‘And yet’ … Critical questions, complicated conversations: curating a TYA curriculum

ABSTRACT

Can critical questions and complicated conversations addressing issues of representation, difference, and witnessing be positioned at the centre of a TYA curriculum? This article examines contemporary, issue-based and culturally specific TYA scripts. In addition, a collection of aesthetic representations are offered as dynamic prompts to help further provoke dialogue across difference, and to invite different forms of knowing and knowledge into our shared TYA spaces. These curated sources are considered alongside the wisdom of Elie Wiesel, Johnston’s ‘Slow Curation’, Lauzon’s ‘Cultural Intimacy’, and Rothberg’s ‘Multidirectional Memory’ concepts in the effort to welcome and sustain relationships across multiple and challenging contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Theatre for Young Audiences [TYA]
• culturally specific theatre
• representation
• ‘multidirectional memory’
• difference

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 ‘Pogrom is a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” Historically, the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire’, Germany, Poland and eastern Europe. Pogroms were perpetrated for centuries, including through World War II and during the immediate post-war period. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains that ‘the perpetrators of pogroms organized locally, sometimes with government and police encouragement. They raped and murdered their Jewish victims and looted their property’ (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms).

2 I write from York University in Tkaronto/Toronto, which is situated on land that has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Wendat, now home to many First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities. I acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is subject of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region. I also acknowledge that my creative presence here is a privilege and responsibility, not to be taken lightly; and that our research-creation practices are shaped on lands that have a rich history of storytelling before colonization (This excerpt from York’s Land Acknowledgement has been updated with text from Amy Hull, a Mi’kmaw and Inuk dancer and choreographer. She is a graduate of York University’s BFA and MA programs in Dance). Note: many classes in the Department of Theatre & Performance have moved from the recitation of a single ubiquitous Land Acknowledgement at the beginning of term, to a collective and participatory practice in which, each week, students are invited to offer the acknowledgment and locate themselves in relation to the land, specifically.

3 The Canadian Truth & Reconciliation Commission [TRC] operated between 2008 and 2015 and focused on the impact of settler colonialism and the Indian Residential Schools on the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities (TRC Calls to Action 2015). The TRC ‘sought to construct a political response to the injuries inflicted on 150,000 children placed in residential schools over more than a hundred years and on the eighty thousand survivors of this long and sad chapter of history’ (Jaccoud in Alvarez Hernandez 2021, 79). The TRC issued 94 ‘Calls to Action’, which are divided into two distinct categories, Legacy and Reconciliation, respectively. ‘Legacy Calls to Action #1-42 seek to redress systemic inequalities that marginalize Indigenous peoples in Canada’ (Jewell and Mosby 2021, 13). Reconciliation Calls to Action (#43-94) ‘a) advance inclusion of Indigenous peoples in various sectors of society; b) educate Canadian society at large about Indigenous peoples, residential schools, and reconciliation’; and ‘c) establish practices, policies, and actions that affirm Indigenous Rights’ (23).

4 Decolonizing, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion [DEDI] is the nomenclature used by York University.

5 Awasis ᐊᐊᐧᓯᐢ is the Cree word for child (Nehiyaw Masinahikan Online Cree Dictionary).

6 Beyond the TYA scripts featured in this article, my TYA curriculum also includes plays that address immigration, belonging and community, poverty, disability, and gender and sexuality. For example, Roseneath Theatre was the first theatre company in Canada to offer a queer-focused show for each grade level, from kindergarten to Grade 12, in a single season (2017–2018) (Bain 2019) – and two of these scripts are included on our TYA list (Deveau 2020; Dunn 2017). Other playwrights’ work we examined include: Craig 2007; Foon 2019; MacLeod 2002; Moscovitch 2009; Norris 2012; Quintana 2020; Tannahill 2013; Woolley 2017; and Youssef. In addition, I am very grateful to have received permission to access numerous as-yet-unpublished TYA scripts that playwrights generously shared with our class. In researching TYA scripts and performances, I am especially indebted to Andrew Lamb, Roseneath Theatre; Allen MacInnis and Karen Gilodo, Young People’s Theatre; Lynda Hill, WeeFestival of Arts & Culture for Early Years; and Annie Gibson, Playwrights Canada Press. Note: Currently, all but one of the scripts for this TYA course are Canadian. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, American playwright Idris Goodwin wrote and made widely available, his TYA piece, The Water Gun Song (2020). In response, I added Goodwin’s open-source script to our TYA reading list in 2021, as well as a link to its Canadian (online) premiere at Young People’s Theatre (2020).

