ART Rights. Artists Reverberate Trans Rights: Video and Transcript

Patti Pon: Great. Well thank you. Welcome, everybody, to our second Equity Town Hall of 2024 / 2025. For those who don’t know me, I’m Patti Pon. I have the great pleasure and honour of being the president and CEO for Calgary Arts Development, and we are your hosts for today’s town hall. Before we begin, specifically with the session, as is our way, I’d like to acknowledge that I am coming to you from the ancestral lands of the Niitsitapi, the Blackfoot people, comprised of the Piikani, the Kainai, and the Siksika First Nations. About, you know, 300 years ago, give or take, the Tsuut’ina Nation were invited to call this place their home, and then subsequently the  Îyârhe Nakoda Nations comprised of the Chiniki, Bearspaw and Goodstoney First Nations and, recently, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government formed with a new constitution, and the place that I’m coming to from is now known as Districts 5 and 6 of the Otipemisiwak Métis Governments. And all of us who call this place our home, here in Treaty 7 territory, as some of you may know it as.

You know, as I was thinking about today’s session, you know, and often when I offer a land acknowledgment, it really is about the land and the place where we come from, and I’ve had the honour of learning from some extraordinary people, including someone you’ll hear from today, Sable Sweetgrass, with regard to an Indigenous way of knowing and being. And I think today what really caught me was, yes, always this place. Today I am reminded that it is also about the people who call this place home, and it is about the care of not only the land, but also the people who call this place home.

And I would just like to commend all of you for taking the time today to join us. As you’ve heard, the session will be recorded, I hope for the benefit of others to maybe listen in on, but know that those of you who are taking part with us today are doing a tremendous thing in being able to talk about how we care for each other on this place that I have the great honour of getting to call home.

So, with that, thanks again for joining us. And I am going to look to JD Derbyshire who will be one of our hosts and facilitators for today’s session. Over to you, JD.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you, Patti. Thank you for everyone who’s made it here live and in-person and who is able to keep your camera on, it’s always appreciated in these very weird spaces to see some, you look real and live to me. Some of you may not be, you may be reasonable facsimiles, but I am, I’m thrilled to see you and also, if you are more comfortable participating with your camera off, you are welcome to. Lovely to see your names up there.

And, you know, I’m left to my imagination what those humans might look like, but I can feel your presence. Thanks for coming. It’s our hope that, yes, the recording of this will find its way out to wider audiences, but it’s always nice to have some people gathered around the table today, so thank you.

I was actually going to throw to Helen Moore-Parkhouse from CADA to just mention what we’re doing with this series and the ones that might be coming up next. Thanks, Helen.

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: Thank you. What I’m going to do is just, first of all, thank JD and Sable for their wisdom today and thank JD and Toyin, who’s unable to be with us today, for organizing the series for this year, and just let you know what’s coming up in the rest of the series.

The next one will be on October 28, and it’s called “Imagining the Unimaginable: Equity for Newcomers and Immigrants in the Arts Sector,” and that will be led by Toyin Oladele who is a very key component to this whole series. She’s the founder and innovator of the Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation, and she’s going to talk about her upbringing and how it brought her to success, failures and current grapplings as she tries to make the art world and Calgary and beyond a more equitable place.

There will be an opening share like there is today, followed by community discussions. The next one after that is on November 25, and it’s sort of based around artists as changemakers, and that’ll be a discussion about making change through art while embedded in the community, what’s working and what isn’t, and grappling with trying to make the world a more equitable place through the arts.

The next one will be live from our Congress. So some of you may know, every year we do Living a Creative Life Congress, kind of resonant around the themes of art for social change. That will be on December 4 or/and 5, and there will be a Live from Congress Equity Town Hall at some point during those two days that we’ll publicize, once we have everything completely confirmed.

And the final one in this series is called “Climate Change Art,” and that will be on January 27, where we will invite local heroes working to make art practices more sustainable. So again, more details will be coming of that, but we hope that you’ll all be interested in participating in the ones that resonate with you, and we’ll look forward to seeing you all there.

And I think that’s my final thought.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you, Helen. So today what we’re going to do is a small presentation from a grassroots organization that Sable and I have informally started that’s gathering members. We often joke that underneath grassroots initiatives are dirt initiatives where the things grow. This one is definitely still in the dirt. We found a few potatoes this morning, I think, and that’ll be about ten minutes, and then we’ll go to interviewing Sable about her upcoming work at Theatre Calgary in the spring, and you’ll see how it all ties in, then after that interview we’ll take a little break and those who can or want to come back, can come back in and we’ll have a little grappling about some of the things that, that may rise up in conversation with Sable.

So for this next part, I’m going to go to a bit of slide presentation. I do this for two reasons. They’re not very pretty slides, but I use slides as a way to help my own brain keep track of what I’m talking about. So it might not be what you expect in a slide presentation, but we’ll see how it goes. How’s that sound? And then I’ll come back. Also, if at any point in time you need to take care of yourself, get a glass of water, bio break, take a break because your mind’s full of concepts that you need to go and draw or think about, please do. We’ll leave an email, you’ll see an email come up, ART Rights, which is the organization we’re burgeoning, we’re birthing, and you can always email us at any time if anything comes up, that you want to talk about more. But first things first, take care of yourself and know that it’s recorded.

So if you need to leave for any reason, you can find it on CADA’s, website. I think it takes a couple of weeks to get up? How long, is that right? A week or two? Yeah, Angèle is nodding. Okay. All right. Let’s see if I can figure out this next technological share screen magnificence.

