Saturday, April 17, 2010

BIOMYTHOGRAPHY - d'bi young anitafrika

Run, wheel, scoot, bus, drive or take handidart to see d'bi young anitafrika perform Blood Claat at the Firehall, last chance for the Vancouver run, Saturday April 17, 2pm and 8pm. Fan-freakin-tastic! She embodies all 12 characters so completely - young, old, female, male. Characters like a teenage girl, granny, auntie, uncle, bus conductor, boyfriend, priestess, warrior all reveal their different relationships to blood. Her sweat and tears are hard earned, it will touch you in a deep place, and make you think about, everything. She is an extraordinary storyteller, sit in the second row for the most fun and laughs! Support women in theatre! Talkback with d'bi after each performance, you'll be glad you stayed.

'Blood.claat, is a story told through multiple generations in which rituals travel in symbolic cycles of scorn and celebration exposing rites in which all metaphors unite in the fluid of life.'

I had the pleasure of being wowed by her entrancing dub poetry at the folk festival last year, once you have seen her perform, you won't want to miss her ever again! Check out the youtube clip where she talks about dub theatre.  Her website for her  performance centre in Toronto anitafrika dub theatre, or an interview with her talking about her work  here.  

She works in the genre of biomyth(ography) as presented by the wonderful writer Audre Lorde, (1934 - 1992) as do I. Hmm maybe I will dust of that three generational play and finish it sometime! Feeling inspired! It was Audre Lorde who wrote: "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." I found Audre Lordes work in the late 80's/early 90's, from memory 'Zami: a new spelling of my name', and 'The Cancer Journals.'

Blood Claat is the first part of a trilogy of works d'bi is currently touring: 

'blood.claat (the first play in d'bi.young's biomyth-monodrama trilogy entitled sankofa) was nominated for five dora mavor moore awards in 2006, and won in the categories of outstanding new play and outstanding female performance. it toured canada extensively and was published as a bilingual 1st edition (english/spanish) by playwrights canada press. d'bi.young is presently completing benu (part 2), originally commissioned by montreal's la chapelle theatre and supported by factory theatre and word! sound! powah! (part 3), originally commissioned by soulpepper theatre and supported by canstage theatre. young's first play, a two-hander co-written by naila belvett, entitled yagayah was published in testifyin': contemporary african canadian drama in 2003. her second two-hander androgyne was produced by buddies in bad times theatre in 2007. young is the 2009-2010 playwright-in-residence at canstage theatre and is a member of the tarragon playwrights unit 2010.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Pink Shirt Day - Proudly Canadian


Did you wear pink April 14 to show your support for stopping bullying? At school, at work, at home, in public. I did! 

Makes ya proud to be a Canadian! 

Here's how the CBC called it September 2007: 

'Two Nova Scotia students are being praised across North America for the way they turned the tide against the bullies who picked on a fellow student for wearing pink.

The victim — a Grade 9 boy at Central Kings Rural High School in the small community of Cambridge — wore a pink polo shirt on his first day of school.

Bullies harassed the boy, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up, students said.

Two Grade 12 students — David Shepherd and Travis Price — heard the news and decided to take action.

"I just figured enough was enough," said Shepherd.
They went to a nearby discount store and bought 50 pink shirts, including tank tops, to wear to school the next day.

.....And there's been nary a peep from the bullies since, which Shepherd says just goes to show what a little activism will do.'

I was wondering why I felt a bit sad, immobilized, withdrawn yesterday. Something deep, painful I couldn't seem to find words for. Then I started thinking about, Bullies, I have known.  Bullying begins at home, bullies, they live somewhere. There was of course the highly abusive father, I'll return to that later. There was an older brother who enlisted my siblings in excluding me from, well, everything, until he left home when I was 14. They complied, even though he broke their bones anyway. He later joined law enforcement, draw your own conclusions. When I was 12, I said something a girl in my class didn't like, she was known for jumping to conclusions and taking things the wrong way. She said she was going to get her boyfriend, a notorious bully, small but mean, to beat me up. At that point my after school playmates were 3 neighborhood boys, so I wasn't as that phased as I might have been. I decided I would rather face up to it, than be ambushed, so I met N, at the set time and place after school by the bike sheds. He explained to me a little whakama (shamed) that if he beat one more person up he was going to be permanently expelled from school. So that was the end of the matter.