7 Many non-White and/or often-marginalized artists and theatre companies have expressed their preference for the term ‘culturally specific’ given that ‘culturally diverse’ begs the question, diverse from what/whom … mainstream White culture? For example, Philip Akin, co-founder and Artistic Director of Obsidian Theatre for 14 years, rejects the term ‘culturally diverse’ because ‘it presupposes that there is a common centre and that we, as Black artists, are somehow a kind of an offshoot country cousin to the main theatre … tangential instead of essential and in the main’ (Akin 2019).

8 For example, see the TRC’s Calls to Action 71–76: Missing Children and Burial Information, 333–334.

9 They Know Not What They Do was originally commissioned by the Toronto Catholic District School Board, but the Board never approved Beagan’s script for performance. In addition to its Playwrights Canada Press publication (2018), Ms. Beagan also makes the play available on her website as an open-source script, so that schools may have easy access to it (https://tarabeagan.com).

10 Carey Newman – ‘Kwakwak'awakw from the Kukwekum, Giiksam, and WaWalaby'ie clans of northern Vancouver Island; Coast Salish from Cheam of the Sto:lo Nation along the upper Fraser Valley’; and English, Irish, and Scottish settler heritage – is a ‘multi-disciplinary Indigenous artist, master carver, filmmaker, author and public speaker’. The process of gathering the objects and their stories for The Witness Blanket ‘took artist Carey Newman and his team from coast to coast to coast. They travelled over 200,000 kilometres, visited 77 communities, met over 10,000 people, and welcomed over a thousand objects into their care. Each object has a story to tell, each survivor has something to say. The 90-minute feature documentary film Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket (Newman and Graham 2015) weaves those stories with Carey Newman's personal journey, examining how art can open our hearts to the pain of truth and the beauty of resilience … The makers of the documentary have made it freely available online to share the power of storytelling and testimony during a time of fear, uncertainty, and social isolation. They invite you to bear witness.’ (The Witness Blanket, Shared stewardship of Carey Newman and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights [CMHR], 2015). The Witness Blanket stands approximately ‘12 metres (39 feet) long. The tallest point is over 3 metres (10 feet) high. And when assembled, the 13 panels weigh more than 1.8 tonnes (2 tons)’. (Newman and Hudson, Picking Up the Pieces: residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket, 2019, 17). The CMHR has developed extensive resources to support the teaching of residential schools in Canada. For example, see the following Teacher Guides: https://humanrights.ca/sites/prod/files/2022-06/WB-Teacher-Guide-Classroom-Culture.pdf; https://humanrights.ca/sites/prod/files/2022-06/WB-Teacher-Guide-Building-Empathy.pdf; https://humanrights.ca/sites/prod/files/2022-06/WB-Teacher-Guide-Connecting.pdf; https://humanrights.ca/sites/prod/files/2022-06/WB-Teacher-Guide-Pathways-of-Reconciliation.pdf.

11 The development of an evolving course website signals a change in my practice insofar as the website used to function simply as a repository for course documents (syllabus, schedule, readings, announcements, etc.). Today, the website has a much more dynamic and participatory function. The onset of COVID and the cessation of in-person classes certainly influenced the development of this interactive and reflexive website practice; but given students’ active involvement in curating the shared resources of the TYA website, and its role in supporting ‘dialogue and shared imagining among students, teachers and community’ (Prentki and Stinson 2016, 5), it is a feature that remains, post-COVID.

