The Opera Queen

Mixing Past and Present

On April 11, 2010

As regular Play Anon readers know, I really love theatre, though I must confess, much of it doesn’t touch me, way, way down in that murky sub-world of real, lived experiences and ghost-like memory very often. Where The Blood Mixes is different. The work, penned by Kevin Loring and on now at Toronto’s Factory Theatre through April 18th, is the story of a native Indian community and the memories that haunt its inhabitants. Set during the salmon run at the meeting point of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, the work offers a riveting look at one community’s attempts to come to grips with its tragic past. Alternately funny, sad, irreverent and thought-provoking, it’s one work you won’t easily forget, particularly if you have a lot of ghosts wafting around the dusty parlour of a forlorn past.

Floyd (Billy Merasty) and Mooch (Ben Cardinal) are longtime friends who are also native survivors of the horrific residential school system. Director Glynis Leyshon cleverly uses the long Factory stage to transfer between time, memories places, and character experiences. Robert Lewis’ clever stage design is wonderful in conveying easy locale shifts between the outdoors and indoors, and the outer and inner lives of the characters. Live guitarist Jason Burnstick sits to one side, offering musical counterpoint to to the action; he’s a deeply gifted player and intuitive artist, though his additions occasionally muddle or make maudlin scenes that are better left in silence. Still, Burnstick’s music is a compelling complement to Loring’s beautiful writing; each works in harmony to render the tender hurts of past and present with careful precision and delicate feeling.

I’m not native, but I definitely, deeply related to twin themes of abandonment and reunion in Where The Blood Mixes. Loring uses contemporary native history in tandem with family drama to devastating, moving effect. I caught myself sighing wistfully during the scene in which Floyd’s wide-eyed, city-dwelling daughter Christine (Kim Harvey) confronts her father after years of separation. It was all so familiar: I made a journey myself years ago to see a father I was estranged from, with a similarly curious attitude. Floyd’s embarrassment, shame, guilt, and halting awkwardness were eerily, painfully familiar to me, as was Christine’s eagerness, vulnerability, courage, hurt, and longing. Actors Merasty and Harvey beautifully capture the ties that bind, the wounds that separate, and the blood that inevitably mixes between generations, cultures, histories, and experiences. This is theatre at its most powerful, honest, and cathartic.

Beyond the personal sphere however, Where The Blood Mixes is an important piece of theatre for many reasons: its questions around the quality and future of contemporary native life ring as true as ever, and its exploration of Canadian native history as it relates to the present is grippingly, tragically real. Loring’s writing, together with Leyshon’s masterful direction and a uniformly strong cast, makes this work one of the must-sees of the 2010 Toronto theatre season. Just make sure you bring lots of tissues.

Where the Blood Mixes runs to April 18th as part of Performance Spring 2010 at Toronto’s Factory Theatre.

Move Me

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 11, 2010

In opera

Listening to the first release from The Chemical Brothers, two thoughts strike me: first, this is very ambient-meets-techno, second, what took them so long?

I always loved dancing, and dance music. I didn’t recognize the labels -house, electronica, etc (not that they existed much) -so much as enjoy the output. I danced with equal vigor to the latest pop hits of the day (something about the hummable jumpiness of MJ & the bass-heavy, thumpalicious grooves of “Nasty” sister Janet still moves – literally) as the wordless, hazy instrumental stuff you heard everywhere but could never quite name; it had a groove, it had a heart, it had a beat, and it breathed, in a wordless, low whisper, “move…”

So I did -to everything from 70s era instrumental funk and disco to 80s glam pop to the awe-inspiring, genre-defying sounds of the 90s, when technology took a decided leap forwards and married metal, rock, beats and block-rockin’ rhythms to create a holy land where definitions vanished and were replaced by a nirvana outlined in the fuzzy shapes of outstretched limbs and undulating hips.

