of The Village of Small Huts, 1812-15 – Presented by VideoCabaret in association with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts
James Mckernan – The Dumb Waiter – Wordsmyth Theatre
Thomas Ryder Payne – The Lesson – Modern Times Stage Company
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his ending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. – William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 –
Praxis Theatre is guest curating the 10th anniversary HATCH Season in 2014. We are very excited about this partnership. The experience Praxis Theatre had at HATCH creating Section 98 in 2010 was integral to our development as a multi-platform performance creator.
HATCH is designed to incubate and foster invention and innovation in performance practice and over the past decade has become a vital laboratory for development within the local performance ecology. The opportunity to work and experiment with support and resources from Harbourfront is a significant one.
For a decade, HATCH has empowered many of Toronto artists to push the boundaries of contemporary performance including: Erin Shields, Anita Majumdar, Joan Kivanda, Brendan Healy, Hannah Moscovitch, Small Wooden Shoe, Trevor Schwellnus, Jordan Tannahill, Jess Dobkin, Philip McKee, UnSpun Theatre, Reena Katz, and Derek Kwan.
For HATCH 2014, we are particularly interested in projects that experiment with how social media can be used artistically in creation and performance. The deadline for applications is July 12, 2013.
Ame Henderson and Evan Webber in Dedicated to The Revolutions (HATCH 07)
We invite projects from emerging creators as well as established artists engaging in new collaborations or entering into new artistic territory. Performance proposals from artists working across all disciplines, including, but not limited to: dance, theatre, performance art, music, digital art, etc. are encouraged. Of specific interest are proposals that demonstrate how HATCH will benefit the development of the project and the artist.
In addition to providing mentorship over the course of a year, HATCH enables the concentrated experimentation and incubation of an idea that culminates in a public presentation, recognizing how vital audience feedback is to the creative process. Companies and artists selected to participate in HATCH will receive a one-week residency in the Studio Theatre, located at Harbourfront Centre.
The Studio Theatre is an intimate, 192-seat proscenium venue featuring a full lighting grid, raked seating and sprung stage floor. Use of the residency period is at the discretion of the artist and needs of the project (i.e. workshop, rehearsals, performance, etc.) but there must be at least one presentation of the work for the public at some point in the week.
“Women don’t have penis envy; men have pussy envy.”
~ S.C.U.M Manifesto, Valerie Solanas
Image:
Sound:
Nina Gilmour stars in Death Married My Daughter alongside Danya Buonastella, written in collaboration with Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour.
Death Married My Daughter is the story of two Bouffons who come back to settle an old score. Tonight it’s the Revenge of Ophelia and Desdemona: Poetic and grotesque; Charming and disturbing.
Toronto Festival of Clowns 2013 – May 29-June 2 @ The Pia Baumen Studio Theatre (6 Noble st) Tickets are $15 here.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the sky, and tell me what you see.” Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes said: “And what do you deduce from that?” Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.” Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”
A dark, playful fairy tale about a fairy prince. As the unnamed protagonist in his new solo show, Stewart Legere weaves together tales of a doomed relationship, a trip to Italy gone wrong, and a mysterious fascination with El Camino Santiago de Compostella, an ancient walking pilgrimage through France and Spain. Working through fear, awkwardness, and shame, he charms, cajoles, pushes and pulls, provokes, and consoles his way through stories of love, loss, and the complex struggles of a young queer couple dealing with internalized homophobia.
Greta gets under a Classic Ontarian Loon Blanket with Amy Lee Lavoie to discuss Stopheart’s journey to the Factory Stage.
Stopheart runs until May 26th at the Factory Theatre.
Greta Papageorgiu is an actor, teacher and director. She has taught and performed in Ontario, Quebec and Germany. Her next class starts September 10th at The Fringe Creation Lab. For details go to meisnerwithgreta.ca.
Context matters. A gesture means one thing here and now and another thing entirely there and then.[1] My choices happen in a context – a relationship to history and influence. I don’t have to acknowledge the context or even admit it’s existence to myself – but it’s there all the same. Others, with their own contexts, will perceive them.