All right. Can everyone see that ART Rights? Yes. Amazing. All right. ART Rights. ART stands for Artists Reverberating Transgendered Rights with JD Derbyshire and Sable Sweetgrass today as part of the Equity Town Hall.

ART Rights is a grassroots initiative collectively organized by trans artists and allies. There’s the email I was telling you about. If you want to get on to the mailing list, of course the garbage trucks are coming now. I’m not going to take that personally, I’m just not. artrights@gmail.com.

Our founding principles are the ideas, the reason that we formed the space, to activate, celebrate and educate. So we activate imaginative conversations and micro events that encourage folks to be curious about gender. We celebrate transgender artists and shine the spotlight on their existence and works of art, and we educate folks to think critically about transphobia and connect the dots between trans rights, women’s rights and human rights.

Today, we’re here to celebrate the works of transgender playwright Sable Sweetgrass, but if we were here to educate, we might just, I just want to give you a little sampler from one of our courses called, well, conversation clusters called Lovely Liquid Language: Speaking Gendered Tongues 101. And this quote that we use, “language can never be completely can never define a person completely or with perfect accuracy. It is after all, just words, but language that help us describe our identities not only to others but also to ourselves can be lifesaving.”

And that’s a quote from Schuyler Bailar, author of He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why it Matters.

So, the term transgender is an adjective that describes people whose gender identity differs from the gender they were assigned at birth. Cisgender — in short, if you’re not transgender, you’re cisgender. It’s pretty simple. That is to say, if your gender identity matches the gender you were assigned at birth, you are cisgender. Now, sometimes this term cisgender can make some folks angry, for today, let’s just agree to agree that saying you are cisgender doesn’t change anything about you, it’s a word that’s been around since the 60s. You can even say cis woman or cis man, it’s something that you can add to describing your identity, not something that takes away from your identity. “Using the label cisgender to describe cisgender folks is a way to affirm the existence of trans people, not to make anything else disappear.

When cis women, for example, acknowledge that they are cis-women, they are also so subtly, but importantly, acknowledging that cis-women are not the only women out there, that trans women exist as well.” – Schuyler Bailar

Non-binary. This is a way to describe a person’s gender that doesn’t fit society’s current understanding of “only man or woman”. So, we’re going to activate a little bit now. Consider if you added a gender identifier to your name on your Zoom screen today. Would it be cis, trans, enby, and enby is what we use for non-binary because NB is used to designate non-Black. What would adding this identity give you? What would it take away? What could it give to someone else? Maybe you have your own way of describing your gender and identity. We will return to those questions later, but for now, if you want to add one of those choices of something or something of your own to your Zoom name, if you don’t want to do it right now, that’s okay to just contemplate why, make it an ongoing question.

So the three offerings we have today are trans, cis, enby or anything that you use yourself. Mine today would be Woboy Enby TM for trans mask. I think I’m just going to put enby for today behind my name, just to keep things simple.

But today we’re here for the last and funnest part of ART Rights, which is to celebrate the fabulous Sable Sweetgrass who doesn’t use any of the terms that I’ve just mentioned. Sable refers to herself as, and I already got it wrong phonetically, but here we go. I think I did it wrong. Okay, Awowakii, you can correct me later, which is such a great term, Sable. And you get all the great terms, but you’re Blackfoot. I mean, I get enby, it sounds like a box store, you know the one? This Awowakii is so great, but it also happens to be the title of your play, which is at Theatre Calgary April 22 to May 11, and I’ll just read how Theatre Calgary is describing it: A comedic drama about the importance of family. Awowakii. Yeah. Say it again. Say it again. Awowakii. Yes! That’s it, is it? I will learn it! …is a living room comedy of errors about Chrissy Two-Guns, a Blackfoot transgendered woman who’s estranged father Joseph shows up in her life again. Joseph makes Chrissy, mistakes Chrissy’s friend Toni for Chrissy herself, and confusion ensues. This world premiere by local playwright Sable Sweetgrass is an immersive theatre experience where the audience is enveloped within the world of the play in the intimate Arts Commons, Big Secret Theatre. Well, my friend, I have known you a very long time, so thank you for being, with us today to talk about your play.

We know you so much as a cultural connector and an activist in the community. You are one of my closest trans friends, we have lots of fun together. First question. How do you feel about that mainstream description of your play? How did they how did they do?

Sable Sweetgrass: I think it’s good. I mean, like, it is, even for me, it’s kind of hard to describe, you know, in some ways I think of it as a comedy, but then other ways I think of it as a drama. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard. It’s hard to describe with this play. It was kind of like my very first, you know, trying to imagine a story within, to me, it was sort of like the parameters of a stage and how to tell a story on a stage, and so it was, you know, trying to figure it out. Like I was thinking about it, I mentioned to you I was thinking about it like, a sitcom, like One Day at a Time, my favourite sitcom. And, and, or, you know, the way that was set up and, and trying to imagine it within space and, but yeah. So I guess I, I look at it like it’s like a comedy. It’s a drama. Yeah.

JD Derbyshire: So to the best of your knowledge, is there, a sitcom-ish like play that centres the story of a transgendered Blackfoot woman?

Sable Sweetgrass: Not that I know of.

JD Derbyshire: And this was a long time coming. And in this world premiere, I would love you to talk about, some of the history where it started, how long it took to get to where it is. Yeah, let’s just start there, Sable.

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah. Well, it started in 2012, and so that was that’s the beginning as I, I had just, I was my I had an initial plan to be, to be a lawyer, and I went to, I went to UBC, to go to school, but I was always, but my real, I think my real dream was to write and, but there’s, you know, that the pressure to kind of pursue something else.