Dance has always felt like a kind of holy sacrament for me. After moving home from Dublin and London, I bemoaned a North American club culture that seemed to cater exclusively to the under-21, micro-skirted, posing-with-cocktails set; I was more accustomed to the cargo-panted/t-shirt, big-boots-and-all-ages crowds actually dancing at clubs in Ireland and England. The phrase “dance music” has very different connotations between continents; even now, with the success of bands like Air, Daft Punk, and MGMT, it’s still, I think, somewhat ghettoized as being the exclusive enclave of the young. Nonsense.

howie_b_-_take_your_partner_by_the_hand.mp3

Found at: FilesTube – Megaupload search

As Robbie Robertson breathily intones in the gorgeously dense Howie B. track, “Take Your Partner By The Hand“:

this is a place she goes to fulfill a very basic need
… to communicate without talking…
she wants to make a connection
…this is about smoke and sweat and beats
this is about no questions

I relate even now, my club days like foggy, happy, multi-color memories smiling at me from afar.

So with The Chemical Brothers’ new release, I’m taken back to that place. I love hearing the notable embrace of past (with samples of work from The Who, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd certainly audible) and fearless celebration of present. The Chemicals were one of the first big acts to hit the mainstream back in the 90s, and they paved the way for others –The Prodigy, Orbital, Underworld -to come forwards in North America, and dip into a bigger ocean in Europe. I’ll never forget walking through a dull, flourescent-lit department store in Dublin (a more depressing, middle-of-the-road retail spot you couldn’t find) and hearing “Firestarter” piped through the store’s enormous, bland expanse. Young mums walked by pushing strollers and grannnies glanced at sale-tagged sweaters as the screaming insistence, with echoing beats and shouts, bounced off the scratched, matte lino: “I’m the firestarter…”

These days, the songs being piped through that dreary store might be made by someone on a laptop, living in an equally dreary suburb; it doesn’t matter about the source now, so much as the spread. Everything yawns open, embraces, pushes, pulsates, sways and shimmies; the Chemicals recognize this bold, scary, exhilerating sense of the unlimited essence of sound, music and experience -that basic need to communicate – and with a wink to the past, they’re kissing the future, and moving feet, hearts, minds, past categories and into the horizon where sea, sky, and dancefloor bleed.

Radio Radio

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 8, 2010

In broadcasting, radio

After an absence of nearly a year, I’m returning to the radio waves tomorrow morning.

It’s a weird mix of nerves and excitement I’m dealing with right now: fear over the live aspect, of under-prepping (I’m currently, madly, mowing down every piece of info I can find), of being late, of guests getting lost, of me getting lost, of scary electrocuting microphones, of power outages, and tripping on wires and downed signal towers. Some of those fears are, I suppose, more well-founded than others.

A bigger issue is the confidence it takes to get in front of a mic and talk to complete strangers with some degree of authority. When I left a career in advertising many moons ago to go to broadcasting school, I was scared, sure, but I was also armed with an astonishing confidence and self-belief that stupifies me, looking back. Life experience is supposed to make you more resilient, more comfortable in your skin, more ballsy and more brave -not less so. Right?

Another part of me, that small voice that still shouts my love of broadcasting in tinny, transistor-esque tones, is happy, excited, joyful and … content. It feels like a good kind of return. A return to a version of me I miss terribly -the one that wags a joyful tail at strangers and bounds up to a microphone fully confident of the words about to be delivered, half-improv, half-melody, with high and low tones singing a full stream of bleary-eyed morning magic.

Won’t you tune in?

Take 5, CIUT 89.5FM Toronto – I’ll be on after 9.30am ET, interviewing choreographer Wen Wei Wang about his new work, Cock-pit. And yes, there will be more -next week.

Oh, and just for fun, here’s a picture of me with filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, the guys behind the awesome documentaries Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Global Metal, and Iron Maiden: Flight 666. You can’t see it, but yes, my tail is wagging.

Dreamy Dub

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 6, 2010

In music

It’s the end of a long, frantic day. Turn down the lights. Pour a cup of hot tea, red wine, mulled cider. Exhale.

