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Hi, I'm Jimmy Blat and welcome to episode two of Inside Imigo.
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We're recording on the unceded First Nation and Indigenous lands of Dojoke.
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As uninvited guests of the Gunya Gahaga, Huron Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabe, Imigo Theatre
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is privileged and grateful to live and work on these lands, and Imigo is committed to
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connecting and working with First Nation and Indigenous artists and arts workers to make
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space for their story in order to create a greater understanding of what living here
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now really means.
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Today I'm speaking with Yvette Nolan, playwright, director, and dramatist.
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Her works include The Unplugging, The Dance Opera Bearing, The Libretto Shana Didit,
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The Short Play for Film Catharsis, and the audio plays Lash Pala Patat and You Can Get
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There From Here.
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From 2003 to 2011, she was the artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts.
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Her book Medicine Shows about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada
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Press in 2015.
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She's currently the company dramaturg for some theatre in Saskatoon.
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Yvette will be here in Montreal to direct The Flood by Leah Simone Bowen with Imigo
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Theatre and Mizu Shobai by Julie Tumiko Manning with Tablodote Theatre.
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She will also be working with Geordie Theatre on a play called To the Power of Jordan.
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I've had the pleasure to call Yvette dramaturg on two of my plays, Wardo and Feather Gardens,
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and we will be working on the third, Power of Jordan, coming soon.
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Hi, Yvette.
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Hi, Jimmy.
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How are you?
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I am well.
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How are you?
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I'm doing well, thanks.
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I'm doing well.
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It's just cool that we get to do this in this way again.
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I know, although I am getting a little bit tired of the electronic relationship, but
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at some point we'll be in the same room.
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I hope so.
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So this is the Yvette is Coming to Town podcast.
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Yvette is Coming to Montreal podcast.
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It's good.
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Yeah, you have a bunch of stuff that's Montreal related and anchored in the city.
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I actually wanted to ask you, what's your relationship with this city?
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When's the first time you worked here?
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I don't recall when I actually worked there.
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I remember going for a playwrights union of Canada, AGM, the first time to the city and
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being overwhelmed by the city because Montreal is such a fantastic place.
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And then I've done some work with Playwrights Workshop Montreal over the years, workshops
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and things dropping in for that.
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And I'm working with Tim Brady on an opera, an electronic, an opera about AI in Montreal.
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So I've been there workshopping that.
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It feels like I've had a long-going relationship with Montreal.
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Philip and I drove from Whitehorse to Montreal to see FTA, to see shows at FTA and then drove
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back.
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So we would use me.
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You drove.
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Yeah, I know.
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It was like our holiday.
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We're going to FTA.
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So we'll spend seven days driving to Montreal and then see a couple of shows.
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It was hilarious because tickets would be would cost us 200 bucks and the trip itself
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would cost us like two thousand dollars.
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People would be like, aren't tickets for FTA expensive?
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And I was like, I guess.
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Yeah, compared to the trip and trek we just took.
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Right.
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That's so cool.
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Well, I can speak from the entire city of Montreal when I say that we're super stoked
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to have you frequenting our town in the next, I guess, year.
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I think the first thing is the flood, right?
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That brings you here.
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No, the first thing is Misu Shobai.
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Julie, Julie, Tomiko Manning's play, which goes in the fall.
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And I was there last summer doing a workshop with Tabla Dote, but also with the company
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of actors in order to, you know, get ready for a production this year.
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So that's I'm there in September.
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So I'm there from like Labor Day till just after Thanksgiving.
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And then I'm back at the beginning of the new year with the with the flood at Imago.
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With Misu Shobai.
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Like I did some quick research about this woman.
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But can you just like, can you unpack it and break it down for us?
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Because what I find super fascinating about this project, about the flood and about the
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project that we'll eventually work on together is that we're all talking about stories that
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are stemming from people, real people, real life, real people.
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Yeah, it's true.
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Misu Shobai is about based on a Japanese woman who came from Japan to North America,
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looking for her father, ended up staying, ended up in B.C., ended up in internment camps.
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But it's it's a bit Albertine and five times like the the play is five is is Kyoko at
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five different ages, but they're all on stage together.
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And so it's interesting.
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It's a real examination of how we evolve as human beings.
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And she you know, there's tape of this of Julie source material speaking in Japanese,
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telling this story that was then translated and transcribed.
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And then Julie, you know, took that story and blew it up and did the thing that artists
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do, which is, you know, turn the page into like theatrical on stage action.
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So yeah, that's a real story.
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The flood is based on the on the women's prison underneath St. Lawrence Market in Toronto,
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where they kept women.
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And then when there was a flood, they never let the women out and they all died.
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And of course, you and I are working on to the power of Jordan, which is about Jordan
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River Anderson.
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And so but don't you think those are the stories like those are the things that matter right
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now that we are unearthing histories that have been buried, sometimes literally, you
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know, whether internment camps or under the ground at St. Lawrence Market and looking
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at them in order to figure out what we can learn from them and how we move forward from
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here.
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Yeah, I agree.
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I think there's like this.
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I don't know if I don't know if you see it, but I feel like there's this weird trend these
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days.
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Yeah.
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So as a society, there's this focus on the advancement of technology.
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There's this great Marshall McLuhan quote that I love to go back to is that humans are
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the sex organs of the machine world.
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And so there's this there's this constant advancement of technology.