But when I kind of made up my mind, like, I need to do something else, this is not, this is not fitting for me. And I left and was kind of in a really sort of, difficult time and, trying to figure things out. And my son was very young at the time, and my friend, my good friend Troy Emery, Troy Emery Twigg, a Blackfoot dancer, choreographer, actor, artist, he was getting really frustrated with me, and he was just like you have to do something. You’re coming with me to Edmonton. And so we jumped on the bus, because I had enough. Was the Grey… No, I don’t know if that was a Greyhound, but it was a bus, and it took us up to Edmonton and he set me up with, his name is Ed Roy, who is a director and dramaturg from Toronto, and I think he works with, like, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and so he’s kind of partnered me with and around trying to tell a story, any story, a story from the perspective of some Blackfoot transgender woman.

And, yeah, we did it for the, it was called the Rubaboo Arts Festival. I think that was the first year, or maybe it was the second year of the Rubaboo Indigenous Arts Festival, and we did a we did a reading of the, I completed the first half of the play, and it was like in two weeks, and, and a lot of what you’ll see on stage is still, the first half is still pretty much the same as it was at the Rubaboo Festival. It’s very much the same. But, yeah, over the years, you know, I finished writing the second half of the play, a couple of years later, and then I presented it in Toronto, I think it was in 2014 at the Weesageechak Festival at Native Earth Theatre and, and then I just kind of, I sort of put it, I keep putting it away because I’m either I got to start looking for work, or work and, you know, and, I actually I went back to school again in 2013, I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I workshopped this play there with other Indigenous writers and I was really lucky to have Eden Robinson was one of my professors there at the time, and we had all there was we had a lot of really great writers who were mentoring us at that time, but it was really getting a lot of feedback from other Indigenous writers. And that really helped because, you know, sometimes, I often wonder about, like, who am I writing for? And am I, you know, I’m always thinking of trying to think about, the audience and who is listening to this story.

And I find, and I came to the conclusion while I was, while I was at AIA that I wanted to write the story for the Blackfoot, my people, for the Blackfoot people. And I knew if it was, you know, like, the story was authentic to them and that they understood it, and it resonated for them: the humour, the heartache, all of it. Then it would be, then the authenticity would be, you know, translated, but I mean, that that was a worry for me to like, would it translate? But, after I finished that, I came back to Calgary and worked on it a little bit more. And I did do a reading here that was during a Playwrights Festival through Theatre Calgary, and then that’s around the time when it got selected to be, production, here in Theatre Calgary, which I was really excited.

That was my that was my goal to get a production of it here, because it’s set here in Calgary and this is Blackfoot territory. When I was in Toronto, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre had expressed interest in it, but I wasn’t sure if I just wasn’t sure if the story would resonate as much if it was in that territory versus being in Blackfoot territory.

So, I’ve been working with Theatre Calgary since 2021, and so finally it’s going to come into production and next year in April.

JD Derbyshire: So 2012, math is not my forte, but 2012 to 2024, I think that’s 12 years. Incredible. And I know that I’ve had the privilege of reading your work, Sable, and we were talking the other day about how this ties into ideas of reconciliation and in some ways reconciling inside families, reconciling with gender, reconciling with those ideas inside yourself and others, could you speak a little bit more to that? Could you grapple with that in front of us?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah, at the time that I was writing it in 2012, that was just like a few years prior, it had been the apology that was made by the Government of Canada about around residential schools and then that and what followed after that was, you know, Truth and Reconciliation, but also, the, what do they call it again? the compensation for survivors of residential school. And so that was really in my mind and in my life at that time because I had, you know, my mother was a, is a residential school survivor, and many of my family members are residential school survivors. And so, you know, that part of the play is around Joseph, the father is a residential school survivor and is getting compensation and wanting to use that compensation in a way, when reconnecting with his daughter.

And so that was something that that came up and, and, kind of in my own life, like seeing around me, like what was taking place and, you know, sometimes, in the, in terms of, like, compensation, it can make things worse. Like, I mean, money can make things worse and money can, you know, also help, but it’s, it can be a really complicated thing. And to mix it in with trying to do like reconciliation, that was, it’s kind of a that’s a weird relationship in itself. And, but I think at the heart of it is that there’s this father who was very conservative, very transphobic, homophobic, in his younger years coming to, back to his father, his child, his daughter, and needing to reconcile. So that’s where, you know, there’s tension, a lot of tension there.

JD Derbyshire: You know, we laughed when I asked you the question of, do you know of any other situation comedies that feature a transgendered Blackfoot woman? And you laughed. Not that I know of. What was it like, casting this part?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah, it was, it was hard to kind of cast it like, we have some really talented Blackfoot performers, but I feel like, and a lot of Blackfoot, aspiring Blackfoot artists, but I think that there’s still, we still have a ways to go and sort of building up that talent. And so I think the hardest role to cast was the role of the father, Joseph, as well the role of Richie, the son. We’re just lucky that, you know, like, here in Blackfoot territory, we have some really great, two spirited actors and trans actors. Not a lot, but, I mean, they are here. And so casting Chrissy and casting… Chrissy is transgendered, and Toni is Two-Spirited, and so casting those two roles wasn’t too difficult. And I, you know, I could immediately, you know, in my community, in my circle, identify who I thought would be great for those parts.

JD Derbyshire: I wonder, if you could talk about how you manage as a writer, taking care of yourself, writing about topics that have affected you and your family and the gift that I know this is going to be, having read it, the offering that’s I think is going to heal so much and, and educate and entertain and there’s such great laughs in it.

