Hart House Theatre’s 100th anniversary season opens next week with a special three performance run of Encounters at the “Edge of the Woods”, an original work by the ‘Collective Encounter’ with Arts & Science professor Jill Carter, exploring the “restor(y)ation of treaty relationships through an inter-First-National process that combines various modes of storyweaving, informed by land-based dramaturgical praxis and the navigation of what Metis curator David Garneau terms ‘irreconcilable space’.”
Curated and directed by Carter, an assistant professor in the Faculty’s Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, Encounters at the “Edge of the Woods” brings together emerging Indigenous and non-Indigenous performers and creators from across Toronto to address the “fraught and tangled history of settlement” through shared personal stories and experiences.
“We offer Encounters at the ‘Edge of the Woods’ as a devised intervention through which to imagine our role within — and to commit ourselves to — the urgent project of re-presenting ourselves as treaty peoples in Tkaron:to/Gchi Kiiwenging,” said Carter, who is also cross-appointed with the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the Transitional Year Program.
“This is a process that requires the curation of brave spaces in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists embrace uncomfortable tensions, as we probe the issues that divide this generation of erstwhile treaty partners, explore relational shifts and pick up the weighty bundles of responsibility, redress and repair left scattered for us across a blighted landscape."
Carter joins more than 30 artists, storytellers, activists and theatre makers on stage and behind the scenes, including author and poet, Lee Maracle, who was recently nominated for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature – known often as the American Nobel – and Centre for Indigenous Studies assistant professor Brenda Wastasecoot.
Plan to arrive early for the performance and stay late, as the audience experience starts before the show even begins, with installations of artwork, activations and shared experiences happening in the entrance hallway and lobby prior to curtain — in the hopes of reframing the Hart House Theatre space.
Each performance will also end with a post-show talkback where actors and artists involved in the piece will take part in a curated chat with the audience.
Hart House Theatre is the University of Toronto's performing arts leader. Since its inception in 1919, the theatre's unique mix of young professionals, alumni and students has garnered the theatre a reputation as a cultural destination for not only the community of U of T, but also the city of Toronto.
Encounters at the “Edge of the Woods” runs for three performances at Hart House Theatre
September 6–7, 2019. For ticket information, visit the Hart House website.
Read More:
- Interview with Jill Carter
Hart House News | July 29, 2019