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11:11 – RISER Project
Produced by A.V.O. Collective
Presented as part of Why Not Theatre’s RISER Project
The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. West
BMO Incubator
May 26–June 1, 2019
Tickets: General Admission $12, $20, $35, $60* (Service charges may apply)
Book 416-538-0988 | PURCHASE ONLINE
Where the spirit world and the real world meet, lies a bio-mythical monodrama unapologetically crafted and performed by critically acclaimed trans identified artist, Samson Bonkeabantu Brown. Dramaturged and directed by multi award winning artist, d’bi.young anitafrika. 11:11 explores the other side of fear through the eyes of a young, black transman struggling to obey the ancestral messages saturating his dreams.
CREATIVE TEAM
Written and Performed by Samson Bonkeabantu Brown
Dramaturged & directed by d’bi.young anitafrika
Produced by Brett Haynes/Triangle Pi Productions
Lighting Design André du Toit
Costume Design Samson Bonkeabantu Brown
Set Design d'bi.young anitafrika
Stage Manager Lexi Sproule
RISER PROJECT TEAM
Production Management by Crystal Lee Chettiar
Publicity by Carrie Sager (FLIP Publicity)
RISER Project 2019 produced by Tom Arthur Davis
PERFORMANCE DATES
Sunday, May 26 – 7:00PM Preview
Monday, May 27 – 7:00PM Opening
Tuesday, May 28 – 6:00PM
Wednesday, May 29 – 9:00PM
Thursday, May 30 – 6:00PM
Friday, May 31 – 9:00PM
Saturday, June 1 – 6:00PM
PLAYWRIGHT'S MANIFESTO
Through matrilineal ancestry, I am South African. Through patrilineal ancestry, I am Portuguese. I believe that much of the answers we seek about who we are and why we are can be found by researching who our people are and have been. I am blessed to be gifted from birth with the gifts of necromancy, narcomancy and mediumship. I have used these gifts to assist me throughout my life, and especially with coming to terms with my gender identity.
Transitioning has been a form of shapeshifting. At least that is how I understand it from the messages my ancestors have told me. I also see transitioning as a form of dying. The female me completely died when I began to medically transition and I had already grieved the female I never related to or identified with. When I transitioned my family had to grieve the female they assigned me as. For some of them, it’s been the longest grieving/funeral process ever. For others, they had grieved along with me, long before I ever went under the knife. I think my mum is still grieving. She is just putting on a better show of being okay with having to grieve.
I am a transman. This is a truth that, for the longest time, I didn't have language for. I had never heard the word transgender growing up and when I finally did, I struggled with accepting that it was part of my identity. I thought I could just continue to define myself by everyone else's language, even though inside I was slowly dying.
As an act of choosing to live, I truly feel that whichever closets we come out of, the act of coming out is a rite of passage that should be celebrated. The instruction my ancestors gave me for this rite of passage includes honoring my sacred act of coming out.
I believe that we each have a rhythm put in our souls by our ancestors and it is only when we dance to that rhythm, that we are able to define our lives for ourselves.
This is my story. This is my rhythm. It is my truth. It is my healing. It is my gift to the larger communities that make up the intersections of my life. In my own words. In my own movement.
I am more than a transman. I am a spirit driven man of trans* experience.
PLAYWRIGHT'S NOTES
There isn't a single culture of peoples on this Earth in which peoples who dare to transgress heteronormative ideals have not engaged in practices of questioning their identity and the act of simply willing themselves to survive.
It is 2019 and we are still, as a global community, trying to wrap our minds and hearts around identities that have existed since the beginning of time.
The current language of gender identity may be new, but the expansive spectrum of gender is not. Many cultures still do not have language in the tongues that are indigenous to their land, as there has historically been a general community acceptance and acknowledgement of these identities. This historical, pre-colonial acceptance and acknowledgement of these expansive identities appears to have lead to an indifference toward an urgency of creating language to encapsulate these identities. Perhaps, it was due to an inner realization that to try and force language to box in these identities, amounts to an arrogance that they were not willing to carry within their own bodies. I'm not sure.
I am also not sure when and where the practice and study of number sequences began, as to my knowledge and through my research, almost every culture around the world has their own way of understanding number sequences that show up for each of us in different ways and at different times. The one common thread that I have found thus far in my research of cultural relationships to number sequences, is that each culture does not view the appearance and acknowledgement of number sequences to be a coincidence. There is also a seemingly common acknowledgement across these cultures that these number sequences are tied in some way to spirituality. This is something that I believe within myself.
