when blood speaks

cousins addy, trevor and sharon, myself, and one great auntie hazel

The journey with In Spirit has been a long and challenging one. It began, for me, a creative partnership that anchors my being today. In Spirit (then alternately titled) debuted at SummerWorks ’07, and marked my first collaboration with Andy Moro. Our tireless drive to work and work more until something feels closer to what it should be has been getting on peoples nerves ever since. At the time of In Spirit, Andy’s son was eight years of age - the story of In Spirit is that of a twelve year old girl. The content resonated with Andy, and his commitment to the work has never wavered. On my side, the content related directly to my own blood.

My mom (and all her kids, of course) is Ntlaka’pamux from the Coldwater Band, and I am happy to say our annual summer holiday trips brought us to B.C. to hang out with cousins and lovingly torment aunties. It was on one of these trips that I learned, for the first time, that young people on reserve were just as likely to be victims of abductions as us kids from the big city of Lethbridge. Not until I was an adult did I begin to understand the real level of violence perpetrated against our women and girls.

When I started working, in earnest, through the stories of our missing and murdered women and girls, the story that kept calling to me the strongest was one close to home. My mom and I had some conversations about this very real, very heartbreaking story, and that led to a phone call. The mother of one such missing, murdered girl is a cousin to my mom. They spoke and caught up over a series of calls. That led to my own relationship with this strong woman, and permission from her to write of her late daughter.

The writing came, as through ancestors, in a mighty current of words and images. I tend to take this as an indication that I’m doing the right thing. Five days after beginning the writing, I was in a studio with Andy and the wonderful Métis actor Michaela Washburn. The work ran deep, and Washburn, a true empath, carried a great deal of the spiritual burden in this piece. Her self-care had to expand when we went into full rehearsals. Her performance at SummerWorks was breathtaking. When that brief run closed, I began to work with my contact (and cousin!) to bring the play to B.C. In spite of best efforts, the granting bodies didn’t support our proposed community tour. We agreed we'd try again.

Meanwhile, the work was growing in a good way, and with the support of the OAC’s TCR program, through recommenders Native Earth Performing Arts (NEPA), and then through a residency at Cahoots Theatre. This development led to another public workshop session, with Factory Theatre’s now defunct CrossCurrents Festival.  For this round, actor PJ Prudat brought a new approach to the work that further illuminated its path, and with such gentle grace. It was this time that Andy introduced video.

As ever, life takes its many complex turns. My own path led me to a multitude of other artistic pursuits, and in 2011, into the chair of NEPA’s AD. My time serving in that position clocked in just under three years, yet somehow I have aged thirty. I used to laugh when former AD Yvette Nolan would ask “What fresh hell is this?” to the tone of the office phone ringing. Of course, in Yvette’s storied era, there was also lots of laughing and frequent dance breaks. This was something I did not do enough of during my time.

In Spirit was programmed for 2013/14 in response to a trying though bright transitional time at NEPA. None of this is private information - NEPA issued a press release postponing Kenneth Williams’ play, Deserters back when the difficult decision was made to do so. The move into Daniels Spectrum and the Aki Studio Theatre took a toll on the company in every way. It was a risk worth taking, no question, and I applaud former GM Donna Michelle St. Bernard for her courage, as well as the board for believing it was all possible.

In Spirit is a strong work, and affordable, with one sole actor - perfect for then struggling NEPA. NEPA was also blessed for the coming 2013/14 season by the partnership Aluna Theatre offered with their Rutas Panamericanas festival. Seven years after its SummerWorks debut, In Spirit would make its full production debut. With originating actor Washburn and ensuing actor Prudat pursuing other artistic and alternative paths, it was our good fortune that we were gifted with a bright new talent, in shape of Sera-Lys McArthur.

Sera-Lys is an immaculately skilled and astonishingly talented actor, who trained in NYC and the UK, returning to her roots with stage work on Where the Blood Mixes (Western Canada Theatre, Theatre Aquarius and Theatre Network) Smoke (Mixed Phoenix) and now In Spirit.

The consummately patient Mike Lewandowski has completed our foursome, and traveled with us, camera in hand, to B.C. and back again. The public debut was at Full Circle’s Talking Stick festival in Vancouver. Our team fell in love with the festival,  the Roundhouse Theatre and their space tech, Terry. This experience was classy, inclusive, respectful, organized, and warm - a proverbial blanket enfolding us in the chilly west coast rain.