Images: wavy lines, coloured glass, paper stars, blue and green crayons. The smell of cardamom bread. The feel of cold ceramic against wet, bare feet. The bright dance of red oil paint across a linen canvas. The taste of maple syrup and cinnamon.

I experience all of these -and more -when I listen to “The Birth of Bellavista Nights“, the latest creation from Daniel Lanois. Filmmaker Adam Vollick‘s intuitive, Zen-like shooting masterfully captures the dreamy, thoughtful nature of this composition. I’ve always had a magical, sensual connection with art that moves me most, and this is a perfect example. If you want more, check out their live show from the Bowery Ballroom, full of the same kind of magical artistry and intuitive creativity that makes listening to this such a powerful experience.

Lanois was, and remains, a true visionary, and one of my very-favorite artists. Ahhh. That Black Dub album can’t come soon enough.

Linkalicious

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 4, 2010

In opera

I Eat Your Country (With Relish): In honor of the Sydney International Food Festival last fall, participating countries contributed flags made from the respective countries’ best-known foods. It’s simple but it’s nifty. Depending on which flag you like, I guarantee you’ll get hungry just looking. I especially like the French one myself. No prizes for guessing what constitutes its tricolour. Nationalism has never been so delicious.

Sweet… Song: Jonas Kaufmann is an opera singer. A really good one. Writer Olivia Giovetti describes his voice as “dark chocolate.” Mmmm. Also, he’s gorgeous. Mmmm. He has two new CDs out this week, and he’s set to perform as Don Jose in Carmen this spring at The Met. Aside from being keen to get down to New York, I want to see this production (easily the 30-something-ish production of Carmen I will have sat through), to stare at his pleasing Teutonic mug, sigh over Bizet’s beautiful score, and think of… chocolate.

Easel Ladies: Together with Virginia’s springtime celebration of women in the arts (called Minds Wide Open) comes Women of the Chrysler: A 400-Year Celebration of the Arts, which the Chrysler Museum has curated from their permanent collection. Featuring artists as wide afield as Harriet Cany Peale, Mary Cassatt, Käthe Kollwitz, and Dorothea Lange, to Diane Arbus, Louise Nevelson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Cappy Thompson, this is one exhibit that is part history lesson, part celebration, all artistry.

I Love This Band: Preachers Son is a Dublin-based trio with a grit-glam sound channeling equal parts David Bowie (especially in his Berlin phase), Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, and the Legendary Shack-Shakers. They’ve created a unique, hard-rock sound that positively drips with drama and raw musicality. I can’t stop playing them. Fingers crossed they’ll be here for North by Northeast.

Viva La Eno: In this interview from March 2009, the artist/producer/all-around genius expounds on his processes of composition, production, and collaboration. He offers some fantastic insights into his past with Roxy Music as well as his present, working with bands like U2 and Coldplay. He also discusses the beauty of simplicity, citing an early viewing of a Mondrian painting as a formative moment in his creative development. Oh, and he has this to say about fans of bands:

I don’t like fans very much to be honest. Of course I like people enjoying my music and I quite like being admired for having some good ideas, but the anorak-y type of fan is a rather frightening object of humanity, because you think, “Please get a life; don’t have mine.”

Collaborawesome: David Byrne and Fatboy Slim have come together to produce an album chalk-full of deep grooves and original sounds. Here Lies Love features the vocal talents of Tori Amos, Martha Wainwright, Alice Russell Sia, Natalie Merchant, Cyndi Lauper, and many more. Beautiful.

Fountain of Woot: Marcel Duchampe’s 1917 exhibition called “Fountain” made a splash upon its exhibition, but a surfeit of duplicates threaten to tinkle all over the famed artist’s legacy… or possibly enhance it. As More Intelligent Life notes, Duchamp was one “who had painted moustaches on postcards of the Mona Lisa” and he “understood the power of reproductions to render a work iconic and consolidate an artist’s international reputation.” In this high-tech remix era where questions of originality are both critical and codswallop, and borrowing/stealing for recreation is plus normale, the issues Duchamp raised nearly a century ago have particular currency and potency.