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And so there's this idea behind like there's this idea that we are wherever we are in time,
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we are by far the most advanced we've ever been.
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And there's an erasure of history, I think that comes with that.
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And so when I think about unearthing stories, I really I think about how wrong that present
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day thinking is, and how there's way more value, I think, in, in going back and learning
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from what has happened, because what has happened, own so much more of a piece of history than
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what we're talking about in terms of technology and the advancement of humankind.
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Well, and we know that the technology is I mean, I was watching the news last night and
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and you know, being terrified by the guy from Google, who is the grandfather of AI who has
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quit because he's worried that the technology is now smarter than us.
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In which case, the thing we've always struggled with, especially us as indigenous artists,
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especially me as a as a woman is like who gets to tell the story.
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So what stories are privileged.
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And if we give up that power to technology to the artificial intelligence to the algorithm,
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then there's, you know, there's an argument that everything will be available.
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But I think there's also an argument that, you know, everything is manipulatable.
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And so we'd end up we end up being told whatever narrative is going to a be commercialized,
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be in the be in the hands of people like Trump, speaking of like those two articles on the
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news last night, Trump in his town hall, and you know, AI tape being smarter than us.
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I'm like, oh, this is this is a really bad combination.
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It's super scary.
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It's really scary.
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So I think you're right.
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These are the stories.
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These are the these are the stories that will hold, I think, enough power or more power
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for us to be able to to find some light in there.
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I think.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And we come from both of us come from cultures that were not written down.
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We come from oral oral traditions, where our stories are kept inside our stories, like
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our teachings and our laws and our taboos are all inside our stories that our grandparents
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teach us.
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And that's how we hang on to information, because, you know, when the power goes out
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and we lose the interweb and everything that we've stored in there, we have to know things
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inside our hearts and our heads.
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Oh, I think about that all the time.
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I think about like what's what's going to be left of us?
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What will be left of us when, you know, all of this deteriorates in, you know, in the
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next couple of hundred years or whenever it is that we're no longer around?
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Ironically, it will be Shakespeare because he's written down.
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Right.
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And the rest of us who didn't bother writing anything down in this century will disappear.
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Oh, man.
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That's yeah, that spends way too much time in my brain.
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Like that's much real estate in there.
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So in just reading up on the flood, like I was surprised.
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And I think many people listening to this and many people who who will come see the
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show who haven't read the play were surprised to hear that there is an actual prison under
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the St. Lawrence Market.
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It's the first prison of Toronto.
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Yeah, I know.
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It's crazy.
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And so the flood, you know, looks at who gets imprisoned.
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Right.
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And it's and the women who are in prison under like literally underneath the floorboards
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of the St. Lawrence Market are not necessarily criminals, but have been criminalized for
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one reason or another, because they're indigenous, because they're black, because they they've
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been selling their body to eat because like because their family didn't want to take care
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of them anymore because they're they've been disabled in some way.
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And how easy it is to disappear the people who we the society think thinks is undesirable.
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The unwanted, the unwanted.
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Unwanted.
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Yeah.
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And we just bury them.
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But that hasn't stopped.
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Right.
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Look at our prisons now.
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And who's in prison?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, obviously, disproportionate number of black and indigenous people in our prisons
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today.
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But the play kind of gathers inspiration from multiple people, character stories throughout
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history and places them in this this underground, under market prison.
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Yeah.
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An underground where the women have to, as we do, form some kind of society, some kind
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of because we're social creatures.
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We can't help but be in relationship to each other.
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It's a and it sounds so bleak and and yet there are still hope in it.
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There is still joy in it.
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Leah's done Leah Simone Bowen, the playwright, has done some fantastic heightened stuff with
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it.
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There's a one of the things when we were doing auditions with actors, one of the things we
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did was read a scene that is like the guard becomes kind of a master of ceremonies and
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he's and he's running the basement prison like a like a freak show and charging publics
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to come and look at the women and they have to perform whatever their criminal itness
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is.
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And it's horrible, but also fantastic, funny.
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I mean, circuses, right?
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Like it's the whole circus is is such a great framing device for this kind of another place
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where people who had no place to go ended up.
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And so there's a there's kind of an echo in there, but it's also, you know, they they're
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singing there's there's dancing.
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There's kind of magic inside of it.
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Yeah, it's I mean, I've been waiting to direct this play.
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I worked on it dramaturgically years ago and always wanted to direct it.
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So it's one of those plays that I take around and drop it artistic directors feed and go,
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how about this one?
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How about this one?
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And when Krista took over Imago, she was here working in Saskatoon on Shakespeare.
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And she said, so what should I be reading?
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Are there any plays I should be reading?
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And I said, how about this one?
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And I gave it to her.
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And then she called me and said, yeah, like this one, do you want to direct it?
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I'm like, yes, finally, someone is asking me to direct the play that I want to direct.
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Oh, man.
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Yeah, there's something there's something really interesting about the balance between
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how heavy it can get as a play and then the the inspirational moments and the moments
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where you do find light in things.
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And that just when reading through it, I I started to wonder what as a playwright, as
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a dramaturg, as a as a director, what you hope people today will hold on to and grasp
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on to like what who are the folks that you feel like would be impacted most by this and
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what are they hanging on to?
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I think everyone feels othered in some way right now.
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Everyone feels marginalized or oppressed or silenced in some way right now.