The night that moves me to write today is the night a particular group of twenty came to see In Spirit. This group included my mom’s cousin and my contact throughout this writing process - more about that night in a moment. As the debut approached, this woman, mother and grandmother, who has endured more than anyone should, became concerned about the impact of this play on her family’s right to hold memory as they wish. I offered to change details of this already fictionalized play, as well as its title, in service of this right, and to demonstrate to my friend that I move from a place of good. In addition to this, my cousin Sharon, who booked our anchor tour date, offered to cancel the presentation of In Spirit in the interior - a generous act of good will. The revised script was given to the concerned family, and passed along to investigating officers who actively work on cases included in the Highway of Tears. It was decided, unequivocally, that the play was in no way harmful to the investigations, and some opined that the play illuminates the all too many unresolved cases in a good way.

On the night of the group of twenty, Margo Kane very wisely asked Elder Shane Pointe to welcome the audience, and offer a protective song at the show’s beginning and end. This is reminiscent of the Maori practice of beginning and ending a session of artistic mahi with a karakia. People are invited to come into the story and then restored in the present moment when the telling concludes. The group of twenty included sixteen family members of one missing and murdered girl, and four investigating officers who work intimately with this family and others. This group braved a journey into this work with us. Talking Stick, Native Earth and I all worked together to ensure their attendance when it was decided they should like to attend. They came. Some wept. Some spoke of it as a healing experience. Above any review, beyond any acclaim, this validated our long and laboured journey.



Yours in profound gratitude,
Tara

In Spirit

it's been a long while since i popped by here to dear diary across satellites.

there's a show i've been writing for years. borne of love, it's been a hardship and a joy. the inspiration is a greater tragedy than most of us would dare try to imagine. it used to be called Quilchena. it's newer, fuller, and more appropriate title is In Spirit.

i have the humility to know that this play won't erase the pain that so many profoundly violent and awful abductions have caused. i do have the spirit - naivety? - to hope we can eradicate them in future. our obstinacy has kept us alive. it can definitely unite us in this. our stubborn will to exist can spark a fire that will force us to create community from ashes. surely.

the truth about every missing and murdered woman and girl is that nobody except the girl or woman and the attacker know what happened. this is an injustice that can never be balanced out, no matter who is caught and punished. emotion is a gift. when we share it with anyone, we are laid bare. in the final, premature moments of life, under extreme duress, we must ignite with emotion never previously felt or seen. that broken, wretched human who is killing has the holy privilege of knowing the dying person's emotions at this time. it is so unfair there are no words for it.

only careful breaths and impossibly strained hopes. hopes cloaked in despair.

i have learned lately - in living, not in theory - that another aspect of these tragedies is that the names of these women and girls become known to us BECAUSE they fell to a neglectful and all-too-passive and aggressive world. all of their lives were rich with details and daily deeds long before, and leading up to the moment they were taken from us. we don't know those. unspeakably unfair.

there are cliches in the tellings of the stories of people who die prematurely. "everybody liked him." "she was so quick to laugh." "he was such a good guy." the good along with the tragic dehumanize them, in spite of best intentions.

the play In Spirit was written to do what very little i could to remind every fucking person willing to hear and feel and see that our missing and murdered belong to everyone. we must remember their lives. their complex and extremely real lives.

this play is a fiction, as far as plays can be. i have also come to believe that all stories are true. somewhere, somehow, they have all happened.
this play offers one possible perspective that none of us are privy to. this is told from the perspective of one girl who is taken. i didn't know her. she isn't a "real" person. the impetus for the writing began with the knowledge of the disappearance of one person. the writing moved very far away from that story, as known to me. the blessing of this is that i won't feel so shitty about not inspiring some silent witness to miraculously come forth and proclaim a known but hidden fact that will solve the case.
the sadness is having to admit - truly admit - the same. i wish the telling of a story could save a life. actually, i believe it can.
i guess what i really wish is that the telling of a story could restore a life. -tb (designer Andy Moro hard at work/art.)

Saltbaby Program: titled Lookit!