Welcome to Detroit: Photographer Andrew Hinderaker went to Detroit -and took a lot of pictures. His work is a document of an area hit hard by the recession; empty, yawning streets, skeletal buildings, hard lights dominate many shots, but interesting, he also finds the beauty in the desolation, turning his subject (a microcosm of America itself) into a kind of victory over dark days and damning forces.

Tune in Friday: I’m going back to radio broadcasting starting April 9th, 9:30amET. Whether you’re an A&E afficionado, or just plain want to hear what my voice sounds like, tune in. Please?

Funny Friday

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 2, 2010

In video

Between nibbles of knotted fruit bread and sips of green tea this morning, I came across this hilarious video, courtesy of Oxfam UK. It’s all about Kenyans raising money to support British theatre. Wearing ruffs in the fields are just a small part of the support; wait until you see the other costuming, banners, and building projects.

Taken from Scottish comedian Armando Iannucci’s comedy sketch show that aired on Britain’s Channel 4 in 2001, the episode also featured a promiscuous Priest and TV executives setting up a reality series in a Buddhist monastery. There’s no denying this video’s clever, creative spirit; it’s a kind of gentle mockery of the patronizing attitude that can go hand-in-hand with much aid effort to African nations. This excels at milking and mocking that patronage, showing how ridiculous it looks -and in fact, is -to all involved. You’ll be literally laughing out loud, even as you consider the brainy subtext. Excellent.

Pleasing Spectacle

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 31, 2010

In music

Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… returned to Canadian television in mid-March with a gorgeous music-filled episode that featured Sheryl Crowe, Ron Sexsmith, Jesse Winchester and Neko Case. Sexsmith and Costello performed a particularly affecting version of “Every Day I Write The Book“, with a simple arrangement, two acoustic guitars and voices. Another songwriter-focused episode featuring Richard Thompson, Levon Helm, Nick Lowe, and Alain Toussaint; the season closes with a two-part Bruce Springsteen interview and music session.

That’s a big part of what I so love about Spectacle: its stripping-down of fancy-dancy songs to their bare essentials. Rather like a less-hip cousin to Unplugged (but one with an incredibly good wine cellar), the show features a good slather of intelligent, artist-to-artist chat, discussing woodshed-ish chord-change stuff as well as inspiring books, poems, and places. Simply put, the show is a celebration of musicianship, artistry, and sonic inventiveness, with a good dose of humanity, curiosity, and discovery. These are human beings in Costello’s able hands, not mere superstars. His fascination and respect for his guests shows, and it’s inspiring to watch.

Rounding out the big-name guests on April 3rd will be the repeat showing of the Spectacle taster offered back in December, with Bono and The Edge of U2. I first heard about this episode far before its airing, when the program was taped the week the band were in Toronto last September. My curiosity was stoked, if only because the opportunity to see members of a super-mondo-mega-band in a small venue struck me as a unique opportunity to see taken-for-granted artistry up-close.

Stadium theatrics aside, U2 have always struck me as keenly aware artists. It was good to hear bands like Kraftwerk and Neu! get a mention by Bono as important influences; I sometimes don’t think a band of U2’s stature are given proper credit in terms of their passion for the decidedly non-mainstream sounds that have influenced them. Maybe it’s because those kinds of bands -the stadium-filling ones -aren’t thought of as artists, ergo, they never get asked the kind of artist-focused questions Spectacle specializes in. I’ve always heard a lot of different influences in U2’s work, while marveling at the way such off-the-radar sounds can be re-envisioned and rejigged for mass consumption and appreciation. Is that the mark of true artistry? Or just being clever? I’m still working that one out (though I’m sure longtime producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois would have something to say, being incredible artists in their own right. I’m still waiting for Costello to interview them…).