But how did you how did you balance where you needed to know that you had to go as a writer and taking care of yourself inside all that? It’s not history to you. It’s not. It’s not. It’s still a part of your living world. How did how did you do that Sable?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah, that was, that was difficult because, you know, we would do these two-week writing sort of writing workshops and, you know, I was really I was lucky that, Ed Roy was there and we continued to work on this together from 2012, all the way up until, I think it was last year that that the last time we worked on it together. But, you know, Ed was really there to, almost just like a support, like to help me in and I just, I have a lot of self-doubt and what I’m what I’m saying or what I’m writing. And is it clear? Is this clear enough? And Ed would, you know, he has all his years of experience in the stage and, you know, storytelling on the stage, so he was there to really help me with, you know, in terms of clarity and understanding, like what I was trying to say, especially when it came to, like, the humour and balancing the humour with the really heavy parts, you know, what might, you know, where it where it might work best here and here.

But also, like I said, it was, I would for myself as a writer, I need to just kind of be in a really quiet space, and so they get me like a hotel room, and I go there, but I don’t know, sometimes I feel like that especially when you’re writing something that is so personal it was triggering, it was like, and I was so thankful for Ed that he was just, they had usually have him in the same hotel, so he’s just a few floors down or whatever. I would start, having a panic attack or something, and I call him and he, you know, he would come and join in, like, come into my room and it really was just like, and I just enjoyed my time with Ed, was just about us, eating dinner, talking, going for walks and talk. It was just like talking. Lots of discussions, and that really helped, it was like therapy in a way. I wouldn’t say it’s therapy, but at the same time, it was very, it really helped me to talk these things out with somebody because you, you know, like, I don’t know that I could have done it without and, you know, I don’t think I could have done it without him and his being, having that person who is like an expert at what they do but has that empathy and that, he’s not Blackfoot, he’s not Indigenous, you know, he is gay, and I think he really understands my, like, the, you know, the experience, historically and, you know, even today about how challenging it is in our society to, to be, whether it’s gay or lesbian or transgender, you know, that isolation or the alienation or all of it.

And so, I just I can’t express enough how much I appreciate Ed Roy.

JD Derbyshire: It’s very you, Sable, to shout out these people you appreciate so much. And I just want to shout out and appreciate you. I think this time the timing of this play coming to Calgary, I mean, I’m a big fan of the dark comedy. I think you are particularly gifted at the big sort of surprise laugh, and then followed by these moments where we’re going to be asked to feel things a little bit deeper, and then we’re going to be snuck up on again on by a joke.

I’m really excited. How do you feel about the timing of this in a world and a province in a, in a country that is now seeing a lot of anti-trans hatred and legislation being proposed, and you have imagined this piece into a world that I think, I think an imagined work sometimes helps us into thinking about things differently much better than a lecture or a bunch of facts could. How are you feeling about that, that whole reality?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah. You know, like, to me, like I’m nearly 50, so, I’m thinking like 2012 wasn’t that long ago. To me it feels like it was like a few just a few years ago. Like two years ago, but society has changed drastically, I feel drastically. And since 2012 to now, you know, like, there’s so much that has happened, especially just like within, around transgender awareness and, especially here in Calgary, like I grew up, born and raised in Calgary and there was a time where, you know, like it was, no one had really heard of transgender, and even the word transgender wasn’t even a term like, you know, people would say tranny or transvestite. Those are terms that people heard, but not transgender. And so I feel like the world has really changed since 2012. And my question like, when I worked with Ed the last time was, I’m wondering if this play is even, like, relevant. I don’t know why, like, I had this, and then, again, doubt about has the world, like, gone gotten past this sort of, this story or, but, yeah, what you’re talking about in terms of the politics, what’s happening in our province, and it’s so frustrating, you know, that we’re still dealing with this and this in 2024, but, you know, it’s frustrating at the same time, it doesn’t necessarily surprise me. You know, even within, I would say even within the Indigenous community where we still have to deal with, you know, homophobic and transphobic attitudes. So I, so it doesn’t surprise me that in Canadian society or in our province that we’re still dealing with it.

It’s like, you know, we talk about like, a pendulum or things start swinging over here, and then then it swings all the way back here, or there’s sort of like, that’s really progressive, move forward and then there’s a backlash, you know, and, but I would say, like, in my experience, I experience like a lot more positive interactions in our community more than negative. I mean, I see the negative on TV and I see the negative on the news, and it’s there, like, I’m aware of it, you know, even I run into it myself, but it’s not as much it’s not nowhere near as much as the, the positive and, and having really respectful, encounters with people and conversations out there that are not always around, that don’t always come to an agreement around, you know, gender and identity and stuff, but are, for the most part, respectful. But at the same time, I think, what is happening is something that we really, really have to battle against because I was really lucky that my family was very accepting of me when I came out because I came out, like, around 13, 14 years old, and, and there was no challenge to it at all, for me in my family. But, you know, I’m thinking I do know of young people who did have challenges and continue to have challenges, and so for, you know, we need to protect those kids. We need to create, you know, the support for them, whether it’s in school, whether it’s, you know, in health care, those need to be there.