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And and part of that is like where we are in a society as a society, where we are in
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identity politics, how polarized we are politically, that everyone is feeling othered in some way.
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And so when we when we do stories like this, I think people get to be empathetic to other
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people and then we can start to see a way forward altogether.
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We can start to see we can start to see that we are all human and we are all dependent
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on each other.
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We're all connected to each other and that everything is connected.
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And so for an audience member to come out of something like the flood and go, I didn't
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know that.
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And maybe that makes them curious enough to go and look up things on the Google machine
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while we still have the Internet.
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And that leads them down some rabbit hole and then they start looking at all kinds of
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other things.
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And then maybe I mean, maybe it moves them to action or not.
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Maybe it just moves them to empathy, which is good in this world.
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But I think any chance we get to, like I say, unearth those stories to show people the things
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that have been disappeared for so long, then we start to get a sense of who we are as as
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you know, as a country, who we are as a bunch of people living together on this land.
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And.
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And that, I think, is is a way forward.
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Yeah, that's that's the fire that keeps me going anyway, is that hope that that's what
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happens in that room on that specific night and it will continue to happen.
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I'd like to just talk a little bit more about Mizushou by if we can, like the flood where
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I was unaware of this prison underneath the St. Lawrence Market.
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I was also less aware, I would say, or maybe a little bit less surprised, but still it
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was it was new to me, a knowledge to me, this idea of Japanese picture brides and that reality.
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And then the really fascinating trajectory that this woman took in her life to be able
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to not not take advantage of what what she what she had in front of her, but she made
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a new life for herself in a completely unexpected way, I think.
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Yeah. And and just resilience. Right.
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So again, for me, another story like I'm you know, the play is a play about a Japanese
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woman. The playwright is Japanese, Canadian, all the actors are Japanese.
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They're we're we're you know, we're working hard.
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Tablidote is working hard to bring in as many Japanese Canadian artists, but also Asian
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artists like just and I'm an indigenous director directing this, which is so like, what is
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my empathy with this?
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But it's about it's about making a life for yourself and being resilient in spite of everything
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that happens to you.
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And so that journey starts to parallel the indigenous journey, you know, being hated
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in a land, being people wanting to people treating you for the way you look as opposed
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or you know, where you come from, as opposed to who you actually are.
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So thinking about the internment and, you know, survival and just like I you can't get
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rid of me like you can't get rid of me as an indigenous person.
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We can't get rid of making air quotes of immigration.
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The fact that this country used people to use people from other countries to I'm making
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air quotes again, build this nation and yet didn't give them all of the rights and privileges
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of everybody else.
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And all of that, in fact, took it away from them right in internment, like in that period
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of time, taking away the things that people had rightfully built for themselves.
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And I think this idea of Canada, who we are, we has to be challenged, not just in the way
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we treat the people who were here first, but in the way we treat the people who came after.
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And if we're going to actually think about who we want to be living here together, then
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these are the kinds of stories that we need to tell.
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And she had what a fantastic story.
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Like it's also such a hopeful thing about it is she would meet an obstacle and she would
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just go, okay, I'm going to do this over under around.
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And as you say, reinvent herself, right?
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Reinvent herself with what she had and keep moving forward to become fully self-actualized
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as a human being.
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Yeah, I think that's as you're speaking, I think I just think about what that means in
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Quebec today.
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Out of all places in the country is like what it means to reinvent yourself in a place that
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is forcing you to do that with new bills that are being passed.
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And I think there's a lot of similarities to us or to the government, at least being
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very welcoming, I'll use your air quotes, being very welcoming to immigrants or refugees
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seekers and understanding the economic impact that they have on our society.
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But then in Quebec placing such limiting boundaries around how they are to live and how they are
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to set the tracks for their new life.
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I mean, you could draw parallels all day with that.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And thinking about abundance, you know, like this land is still a land very much of abundance
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and there is enough for everyone here.
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But who gets to say who has access to the abundance that is around us?
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That's a question.
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And, you know, we always talk about people say it about us as indigenous people, but
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they say it about immigrants and refugees and newcomers about just pulling ourselves
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up by our bootstraps.
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And it's like, that's kind of simplistic because it's not like we all have the same access
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to the bootstraps or boots altogether, even boots.
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So Mizu Shobai is in October.
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The flood is in February.
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Correct.
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And the flood is taking place at the Centaur.
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Correct.
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And then in the fall of 2024, Geordie and Evette will be joining forces to bring a story
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about Jordan River Anderson to the power of Jordan.
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You know, what's interesting is that I think a lot of people who live close to in direct
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proximity with an indigenous community might have heard about Jordan River Anderson, probably
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heard about Jordan's principle, maybe if anything.
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But a lot of people that I talked to and tell this idea to have never heard of Jordan.
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Which is amazing, right?
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It's also how I think this is, you know, we talked earlier about technology.
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I think this is one of the effects, the side effects, the collateral damage of technology
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is that we don't remember things.
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We don't, you know, the news cycle turns over so quickly that things are lost.
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Like it was only just recently that the government came down with a decision on, you know, support
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for indigenous children in care, which is, which goes back to Jordan and Jordan's principle.
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But if people don't know that it's, you know, how do we know where we're going if we don't
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know where we've come?
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And Jordan, the way Jordan was treated when he was in care in his short, short life.
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And then the champions, his family, Cindy Blackstock, who made sure that that was not
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going to happen again, that indigenous children would get the kind of support and care that
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they need, which has been years in the making.