12 Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers Resource Guide, Tarragon Theatre 2021, 13.

13 Note: Artist Kadir Nelson’s cover artwork, Say Their Names, created for The New Yorker (2020) can be accessed at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2020-06-22. Kadir Nelson has also illustrated and authored numerous children’s books, in addition to his extensive visual art practice.

14 The play was written and performed by Makambe K. Simamba and directed by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard at the Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, Canada (8 March–10 April 2022). It was a Tarragon Theatre/Black Theatre Workshop co-production (based on a world premiere produced by b current) and was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2021.

15 These three prompts are drawn from Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers, and Little Brothers Resource Guide (2020, 13). This guide provides an excellent model of pre- and post-show engagement strategies and dramaturgical sources designed to engage students from a range of different identity/identification positions. It is one of the many remarkable study guides I have collected and shared with the class (note: I’ve also included some lousy-what-not-to-do study guide examples!). In addition to the study guides, scripts and aesthetic prompts, the TYA website provides an extensive bibliography of drama education/applied theatre re/sources.

16 Note: ‘The Progress Report for the National Action Plan honours, and is inclusive of, all Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual Plus (2SLGBTQQIA+) people who are unique and distinct in identities, ancestries, histories, and traditions’ (https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/).

17 For an in-depth discussion of casting, race and the politics and practices of representation in the theatre industry and in post-secondary contexts, see the Canadian Theatre Review’s ‘Casting and Race’ Issue (Núñez et al., Volume 193, Winter 2023).

18 Note: artists Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero’s installation artwork Freeze can be accessed via CBC News (13 March 2019) ‘Freeze: Rebecca Belmore's memorial to Neil Stonechild’: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/freeze-rebecca-belmore-s-memorial-to-neil-stonechild-1.5054592 and through the Remai Modern Gallery (6 February 2019): https://remaimodern.org/art-artists/art-artists-all/freeze-why-this-sculpture-came-to-saskatoon/.

19 ‘The events surrounding Stonechild’s death were similar to other reports, spanning decades … In 2003, the Government of Saskatchewan held a Commission of Inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild. As a result, the two officers involved were terminated, despite their claims of innocence. They were never formally charged’ (Nanibush). Significantly, Freeze had never been mounted in Saskatoon, Canada. However, the ‘artists felt that it was important to show the work where Neil [Stonechild] lived and where the events surrounding his death have had a deep and lasting impact. … Belmore offered her reflections on the work in light of the community’s response: The letters in Freeze are etched out, they are made of air – they are there and they are not there. The sun, the wind and the coming spring will melt the ice, and the blocks will topple, potentially making other letters visible for a short time. The ice will eventually become water and his name will be free. This work was not intended to be a monument, it was meant to make very clear how Neil Stonechild lost his life. Perhaps this time-based work, a sculpture made of ice, could be a starting point for a discussion about monuments. Should Saskatoon have a lasting monument for those who lost their lives in this way?’ (Remai Modern, 6 February 2019. See also Jen Budney in Wordless, 2019b, 27)

20 ‘And yet’. ‘Those are my two favorite words, applicable to every situation, be it happy or bleak. The sun is rising? And yet it will set. A night of anguish? And yet it too, will pass. The important thing is to shun resignation, to refuse to wallow in sterile fatalism’ (All Rivers Run to the Sea, 1995, 16).

21 Jani Lauzon adopted the naming convention of ‘Cultural Intimacy’ training as a corollary to physical ‘Intimacy Training’ – which involves ‘opening the door for the actors’ vulnerability, supporting their individual processes, and equipping them with the tools needed to effectively tell the story in a safe and sustainable way, while ‘allowing the actors to state their boundaries’’ (Derr 2020).