And so, it’s just really unfortunate that we have this government, this Premiere who is so backwards in their thinking, you know, I consider her a bigot. I think she’s just awful, like what she has proposed and what she’s putting forth, and we have to fight it. I think, I’ll just add to that, you know, the way that, that mindset of capital, our segment of settlers or, or Albertans, conservative thinking is that this has just suddenly showed up, you know, but, and I have actually experienced, in my play, the production of this play, we experienced transphobia, even within the getting ready for rehearsals and productions it came up and it was within our own community, and we had to confront it. We had to, we had to deal with it, because at the time, the statement that someone made was that they were old-school, they’re thinking as old-school, but actually being transgender, being an Awowakii woman is more old-school than that, you know, like it goes back thousands of years on this land, in this territory. So this is not something new. Being non-binary gender, neutral or non-binary or transgendered or Two-Spirited or gay or lesbian or queer is not new in this, on this land. It was, it was suppressed, you know, by the church, by the churches. It was suppressed by the Canadian government, and then just like in law, when they banned our ceremonies, when they banned our language and then took our kids away to residential, it was it, they tried to suppress it and hide it and, but, prior to them being here, it was, we were always here. We always had a role in society. We always had our place in ceremony. And so, you know, that’s that was, I think, one of the reasons why I always felt to my, you know, myself and my family, we’re not leaving, like, we’re not, I’m not moving to San Francisco. I’m not moving to New York City or Toronto, because this is Blackfoot territory. I’m not going anywhere because this is our home and as an Awowakii woman I belong here just as much as anyone else.

JD Derbyshire: You sure do. And I’m so glad you’re here. Yeah. Thank you for that teaching. I think that what we’re going to do now, Sable, is what we talked about is we want to talk a little bit when we come back about, activating maybe some ideas around your play, like, how do we, support as a community? Not just by coming, but by recognizing that we are in a world at this place at this time to talk a little bit about, the National Day of Trans Remembrance, which is November 20, and how as a community can we support that idea, the idea that if you’re not supporting trans rights, connect to women’s rights, connect to human rights, and if you’re not, if you’re not actively dismantling transphobia then you are, what is the word, propagating it, growing it.

So we want to come back after the break and have a little bit of a grappling as a group in small breakout groups, if people are willing to see what we can activate around Sable’s, play and, National Day of Trans Remembrance.

The conversation with the fabulous Sable Sweetgrass. And we were going to go into breakout rooms, but because there’s a nice small group around a table, I’m imagining around the table, and we have some good food that we’re sharing. For those of you just joining us, the whole thing will be recorded and available on the CADA website, usually a week or two after we do them, as an offering of the Creative Commons and shared learning. So thank you for that, CADA, and all the labour that takes.

Sable, on the break we were talking a little bit about, maybe what you want people to think about in preparation for your play, whether or not we are a part of the collection of letters to us LGBTQ, and Blackfoot words that I can’t say yet, communities, or not. And something you brought up that I thought was really interesting that we’ve talked about before, but that I think your play is going to address in a different way, around this idea of residential schools that we’re starting to hear more and more about and understand what happened there, but do we consider the experience of two-spirited people inside those? And I wondered if you could speak to that a little bit and, and where you’re thinking is. Thank you and final thought.

Sable Sweetgrass: Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, I when I was going to school in Santa Fe, we got to do a presentation about our favourite books, our favourite films. And one of the films that I had chosen was Little Big Man. I know it’s kind of, it’s sort of has a, it’s questionable nowadays, but I still really enjoy the film. And the main reason why I really enjoy that film is that they actually have a transgender character in the film, the character of Little Horse in there. I was really, when I first saw that, I was like shocked that that they had that character there and, and even explained in a really simplistic way, but in a simple way, like who that character was, that this character in that particular culture, this child could choose which, you know, which role that they wanted to play, you could either be a warrior and go with the men, or you could go with the women and do what, you know, with what the women were doing, and that that they were they revered and held this person up in the community.

That was like, I don’t know when that movie was made in the 60s, and I and I was just like, shocked. But there was also something that really came to mind, you know, and presenting this at the time was that well, then during the residential school period, a lot of Two-Spirited and transgender children went through the residential school and the, just the idea, the thought of the kind of oppression, repression, you know, that that took place for those children especially in particular, and, you know, I know people who came out of residential school, older people who in their in their older years and really struggled with their identity, with their sexuality, because, you know, once that’s sort of hammered into your head, you know, what is a sin and what is wrong and, you know, that it really can, it destroys people, it destroys, you know, the essence of, like, who you are. And so, you know, why I had this, also that I had this feeling that we’ll never know the scope of the like, the number of people we’ve lost, the transgender, Two-Spirited people who we’ve lost, either in the past in terms of residential schools, at the schools after they came out of the schools. But even today, there’s, I feel like they’re not those people who identify as transgendered are not highlighted in, like, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. They’re not necessarily highlighted in the community. I know for myself, one person that I was close with as growing up who was murdered in Lethbridge and was a trans woman but is not recognized in their family as being a trans woman. There’s a lot of shame around it. So she will never be recognized, or I guess, mourned in that way. And so I feel like whenever a Trans Day of Remembrance comes along, I’m thinking about, that’s who I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about those people who, you know, who we don’t, who were never identified or that we can’t identify.

And, yeah, I think that that that’s something that’s something that that is, is really heavy to think about, but part of that truth of Truth and Reconciliation.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you for that, my friend. We started out by talking about how important it is that imagined works make it to the stage that represent different lived lives of being transgendered and your particular experience of Awowakii? Was I close?

Sable Sweetgrass: Awowakii.

JD Derbyshire: I see as soon as I hear it, Awowakii. I’ll get it, I’ll get it. And, so I just think your play will do, you know, I think that we are in a time of, you know, anti-trans hate and legislation and, you know, so we’re trying to lift up not only the representation of trans gendered artists, but also these works. And so one of the things I call on everyone here is to go and see, Sable’s play in April and bring five people. This is an activation. Five people. And if one of those five people is someone that you think would never want to see a play, take them anyway. Tell them it’s about something else. Just take one out of five people. So five, four that you know will just love it. I’ve read it. It’s funny as hell. So just sell the comedy.