The same is true for influences. We all have them and our work reflects that. We can work in opposition or adulation or both. This is true whether or not we know it, whether or not we know who influenced our influencers. This can be paralyzing, but it can also be liberating and empowering.
Understanding the relationships between current practices and the past is important. For me (and that will be the starting place for this seminar) understanding the relationships between the New York downtown scene and Grotowski reveals meaning and possibility. Drawing lines between Video Cabaret and Joan Littlewood and Brecht tells me something about who I am as an artist. Reflecting on all these connections in their specific times and situations inspires me to see my time and place clearly and be able to best respond.
In talking to theatre and dance makers over the past few years, I’ve expressed and heard a desire to share and learn more about contexts and influence. Specifically, Jordan Tannahill at Videofag and I got to talking about a seminar series where we’d read some articles, listen to podcasts and watch some video and make some connections between lines of thought in contemporary theatre and contemporary living.
Also, I’m a bit of theatre nerd when you get down to it and what’s the good of having all these books and links if I don’t get to share them?
Context Seminar: (non-Main)Streams of thought.
A mangled journey through influence and Western theatre — Centuries 20 and 21. Led by Jacob Zimmer of Small Wooden Shoe with a couple guest spots.
Funny to be writing this as Morris Panych and Kelly Nestruck argue over what kind of context is important to a production. Panych’s dishonest question “How can we address this paradox of a thing being both now and then[…]?” is, despite himself, a great question – especially for a festival like Shaw.
How much discussion of “Why this play now?” happens in the meeting rooms or the rehearsal halls of the festival? And what are the contexts and influences discussed? ↩
Dr. Andrew Irving looks at stories differently than most people. Whereas many would think of their life story as a series of events, Irving spends more time thinking about what is skipped over. “Storytelling is like walking,” he suggests, “It’s not a straight line.” Rather, you skip over non-noteworthy events with each step.
Irving has spent many years collecting the stories of those affected by HIV and Aids—always concerning himself with the gaps between words. His ethnographic work frequently centres on death, and particularly, the inner worlds of those facing their own mortality or that of another. How do these people move through space and interact with the world as they undergo “radical changes in being, belief and perception” in confronting the end of life? And how do those thoughts and actions affect other people they happen to come across? These are the questions Irving’s research has explored in Kampala and New York, respectively.
During his talk in April at the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography Symposium at York University, Irving introduced us to Sandra, an HIV activist from Uganda. Her story is a fascinating one, and it demonstrates Irving’s process of identifying how one’s outward performance of their inner life directly alters the lives of those around them.
Sandra grew up in a hotel where her father worked; it was a nice home. At age 17, she eloped with her boyfriend—who turned out to be a Ugandan spy—and moved into a crowded army barrack. She disliked the place and they eventually moved into a slum community of Kampala with their newborn daughter. One day, her boyfriend returned home, walked past her into the house without a word, and revealed to her that he had tested positive for HIV. He had undergone routine testing as part of his military training in Cuba. He died eight weeks later. Then his family took Sandra’s baby away from her.
This is the story Sandra recounted to Irving, not just verbally, but also by leading him through each of the significant spaces: the hotel, showing hime the fence through which she and her boyfriend would talk until the early hours of the morning; the barracks, where she likely contracted HIV; and their home in Kampala. She concluded the story-tour at bed #9, the hospital bed in which her boyfriend passed away. The site Irving was most concerned with for the purposes of his talk, however, was a piece of grass where Sandra recounted this story to a group of activists from around the world on September 11, 2001.
One of these activists was a woman named Emily visiting from New York. Later in the day, she walked out of her room and turned right just as Sandra came out of her room and turned left. Their conversation at that moment went something like this:
Emily – By the time I come back next year I hope you’ll have gotten your daughter back.
Sandra – I’m not sure I’ll be around next year. My health is getting poorer, and I don’t think I have much time left.
Emily– Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.
