{"id":6071,"date":"2019-12-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/blog-article-145\/"},"modified":"2019-12-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T05:00:00","slug":"blog-article-145","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/blog-article-145\/","title":{"rendered":"The Texture of Words"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Students were invited to speak to Board members and Governors at the School’s Annual General Meeting.They have allowed us to reproduce their speeches on this blog. Here, Gillian Clark (Playwriting<\/a> 3, Halifax, NS)<\/strong> tells us about the courage it takes to confront our own fears through writing<\/em><\/p>\n

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Gillian Clark (Playwriting 3, Halifax, NS)<\/strong> delivering her speech at the 2019 Annual General Meeting<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

I get asked a lot at NTS about why I make theatre and why I write.
I guess that\u2019s probably a good thing, considering it\u2019s a theatre school.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it feels like I don\u2019t know.
Sometimes it really feels like I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

And then sometimes I\u2019m sitting in a rehearsal hall.
Or I call a mentor.
Or I\u2019m sitting in a show.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s something that is inexplicable. I think it\u2019s a type of evolution in myself. I can\u2019t put this feeling into words. I can\u2019t. And maybe that\u2019s why I write.<\/p>\n

I think that writing creates a blueprint for a piece of work that is then transformed. I find this transformation, ultimately, inexplicable.<\/p>\n

I think this is why I make theatre.<\/p>\n

It makes talking about my work pretty difficult.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I think I was afraid that they didn\u2019t fit into the show that was about them”<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

I recently had to write a project description for the show I developed here in second year. I worked with Sarah Elkashelf as my dramaturg and Anosh Irani as my cultural consultant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Harmony Mall
By Gillian Clark<\/em><\/section>\n
Diana, in her early twenties, goes to India to work with girls who have been rescued from the sex trade, only to become a sex tourist herself. She then starts getting haunted by Soumi, a small Indian Sex Worker who lives inside of her and eats her insides. Harmony Mall is Diana’s attempted public exorcism of Soumi.<\/em><\/section>\n<\/p>\n

Oh no. What is this seemingly racist show about?<\/p>\n

The show is largely autobiographical. When I was 22 I was commissioned by a company in India to make a verbatim piece of theatre about violence in the sex trade. So\u2014bright eyed, wanting-to-change-the-world Gill went to India and worked with girls who had been rescued from the sex trade to make this show. The first half of the show was performed by professional local actors and then the girls were supposed to dance in the second half, but they never did. The story I told myself is that it was unsafe for the girls to be let out of the collective home they were living in, when in reality\u2026 I think I was too afraid of them. I think I was afraid that they didn\u2019t fit into the show that was about them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I question how I can create a practice that leans into and supports the discomfort of change”<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Flash forward 5 years. I\u2019m at NTS and I want to write something I\u2019m really afraid of. I\u2019m really inspired by the writing of Young Jean Lee<\/strong>. She\u2019s a Korean-American playwright who chooses the thing she is most afraid of, and writes about it. One of my favourite pieces of hers is called The Shipment<\/a><\/a>, in which she worked with a team of African-American creators to create a show that was about the stereotypes of blackness in mainstream media. In my opinion, her approach creates a piece of theatre where you feel the presence of the creators existing within the blueprint of the script. In her work, I find there are three stories being told: one is the plot of the play itself, one is the experience of creating the show, and one is the experience of the creators in their day-to-day lives and how it has informed the process. In Lee\u2019s work, we don\u2019t enter a theatre and leave the world behind, we take the world into the theatre with us. To me, it creates a palpable level of vulnerability and active examination in the texture of the words. Basically, it makes for really exciting and fresh work.<\/p>\n