And that fifth, I challenge you, that one person. Now remember, this one person will be, we’ll need a little extra time on the other end because one of the things that, you know, we’re talking about with, the arts, right, organization or is, is to keep having these conversations, you know, keep having them. And I get to I’m privileged to be able to have them with Sable.

And I can’t express enough the work that I think, you know, to hold these difficult themes. Sable, but also the characters are so alive and so funny and truthful. And I would say, you know, in the way that you also talk about Truth and Reconciliation, your play is doing that around gender.

Maybe another challenge that I would throw out, another activation idea is, National Day of Trans Remembrance is November 20, and Sable and I were talking at the break. We never really seen one that’s Indigenous-centred. And so we’re going to talk a little bit more about that after, but also there’s all kinds of calls coming from the community now, all kinds of trans gender activists are saying, what is Calgary going to do? Where are the flags going to be raised? Can there be some ceremony? Can there be some activation? So I know we are all people who show up to things like this are already doers, but just to think about, you know, what we might be able to do as a community, and I think it would be really interesting to be able to have a ritual to able to honour your friend, you know, specifically.

Sable has asked because we’re such an intimate group, if anyone would like to ask Sable a question about their upcoming work or what that’s all about, what they might want around the play, I think, we’ll do some other organization organizing around making sure that everyone in that play is safe and has community. And then it’s this idea about the National Day of Trans Remembrance, even write it down, even that. Tell five people about that, that’s great November 20. I see Helen with a raised hand. Helen, please.

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: Thanks so much, Sable, for all you share with us every day. I’m just curious about process around producing the play in a mainstage mainstream company. How much say did you, do you have on director, designer, casting, feel, venue, audience experience and all of that?

Sable Sweetgrass: A lot actually. I mean, and it was I think it’s because I really pushed for like, Blackfoot representation in all areas I know we can get, we can’t necessarily get it and every like where we want, like, everywhere, but in terms of, like, suggesting names  for the actors, and working with, whether it was Ed Roy or the director is, Alanis King, who is from the, like, Toronto and she’s, I think, Anishinaabe, but has a decades-long experience in Indigenous theatre, and, you know, is Two-Spirited herself, and so, you know, I, I was surprised that I had that I had so much, you know, say in all of those parts, and then going into the rehearsals, I’m gonna, you know, be a part of that too, because there initially I thought I write the play and then that’s the end of it, they do whatever with it, but, it’s exciting. It’s really fun to be a part of that process and to learn more about it.

JD Derbyshire: Thanks, Sable. Does anyone else have a question for Sable comments? That’s.

Stacey, I see your hand up.

Stacey: Absolutely, always got lots of questions. And thank you for today’s session. I really appreciated the conversation, JD and Sable, the work you do is incredible and just grateful to share some space to celebrate your work. Question about how we can facilitate conversations around the event. So, post event, is there hashtags? Are there different ways that we can support the conversation and questions? Is there a consideration of maybe creating articles in publications locally to help continue the conversation of the work? I’m just curious. Thanks.

Sable Sweetgrass: I mean, that would be great. I and that would, yeah, I haven’t really, I’ve been so just focused on the production, haven’t really even thought about anything outside of, the production itself, but, I would love to have, you know, like, places where we can, people can talk about it, and, get together either in person or even virtually just to discuss, after they’ve seen the play, their thoughts and, yeah, leading up to it, I really, I hope that, I think this is a play that you don’t necessarily have to know Canadian history, to go into it and, and understand what’s happening.

It’s really just like it’s a family drama if you think about it, like, sort of like, just like universally the difficulty between a parent, an adult child and a parent and, but in order to, I think, to understand the play fully, having a context for Canadian history and the, you know, occupation of Blackfoot territory and the removal of children and rounding up of, you know, everything that took place, you know, I think is something that needs to be discussed.

And it would be great, I think, to have those discussions. But how that happens, I’m totally open.

Stacey: I will keep that in mind until the next time I run into you in the hallway and we can chat. We got till April. I got ideas.

JD Derbyshire: And you can also contact me, Stacey, so we can take it off Sable’s plate at ART Rights. And we can, there’s some organizing starting already, but I love if you’re into helping out, I think these things that we’ve been having called conversation clusters, and who’s afraid of gender? is this great, great idea. Not your responsibility at all, Sable, but we will run everything through you. But you don’t have to do it. I think there’s a lot of people that are interested in helping out in Mohkinsstsis and that’s great. Stacey, I’ll find you. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

And I see Patti Pon’s hand up.

Patti Pon: Thanks. JD, it’s Patti here. This is for November 20, when you were talking about there, there really aren’t, to the best of my knowledge, many activities acknowledging, Transgender Day of Rights from an Indigenous lens and maybe like a short reading from Awowakii, with a Q & A in a space like, oh, I don’t know, maybe the Eratics Indie Theatre space, like, for example, maybe where folks could gather and start to build some momentum about ways in which conversation can happen. Right. And so I just offer that up as a thought and to build momentum for the show and final thoughts.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you, Patti. That’s great. That’s very concrete and very doable, and we can talk to Sable about that and our good friend Col, I’m sure we can make something like that happen. And it would be very wonderful if we could do that and also combine it with some kind of ritual, Sable, that I’m really hearing the resonance of honour, honouring that. We don’t know. We don’t know who was lost and how. We do know the how. Okay. Thank you.

I see, I saw Dorian’s hand was up. Yes. Dorion. Nice. So’s Elizabeth Sweeney.