There was the sexual harassment my classmates and I endured from some of the few male teachers at an all girls public school. There was mr F who taught French, in a berating manner, and was known for leaning his 6 foot frame over our desks from behind and looking down our uniforms at our breasts. The was the art teacher mr C who was known for taking 'crotch shots' of athletes, allegedly for the school magazine. When you take photos of adolescent girls  in sports attire you need to be very careful how you frame them. At 16 we made up a rhyming song about the students and teachers, while on a school trip. The line about him - which I believe was supplied by a young student teacher - went 'mr C is a dirty old man, you watch out for his wandering hand'. We sang the song at an end of year public event. I was the one who had written the words down, and called out the lines. The Principal  told me we could sing the song if  we took out those lines, resentfully, we did.  But that was not the end of the matter, by 17 I was in his art history class, he frequently made inappropriate sexual comments about nude artworks we were studying. After talking amongst ourselves about it, I spoke to the Dean of our year. She said the school was aware of the problem and there was nothing they could do about it. (This was the 1980's). So we students agreed we would write down what he said. C, who sat at the back agreed to do it, mr C saw her notes and bullied her from the class, I failed art history.

There were other staff who were lovely. Like mr B our beloved science teacher, one day when I was 13 some of my classmates decided to tease me about how I talked, several of them imitated me, I just couldn't take it that day, I thought I was amongst friends. I hid my head, in my folded arms on my desk, and started to cry, I couldn't stop. At the end of class mr B had all the other students leave and then he tried to talk to me. He asked all the right questions, was I sick, was it a relationship, was there trouble at home, was I having difficulty in school. I couldn't speak, or even raise my head. Eventually he let me go and I went to the bathroom to get myself together.

When I was 20, and had extracted myself, or so I hoped from the reach of the abusive father, in a different city. I heard from my professors that he was at the University looking for me. I went, in my bare feet to see the stern Registrar who had a reputation for being a stickler for protocol, to explain my predicament. This was in the days before an awareness or policy about privacy, and the University was in the habit of giving out student's phone numbers and addresses to friends and relatives who asked for them. The Registrar looked at me for only a moment, and then swiftly erased my address and phone number  from the computer database. The relief, and gratitude was immense.

Bullies are not only male, female, too. But women can be less overt sometimes, harder to identity. Like the relative who tells you constantly how useless you are; or the sister who when you are a child pretends to people you are a boy, so you will be excluded from playing with other girls. Or the boss who takes your work and ideas, puts her name on it, giving you no credit.

I've been bullied in my own community, by a friend of a friend who spread outrageous false rumours about me. I called her on it, I asked to meet, with a qualified third party if she wanted, she could choose. She refused. It so angered and hurt my friend, she stopped participating in that community. As fate would have it, years later ms Rumour was in a class I taught, I was teaching people how to - listen. Sometimes I think the universe has  a sense of humour!

I'm a fairly assertive person, but still not immune to bullying. In the past 10 years, bullying bosses - 3 out of 6. Thankfully not currently! It's hard for me to even accept the last time I was bullied at work was only 2 years ago. The first time, he apologized on his own. The second time I called him on it. The third time I had to speak to some one higher up. He had been formally censured at least twice already for bullying other staff members.

Bullying is a behavior - like the in-law I met by chance on a transit platform, who shouted at me for twenty minutes while bemused passengers looked on with shock on their faces, wondering what to do. Nobody did anything. It doesn't have to be a lifestyle. We are all capable of it, it can happen to any of us, we can all be complicit. DON'T. I try to remember, see the good in all people. Mostly I can, it is much harder to imagine in people who terrorized you for years. Do something. I have driven strangers home who were running for their lives, stood up for colleagues at work. Told a young lesbian she does not deserve to be beaten by her parent, stood between abusive young men and their girlfriends to halt an attack. Recently I gave a knee tap with my walking stick to a man who was body slamming his girlfriend on the bus. Quite often this results in the bully, and sometimes the victim turning this in to a homophobic attack on me, but it won't stop me.

In its third official year (fourth counting the original action)  PINK SHIRT DAY is now observed Internationally.

In 2011 PINK SHIRT DAY will return to its usual last Wednesday in February, and be observed February 23 2011. Mark you calendars now! You can keep up to date with plans and events for PINK SHIRT DAY on Facebook.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Luminousity of the week

I have been going to a meditation once a week lately, at  a local library. This week we arrived to find a huge mural covering two walls of the cosy meeting room, which was formerly minimalist austere. By the artist who did this painting - Dana Irving. Some one described it as Emily Carr meets Dr Seuss! The mural is of a wooded scene with a river, trees, this same luminous gold light, the red of tree trunks. It has local creatures raccoons, ladybugs, eagle, crow, squirrels. It's stunning, and has such a fantastic upbeat energy about it. I definitely felt like I had stepped in to a  fantastical red/green/gold world...




                                   wonder 
                                   mural
                                   green trees
                                   red trunks
                                   gold light
                                   listen
                                   teacher 
                                   red and gold 
                                   robed 
                                   orange tea
                                   yellow cup
                                   shirt striped  
                                   yellow, green, blue 
                                   red wheelchair 
                                   eye returning 
                                   to  fellow
                                   meditators pen 
                                   red 
                                   and yellow
                                   next day
                                   hummingbird 
                                   at my window
                                   red
                                   and gold 
                                 

Sunday, April 4, 2010

killing us softly - something in the water?