The two women parted, neither having any idea that hours later the World Trade Centre would be struck. Emily’s father worked in the second tower. As soon as she heard the news, with no chance of a Ugandan phone call reaching New York in the midst of the chaos, the women at the retreat came together to dance, chant and pray for the well being of Emily’s father.
He did survive. As it happened, he had been out of his office that morning. When Emily got the news, she went to Sandra and told her that her father would pay for her retroviral medication, so she would live to see her daughter again (at this point, according to Irving, retroviral meds cost four times the monthly salary of a university lecturer, making them inaccessible to most of the continent).
Both Sandra and Emily recounted this same story with large degrees of difference both in terms of where, spatially, this final conversation took place, and in Emily’s motivation (in Sandra’s version, there was far more of a religious impetus—in Emily’s version, she acknowledged that she’s an atheist, but nonetheless felt as though the women’s actions “did something”), but the facts are the same:
Had Emily walked out of the door that morning and turned left, Sandra would now be dead.
Had Sandra walked out the door and turned right, she would be dead.
Had Emily’s father been in his office and killed during the September 11th attack, Sandra would be dead.
This story highlights the large consequences of small, everyday, even subconscious actions—events that Irving sees as exposing the limits of contingency between individuals. These contingencies, suggests Irving, inevitably bring us to the limits of logic and into the realms of the uncanny, the inexplicable, and the metaphysical. When we reach these points, the only response is to pencil in a narrative that ascribes meaning to the events.
According to Irving, there are three ways in which we shape the events of the world:
1) Trying to make the future known—trying to affect agency over future events 2) Retrospectively—making meaning out of past events and acting accordingly 3) Turning right and left
Take Neil from New York as another example. He lived near a drag cabaret restaurant at West 52nd Street called Lucky Chengs (which has since closed.) This was a bathhouse when Neil arrived in New York—it is also the place where he believes he contracted HIV. So, as revealed to Irving during another personal-narrative walking tour, Neil quite often walks two extra blocks on his way to the subway station so as to avoid walking past Lucky Chengs—a move that often puts the memory of that place more firmly in his mind by consciously avoiding it.
From the experiences of Sandra, Emily, Neil and others, it became clear that so many of our external, performed actions are based on these inner worlds and private narratives.
There is so much to learn about the visible world from our invisible motivations and vice versa. Quite simply: Neil’s thoughts shape his interaction with the city, which in turn, shapes the urban environment itself. This reality got Irving asking a simple question of the people he encounters on the street: what is this person thinking?
Inspired by Joyce and other modernist writers who explore the city through inner monologues made up of perpetually inchoate thoughts, Dr. Irving took to the streets of New York to examine the city through its residents’ inner lives in a project called New York Stories: The Lives of Other Citizens. He asked strangers to wear a microphone and continue on their way while speaking their thoughts out loud.
The resulting recordings are complex tales of people preoccupied with everything from their friend with a recent cancer diagnosis to the smell of noodles wafting onto the sidewalk. What I find most interesting is the different timbre of dialogue as the strangers move through different spaces. The project purposely looked at different environments—parks, intersections, bridges, etc—all revealing a unique rhythm both in thought and action.
Inner worlds remain largely unaccounted for in the humanities and social sciences, and since thought/emotion/sensation is simultaneous, the project of charting it at any given moment is quite impossible. But the hope is that in accessing even glimpses of interiority, it might be possible to see more than half a story—to fill in the gaps between the words, and the space that is stepped over.
Kallee is a graduate student in theatre and performance studies at York University. She’s most interested in the intersection between contemporary choreography and neo-liberal politics, and has a cat named Lucy.
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, dramaturg and director. Her plays include BLADE, Job’s Wife, Video, Annie Mae’s Movement, Scattering Jake, from thine eyes, Ham and the Ram, The Unplugging, The Birds (a modern adaptation of Aristophanes’ comedy. She is the editor of Beyond the Pale: Dramatic Writing from First Nations Writers and Writers of Colour, and of Refractions: Solo, with Donna-Michelle St Bernard.
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinabe-kwe mother, curator, image and word warrior from Beausoleil First Nation.
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