So when the specific number sequence of 11:11 began to show up in my life (both while awake and while in dream state), I felt deep within my being that this was something I should be paying attention to, and so I did. The number sequence of 11:11 at no time in my life revealed itself to me without being accompanied by my ancestors. It is this relationship with 11:11 and with my ancestors that made it clear to me that 11:11 was an Awakening Code… a Growth Code, if you will. It was the code that signified that my spiritual gifts were growing and getting stronger. It was the code that signified that my relationship to my gender was awakening. '11:11' is my Growth. '11:11' is my Awakening.
The journey of creating this play '11:11' is directly informed by my journey of questioning, discovering, and shaping my own identity with the assistance and under the loving guidance of my ancestors through the dreams that they placed within me. These dreams contained messages from my ancestors. These messages were at times hints, and at other times direct instructions, which informed both my own identity and the process of seeing '11:11' go from script to stage.
I am hesitant to call this current iteration of '11:11' my show, for it is not mine alone. It is my ancestors. It is my mother's. It is my father's. It is my blood and chosen families'. It is my fiancée and soulmate's. It is my director/dramaturg and friend d'bi.young anitafrika's. It is my stage manager and friend Alexandra Sproule's. It is my producer and friend Brett Haynes'. It is my Watah Theatre families'. It is RISER Project's. It is The Theatre Centre's. It is my community of transmen, transwomen, and gender non-conforming siblings'. It is my community of sangomas, inyangas, n'angas, spiritsts, bruxos, bruxas, blitches, lightworkers, portal travelers, and ritual performers'. It is every person who dares to transgress heteronormativity within their own community's. It is every single person who buys a ticket and sits down in a theatre's.
'11:11' is ours and we are each '11:11'.
I want to thank you from the depths and the expansiveness of my heart and soul for joining me on this phase of the journey that is '11:11'.
Enkosi!
Samson Bonkeabantu Brown
Jamal Of All Hustles, Playwright, Vessel and My Ancestors Wildest Dream Come True
Director's Notes
it was in 2015 that I ran into samson bonkeabantu brown who I had known for many years prior. I had moved back to toronto and was again experimenting with dub performance arts praxis and pedagogy through the watah theatre and school; offering year-long residencies to black, indigenous, queer, trans, and people of colour artists. samson joined the transdisciplinary arts practice cohort and began working on his first biomyth monodrama. this most recent draft is the result of years of work including readings at watah festivals, post-show talk-backs, ongoing dramaturgy, and tireless script revisions by samson.
using the anitafrika method as both a conceptualizing and dramaturgical tool, my approach to directing 11:11 has been to listen deeply to the playwright-performer and bring to life, the world that he envisions. given that the method itself is rooted in the self-recovery, creative development, and leadership of the practitioner, I applied these same principles to my dramaturgy and directing choices. samson has created a poetic script steeped in ritual, that refuses to be caged by linear, binary or myopic understandings of time, space, gender, culture or the sacred. I remember when he told me in rehearsal that he had a special mat. on the mat, was an image of a spiral that he deeply connected to. so much so, he wanted the mat onstage with him. the ancient symbol of the spiral was also one of my most loved forms; itself a meeting place of nature, myth, science, culture, death, rebirth, infinity, magick and possibilities. I saw the spiral as a living labyrinth which the protagonist could construct right in front of our very eyes, and out of stone because that is where the ancestors reside.
11:11 lives within the aesthetic tradition of dubbin theatre biomyth monodrama which we focus on at watah theatre using the anitafrika method. it is theatre of ritual recovery. what is theatre of ritual recovery? theatre of ritual recovery is the performative act of creating ceremony (my favourite word of sylvia wynter) on stage, as a process of individual and collective healing. it means embodying the entire poetic-theatrical act from beginning to end as an act of reclaiming, regaining, renaming, and restoring; ritual-black-self-recovery; ritual-feminist-self-recovery; ritual-queer-self-recovery. what are we recovering from? we are recovering from the ongoing assault on our collective humxnity that insists that I and we can in fact live without our lives.
working with a brilliant creative team truly makes all the aspects of theatre come alive. from lexi’s stage management and brett’s production management to andre’s lighting design and samson’s entrancing storytelling, 11:11 is truly one of the most exciting solo shows I have had the privilege to work on. thank you RISER Project for providing a platform for continued growth and experimentation.