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And I can't, and that people don't even know that now can't forget is another reason for
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us to make this story, right?
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To, to, as we talked about you and I, when we started the project, that we think that
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Jordan is a superhero because even in his short life, he made change, not just for himself,
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not just for his family, but for the whole country and for all indigenous children that
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come after it's not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination.
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But when this decision came down, I saw Cindy Blackstock smile for the first time on the
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news and I was like, wow, we've totally won if Cindy is smiling.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's, this is why we do art, right?
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This is why it's because these things can exist in a way when people have forgotten
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the news cycle.
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Yeah, because the news cycle is, is by design shifting and changing, you know, day over
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day at most, maybe, you know, we get a couple of weeks of something, but then there's a
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new thing that, you know, we were, we're exposed to and the media jumps on.
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So I'd say I'd argue that the system is designed for us to have, you know, short-term memory
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loss.
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You know, and this, and that's a fight.
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It's a fight.
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It wasn't, you know, it didn't just last years and years.
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It was a struggle to fight the government and to, and to force them to put this into
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place.
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I'm happy that we're, we're going to get to do it.
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And then people are going to learn about it.
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I am too, that people get to learn about it.
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And again, it's another story that's tough, but joyful, right?
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Like it's tough.
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And I think it, it, it's a way of honoring that short life and that strong spirit that
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can go forward for everybody.
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Yeah.
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You talk, you're talking about AI, like your AI, I need to know more about your AI opera
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because I am obsessed with AI.
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Like I'm, I, um, I've been starting to read, read, read up about it.
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Um, like early to late nineties kind of theory around AI.
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And then I'm, I'm, my plan is to, is to catch up with, um, with the development up until
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this point, but like something like AGI is like that to me is, is very, very frightening.
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I know that people talk about the potential and what, what, yeah, but I, I don't have
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enough faith in, um, in humanity to think that we're going to come out of this.
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Uh, yeah, at all, maybe.
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Uh, so I, you know, I don't know if we do this here or somewhere else, but I need, we
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need to talk about it because I want to write a play.
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I want to, I think I want to write a play about it.
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I want to write a play about the intersection between, I don't know if you're already doing
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this, but if you are, then I just, I'll let me be a part of it.
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Please.
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The intersection between AI and indigenous, right.
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Um, indigenous storytelling culture, um, like, like the idea of like first and, and what
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I'm, what might be last, I don't know.
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Like how that intertwined is fascinating to me.
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Yeah.
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So I mean, Tim Brady, who is the composer and I, I'm writing libretto and we've had
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a workshop, we've done 10 minutes of like a workshop presentation so we can move forward
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with it.
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But in the last six months or so, my piece is a kind of post-apocalyptic and the AI,
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it's a little bit shades of Blade Runner, the AI and the, and the humans like decades
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ago, the humans banished the AI because they were, because they were afraid of them because
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they got too smart.
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And so they've been living apart, but in an apocalyptic climate apocalypse, the humans
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come running to the AI and then they have to figure out if they can live together.
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And uh, but Tim and I, you know, when we started the project, we were in one reality and right
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now every day we're sending each other AI stuff and about, and sort of going, where
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are we in our story?
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Is our story still the same?
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Because, because everything is changing so much.
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So it's a constant, it's a constant conversation we're having with, hey, I essentially, because
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we get all of our information off, you know, the technology.
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It's very weird and very strange.
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In my infatuation with it, saw, um, one kind of, um, timeline prediction, uh, and it went
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through, you know, decade by decade where we would be at with AI.
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And ultimately I think by the year, it was the year, uh, 20, 20, uh, 100, there would
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be AI and AI, uh, and, and humans who weren't fully human anymore, they have incorporated
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AI into the, into their beings.
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And so they're kind of like, you know, hybrid humans.
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And then, uh, there would be everybody else, like a very small minority who have decided
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to live without AI and they'd be placed on reserves.
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Right.
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Right.
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Uh, we just, the more we, you know, the more we go around, the more we come around again.
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It's like nothing is new.
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We just change the players.
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I know.
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I know.
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Uh, anyway, um, we'll get into that later on another call in part two of the podcast.
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Um, I want to, uh, celebrate, um, the event Nolan Montreal tour, 20, 23, 24 tour, um,
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and invite everybody who's listening to, to keep track and to, um, follow the projects
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that you're working on because I think all of them have, have really strong stories behind
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them and, uh, with you running the show, I think there would be, there could be something
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special.
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Thanks so much, Jimmy.
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I'm looking forward to it.
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This is the come test out Montreal is a possible future year for me.
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Oh, I will bring you on.
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I will, I will be your tour guide.
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I'm sure you've seen a lot of places, but I know some nooks and crannies that will,
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that might just put you over the edge.
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Oh, it'd be so good.
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All right.
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Thanks.
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Thanks, Jimmy.
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Talk soon.
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Thank you for joining us for Inside Imago and thank you to Yvette Nolan for spending this
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time with us.
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I've been your host, Jimmy Blair.
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The music that we've been listening to is beginning written and performed by Quinn Dooley,
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a Montreal actress and musician.
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Visit imagotheatre.ca for more information about the flood and tablodote.ca to learn
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more about Mitsuh Shobai and coming soon, Geordie.ca for more information on the power
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of Jordan.
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This episode was produced and edited by Danareh Abashek.
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Talk with you soon.