Nosy neighbours, The White Paper, Stephen Spielberg, The Indian Act, Queen Elizabeth II, your local retailer… these are only some of the people and things that have been trying to exercise the right to identify First Nations, Aboriginal, Inuit and Métis people in this country since contact. Some of my nearest and dearest have been subjected to the seemingly tireless diatribes of the blow-hardy, who feel they are doing a service by proclaiming how one ought to “look” and “act” in order to claim one’s inner Indian.

Why does this happen? Let’s take the oft-debated nomenclature as a jumping off point. There have been no less than five different self-identifying terms employed, in this writing, at this mark. Are we “Indian”, “Native”, “Aboriginal” or what? Why so many terms for a people?

One obvious reason behind the myriad labels is that English was never the language we used to identify ourselves. Languages hold concepts, and concepts get lost in translation. The naming of a nation in a language that is not their own will be a misnomer, regardless of best intentions. Make an effort to create an umbrella term for a multitude of nations with histories as varied and storied as any nation in continents abroad, and you will find it lacking.

Some of the terms that are applied to us are a result of constructs that were forced upon us by dominant society. The band and council system, for example, was not originally ours: it was created to make the seizing of land and the enforcement of the reserve system more efficient and orderly. A nation or tribe is made up of several bands.

“Nation” is employed largely as a reaction to the unsophisticated connotations that come along with the term “tribe”. “Tribe” implies an unformed societal organization, more in-keeping with the animal kingdom, whereas “Nation” is a term that a capitalist world not only understands, but values.

Multiple terms for a diverse range of peoples is a good indicator that we are, as a whole, seeking a way of evolving the lexicon as time progresses. Adhering to one term for an eternity is only possible for an extinct peoples; they do not continue, and so their self-identifying terms need not go through change.

Just as the verbiage adjusts to accommodate change, so must our understanding of who we are, how we move through the world, and what we look like.

The majority of Aboriginals in present-day Canada live an urban life. Expecting every Indian you meet to have a home rez and a status card is not only ignorant, it is laughably naïve. Failing to accept that an Indian can have a fair complexion and curly hair is a mistake that a simple thinker will make. By refusing to see the full spectrum of how a person can identify is to relegate the Indian to the museum. By denying the inherent complexity of the first peoples of the country where you live, you choose to stand on land without history.

History is the stories of what has been, as applicable to the people who inhabit the world today. Our First Nations communities are an inherent part of a larger society – a society that includes you. When that larger society insists on viewing its first peoples under a racist roster of stereotypes, that is larger society telling us that we are a dead culture. Without acknowledgement of – without embracing – our country’s diversity, we are cheating ourselves of our humanity. As our humanity is lessened, we are all in danger of becoming creatures of textbooks and dioramas, rather than living, breathing, ever-evolving peoples who take the streetcar alongside one another every day.

crow heads

Big crow barking-bellow croaking-caw
Taunting this sorrowing wallow I swim.
“Do it” bawks that bastard “Give me your every
thought - I’ll bring him words from you.”
To bleed it out, I open wide
This blackest head slots right inside.
Snug against my teeth, his neck.
His wormy beak now drains my breath.

Eat,
breathe,
suck,
swallow Crow.

He sniffs out every thought I think
Now deep inside my craw he drinks.

He gnaws what is unspoken
He cracks my molars broken.

shards of tooth
and blood to swallow.
one black feather
is sent inside my throat.
no coughing.

His feathered skull withdraws and I am hollow
Full empty in my maw: my heart will follow.
His body trills, a blink, wings spread blocking light
Every scrap of you and me is swallowed up in flight.

girlfriend

“I have a girlfriend” he says.
and, somewhere, Ginsberg coughs up blood.
Artaud shrugs and pisses in his dress.
A playboy bunny remembers her real name and pops a hemorrhoid beneath her
fluffy tail.
Somewhere in the lazy lounge of limbo, Milton Berle picks up a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, forever forsaking his legend for the sake of Mr. Darcy. Mr. Dowry? Mr. Dooooolittle.

“I have a girlfriend now”.
All at once, just like that, the world is sexless and flaccid, unwired.

I’d sooner splice my clit than see you bored
I’d burn my head to fuel your fire. Not ashes. No ashes. Not you.
Death before doldrums in such a fighting fucking friend.
Not girlfriend! Not stale! Not monogamy slogonamy and habit for to hang your hat your heart-on on.
Gliding numb, floating, unsparked and uninspired, safe and held and grinning, dead-eyed in the mire
of love.
of "love".