Dorion Block: Hi. Very nice to hear from you, Sable, and I’m actually from Santa Fe and would be happy to do any activation locally there, but I currently reside in Edmonton, where you said that this was, kind of ideated or began writing it, so I’m also happy to do any activation there. And I’m just also very curious how place plays into the narrative, given that it is in Blackfoot territory. But does it draw from any other of the places, of Indigeneity that you’ve experienced?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah. A one point I was thinking about when I was at when I was in Santa Fe, when I was at the school, and I, you know, in America, Americans just think about America, so my American friends, and my fellow students were like, is this set in Denver?Is this set in like… And I was like…some of them had suggested to me that, you know, you should probably set it in somewhere like Denver or somewhere, you know, in America because nobody knows where Calgary is.

And so I was thinking about it, but Denver’s not Blackfoot territory. To me it’s really important to set it, you know, and at least this initial, I think this part of it here, I guess it, you know, at one point I thought when I was down south, that because I have a number of friends and relatives who do live in the United States, and they had to go that far, you know, they left their reserve and they moved far, far away to get away, and ended up in Vancouver, Seattle or Los Angeles, Denver, you know, in order to have a life and so and the story, Chrissy and Toni left the reserve and they only went as far as Calgary, you know, they came to the city here, but I guess could have easily have gone even further, farther away.

There’s, you know, people that have, there’s certain places that we know of that I guess are more friendly, where it’s more, we have this perception that it’s more livable for, for LGBTQ people. And, and I thought about that. I thought about that possibility. But I think, you know, just, I really wanted it to be here. I really wanted it to be in southern Alberta in Blackfoot territory, because that was my experience, my experience of growing up in Calgary and I would like people to think, like young people to think that you don’t have to leave. You don’t have to leave, or to be chased away or anything like that, that, that we can build a community here and that we have a community here. That this is your place too.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you. Sable. And thanks, Dorian. Nice to see you here. I see E. Sweeney’s hand up. Hi.

E. Sweeney: Hi. Sable, I’m just wondering about the development of this work. Sorry, I came in a bit late, so if you’ve already talked about this, I’m sorry, but I’m curious if when you were creating this piece, if you, like, sought out or wanted the support of the people that you wanted support from, the folks who would be able to read your work and give you feedback on it or could like, help you, you know, not that you needed help, but I’m just curious if you had the people you needed in the development of this work.

Sable Sweetgrass: I did and, I think, you know, what, you know, going back to, like, talking about Santa Fe, going to a place like Santa Fe, the Institute of American Indian Arts, they had just set when I started going to school there they had just set up a master’s program in Indigenous writing and creative writing, and so the people of, you know, that I went to school with, you know, I also studied creative writing in Calgary at the UofC, I did my bachelor’s there. And the there’s a really big difference between workshopping a story at the UofC English department and the Santa Fe, at the Institute. I felt like in Calgary I was always trying to explain the context of everything in my writing before I could actually get to the story itself, whereas when I was in Santa Fe, I didn’t have to explain any of that, I could get right to the heart of the story, and there was no need to be explaining. You know, the professors at the UofC, were always kind of pushing me to add more context, add more context to. And whereas in Santa Fe, it was like, I don’t need to do that. And, you know, we kind of the thing about, I guess, the thing about the colonization experience that happened across North America is it kind of gives us all this sort of this level of understanding, and we don’t really need to talk about, like, residential schools and the history about them. We already know. And so when we’re talking about, a parent who is a residential school survivor, that’s all we need to say, that we don’t need to start adding any more context to where we kind of know, you know, like what may be involved in that relationship. Yeah.

It’s, even I would say even working with Ed Roy, like, you know, Ed did his research, he did a lot of research himself. But even just like his involvement with, LGBTQ theatre and the experience of being a gay man himself, and we had these discussions and he, and I don’t know why we just understood, you know, we don’t come from the same background or anything, but we just understood, you know, the difficulties of having of growing up in the 80s, in the 90s in Canada, and the limited spaces and that we had and trying to navigate, through this, through society at that time. So I feel like everybody came into this process just at the right time, and everything happened as it was supposed to happen. Like someone said, like JD had mentioned, it was like, oh, 12 years ago. But I guess in the way that I think about it, it’s like it’s happened as it’s supposed to happen.

And the, you know, it was 12 years ago, it would have been great if it had just been like a year after, like 2013 was the production. But actually, I feel like this story resonates, really resonates right now. So it was meant to be.

E. Sweeney: Just a follow up. That’s a really good reminder just what you were talking about in terms of Santa Fe versus Calgary, and it made me think about the space and time that some stories, like some artists, have to take out of their own practice to do this educating or this, like you know, just being like, okay, now I have to explain this context to you, and now I have to explain this history to you. And it we already get, you know, few opportunities for our work as it is.

And then it’s also taken up by half time to do this like educational piece or this like context piece or this like. And that’s a good reminder. Also, I’m just like thinking about what you just said and, and the freedom that that allows you when you went to Santa Fe to kind of not have to do that anymore.

And then that gives also more space for the creation process. So I thank you for that was really helpful.

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah. And I think too, like stories are, there’s a part of stories that are just universal like when I first saw Fiddler on the Roof, I absolutely loved it. I had no context for, like, you know, as a kid, I had no context for what the story was like in terms of like, you know, the Jewish experience and even like what being Jewish was. But somehow I understood it. I understood the family dynamics. I understood there’s so much about it that I understood. And then getting our, you know, as I got older, understanding it even more and even more, and I think that’s kind of like one of the beautiful things about stories and art is that you can go back to it and, as you know, as you grow, you can kind of grow with it and, and sort of see it more and more, get something out of it.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you. Sable. Yeah. It was one of the reasons we, I’m not even going to call it grassroots yet, I’m going to call it dirt, but it was one of the reasons we put together ART Rights, because taking this burden of the education off, you know, of the artist, you know, because it’s very true that, we want to we want that energy, of imagination to lift up alternative views on things, especially in the world that we’re in right now.