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Hi, I'm Jimmy Blat and welcome to episode two of Inside Imigo.
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We're recording on the unceded First Nation and Indigenous lands of Dojoke.
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As uninvited guests of the Gunya Gahaga, Huron Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabe, Imigo Theatre
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is privileged and grateful to live and work on these lands, and Imigo is committed to
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connecting and working with First Nation and Indigenous artists and arts workers to make
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space for their story in order to create a greater understanding of what living here
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now really means.
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Today I'm speaking with Yvette Nolan, playwright, director, and dramatist.
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Her works include The Unplugging, The Dance Opera Bearing, The Libretto Shana Didit,
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The Short Play for Film Catharsis, and the audio plays Lash Pala Patat and You Can Get
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There From Here.
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From 2003 to 2011, she was the artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts.
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Her book Medicine Shows about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada
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Press in 2015.
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She's currently the company dramaturg for some theatre in Saskatoon.
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Yvette will be here in Montreal to direct The Flood by Leah Simone Bowen with Imigo
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Theatre and Mizu Shobai by Julie Tumiko Manning with Tablodote Theatre.
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She will also be working with Geordie Theatre on a play called To the Power of Jordan.
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I've had the pleasure to call Yvette dramaturg on two of my plays, Wardo and Feather Gardens,
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and we will be working on the third, Power of Jordan, coming soon.
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Hi, Yvette.
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Hi, Jimmy.
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How are you?
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I am well.
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How are you?
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I'm doing well, thanks.
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I'm doing well.
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It's just cool that we get to do this in this way again.
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I know, although I am getting a little bit tired of the electronic relationship, but
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at some point we'll be in the same room.
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I hope so.
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So this is the Yvette is Coming to Town podcast.
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Yvette is Coming to Montreal podcast.
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It's good.
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Yeah, you have a bunch of stuff that's Montreal related and anchored in the city.
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I actually wanted to ask you, what's your relationship with this city?
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When's the first time you worked here?
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I don't recall when I actually worked there.
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I remember going for a playwrights union of Canada, AGM, the first time to the city and
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being overwhelmed by the city because Montreal is such a fantastic place.
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And then I've done some work with Playwrights Workshop Montreal over the years, workshops
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and things dropping in for that.
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And I'm working with Tim Brady on an opera, an electronic, an opera about AI in Montreal.
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So I've been there workshopping that.
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It feels like I've had a long-going relationship with Montreal.
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Philip and I drove from Whitehorse to Montreal to see FTA, to see shows at FTA and then drove
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back.
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So we would use me.
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You drove.
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Yeah, I know.
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It was like our holiday.
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We're going to FTA.
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So we'll spend seven days driving to Montreal and then see a couple of shows.
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It was hilarious because tickets would be would cost us 200 bucks and the trip itself
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would cost us like two thousand dollars.
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People would be like, aren't tickets for FTA expensive?
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And I was like, I guess.
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Yeah, compared to the trip and trek we just took.
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Right.
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That's so cool.
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Well, I can speak from the entire city of Montreal when I say that we're super stoked
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to have you frequenting our town in the next, I guess, year.
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I think the first thing is the flood, right?
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That brings you here.
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No, the first thing is Misu Shobai.
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Julie, Julie, Tomiko Manning's play, which goes in the fall.
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And I was there last summer doing a workshop with Tabla Dote, but also with the company
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of actors in order to, you know, get ready for a production this year.
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So that's I'm there in September.
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So I'm there from like Labor Day till just after Thanksgiving.
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And then I'm back at the beginning of the new year with the with the flood at Imago.
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With Misu Shobai.
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Like I did some quick research about this woman.
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But can you just like, can you unpack it and break it down for us?
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Because what I find super fascinating about this project, about the flood and about the
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project that we'll eventually work on together is that we're all talking about stories that
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are stemming from people, real people, real life, real people.
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Yeah, it's true.
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Misu Shobai is about based on a Japanese woman who came from Japan to North America,
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looking for her father, ended up staying, ended up in B.C., ended up in internment camps.
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But it's it's a bit Albertine and five times like the the play is five is is Kyoko at
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five different ages, but they're all on stage together.
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And so it's interesting.
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It's a real examination of how we evolve as human beings.
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And she you know, there's tape of this of Julie source material speaking in Japanese,
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telling this story that was then translated and transcribed.
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And then Julie, you know, took that story and blew it up and did the thing that artists
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do, which is, you know, turn the page into like theatrical on stage action.
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So yeah, that's a real story.
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The flood is based on the on the women's prison underneath St. Lawrence Market in Toronto,
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where they kept women.
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And then when there was a flood, they never let the women out and they all died.
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And of course, you and I are working on to the power of Jordan, which is about Jordan
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River Anderson.
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And so but don't you think those are the stories like those are the things that matter right
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now that we are unearthing histories that have been buried, sometimes literally, you
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know, whether internment camps or under the ground at St. Lawrence Market and looking
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at them in order to figure out what we can learn from them and how we move forward from
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here.
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Yeah, I agree.
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I think there's like this.
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I don't know if I don't know if you see it, but I feel like there's this weird trend these
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days.
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Yeah.
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So as a society, there's this focus on the advancement of technology.
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There's this great Marshall McLuhan quote that I love to go back to is that humans are
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the sex organs of the machine world.
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And so there's this there's this constant advancement of technology.