“I’m living with my girlfriend”
Couch unstained
Bed unhumped
Shower unsoaked
Shoes unshed by an undarkened door
This bird, this pussy:
unmewed
uncawed
Evermore.

“I have a girlfriend” like an apology.
And it’s me who’s sorry.
“Sorry for your troubles” I grin and get on with it: polite and dry. It’s getting late.
You should get home.
You have a girlfriend, now.

Going it Alone

*This post has been altered out of respect for a friend who does not wish to be identified. 

I am immersed again, thinking on our missing and murdered. The astounding generosity and ingenuity that is personified by the people of Cahoots Theatre Projects has brought me to a retreat to focus on furthering the script [now called] In Spirit. Among other writers and dramaturgs, in this strange little town of "twee", I think of May 6, 1978.

One girl is occupying the largest room in my mind - fueling the busiest muscles of my heart.

It is a lonely thing in so many ways, this play. I have come off of working on big group development - the Fort at York for weeks, with fourteen other actors and various other staffies, creative and non. The Mill for Theatrefront, with a dozen or so artists I admire newly and for ages. Big groups. Here I sit at the Green Room used by the Shaw festival, the only person. Not one other soul in the room, and it's a big one. In Spirit quickly became a three-person play. I worked with Andy and Michaela as soon as I had a draft to hold in my hands. We invited people to respond straightaway - it was us three or more, always. Today I am alone. This seldom means "lonely" for me, but this time, it does.

The other aspect that has me feeling like a tiny single-celled organism is that I am realizing, more and more, that this play is not enough. It is not enough to write a play about a girl who was murdered, and whose killer was never "brought to justice". Justice can hardly be served in this case. Even if the killer were found, proven guilty, and sentenced to jail for all of eternity, never would his mother glance out the kitchen window in hopes that her child was puttering down the lane on his new bike - "Sorry, mom! I got lost." or "Sorry mom, I ran away, but I came home because I realized..." whatever. No. Whoever killed got to grow up. The murdered did not. This girl did not.

She was imagined into adulthood by all of those who loved her, but she did not do the things that she ought to have done. She was cut short by someone who had no right to make that choice for her.

A play will not change that.

What I want is for the man who killed her - and it was almost certainly a man - to suffer. I do. And it goes against all of the faith that I have in our kind. Us humans. What have we done? How have we bred a person who can commit such an act? Why do I have a hunger for vengeance about this, a desire for the man who did this to suffer worse than any murdered child has ever suffered? He was a child once! It's a safe assumption to guess that he suffered in his youth - he must have to become such a creature. In spite of this, I have no sympathy for him. I want him punished.

A play is not enough. And so the play must demand what is.

Does this serve this girl? Does it serve her beautiful mom? Her sisters? All of those people who were effected by her short time with us? That is my hope. That is my aim.

This week, I do it alone. Never have I been so alone as any murdered woman or girl was in her last moments. And this is just a play. I wish it were more.

from Michaela : A Hole in the Sky

*This post was altered out of respect for a friend.

As the actor asked and honored to walk for a brief time in a missing girl's shoes,
I found myself so profoundly affected by her.

I never had the pleasure of meeting her in person,
but I do feel like in some way I was allowed to know her... even if only a little.

The process of this play was beautiful and difficult and excruciating.
It struck me with such a profound sadness at times that I would need to stop and allow the wave to pass... grief for a relation, one of our young.
And now in light of the recent passing of my dearest Mama,
remembering the experience of In Spirit [retitled] is suggesting some strange kind of solace.

My Mom lived a long full life and raised kids and raced cars and was an active member of her community… this girl was robbed of that before she could even reach the age of thirteen. Just a babe really.
Even still, she was a great babysitter, loved her new bike and was loved and respected by her community.

And in the telling of this story I was ever reminded of the need to remain present.
To delight in some things and take heed of others. To always do your best and to know that it’s okay when you don’t.

The strange solace lies too in the reminder that at any time, especially those times when you feel exceptionally alone, those spirits are there. Our ancestors walk with us, carry us and continue to love us from another place. They continue on within us, through our eyes, our expressions, our subtle ways of being… our laughter.

As a friend said to me the other day, “It is like a hole in the sky.”… and that it is.
But somewhere I believe there is a huge reunion where there is only remembering and love and joy.
And maybe the only way to get there,
is through some hole in the sky.