Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Queer Theatre is Visionary Theatre
HowlRound Theatre Commons: “We are in an imagination battle.” I wrote these words down last week while I was reading Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown. brown states that, as a queer Black woman, she often feels as if she is “trapped inside someone else’s imagination” and that she “must engage [her] own imagination to break free.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Queer communities and queer theater communities are few and far between. It's hard to create safe spaces for such a marginalized group of people, since we are in such a privileged industry that is difficult to even break into in the first place. I really like the idea of this theater festival, specifically the no reviews policy to take the focus off of being commercially successful. it's so hard to be commercially successful in this industry, and often we end up sacrificing the art in lieu of commercial appeal, like taking away some of the more weird and experimental aspects, that may just be the most innovative. The united states is the worst at this, worse than any other country, but it's interesting to see a Canadian perspective. Making theater that is controversial and tells marginalized stories is so hard to find funding for, so this theater company fills a must needed space in the industry as a whole.
I appreciate this authors effort put into talking about the diversities within the queer theater culture. I am also glad to hear about not only the beautiful amount of queer theater being created, but also on the experience of it. It truly does almost feel futuristic, being in queer spaces. Belonging, and a happiness which is shiny and new, you can hear it in so many individual voices, finding a freedom for themselves. There is something so beautiful which is created in trans dictated spaces, and it very much has to do with what this artist references, in the constant “imagination battle”. As people who live in defining a grey zone, Queers find colours others don’t see, and are released to let things out that others don't even feel the pressure of being held back. I remember the first time in which I had surrounded myself by queer people for a long enough time, that I didn’t even think of it, leaving the space was always a surprise. New York is a special place in this sense, and I am glad to know Toronto is somewhere I can go and learn a new way in which the queer imagination has been driven.
Post a Comment