Whatever the case, friends will probably tell you I have an unusual (bizarre, offbeat -take your pick) appreciation of U2’s creative output. Part of that appreciation includes a song called “Please“, taken from U2’s woefully under-appreciated 1997 album, Pop. I was excited when I heard Costello had opened this particular tune; Mr. Pump-It-Up taking on “Please”? Yes please.

Words, together in some mystical sacrament with music, have always provided a heady, hearty kind of sonic seduction for me, and “Please” is the dark, dangerous lover in the night: imposing, insistent, important, passionate, scary, mysterious, operatic. Oh, and smart. Touching on themes common to U2’s music -God, choice, humanity, a capacity for love, forgiveness, violence and intransigence -the song had, at the time of its release, a particular connection with the Irish peace process. Seeing it live (for the epic PopMart) had precisely the same effect on me as seeing Pavarotti at The Met many years before: it was shattering. “Please” is a very underrated piece of art that is every bit as vital, moving, beautiful, sad and searing as it was when I first heard it. (Also, the video for it is genius. Kudos, Mr. Corbijn.)

When I tuned in to Spectacle last December, I was dismayed to find that Costello’s cover had been cut from the broadcast. I can only speculate the reasons why, but suffice to say it was a huge bummer. But the woe was replaced with a chorus of Hallelujah for the internet: I found another acoustic version of “Please” performed by Elvis Costello in 2000. I can only imagine the audience that September afternoon was treated to something similar.

Years may have etched a few more lines into faces and made hitting those high notes a bit more trying, but time has done nothing to that dark dangerous lover of mine: “Please” is every bit as breathtaking, thrilling, and overwhelming as the first time. Spectacle is so much more than mere spectacle, and sometimes -just sometimes -so are super-mondo-mega-bands.

Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… airs in Canada on CTV and in the U.S. on the Sundance channel. Check local listings for air times.

Making Docs Hot

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 30, 2010

In film, movies, music

I have a little movie confession to make: Hot Docs is my favourite film festival. Sorry, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), don’t get jealous. The problem with TIFF is, despite its marquee appeal and oodles of excellent, beautiful content, it still feels chalk-full of sparkly, starry hype; it’s like putting ten cans of frosting on one cake. I kind of like cakes on their own, actually, with a nice cup of tea. And Hot Docs (running April 29th to May 9th) is just that.

There’s also a certain timeliness to the Hot Docs works that come to Toronto every spring. For instance, the documentary coming to Hot Docs about assassinated Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto, has a true resonance, especially as the country is rapidly becoming a fixture on the nightly news, and there is more coverage than ever -even give years ago -with a diverse array of topics on Pakistan, including (incredibly) fashion. The film, Bhutto, by filmmakers Duane Baughman and Johnny O’Hara, had its world premiere in the U.S. Documentary Feature competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and is making it Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs May 1st.

On to another kind of powerful woman: the one who serves you food. Dish: Women, Waitressing, and the Art Of Service, by Maya Gallus, explores the world of the female-dominated service industry. The full spectrum of the waitressing experience is documented, with the film moving from gritty truck stops to “sexy restos” and even Tokyo maid cafes. Gallus recently won a Gemini Award for Best Direction In A Documentary for her feature-length film, Girl Inside, which premiered at Hot Docs and launched the 2007 season of The View From Here on TVO. Her film Erotica: A Journey Into Female Sexuality premiered at TIFF in 1997 and was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. This interest in female stories makes me think Dish is going to be less dishy and more dramatic, in that good, involving, I-want-another-plate way.