22 Lauzon articulated her conception of ‘Cultural Intimacy’ as part of a panel discussion for York University’s ‘(Re)Setting the Stage: The Past, Present, and Future of Casting Practices in Canada’ (2021). The panel was one of a series of three events designed to ‘respond to the urgent need to address systemic racism in Canadian theatre … [and] to the call for greater transparency and accountability in creative practices, including (but not limited to) casting decisions and play selection within the Canadian theatre industry. The aim was to bring together professional artists to reflect on the harmful legacy of casting practices and to build towards a better, more equitable, future’ (Schweitzer [Principal Investigator], Núñez and Robinson [Co-Investigators] 2021). In 2023, Lauzon and her National Theatre School [NTS] colleagues, Quincy Armorer and Alisa Palmer, again contributed to these ongoing deliberations: ‘[w]e are faced with the task of navigating the current concerns of appreciation versus appropriation, and who has the ‘right’ to explore and embody characters that are culturally specific. In a healthy context, casting can be an incredible opportunity for artistic growth. It offers the artist a chance to experience the world from other perspectives. But how do we support the concerns of students who feel discomfort in embodying a character not of their race, or those who have been disconnected from their heritage and who experience shame in not knowing?’ (‘Contemplating racial casting at the National Theatre School’ in Dobbie, 2023, 52).

23 Facing History & Ourselves offers extensive programs and materials with which to engage students in developing ‘questions, interpretations, and connections’. These three prompts are located in their ‘Materials for Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior’ Collection (https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/holocaust-human-behavior), and they are also a part of their Media and Strategies for Teaching Enrique’s Journey (https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/text-text-text-self-text-world), which explores ‘identity, belonging, and choices by asking students to consider the ways in which human migration can affect newcomers and their descendants, as well as their countries of origin and the countries where they settle’ (https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-enriques-journey).

24 Marcus Youssef’s Jabber (2015) focuses on Fatima, a young Muslim, hijab-wearing (‘jabber’) teenager, who, ‘like so many kids caught between cultures … both honours and resents her differences’. Because of anti-Muslim graffiti posted on the walls of her old school, Fatima’s parents insist that she transfer to a new school. The play explores peer expectations, assumptions, relationships, identity, and cross-cultural understanding, while providing ‘an opportunity for the audience to break down their preconceptions about Muslim faith and community’ through the lens of Fatima’s experiences (Jabber, Foreword).

25 Lisa Nasson’s Mischief (2021) narrates the story of Brooke, an Indigenous youth activist in Halifax who ‘is questioned by authorities’ after the colonial statue of racist Edward Cornwallis is defaced. Brooke ‘defends her actions while being interrogated in a police station. Inspired by true events, Brooke takes the audience and the hawk-like policewoman through the historical context of Mi’kmaq oppression’ (Roseneath Theatre).

26 The ‘Project of Heart’ invites students to research specific Indian Residential schools, in order to devise ‘gestures of Reconciliation’. Participants are invited to create designs on small wooden commemorative tiles (which are subsequently collectively installed) in memory or honour of Indigenous residential school students (Wallace-Casey 2022, 11). The ‘Heart from Auschwitz’ (2018) invites participants to examine and respond to a small handmade birthday card created in Auschwitz (1944) – its material conditions, the context of its making, and the resistance it represents. Participants are invited to create and inscribe their own hearts, and to determine with whom they will share it, and why.

27 See Zatzman’s ‘Difficult Knowledge in Theatre for Young Audiences: Remembering and Representing the Holocaust’ (2015), and ‘Fifty-one Suitcases: Traces of Hana Brady and the Terezin Children’ (2008).

28 Note: artist Fabio Mauri’s suitcase installation, Western or Wailing Wall (1993) can be accessed at: https://en.fabiomauri.com/works/installations/muro-occidentale-o-del-pianto.html?g=muro-occidentale-o-del-pianto#gallery-1 as well as in Monica Bohm-Duchen’s After Auschwitz: Responses to the Holocaust in Contemporary Art, 1995, 121; 137; 152–153. Mauri’s installation is constructed of leather suitcases, wood, and canvas; and measures 4 m × 4 m × 80 cm (13 ft 1 ½ in × 13 ft 1 ½ in × 2 ft 7 ½ in). [Artist’s Collection, Rome (Col. Fig. 67)].