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And so there's this idea behind like there's this idea that we are wherever we are in time,
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we are by far the most advanced we've ever been.
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And there's an erasure of history, I think that comes with that.
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And so when I think about unearthing stories, I really I think about how wrong that present
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day thinking is, and how there's way more value, I think, in, in going back and learning
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from what has happened, because what has happened, own so much more of a piece of history than
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what we're talking about in terms of technology and the advancement of humankind.
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Well, and we know that the technology is I mean, I was watching the news last night and
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and you know, being terrified by the guy from Google, who is the grandfather of AI who has
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quit because he's worried that the technology is now smarter than us.
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In which case, the thing we've always struggled with, especially us as indigenous artists,
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especially me as a as a woman is like who gets to tell the story.
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So what stories are privileged.
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And if we give up that power to technology to the artificial intelligence to the algorithm,
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then there's, you know, there's an argument that everything will be available.
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But I think there's also an argument that, you know, everything is manipulatable.
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And so we'd end up we end up being told whatever narrative is going to a be commercialized,
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be in the be in the hands of people like Trump, speaking of like those two articles on the
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news last night, Trump in his town hall, and you know, AI tape being smarter than us.
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I'm like, oh, this is this is a really bad combination.
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It's super scary.
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It's really scary.
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So I think you're right.
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These are the stories.
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These are the these are the stories that will hold, I think, enough power or more power
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for us to be able to to find some light in there.
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I think.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And we come from both of us come from cultures that were not written down.
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We come from oral oral traditions, where our stories are kept inside our stories, like
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our teachings and our laws and our taboos are all inside our stories that our grandparents
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teach us.
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And that's how we hang on to information, because, you know, when the power goes out
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and we lose the interweb and everything that we've stored in there, we have to know things
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inside our hearts and our heads.
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Oh, I think about that all the time.
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I think about like what's what's going to be left of us?
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What will be left of us when, you know, all of this deteriorates in, you know, in the
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next couple of hundred years or whenever it is that we're no longer around?
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Ironically, it will be Shakespeare because he's written down.
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Right.
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And the rest of us who didn't bother writing anything down in this century will disappear.
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Oh, man.
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That's yeah, that spends way too much time in my brain.
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Like that's much real estate in there.
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So in just reading up on the flood, like I was surprised.
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And I think many people listening to this and many people who who will come see the
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show who haven't read the play were surprised to hear that there is an actual prison under
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the St. Lawrence Market.
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It's the first prison of Toronto.
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Yeah, I know.
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It's crazy.
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And so the flood, you know, looks at who gets imprisoned.
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Right.
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And it's and the women who are in prison under like literally underneath the floorboards
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of the St. Lawrence Market are not necessarily criminals, but have been criminalized for
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one reason or another, because they're indigenous, because they're black, because they they've
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been selling their body to eat because like because their family didn't want to take care
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of them anymore because they're they've been disabled in some way.
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And how easy it is to disappear the people who we the society think thinks is undesirable.
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The unwanted, the unwanted.
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Unwanted.
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Yeah.
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And we just bury them.
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But that hasn't stopped.
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Right.
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Look at our prisons now.
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And who's in prison?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, obviously, disproportionate number of black and indigenous people in our prisons
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today.
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But the play kind of gathers inspiration from multiple people, character stories throughout
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history and places them in this this underground, under market prison.
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Yeah.
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An underground where the women have to, as we do, form some kind of society, some kind
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of because we're social creatures.
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We can't help but be in relationship to each other.
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It's a and it sounds so bleak and and yet there are still hope in it.
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There is still joy in it.
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Leah's done Leah Simone Bowen, the playwright, has done some fantastic heightened stuff with
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it.
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There's a one of the things when we were doing auditions with actors, one of the things we
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did was read a scene that is like the guard becomes kind of a master of ceremonies and
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he's and he's running the basement prison like a like a freak show and charging publics
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to come and look at the women and they have to perform whatever their criminal itness
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is.
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And it's horrible, but also fantastic, funny.
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I mean, circuses, right?
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Like it's the whole circus is is such a great framing device for this kind of another place
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where people who had no place to go ended up.
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And so there's a there's kind of an echo in there, but it's also, you know, they they're
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singing there's there's dancing.
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There's kind of magic inside of it.
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Yeah, it's I mean, I've been waiting to direct this play.
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I worked on it dramaturgically years ago and always wanted to direct it.
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So it's one of those plays that I take around and drop it artistic directors feed and go,
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how about this one?
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How about this one?
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And when Krista took over Imago, she was here working in Saskatoon on Shakespeare.
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And she said, so what should I be reading?
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Are there any plays I should be reading?
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And I said, how about this one?
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And I gave it to her.
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And then she called me and said, yeah, like this one, do you want to direct it?
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I'm like, yes, finally, someone is asking me to direct the play that I want to direct.
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Oh, man.
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Yeah, there's something there's something really interesting about the balance between
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how heavy it can get as a play and then the the inspirational moments and the moments
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where you do find light in things.
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And that just when reading through it, I I started to wonder what as a playwright, as
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a dramaturg, as a as a director, what you hope people today will hold on to and grasp
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on to like what who are the folks that you feel like would be impacted most by this and
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what are they hanging on to?
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I think everyone feels othered in some way right now.
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Everyone feels marginalized or oppressed or silenced in some way right now.
