Breaking Ground

This text is an interview by Chris Dupuis with Benj Gallander, Greg Holmgren, Robert Sherwood, Ben Stadelmann, and Carol Pauker, the founders of the SummerWorks Festival. The team first assembled after being unable to secure slots at the Toronto Fringe Festival, with the idea of starting an alternative summer theatre event that would offer space to artists unable to get into the Fringe. They discuss the first conversations around launching the event through its early years, including the challenges of starting from scratch and running the project collectively and the various triumphs and failures they experienced. They outline changes in the selection process, the move from a first come, first served, model to a lottery system similar to the Fringe, and the gradual introduction of curation through the Parallel Lab initiative. Finally, they discuss how the festival shaped them personally and the event’s lasting impacts on the Toronto theatre sector. The text also includes references the late eighties Toronto theatre scene, including Tomson Highway, Hillar Littoja, and Buddies in Bad Times.

Acting Out: Exploring Applied Theatre Practices in Canadian Correctional Facilities

The colonization of Aboriginal peoples in North America involved systematic efforts to control and eradicate Indigenous knowledges and cultures. However, Aboriginal peoples have resisted colonization through creative expression; creating space for the exploration and critique of the myriad identities informed by this relationship. This study focuses on work by prominent American and Canadian authors Louise Erdrich, Tomson Highway, and Daniel David Moses. Erdrich, who self-identifies as Chippewa with mixed European ancestry, is best known for the interconnections of short narratives between and within her novels. Tomson Highway, a Cree novelist and playwright, is most famous for his cycles of “rez” plays detailing life on a fictional Ontario reserve. Daniel David Moses, member of the Delaware First Nation in Brantford, Ontario and acclaimed Canadian playwright, is best known for his parody of non-Aboriginal constructions of the “authentic Indian” in his work. These authors use political destruction of normative categories, particularly gender transgression, but also past and present, here and there, material reality and the spirit realm to create space for the playful exploration of Indigenous identities. I explore the ways in which gender transgression is nested in larger themes of playful category destruction and creative reconstruction to open up issues of political importance to these authors. By exploring these themes in conjunction with author biographies and interviews, I identify the political motives and implications of category transgression.

Transgressing Time, Place, Gender, and the Material: The Political Strategies of Louise Erdrich, Tomson Highway, and Daniel David Moses

The colonization of Aboriginal peoples in North America involved systematic efforts to control and eradicate Indigenous knowledges and cultures. However, Aboriginal peoples have resisted colonization through creative expression; creating space for the exploration and critique of the myriad identities informed by this relationship. This study focuses on work by prominent American and Canadian authors Louise Erdrich, Tomson Highway, and Daniel David Moses. Erdrich, who self‐identifies as Chippewa with mixed European ancestry, is best known for the interconnections of short narratives between and within her novels. Tomson Highway, a Cree novelist and playwright, is most famous for his cycles of“rez” playsdetailing life on a fictional Ontario reserve. Daniel David Moses, member of the Delaware First Nation in Brantford, Ontario and acclaimed Canadian playwright, is best known for his parody of non‐Aboriginal constructions of the “authentic Indian” in his work. These authors use political destruction of normative categories, particularly gender transgression, but also past and present, here and there, material reality and the spirit realm to create space for the playful exploration of Indigenous identities. I explore the ways in which gender transgression is nested in larger themes of playful category destruction and creative reconstruction to open up issues of political importance to these authors. By exploring these themes in conjunction with author biographies and interviews, I identify the political motives and implications of category transgression.

From "Sisters" to "Comadres": Translating and Transculturating Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters

Since theNative Canadian playwright Tomson Highway imagines his plays in Cree beforetranslating them into English, his dramatic texts are, in the words of Gayatri Spivak, “a history of the languagein-and-as-translation. “ As he acknowledges, Highway’s English is permeatedwith the rhythm of the Cree language: “I am actually using English filteredthrough the mind, the tongue and the body of a person who is speaking inCree” Highway’s text introduces Cree orOjibway words and phrases, providing English translations for them infootnotes. The other characteristic which makes Highway’s plays distinct istheir sexual content, as transmitted both in the spoken text and in the stagedirections. Highway explains in an article titled “Why Cree is the Sexiest ofAll Languages,” that talking about sex in English is a terrifying experience, whereasin Cree it is the funniest, most hysterical and most spectacular thing in theworld.” In addition, visceral and sexual language is an essential component ofthe play, This paper will explore the process of translation andtransculturation involved in the translation of Highway’s play The Rez Sisters, in the light of translationstudies theories and the notion of transculturation as coined by Fernándo Ortizand expanded by Norman Cheadle in his book CanadianCultural Exchanges.

A NAÇÃO PLURALIZADA E IRONIZADA PELA PERSPECTIVA PÓS-COLONIAL

A ideia de ‘nação’ é inevitavelmente marcada, nos tempos contemporâneos, por relações transculturais. Nas Américas, tal conceito sofreu influências da presença do outro, resultado inegável da experiência colonial. A partir desse ponto de vista, propomos discutir ao longo do presente artigo o conceito de ‘nação’, tendo o conto “15 cenas de descobrimento de Brasis”, de Fernando Bonassi, e o ensaio “My Canada”, de Tomson Highway como focos para a análise que desenvolvemos. Nossa discussão buscará interpretar centralmente as cenas da descoberta do Brasil através de um olhar pós-colonial. A ironia, suas construções e interpretações ao lidar com a temática de tal “descobrimento”, tão frequentemente marcado por um tom nacionalista, também são discutidas, iluminando novas possíveis perspectivas de análise para os textos em tela. Finalmente, indicamos algumas das razões para a impossibilidade de se apresentar uma cena sintética do momento pós-colonial, pelo menos no que diz respeito ao contexto brasileiro.