Now, having served, and danced, and even done some mad combinations of the two (oh, those wild Dublin pub nights), the screening of A Drummer’s Dream intrigues, for its dance-y possibilities. The beat of not food but skins sits at the heart of this NFB work, written, produced, and directed by Canadian John Walker. Drummers who’ve kept the beat for Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Carlos Santana share their knowledge with forty students during a week-long retreat in the Canadian wilderness The film features the talents of celebrated drummers Nasyr Abdul Al-Khabyyr, Dennis Chambers, Kenwood Dennard, Horacio “El-Negro” Hernadez, Giovanni Hidalgo, Mike Mangini and Raul Rekow, and looks like big ole’ noisy celebration. I would imagine this is one of those inspiring stories that makes one want to shimmy up the aisle exiting the theatre. Or start banging on pint glasses with a spoon.

Lots more Hot Docs coverage in the weeks leading up to the fest’s kick off on April 29th. Stay tuned. And TIFF? Stop pouting. You have plenty of time to make it up to me before September rolls around. Get busy on that cake.

Linkalicious

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 28, 2010

In art, music, poetry, video

Voila, Play Anon’s latest batch of neat cultural and human-interest stuff found through a week of online trawling. Enjoy, and please feel free to leave your own suggestions too.

Photographer Viviane Sassen captures a gorgeous Africa. According to PLANET magazine, the fashion photographer’s work is “(n)ot quite haute couture, not quite documentary” but is “the result of directed African pilgrimages. (They) fall into an enigmatic category incorporating personal memory, imperialism, and sensual beauty.” The exhibit, on now through April 10th at Danziger Projects in New York City, is the photographer’s first American exhibition and incorporates images from past series based around the cultures and peoples of Ghana, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Beautiful stuff.

Photographer Izabella Demavlys documents scarred lives in her latest series. The former fashion photographer took pictures of women in Pakistan who survived acid attacks in Without A Face; she also document their family time with Saira. In an interview with Eyeteeth, she explains her move away from the world of fashion, to a wider definition of beauty:

One of the reasons I shifted over from fashion photography was its conceptualized views of women. I came to a point where I couldn’t work in that environment anymore….nor did my work change perceptions, behaviors, or engage the viewer in any issues. I simply fueled the fashion world with more images of young women who would represent what I believe is a distorted idea of beauty.

It’s so encouraging to see Demavlys actually living the old adage, of being the change she wants to see in the world. She has a real artist’s eye for the female face, combined with an unerring love for her subjects. Inspiring.

Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko has been arrested. His crime? Daring to question the government in his latest exhibition of graffiti work, 3D installations, and paintings. Artist Voti Thebe, who is also the director of the National Gallery where Maseko exhibited his work, was also arrested. Maseko’s own website is here. I’m angry and disappointed this didn’t make bigger news, or garner outrage from fellow artists in North America; Maseko and Thebe are both hugely talented and they truly deserve every bit of support here.

Photographer Matthias Heiderich captures a colourful Berlin. Despite rising rents and a rapidly homogenizing “underground” culture, I’m still sensing the weird, wonderful, experimental Berlin of old through Heiderich’s beautiful shots contained in his series, Color Berlin. Anyone else?

A moving collection of photographs captures seven years of war in Iraq. March 19th marked the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq; the Denver Post has an incredible compilation of photos that are tragic, heartening, funny, sad, infuriating, inspiring, and will, frankly, give you a whole new appreciation of the art of photojournalism, and the resiliency of those who do it.

English artist Antony Gormley gets spacey in his latest New York exhibit. Gormley’s bio describes his work as “a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation” and the exhibit, Breathing Room II (running at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City through May 1st) takes those notions and uses you, the viewer, as a prime subject. Heady, fascinating, and ultimately revealing about the comfy, pre-conceived notions we hold about space and time.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is featuring the concept of time too. Running through August 1st in Toronto, Sculpture as Time: Major Works. New Acquisitions features a bevvy of international artists’ works including that of Tino Sehgal, whose last exhibit at the Guggenheim caused a stir about the role of performance art in the 21st century. Prepare to re-think ideas and preciously-held beliefs. In other words, you may get uncomfortable -which is sometime a good thing. Right?