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And and part of that is like where we are in a society as a society, where we are in
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identity politics, how polarized we are politically, that everyone is feeling othered in some way.
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And so when we when we do stories like this, I think people get to be empathetic to other
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people and then we can start to see a way forward altogether.
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We can start to see we can start to see that we are all human and we are all dependent
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on each other.
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We're all connected to each other and that everything is connected.
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And so for an audience member to come out of something like the flood and go, I didn't
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know that.
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And maybe that makes them curious enough to go and look up things on the Google machine
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while we still have the Internet.
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And that leads them down some rabbit hole and then they start looking at all kinds of
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other things.
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And then maybe I mean, maybe it moves them to action or not.
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Maybe it just moves them to empathy, which is good in this world.
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But I think any chance we get to, like I say, unearth those stories to show people the things
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that have been disappeared for so long, then we start to get a sense of who we are as as
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you know, as a country, who we are as a bunch of people living together on this land.
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And.
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And that, I think, is is a way forward.
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Yeah, that's that's the fire that keeps me going anyway, is that hope that that's what
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happens in that room on that specific night and it will continue to happen.
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I'd like to just talk a little bit more about Mizushou by if we can, like the flood where
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I was unaware of this prison underneath the St. Lawrence Market.
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I was also less aware, I would say, or maybe a little bit less surprised, but still it
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was it was new to me, a knowledge to me, this idea of Japanese picture brides and that reality.
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And then the really fascinating trajectory that this woman took in her life to be able
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to not not take advantage of what what she what she had in front of her, but she made
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a new life for herself in a completely unexpected way, I think.
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Yeah. And and just resilience. Right.
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So again, for me, another story like I'm you know, the play is a play about a Japanese
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woman. The playwright is Japanese, Canadian, all the actors are Japanese.
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They're we're we're you know, we're working hard.
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Tablidote is working hard to bring in as many Japanese Canadian artists, but also Asian
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artists like just and I'm an indigenous director directing this, which is so like, what is
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my empathy with this?
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But it's about it's about making a life for yourself and being resilient in spite of everything
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that happens to you.
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And so that journey starts to parallel the indigenous journey, you know, being hated
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in a land, being people wanting to people treating you for the way you look as opposed
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or you know, where you come from, as opposed to who you actually are.
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So thinking about the internment and, you know, survival and just like I you can't get
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rid of me like you can't get rid of me as an indigenous person.
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We can't get rid of making air quotes of immigration.
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The fact that this country used people to use people from other countries to I'm making
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air quotes again, build this nation and yet didn't give them all of the rights and privileges
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of everybody else.
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And all of that, in fact, took it away from them right in internment, like in that period
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of time, taking away the things that people had rightfully built for themselves.
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And I think this idea of Canada, who we are, we has to be challenged, not just in the way
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we treat the people who were here first, but in the way we treat the people who came after.
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And if we're going to actually think about who we want to be living here together, then
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these are the kinds of stories that we need to tell.
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And she had what a fantastic story.
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Like it's also such a hopeful thing about it is she would meet an obstacle and she would
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just go, okay, I'm going to do this over under around.
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And as you say, reinvent herself, right?
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Reinvent herself with what she had and keep moving forward to become fully self-actualized
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as a human being.
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Yeah, I think that's as you're speaking, I think I just think about what that means in
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Quebec today.
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Out of all places in the country is like what it means to reinvent yourself in a place that
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is forcing you to do that with new bills that are being passed.
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And I think there's a lot of similarities to us or to the government, at least being
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very welcoming, I'll use your air quotes, being very welcoming to immigrants or refugees
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seekers and understanding the economic impact that they have on our society.
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But then in Quebec placing such limiting boundaries around how they are to live and how they are
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to set the tracks for their new life.
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I mean, you could draw parallels all day with that.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And thinking about abundance, you know, like this land is still a land very much of abundance
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and there is enough for everyone here.
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But who gets to say who has access to the abundance that is around us?
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That's a question.
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And, you know, we always talk about people say it about us as indigenous people, but
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they say it about immigrants and refugees and newcomers about just pulling ourselves
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up by our bootstraps.
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And it's like, that's kind of simplistic because it's not like we all have the same access
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to the bootstraps or boots altogether, even boots.
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So Mizu Shobai is in October.
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The flood is in February.
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Correct.
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And the flood is taking place at the Centaur.
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Correct.
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And then in the fall of 2024, Geordie and Evette will be joining forces to bring a story
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about Jordan River Anderson to the power of Jordan.
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You know, what's interesting is that I think a lot of people who live close to in direct
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proximity with an indigenous community might have heard about Jordan River Anderson, probably
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heard about Jordan's principle, maybe if anything.
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But a lot of people that I talked to and tell this idea to have never heard of Jordan.
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Which is amazing, right?
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It's also how I think this is, you know, we talked earlier about technology.
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I think this is one of the effects, the side effects, the collateral damage of technology
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is that we don't remember things.
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We don't, you know, the news cycle turns over so quickly that things are lost.
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Like it was only just recently that the government came down with a decision on, you know, support
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for indigenous children in care, which is, which goes back to Jordan and Jordan's principle.
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But if people don't know that it's, you know, how do we know where we're going if we don't
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know where we've come?
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And Jordan, the way Jordan was treated when he was in care in his short, short life.
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And then the champions, his family, Cindy Blackstock, who made sure that that was not
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going to happen again, that indigenous children would get the kind of support and care that
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they need, which has been years in the making.