11:11 Team
Samson Bonkeabantu Brown
Playwright / Performer
Samson Brown is a self described, Jamal Of All Hustles, with a primary focus on trans advocacy and the arts. He uses the arts (acting, tap dancing, playwriting, stage and production managing) to create visibility for men of trans experience and to educate the general public on trans issues.
d'bi.young anitafrika
Dramaturge / Director
d’bi.young anitafrika is a globally celebrated queer black feminist dub poet and dubbin theatre practitioner, monodramatist, playwright, director, dramaturge, educator, activist and scholar. born and raised in jamaica, she moved to canada at fifteen years old and currently lives in the uk. d’bi.young has written, performed and published four collections of poetry, twelve plays and seven dub albums that decry racism, classism, misogyny, homophobia, colonialism, capitalism and other systems of oppression while celebrating freedom, emancipation, blackness, sexuality, divinity and womxnhood. her most recent publication is a new book entitled 'dubbin poetry: the collected poems of d’bi.young anitafrika. she is a triple dora-award winning canadian poet of honor and womxn of distinction in the arts. founding artistic director emeritus of the black canadian theatre conservatory, watah (where from 2008 to 2018 she trained hundreds of artists), d’bi.young is also the creator of the anitafrika method — an emancipatory praxis for self-recovery, creative growth, and leadership development. her current endeavour is the completion of three remaining titles in her dubbin series: dubbin monodrama: an anthology of solo performance works by artists from the african diaspora, dubbin theatre: the collected plays of d’bi.young anitafrika and dubbin praxis: the anitafrika method.
Andre du Toit
Lighting Designer
André du Toit is an award winning lighting designer based in Toronto, but his work has been seen across the country. He is the proud designer of 15 Riser Project shows including Ralph + Lina, Mouthpiece, Paolozzapedia and Oraltorio. Elsewhere, his recent designs include Prince Hamlet (Why Not Theatre), Italian Mime Suicide, The Double (Bad New Days); Animal Farm, Vimy, 39 Steps (Soulpepper); Guarded Girls, Harlem Duet (Tarragon); Now You See Her (Quote Unquote).
Lexi Sproule
Stage Manager
Lexi sproule is a feminist writer, editor, teacher and stage manager based in Toronto, Ontario. Her work deals with the relationship between our social environmental contexts and our knowledge of our worth and power.
Brett Haynes
Producer
Brett Haynes has been working as a producer for over 11 years and has produced over 15 new theatrical productions across Toronto. A graduate of the University of Waterloo and George Brown Theatre School, Brett has worked as a scenic painter, stage manager, actor and was director of the award winning New York City production of It All Leads To The Lemon Scene. Brett was the Artistic Producer of The Watah Theatre and General Manager of Judith Thompson’s The RARE Theatre Company and is currently the Interim General Manager for Eclipse Theatre Company.
the anitafrika method
the anitafrika method is a critical-creative ethnographic praxis that emerges out of the foundational dub theory of anita stewart and jamaica’s socio-political dub culture (music, poetry and popular theatre). the method is further informed by decolonial queer black feminisms, intersectionality, pan-africanisms and black diaspora spiritualities. it takes a critical pedagogical approach to self-development, devising/playwriting and performance training while providing the practitioner — particularly those who identify as womxn and biqtpoc (black, indigenous, queer, trans, people of colour) — with tools to navigate the entanglement of gender, race, class, sexuality and ability, thereby enabling a reflexive social justice framework in art making. the nine principles of the anitafrika method are self-knowledge, politics, orality, language, rhythm, urgency, sacredness, integrity and experience. these are balanced by nine bodies: spiritual, mental, community, emotional, economic, creative, physical, earth and beyond bodies. the method’s process comprises primarily of fundamental questions posed to the practitioner, which they then explore through physicalising, vocalising, writing, dialoguing, meditating, reflecting, introspecting, critically analysing and devising. during anitafrika method training (which varies from a ninety-minute workshop to three years of intense artistic development), practitioners continually reflect upon their own lived experience as a catalyst to self-recovery, creating work and leadership development.
11:11 EXTENSIONS OF HEART/SPIRITFELT GRATITUDE
To my ancestors. The ones whose names and stories I know, and those I am still discovering, for guiding me in discovering who I am.
To my parents for loving me through every struggle, every test, and every testimony.
To my siblings, cousins and chosen family for your unending support and love through it all.
To my trans siblings, know that even if it feels like you have nobody, you have me and you will always have your ancestors.
To the A.V.O. Collective, for keeping me sane and helping bring my ancestors vision to fruition.
To the Why Not Theatre staff and the RISER Project team, for providing me with a platform to share our story.
To OAC, Obsidian Theatre, and Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, for believing in me and supporting the work of my ancestors, my team, and myself.
Enkosi!
SUPPORTED BY