We don’t want the energy going towards, there’s academia already, and that’s fantastic, and lectures and facts. But the power of the imagination is where we want that, that energy to go. Are there any other questions for Sable at this point in time?

I will say that I’ve benefited greatly, of course 12 years for Sable seems like nothing. Sable is a very patient woman, and I try to learn from her. But, you know, because she’s patient with how I pronounce Blackfoot, for one thing. But also, you know, sometimes Sable will, one book that you recommended for me to read, Sable was, that’s little was the 21 things You Should Know About the Indian Act. And even though it’s dated now, I still highly recommend it as a read because just to come into that concept of what is the Indian Act and, and how that affected people, it’s just a really good read. If there aren’t any more questions, I’ll go to the final slides.

Is that okay with you, Sable? That okay with everybody? We might end a bit early, but we’re a smaller little group. Okay, let’s see if I can figure this out again.

All right, get that part up. Just practice the patience of Sable here.

Okay. It’s not the prettiest view, but there it is. Just wanted to thank Sable Sweetgrass for being an artist, which requires a lot of deep thinking, a lot of spending time in traumatic spaces in order to extract an imaginative work that we’re all going to get to enjoy. I know it’s not easy, my friend, and I’m just so delighted that we’re going to get to see a full production in Calgary/Mohkinsstsis, on your land, our land, the land. And then just a final reminder about ART Rights. If we do run some conversation clusters and we’re going to be organizing around Sable’s play, and if you’re interested in getting involved with that or any of these things, we do Lovely Liquid Language, which is Speaking Gendered Tongues 101, by Hooker Book. It’s just a book club. These are small, inter intimate groups, no more than six people. And in particular, organizing around this idea that surfaced today about the National Day of Trans Remembrance and reading. And we’re going to get on that. But if you’re interested in helping out, artrights@gmail.com, which is the little, grassroots, I would say dirt.

Maybe we’re going to get all the potato initiative after of Sable and I and to not forget about of course about. Can you say for me again Sable you got your muted.

Sable Sweetgrass: Awowakii.

JD Derbyshire: Awowakii by Sable Sweetgrass which is April 26th to May 11th. And the five double dog dare to bring five people. If you’re a cis person not actively working to dismantle transphobia, you are perpetuating it.

So yeah, I hope you contact us and we can do some organizing around the Transgender Day of Remembrance that will tie into Sable’s play, that will tie into things we can do in the spring. Thank you again, Sable, for your time and your talent. Thank you again, CADA, for, hosting these town halls and remember that the presentation is recorded, so if you know of anyone who might, might like to give it a lesson, it’ll be up on CADA’s website in about a week or two. And I think that’s all I have. Do you have any final words, Sable?

Sable Sweetgrass: Yeah, I know we didn’t really get into it to the, like the comedy of the play. I mean, like, it’s kind of hard to describe, like the comedic aspect of it, but, or the music of it, it’s really centred. The music itself is centred around, Lady Gaga’s earlier work and, the Toni is a drag queen who is, does an impersonation of Lady Gaga, called Lady Naja and Blackfoot. When we say it, when we hear somebody say something that’s kind of dirty or raunchy or something, we’ll say, yeah, like, naja, that’s how that’s kind of like how we did. So Lady Gaga as her as her drag name. And so there’s this, there’s this really comedic part to it because and in our culture and, and probably in many cultures, there’s just, you know, in these really dark times that we’ve gone through, humour has is the thing is, one of the things that helps us get through it.

And so there’s a there is that that dark humour. And, and so Toni is really kind of that the, that person in the play that, that has so, I’m really excited. That’s what I’m excited for. I don’t know, I’m excited for people to see Toni and, and all the characters, but, yeah, I’m just I, I’m looking forward to people seeing the play.

It’s it’s been a long time in the making and, Yeah. I’m just so grateful to Theatre Calgary. To Stafford and, just everybody that that is there that there’s just been so great to work with and, yeah. I can’t say enough about how amazing it’s been.

JD Derbyshire: Thank you Sable. Well, thanks, everyone. Our next town hall is, if you can see the fabulous Toyin, we’re actually, I think we called it Imagining the Unimaginable something. Is that correct? And I’m going to be talking to Toyin and organizing around, elevating, new immigrants and arts and how that ties into her own personal story, which is really fascinating.

And I hope you can join us for that. And I forget the date already, but it’s soon. It’s October… Anybody got it in front of them? October. Well, all time is, you know, 12 years, one week, whatever. It’s on the CADA website.

Angele Bleackley: October 28th and the link is in the chat as well.

JD Derbyshire: Magic technology.

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: And Toyin is here if you want, I don’t know if you want to say anything.

JD Derbyshire: Yes, I do, I did point out the lovely Toyin, but thanks for that Helen. Toyin, did you want to add to that?

Toyin Oladele: No, you you said it well, we’re just looking forward. We had a wonderful, wonderful chat about it, and I can’t just wait to share with the world today. It was really great. Thanks. Thanks everyone.

JD Derbyshire: And thank you, Toyin, for the co organizing of these events. All the unseen labor to hosting even a technical event. Deeply appreciated as well. Angele, Romper Room sees you, I see you. Thanks everybody for coming. And all the best. Take care of yourselves. Bye.