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And I can't, and that people don't even know that now can't forget is another reason for
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us to make this story, right?
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To, to, as we talked about you and I, when we started the project, that we think that
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Jordan is a superhero because even in his short life, he made change, not just for himself,
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not just for his family, but for the whole country and for all indigenous children that
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come after it's not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination.
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But when this decision came down, I saw Cindy Blackstock smile for the first time on the
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news and I was like, wow, we've totally won if Cindy is smiling.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's, this is why we do art, right?
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This is why it's because these things can exist in a way when people have forgotten
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the news cycle.
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Yeah, because the news cycle is, is by design shifting and changing, you know, day over
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day at most, maybe, you know, we get a couple of weeks of something, but then there's a
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new thing that, you know, we were, we're exposed to and the media jumps on.
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So I'd say I'd argue that the system is designed for us to have, you know, short-term memory
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loss.
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You know, and this, and that's a fight.
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It's a fight.
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It wasn't, you know, it didn't just last years and years.
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It was a struggle to fight the government and to, and to force them to put this into
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place.
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I'm happy that we're, we're going to get to do it.
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And then people are going to learn about it.
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I am too, that people get to learn about it.
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And again, it's another story that's tough, but joyful, right?
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Like it's tough.
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And I think it, it, it's a way of honoring that short life and that strong spirit that
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can go forward for everybody.
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Yeah.
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You talk, you're talking about AI, like your AI, I need to know more about your AI opera
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because I am obsessed with AI.
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Like I'm, I, um, I've been starting to read, read, read up about it.
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Um, like early to late nineties kind of theory around AI.
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And then I'm, I'm, my plan is to, is to catch up with, um, with the development up until
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this point, but like something like AGI is like that to me is, is very, very frightening.
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I know that people talk about the potential and what, what, yeah, but I, I don't have
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enough faith in, um, in humanity to think that we're going to come out of this.
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Uh, yeah, at all, maybe.
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Uh, so I, you know, I don't know if we do this here or somewhere else, but I need, we
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need to talk about it because I want to write a play.
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I want to, I think I want to write a play about it.
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I want to write a play about the intersection between, I don't know if you're already doing
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this, but if you are, then I just, I'll let me be a part of it.
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Please.
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The intersection between AI and indigenous, right.
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Um, indigenous storytelling culture, um, like, like the idea of like first and, and what
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I'm, what might be last, I don't know.
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Like how that intertwined is fascinating to me.
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Yeah.
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So I mean, Tim Brady, who is the composer and I, I'm writing libretto and we've had
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a workshop, we've done 10 minutes of like a workshop presentation so we can move forward
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with it.
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But in the last six months or so, my piece is a kind of post-apocalyptic and the AI,
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it's a little bit shades of Blade Runner, the AI and the, and the humans like decades
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ago, the humans banished the AI because they were, because they were afraid of them because
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they got too smart.
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And so they've been living apart, but in an apocalyptic climate apocalypse, the humans
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come running to the AI and then they have to figure out if they can live together.
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And uh, but Tim and I, you know, when we started the project, we were in one reality and right
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now every day we're sending each other AI stuff and about, and sort of going, where
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are we in our story?
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Is our story still the same?
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Because, because everything is changing so much.
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So it's a constant, it's a constant conversation we're having with, hey, I essentially, because
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we get all of our information off, you know, the technology.
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It's very weird and very strange.
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In my infatuation with it, saw, um, one kind of, um, timeline prediction, uh, and it went
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through, you know, decade by decade where we would be at with AI.
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And ultimately I think by the year, it was the year, uh, 20, 20, uh, 100, there would
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be AI and AI, uh, and, and humans who weren't fully human anymore, they have incorporated
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AI into the, into their beings.
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And so they're kind of like, you know, hybrid humans.
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And then, uh, there would be everybody else, like a very small minority who have decided
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to live without AI and they'd be placed on reserves.
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Right.
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Right.
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Uh, we just, the more we, you know, the more we go around, the more we come around again.
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It's like nothing is new.
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We just change the players.
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I know.
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I know.
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Uh, anyway, um, we'll get into that later on another call in part two of the podcast.
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Um, I want to, uh, celebrate, um, the event Nolan Montreal tour, 20, 23, 24 tour, um,
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and invite everybody who's listening to, to keep track and to, um, follow the projects
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that you're working on because I think all of them have, have really strong stories behind
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them and, uh, with you running the show, I think there would be, there could be something
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special.
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Thanks so much, Jimmy.
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I'm looking forward to it.
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This is the come test out Montreal is a possible future year for me.
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Oh, I will bring you on.
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I will, I will be your tour guide.
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I'm sure you've seen a lot of places, but I know some nooks and crannies that will,
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that might just put you over the edge.
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Oh, it'd be so good.
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All right.
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Thanks.
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Thanks, Jimmy.
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Talk soon.
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Thank you for joining us for Inside Imago and thank you to Yvette Nolan for spending this
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time with us.
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I've been your host, Jimmy Blair.
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The music that we've been listening to is beginning written and performed by Quinn Dooley,
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a Montreal actress and musician.
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Visit imagotheatre.ca for more information about the flood and tablodote.ca to learn
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more about Mitsuh Shobai and coming soon, Geordie.ca for more information on the power
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of Jordan.
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This episode was produced and edited by Danareh Abashek.
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Talk with you soon.
