Location: Barbara McIntyre Theatre
Moderator: Wes Pearce
Shelley Scott, “”We Are All Related”: Theatre Calgary’s production of Awoowaakii by Sable Sweetgrass”
At the June 2025 CATR conference in Regina, Sara Schroete and j skelton delivered a paper entitled “Seen Elsewhere: Queer and Trans Identities as a Place of Liminal Belonging on the Prairie Stage.” Their excellent presentation about the spaces available and accessible to Queer and Trans performances made me think about the play I had just seen the month before in Calgary. Awoowaakii by Sable Sweetgrass was produced by Theatre Calgary 22 April to 11 May of 2025 and, in this paper, I will explore how this “living room comedy of errors” about a transgender Blackfoot woman and her family, set in the inner city of Calgary, found its audience.
Stafford Arima, the artistic director of Theatre Calgary, describes the play as “one rooted in Blackfoot worldview, shaped by Two-Spirit experience, and written with extraordinary emotional clarity.” As the largest performing arts company in Southern Alberta, most shows are staged in the 750-seat Max Bell Theatre, located in downtown Calgary. Awoowaakii, however, was presented in the smaller, more flexible Big Secret Theatre, located in the same building. My paper will explore how, far from sidelining the importance of Awoowaakii, the use of the more intimate venue was strategic, artistically and culturally appropriate, and contributed to the play’s enthusiastic reception. The audience was enveloped within the world of the play and, in her Program Note, Sable Sweetgrass encouraged us to respond with laughter and tears: “in this immersive Theatre Calgary experience, you are now part of the play.”
Walter Strydom, “Empowering theatrical ensemble-making through Ubuntu ethics”
You observe a diverse group of performers moving freely around the rehearsal space. Patterns emerge and dissolve. Short bursts of serendipitous synchronicity, unplanned and unrehearsed, halts your breath. But, what keeps you enthralled is the shared focus that radiates from group: their energy is almost palpable, their “oneness” captivating, there are no leaders, and no followers. The exercise they are doing develops mutual awareness, shared attunement, and performance presence. But, like many other ensemble-making practices, it might also lead to increased social cohesion beyond the rehearsal room by cultivating “being with” as a model of living in the world (Neelands 2009:181). You feel a connection to everyone else in the space, much deeper than what these creative activities warrant. Britton (2013:278) highlights relationships – “Self-With-Others” – as the primary focus in ensemble development. But, relationships are fraught with visible and invisible power-dynamics, especially among people hailing from diverse positionalities. As such, are you experiencing a real sense of equitable togetherness? Or, is the exercise simply perpetuating a performative form of coerced assimilation and self-denying acquiescence? Relationships are also at the core of Ubuntu, an Indigenous philosophy from southern Africa. Explicated by the isiZulu maxim, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (“I am because we are”), moral subjectivity relies on interpersonal relationality: practicing other-regarding virtues in service of harmonious communal relationships premised on social and rectification justice. Correspondingly, this paper will explore ways in which Ubuntu may empower more ethically sound and sustainable ensemble-making, while reflecting on the possibilities for ensemble-making practices to facilitate Ubuntu relationality.
Ceanna Wood, “Relationality in Workshop Practices”
In 2022 I was offered an internship with the Education and Community Outreach team at the Arts Club Theatre Company. During this internship, I was able to collaborate with my fellow intern to create workshops that centered around Indigenous theatre practices which was titled, Introduction to Place-Based Practices. This workshop series had its challenges that encouraged me to consider different ways of teaching Indigenous knowledges. About a year later, my previous bosses at the Arts Club reached out to me to create a workshops series for Metis youth. I had recently met another Metis artist, Jill Gornason, and I was keen to build these workshops with her. These workshops were titled Land, Body and Spirit (LBS) and were embedded with knowledges that Jill and I both learned through our late exploration of our Indigenous cultures. Jill and I have now had the opportunity to teach these workshops to Indigenous youth & adults as well as all peoples, which was done by establishing a protocol that honored the knowledges and ways of doing we were sharing with others.
The LBS workshops were influenced by Floyd Favel who stated that Theatre was the younger brother to Indigenous Traditions because they both use voice/sound, movement/body, and narrative structure/storytelling. These three things were purposely woven in this workshop series. The LBS workshops were also guided by teachings from Elders and community members, as well as a Cree word that describes relationality, Wahkotowin. This word and practices done in these workshops will be shared through this panel in a way that honours protocol.
Biographies:
Shelley Scott is Professor Emerita of Drama at the University of Lethbridge and a former President of CATR. She writes about Canadian women playwrights and is the author of The Violent Woman as a New Theatrical Character Type: Cases from Canadian Drama and Nightwood Theatre: A Woman’s Work is Always Done.
Walter Strydom is an award-winning South African theatre artist and student passionate about how the arts can empower self-actualisation, strengthen cross-cultural bonds, and promote social justice. He lectures theatre-making and performance theory (University of the Free State, South Africa), and his doctoral research explores social justice and devised theatre (University of Regina, Canada).
Ceanna Wood is a Métis-Cree and Italian artist working across Turtle Island. Wood holds a MA in theatre studies from the University of Victoria. She has co-created & co-facilitated workshops titled Land, Body, and Spirit. Wood contributed multiple activities and a wellness table at the 2025 Indigenous Theatre Festival.