"There are a number of initiatives that are undertaken in the budget to make sure that we continue to put low-income people on the top of the list." 
-- Premier Gordon Campbell, March 5 2010 (Yeah right Gordo!)

'The poor and the disabled are definitely at the top of the B.C. Liberal government's list -- the hit list for more suffering, that is. The poor and people with HIV and chronic illnesses whacked with more cuts to income and health support'. By Bill Tieleman, 9 Mar 2010, TheTyee.ca

Yes the 'Liberal' provincial government is at it again, announcing last month a further slate of cuts to products and services for people with disabilities, which include no longer funding products like orthotics, glucose monitors, bottled water. Changing eligibility to: dental and medical services; provision, replacement and repair of motorized scooters; nutritional supplements, etc. See more info here.

 The Liberal government seems to have a very short memory, they might have forgotten but we haven't, the 12 people who took their own lives; when their government decided to review everyone receiving disability benefits and make them 're-prove' their disability in 2002 by filling in a 23 page form in conjunction with a GP.  In a province where historically many thousands of people don't even have access to a GP.   Heroes exhibition artist Cleo Pawson hasn't forgotton either, she talks about it (at minute 7.40) along with her art in this interview on Redeye. The government spent millions on the review and saved practically nothing. The form was sent to 18, 750 people, only 47 people were found to not qualify anymore. Ironically it turned out Cleo was more disabled not less disabled,  and subsequently got more assistance that she needed. Photo of  a beaded work she started at the time, which took 6 years to complete. It is stunning, and so detailed.

BC Coalition of People with Disabilities will keep you up to date with BC governments shenanigans. The creepy part is the BC Government does remember. I heard on the grapevine recently, they gave some funding to a small disability arts festival a few years back, and the idea was the provgov would invite people on benefits to come. In the end the provgov decided not to, as they realized, people on disability benefits getting an unexpected envelope in the mail, would FREAK OUT, and think it was something bad again like the benefit review debacle.  

Neither have we forgotten about the 7 people who died, and the hundreds who were made sick, when ecoli contaminated the municipal water supply  in Walkerton Ontario in 2000. That's the reason why people who are immune compromised, don't drink tap water, if the water becomes contaminated, and it will from time to time, they will not just get sick, they are at a risk of dying. Now there were only 4, 800 people living in Walkerton at the time, so those 7 people who died represent more than 1 in 1000.  There are over 2 million people living in metro Vancouver - half of the province's population, which means if our water supply becomes contaminated as it did in 2006 and we are advised not to drink tap water, over 2000 people could die. Which is just over 2/3 of the number who died in the 911 attacks.  I hope when that happens, and it's not a matter of if, but when, that the their loved ones take a class action suit against the  provincial government .

For the record here is a quote from a current document from a Medical Office for a Metro Vancouver municipality: 

'Advisory Re: Drinking Water & Persons Who Are Immunocompromised. The Provincial Health Officer advises all British Columbians with compromised immune systems (such as HIV, organ or bone transplants, chemotherapy or medications that suppress the immune system) to avoid drinking water from any surface water source unless it has been boiled, filtered or distilled.  North Shore, Greater Vancouver and, in fact, nearly all British Columbia water sources are surface water sources (lakes, rivers, streams).' 

Lets not forget the provincial and federal government's failure to provide clean water to many First Nations reserves in Canada, you can keep up to date with progress on that front at Rez Water. Or that half the worlds population is made sick by diseases found in dirty water, that at least 5 million people worldwide die every year from lack of access to clean water.

So lets recap, the provincial government says if you are immune compromised DO NOT drink tap water. They used to pay for you to get purified water, but now they have decided, you can pay for it yourself, out of your insufficient funds, or die. 

For the environmental record, while we are all trying to stop drinking tiny bottles of bottled water which when discarded then pollute the environment. Everyone I know who gets bottled water for health reasons, has a couple 20 litre bottles which they get refilled  ( :

The really sad part is these recent cuts are on top of everything which has been cut by the Liberal provincial government of  B.C, in the past 8 years: Legal Aid, funding to Women's Centres, funding to Seniors Services in the community, daycare subsidies, the BC Human Rights Commission, 50% Arts funding, the list goes on. Stop Arts Cuts on Facebook. You can see just how badly BC is doing in securing the rights of First Nations/women.  So badly the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women wants Canada to report back on how it has improved the situation for women on welfare,  and First Nations women  facing violence in 1 year.

Here's a nice little ditty a timely reminder of the cost of the Olympics - like cutting the budget of the office which investigates the deaths of children. Yep just one of the many places that 8 billion dollars came from.  http://geoffberner.com/Olympicstheme/

Fortunately some people and organizations do give a damn, about making BC a better place to live, and will be demonstrating so on April 10th 2010.