In her inspired book of essays about storytelling, Our Secret Territory: The Essence of Storytelling, Laura Simms writes about a trip she took to T'Boli in the Philipines.  She visited an old woman who was a storyteller and weaver of traditional T'Boli cloths.  The weaver explained how the patterns for the cloths come in dreams, and that she never watched television because it blocked the channels to dreaming.  "There is an evil spirit in television."

It's true that in a television-deadened society, the majority of people have lost the ability to listen to the land and the ancestors and are no longer open to their dreaming.  Perhaps television is not solely to blame.  The process of industrialization itself lets in the 'evil spirit'  that steals the soul.  Yet, if we turned off the television long enough to listen and to dream, we have a chance to keep the evil spirit at bay and to reopen the channels to dreaming. 

Women are truly coming into their own in the theatre.  There was a time when no woman was allowed on the stage, and female characters were played by males.  Even in present times the world of theatre is often dominated by men.  The majority of staged plays are written by men, and while it is not considered unusual for a theatre company to present an entire season by male playwrights, a Canadian theatre that presented a season by women playwrights was considered noteworthy. 

The last two plays I have seen were not only written by women, but had all-female casts.  Thy were both outstanding productions, and any male roles were ably played by the female actors.  Both plays brought new perspectives to well-known stories.

I was blown away by the performances in Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, the first of the two of these plays that I saw.  There was a menace to the portrayal of the male characters by the women who played them.  The story itself casts a critical eye on 'heroic' acts in the Odyssey, which are examined for their selfish and cruel aspects.  It shines a light on the female characters whose lives and deaths were dismissed in the original telling.

Obeah Opera, by Nicole Brooks, presented a fresh look to the witch trials in seventeenth century Salem.  The view was from that of the Caribbean women who had been imported as slaves, and how their spiritual and healing practices were misunderstood and misconstrued by the Puritans of Salem.  That misunderstanding is still prevalent even in the West Indies today.

Obeah Opera was done entirely in song, and kudos are due to musical director Tova Kardonne, to the choreographer Anthony Guerra, and to Juba Tribe, the set and costume designer.  The way the costumes morphed to suit the needs of the scenes was stunning. 

It's the small theatres that are pushing the boundaries of conventional theatres in Toronto, and are leading the way with women's work. 

 

 

In the Malian tale of Sundiata, a griot plays the bolofon so beautifully that the sorcerer spares the griot's life for entering the sorcerer's  secret chamber and touching the instrument.

The Muhtadi International Drumming Festival's Evening of Celebration of the Drum gave me an opportunity to see and hear a bolofon, beautifully played, for myself.

It was, of course, the drum that took centre stage on this evening.  Master drammers, Amara Kante from the Ivory Coast, Amadou Keinou from Burkina Faso and Njacko Backo from Cameroon joined Muhtadi and the World Drummers, Toronto-based drummers, playing Afro-Caribbean rhythms.  Torontonians are fortunate that the city lives up to its name as a meeting place, although sometimes it's inhabitants need some encouragement to unwind.

"Why are you sitting down?" asked Njacko Backo.  Why indeed!  The rhythms of the drum invite movement.  Their vibrations pulse through my body even now. 

Here's another snippet from one of my stories.  It begins like this:

You must understand this about Glastonbury: it was once surrounded by water and is reputed to be the fabled Isle of Avalon; it was once home to a powerful Druidic college; it sits on two major ley lines and has been a place of pilgrimage for over two thousand years.  Magical things happen in Glastonbury.  I took a pilgrimage of my own, and met a magic man.

He was sitting on a low wall outside the gated entrance to the Chalice Well and gardens, as dishevelled and disreputable a character as I have ever encountered.            

 

The following is the beginning of a story I wrote about the contact I had with Marcus Garvey's first wife when I was a child.  My encounters with Amy Garvey were not particularly positive...

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When Mrs. Garvey came to visit, I was not pleased.  She was fat and old.  She had no patience for children.  She slept in my bed, forcing me to share the other one with my sister and my mother, or sleep in the living room.  She expected Judith and me to be quiet in the mornings just because she wanted to sleep in.  Mrs. Garvey’s complaints about our failure to do so brought spankings.  All I knew about her was that he had been to Africa, which was a far-off and utterly incomprehensible place.  In school I’d heard the term darkest Africa.  She’d brought back thick gold earrings, far more pure than any you’d find in England.  These had no requirement for such foolishness as a hallmark to prove their worth.  I’m not sure if we were sufficiently impressed when she presented us each with a pair of these wondrous objects.

