March 4, 2009
Why playwright and performer Trey Anthony added “build a wellness centre” to her already jam-packed schedule.
When Trey Anthony told her real estate agent she wanted a new production office that could double as a spiritual wellness centre for women — and that she wanted it downtown, on the subway line and on a budget — her agent told her to “dream on.”
It’s a phrase Anthony must be used to hearing by now. After all, her success with ’da Kink in My Hair — which rocketed from a Toronto Fringe Festival debut to a large-scale production at the Princess of Wales Theatre to the Global sitcom adaptation she now directs — could not have been predicted from its subject matter.
“This is a play about sexism, about homophobia, about police brutality … and it has broken box office records and just transcended all expectations and race and colour,” Anthony says. “Everybody has come to see ’da Kink, everybody.”
Anthony’s latest project is the Trey Anthony @one Centre, created to be an accessible, affordable place for women of all races, sexualities, ages, body types and abilities to take part in activities focused on “mind, body, spirit, creativity and fun.” Or, as Anthony puts it, “This is gonna be the space where Toronto happens.”
Everything about the @one Centre screams — or, rather, soothingly whispers — “wellness centre.” The varnished wood floor, flowing white curtains and exposed brick walls make it feel minimalist and contemporary, but not cold. There are pictures of women of various ages, races and abilities on the walls, and the room is airy and bright, scented like the waiting room of a classy massage therapist.
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September 25, 2008
Love on the Rez (COVER STORY)
"My ancestors are storytellers. They’ve been storytellers for centuries, and that’s what I call myself too," says 23-year-old Waawaate Fobister, whose first play, Agokwe, opens Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 30th season. "I want to bring back stories from my traditions, my people."
Agokwe means "two spirited" and Fobister’s piece is an exploration of homophobia in a small native community that would once have celebrated two-spirited people as an important part of society. Fobister himself grew up on an Ojibwe reservation in northwestern Ontario, and the story is based on events from his own life.
Agokwe is primarily a coming-out story, following two young men from neighbouring reserves as they take their first steps toward expressing the attraction they share. But it is also a commentary on how native communities have been changed by white intervention and the residential school system, and those communities’ struggle to recapture what has been taken from them.
"There wasn’t any homophobia before we arrived," says Ed Roy, the production’s director, with whom Fobister has been working on the piece for more than a year. "The two-spirited person was acknowledged as a person of spiritual power and authority in the community. But when they were returned to the reservations after the schools they weren’t connected to the land, to their traditions.
"In Agokwe, Nanabush [a trickster spirit popular in Ojibwe stories] explains how we’re all trying to get back to this state of equilibrium within nature and ourselves," says Roy, "and we journey with these characters, Jake and Mike, star-crossed lovers who try to meet."
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April 22, 2008
A three-part interview with Toronto Firefighters Julie Petruzzellis and Stacey Hannah about what it’s like to be a woman in a dangerous and demanding occupation—one where they are outnumbered 20-to-1 by men.
We spend a lot of time talking about the TTC: worrying that it’s going to be shut down by strike action, complaining that the buses don’t run on time, trading opinions on whether the drivers are saints or crotchety demons.
Recently though, the Queen Street fire put us in mind of another of the city’s essential services, one we don’t necessarily notice until something goes wrong. Toronto’s fire department is the largest in Canada and the fifth largest in North America, with some 3,000 people currently employed. Of that 3,000, only 150 are female.
We spoke to two women who weren’t put off by those numbers, by working 24-hour shifts, or by the prospect of walking into burning buildings: Firefighters Julie Petruzzellis and Stacey Hannah.
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March 3, 2008
Law and reality ‘widely divergent’
It might surprise Canadians who cruise and relax in Puerto Vallarta to discover that Mexican refugee claimants paint a grim picture of life for Mexico’s queers. According to case files queer men and women receive death threats. They are attacked by strangers in the street, by coworkers and even the police. It is not unusual for the police to laugh them out of the station when they try to file a report.
In a typical case one man described a series of violent incidents beginning with verbal and physical attacks at school, through to being attacked by police officers when he was seen leaving a gay bar with his partner. When he tried to report the incident he says he was told he could not do so without the names of the officers who had attacked him. He was fired from jobs when coworkers discovered his sexual orientation and, finally, he and his partner were beaten so severely that his partner was still in a coma at the time of the applicant’s hearing for refugee status in Canada. Though later granted leave to appeal his claim by a federal justice, he was initially denied refugee status by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) because the board (or IRB) did not believe he was gay. In particular, the francophone board member noted that he does not not possess an "an allure efféminée."
Last year, Mexico surpassed China as Canada’s largest source of refugee claimants. While 38 percent of claimants overall were granted refugee status in 2007, only 10 percent of Mexican claims were successful.
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September 8, 2007
The Miss Gay Scotland competition aims to subvert the traditional beauty contest into something much more empowering
A long time ago, I was named Miss America. Okay, I was nine years old and the contest took place in Spain, and America was just the name of the hotel, but still – the title was mine for a week. And now, despite my clippered hair and refusal to wear skirts, I can compete again, should I find myself so inclined.
Yes, 29 September sees the Scottish heat of Miss Gay UK 2007, the final of which will be held in Brighton in November. It’s hard to imagine anything more firmly associated with mainstream heterosexual culture than a beauty contest, so it’s interesting that the LGBT community would choose to appropriate such an event. We have a long history of reclaiming the tools of our oppression and alienation, but is there any value in such contests? And is it actually useful to create a new set of beauty standards for lesbians and bisexual women?
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March 12, 2007
"How beneficial to the queer community are reject-on-sight policies designed to keep out straight people?"
Queer club nights face an awkward dilemma. On one hand, organisers don’t want them to be overrun with straight people who’ve come to gawk at the spectacle of girls kissing. On the other hand, they don’t want to be so cautious in their admission that they end up turning away gay people because they ‘look straight’ – whatever that means.
Clubs in Edinburgh have chosen to tackle this problem in various ways. Up until recently, Velvet laid out a very specific policy on its flyers and signs, advising that gay men were welcome if accompanied by a ‘gay girlie guest’. A spokesperson for Velvet, however, asserted that these were intended only as guidelines to inform clientele of what to expect, and that they had no policy of refusing entry to straight people. Nobody I spoke to reported difficulties gaining admission, and more recently, the club has rewritten its publicity material to say that it’s a night for ‘gay girlies and their LGBT & S friends’; new club Zeus, aimed primarily at men, does likewise. "Velvet does not discriminate or exclude," said the spokesperson, "it’s moving towards a more tolerant, open-minded world."
Few bars and clubs make their entrance policies quite so clear, however; a shining example being CC Bloom’s. The scene is rife with tales of the establishment’s choosiness over who to admit: many have been told it’s "regulars only" when they try to enter. One woman said, "Despite my assertion that I was a regular and had been in the night before, they only let me in after deliberating for several minutes over my BLOGS [Edinburgh University's LGBT society] card."
Nobody at CC’s was available to elaborate on their policy, but certainly no membership scheme exists there and if you’ve ever had to fight your way to the bar in CC’s on a Friday night, you will appreciate the unlikelihood of the bouncers identifying all the regulars by sight.
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