All in Guest Writer series
Theatre runs in my blood. For over the past decade, I’ve written about theatre, I’ve interviewed artists, I’ve engaged in the conversation about this medium of storytelling. I hosted the Calgary Theatre Critics’ Awards for 3 years and in the 4 years that I was a member of the panel, I saw approximately 80 productions of theatre and dance in a year.
July 25th, 2022, was a historic day. When Chief Wilton Littlechild placed a headdress onto the head of Pope Francis following the pontiff long awaited apology for the Residential School system, the response was immediate. A cacophony of cheers and applause radiated from the thousands in attendance at Ermineskin Cree Nation. Yet almost immediately, a single voice would rise to challenge the act. A Cree woman from Winnipeg by the name of Si Pi Kho, with tears in her eyes and a song on her lips, marched forward to confront the Pope.
In January of 2021, theatre as I knew it was mostly illegal. Large indoor gatherings were restricted because of the pandemic and at that time vaccinations weren’t widely available. I was, and still am, a drama major at the University of Calgary and like many others, I didn’t really know what to do with myself in lockdown.
What does performance mean to you? Is a live performance for everyone? Or does the nature of live shift depending on who is in the audience?
Rukhsar Ali is an arts journalist who is fascinated with how perceptions of race and culture intersect with popular media. In this piece, she shares how cultural factors impact the relationship between creator and audience.
Almost every immigrant has a "love at first sight story" with Canada. I'm not one of those.
When I landed here for the first time it was on one of those -30 degree weeks, cloudy, with dirt and snow-covered roads. For over a week the sky would stand white, the wind cutting through my flesh straight to the bones and all the layers of clothing gave me were rashes and muscle pain.
Why do people live here? That was all I could think.
“London, UK? Wonderful! You’ll have so much fun. You can hop on a train and travel all over Europe!”
This was how almost everyone responded when I would tell them I was moving to the UK for graduate studies.
Tap Dance is my trade. It gives me great joy, a sense of purpose and belonging as Black woman in North America. It has brought me to the jazz bandstand, the Cotton Club and even to Broadway all while extending me the privilege of accessing depths of a culture’s history. It is an African-American art form, born through the oppression of slavery, yet miraculously thrives worldwide today. Let’s be clear, I started recreationally in the suburbs of Calgary, like most do here, and Tap Dance is often still a punch line for those who ask, “So, what is that you do for living?” I’ve learned, now, that the best way to respond is to ask the following, “When you think of Tap Dance, what is it that you think about?”
In my piece How Can I Be Myself when Strangers are Watching? Performing Blackness and Black Joy, I spoke of how a white audience by its very presence transforms performance art by black artists, turning an expression into an exhibition – an execution. It’s a crime for which I have convicted Canadian born and or raised Black artists. But I don’t know what it’s like to grow-up in a place as a minority. So, I asked my friend if I could walk a mile in his shoes.