In ancient Egypt the benu bird was known to have the phoenix-like power of self regeneration. 

Themes from the African continent and, in particular, the Yoruban spiritual tradition flow through d'bi young's word!sound!powah! (part of the Sanfoka Trilogy) with the music of poetry.  The central figures, members of Poets in Solidarity, use their poetry to fight oppression.

d'bi young masterfully plays the poets and other characters, including that of a young woman named Benu.

The setting is Jamaica, but the themes resonate in Canada.  The issues of poverty and the desire for change are those shared by the Occupy movement. 

The Sanfoka Trilolgy plays in rep with blood.claat and benu at the Tarragon Theatre's Extra Space in Toronto until December 4, 2011.

One evening, I was waiting for a train on the subway platform.  It was taking its time to arrive.  A young man complimented me on my hat.  He looked Somali.  I thanked him.  Then our interaction took an unexpected turn. 

"Forgive me," he said.

"For what?" I asked.

"Forgive me," he insisted.  "I have done terrible things."

"It's not for me to forgive you," I said.  "You must forgive yourself."

He insisted that he had forgiven himself, but that he needed me to forgive him.

The train arrived.  I got in a carriage, he in another.  I had not told the young man I had forgiven him.

That encounter was a year ago.  I still think of the young man.  I wonder if I should have given him a different response.  If I had told him that I forgave him, even not knowing what he had done, would he have been satisfied?  Would it have helped him? 

And, is it within my power to bestow forgiveness on a stranger?

Theatre Local bills its space as the world's smallest theatre.  It seats an audience of fourteen.  The seats were filled throughout the night.  On the hour, a new group of people came through the doors to hear Tell Your Story with different storytellers.  Members of the public could also sign up to tell stories. 

Ruth Tait talked about her entry into the world of creating comics, with some of her comics projected onto the wall.

I told a story of my own.  Afterwards, a woman was heard to say "I enjoyed that more than some things I've paid a lot of money to see."  All Nuit Blanche activities were no charge to the public. 

As well as my own performance at Tell Your Story, I managed to see some of the other events around the city.  A fun night, but I only made it through to 2:30am.  I must be getting old.

Both Culture Days and Nuit Blanche take over the city on the same weekend.

Culture Days is a three-day celebration of arts of all kinds, encouraging the public to participate with artists in events not just in Toronto, but all around Canada.  For Culture Days I'll be storytelling at the York Woods Branch of the Toronto Public Library at 2:30pm.  Riddles will are the focus of  these stories.  More information on the link below: Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE

http://culturedays.ca/en/2011-activities/view/4e2f30a9-f54c-4971-a860-770f4c4a89be

Later that night I'm participating in Nuit Blanche, telling a tale as part of Tell YOUR Story, taking place at the Artscape Wychwood Barns:

http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/iProjects.aspx?zone=A&mapId=20

Nuit Blanche is a sunset to sunrise arts extravaganza.  For one sleepless nights citizens engage with artists at events around the city. It's a night to look forward to.

During my last year at university, I often entertained the idea of going to live in Africa.  At that time I had not read the Langston Hughes poem, Junior Addict with the ending:

Quick, sunrise, come!

Sunrise out of Africa,

Quick, come!

Sunrise, please come!

Come! Come!

Even though I had not read those words, they express completely my feelings from that time.  After a tifetime enduring prejudice, I longed for a place where my skin pigmentation would not condemn me to bring despised, disregarded and treated with disdain.

The 'Africa' of my dreams was Ghana, a leader inthe fight against colonialism after centuries of Eurpean domination. 

The memories of my old dream of Africa come back as I read The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski's recounting of his journeys in Africa.  The very first chapter of the book is about his experiences in those early days of Ghanaian independance.  I become aware, once more, that 'Africa' is not one place.  To quote Kapuscinski:

In all of Africa, each larger social group has its own distinct culture, an original system of beliefs and customes, its own language and taboos, and all of this is immensely complicated, intricate and mysterious. 

I remember the idea of Africa in my youthful longing, and think of the words of an African women who once said of the diaspora, "Even after four hundred years, descendants of Africa still feed the pain of their expulsion from the motherland."