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A photograph of Gillian Clark (Playwriting 3, Halifax, NS)<\/strong> at the Annual General Assembly<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Being inspired by Lee, whom I was introduced to by my classmate Kalale Dalton-Lutale (Playwriting 3, Toronto, ON)<\/strong>, I was determined to write what was I most afraid of. What was it? Confronting my inner racism and white guilt in a piece of work in the most diverse institution I\u2019ve ever been a part of? Yes. What was I even more afraid of? Not placing judgement on myself for having these feelings. I\u2019m not sure I ever got there. I don\u2019t think I ever will get there. As multidisciplinary artist Marcus Youssef says, we should look at everything as a work in progress. Including ourselves. Including decolonizing. Nothing is finished or will probably ever be finished. I think the thing I took away the most from the process of writing this play is that evolution, whether of an institution, of myself, or of my work, can be very uncomfortable. I question how I can create a practice that leans into and supports the discomfort of change.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

“How can I hold myself accountable? How do I acknowledge when I\u2019m placing value on my whiteness and linear ways of working?”<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about my practice because I feel as though my experience is really all I have. Like playwriting, I hope you will see something that is reflective or meaningful to you and NTS as an institution in the specifics of my inquiries and examinations. Here\u2019s where I\u2019m at with my practice right now:<\/p>\n

I write about really ugly things. I use my whiteness, my upper-middle-class upbringing and my femininity all as tools to investigate the grotesque nature of human beings. I feel as if all of these things are my strength, and also my weakness. More and more I can really feel the failings of my whiteness.<\/p>\n

Being at NTS has ignited a curiosity in me of looking at alternate ways of working. Sometimes it\u2019s because I\u2019m exposed to new ways of creating, and sometimes it\u2019s because a light is shed on my shortcomings in terms of how I\u2019ve always thought about making work. I\u2019ve begun to question how to open up playwriting beyond a writer sitting behind a computer, the writer writes and the actors act, and the writer has all the answers to her plays. I very seldom have the answer. I\u2019ve also begun to question how my colonial practices are integrated into the subconscious of how I work in rehearsal halls or behind my computer.<\/p>\n

How can I work more circularly? How can I actively work on placing value on oral tradition? How can I hold myself accountable? How do I acknowledge when I\u2019m placing value on my whiteness and linear ways of working? Again. I don\u2019t have the answers. I definitely don\u2019t have all the questions. Another reason why I write.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Endings are very hard. I think there actually isn\u2019t a great conclusion to this because <\/em><\/h3>\n

the work is ongoing”<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

A mysterious thing about playwriting is that you don\u2019t really get to see how other playwrights work because it can be so insular. If someone were to shadow me, it would be a lot of looking out the window and heavy sighing. Basically, it would be like shadowing a cat. Something I\u2019d love to organize at the school is a reoccurring workshop on how to demystify playwriting and creating. How can we crack it open? A lot of our playwriting in this country comes from a European tradition and I\u2019m eager to open up a conversation on where I can expand my practice. How can I leave space for other experiences and different ways of working in the script I create? As an institution, how can we push this conversation forward? A few artists I admire who are active in this type of work include Kim Senklip Harvey, a fire creator (playwright, director, actor) whose work and practice investigates the ethics of creating new relationships between Indigenous peoples and Canadians (also you should follow her blog if you\u2019re not already!); Marcus Youssef, aforementioned work in progress, but also creator of meaningful work with a variety of communities, such as collaborations with artists whose lives include having Down Syndrome and neurotypical artists; and Laura Nanni who is the Artistic and Managing Director at Summerworks Performance Festival. I bring her into this conversation because I think, as a settler, she does a great job of supporting diverse artists in the early stages of development. She programs difficult work and gives artists and audiences alike the chance to develop and grow with new pieces.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to find a graceful way to conclude. Endings are very hard. I think there actually isn\u2019t a great conclusion to this because the work is ongoing.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s probably another reason why I make theatre. The work doesn\u2019t end.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Gillian Clark (Playwriting 3, Halifax, NS)<\/strong> is a third-year student the the Playwriting<\/a> program.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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A courageous speech by\u00a0Gillian Clark (Playwriting 3)<\/strong>\u00a0which speaks of the existential angst in which a writer finds herself in when confronted with her darkest ideas on paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-playwriting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}