Loopy (pun unintended) Frenchman Sebastien Tellier has a cheeky (pun intended) new video out to commemorate the tenth anniversary of stylish French music label Recordmakers. This video really makes me want to pick up line drawing again. Surreal, funny, sexy… I see Bunuel smiling at this one. Nice tune too.

Man writes Shakespeare anagrams, s=l=o=w=l=y. No, it isn’t a joke. K. Silem Mohammad, a published poet and professor, is using a painfully meticulous process based around anagrams whereby he’ll render all 144 of the Bard’s sonnets into new expressions of poetry. So far, he’s finished 68. I like that he’s into both traditional, metered poetry, as well as the “collage” approach. Re-defining the definitions is what keeps art -and life -interesting.

This week: Posts on Hot Docs, Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… , the latest Daniel Lanois video, and more food features and recipes. Happy last-week-of-March!

walk good, children

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 27, 2010

In poetry

Director/Playwright ahdri zini mandiela‘s moving theatre work who knew grannie? a dub aria is currently on at Toronto’s Factory Theatre. I went to the show unsure of what to expect; I had seen mandiela’s other work (notably her inspired direction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Stage Company) and I was also aware she’d founded the ground-breaking b current Performing Arts Company.

Now, I’d been told grannie is “more of a song” than a formal play. Well, what a beautiful song -and what a delightful, wholly satisfying, of theatre it is! Exploring ideas around family, community, loss, and black identity in the 21st century, the work carefully, masterfully incorporates musical elements into its rich, poetic dialogue; it reminded me of Beat poetry, of jazz, of Caribana, of church, of things intimate and epic and singularly, defiantly boundary-crossing -all elements that, to my mind, should be playing a part in humming the tune of contemporary Canadian theatre.

Characters like the bespecled likklebit (Miranda Edwards), the cellphone-addicted vilma (Andrea Scott), yuppie kris (Marcel Stewart), and rebel tyetye (Joseph Pierre), as well as grannie herself (Ordena) are all well-drawn and eagerly performed. Despite their different journeys, mandiela has created a vital thread of connection running between them, a thread that’s given physical manifestation in the form of multi-coloured lines of cord running across the Factory’s wide stage expanse. Used alternately as clothing lines, cages, lines of demarcation and nationality, Julia Tribe’s inspired design is a beautiful compliment to mandiela’s writing and direction, demonstrating the twin notions of separation and connection, distance and intimacy, past and present (and even future) all at once.

Combined with the live percusison of Amina Alfred, who knew grannie: a dub aria is masterful, moving theatre that salutes the past (be it conventions, generations, people or places) while moving boldly into new, exciting realms of performance possibility and the outer reaches of the human heart. I had the opportunity of interview ahdri zhina mandiela about the work; her answers are, unsurprisingly, every bit as poetic as her show.

What inspired who knew grannie: a dub aria? Was it a specific person, or situation?

the aria is inspired by my mother, who is the eldest daughter of her mother, the grannie on whom the central character is based. my mother is in her mid-80’s and may pass on soon; this is my way of facing that impending loss.

How did you decide on the show’s format? Was music always a major part of it?

as a performance poet, most, if not all, of my writing is poetry, and the musicality of language has always been present in my work. this piece demanded that the music be highlighted in the telling of who knew grannie; hence the coining of the term ‘dub aria’.

How does the language inform and shape the narrative and characters?

verbal language is just one of the communication principles in the narrative. emotional language, language of space & movement are others; each contribut(es) to shaping the characters’ personalities, journeys, and interactions.

Why did you include drums?

the ‘languages’ needed to have their music highlighted/enhanced/embellished.

plus, the drum is a primal musical instrument, and very much represents grannie’s voice: that’s the musical instrument she would play if she was a ‘musician’.

Who is this for?

everyone: we all have a grannie still living or on the other side. and we all have some memories of relating to a grannie or grandmother figure.

who knew grannie: a dub aria runs at the Factory Theatre in Toronto through April 4th.