Queer Arts Festival – Nicolas Demers

Alien Sex

I’ve honestly got mixed feelings abound Alien Sex, the Queer Arts Festival show I saw on Thursday. I’d tweeted previously that I didn’t really know what to expect—but it turns out that wasn’t true: I came in expecting weird queer/genderqueer sexy sci-fi, and I was naturally all over that. Also, I think I was expecting an overall narrative or at least overarching themes. Because I usually do, and I always look for it anyway even when it’s not there, because that’s how my brain works.

What I actually saw was a number of loosely connected vignettes, some dealing with the topics of alien life/love (but not so much with alien sex) and most dealing with human love and sexuality, with a strong focus on consent or dominance/submission play. Half the material was original, half consisted of readings from Linda Smukler / Samuel Ace, and bits of David Mamet’s play All Men Are Whores.

And I’ll be honest, I definitely enjoyed the original stuff more—the silly and playful sci-fi, in particularly the intriguing conversation with an alien who has no concept of “you” or “I”, only “we”, and what death means to people like that; the high-energy dancing and drumming, the spin-the-bottle game / consent workshop. I’m not comfortable with D/S in the first place, and in some of the bits it wasn’t clear that we were dealing with people playing out or negotiating a scene. Challenging stuff for sure, but isn’t that what the Queer Arts Festival is all about?

The problem is that Alien Sex doesn’t feel like one show, it feels like at least three: the Mamet, the poetry, and the sci-fi. I understand that it’s a work in progress, and it’s supposed to be non-narrative, but I didn’t see anything tying all these scenes together into a whole. And though I definitely respect the creators’ goal to incorporate a diversity of voices, it feels like these voices right now aren’t theirs, in the sense that they’re incorporated into the show’s overall vision.

Mind you: as frustrating as the show’s disconnectedness is, I did adore this look at the creative process, and I’m very grateful to the QAF for showcasing it. One of my favourite aspects of the East Side Culture Crawl is to see artists’ studios as places of active creation: the rags, the gloves, the half-finished pieces, the artist hirself interacting with customers and with their peers. Art doesn’t spring forth fully formed from the aether. Art evolves.

And I can’t wait to see what Alien Sex will evolve into.

Sunny Drake’s “X”

I saw this hilarious fourth-wall-breaking one-man show on Saturday, as part of the Queer Arts Festival. It’s a weird little piece, cleverly self-referential, making great use of props and multimedia, with several stories evolving in parallel, occasionally meeting and influencing each other. In other words, right up my alley!

But in addition to all this, it’s very painful and personal, with the theme of addiction (specifically alcoholism) running through the main stories. And the thing is, those stories were extremely relatable, being all about the need to escape into a magical world where bullies don’t exist and you can be any beautiful pop princess you want; about it’s not just about you, and the harm you cause yourself does affect others; about how trying to quit and living in the real world will mean dealing with all the emotional issues that drove you to escape in the first place. So, check it out if you can. Whatever your vice is, this show will definitely speak to you. It made me reflect, made me feel, made my brain spin. That’s a Saturday night well spent.

PS: actually, maybe it made my brain spin a little too much because there were some parts I just couldn’t follow. The puppets in the magical world, for one were doing things that seemed unrelated to the humans’ doings. And the thing with the heart and the ribcage, what was that about? At first I relaxed and expected it all to come together eventually but it never did as far as I could tell. Part of me wants to watch it a second time to see if it might make more sense… but I think if I did it would lose its magic, so I’ll just let it go.

When The Sun Comes Out

The last show of the 2013 Vancouver Queer Arts Festival is a lesbian opera—apparently, the first lesbian opera in all of Canada! I hadn’t been planning to go until a friend invited me, and I’m very glad I accepted that invitation.

First, the negative: I admit I’ve never seen opera, lesbian or otherwise (unless you count What’s Opera Doc?, in which case I’m totally an expert on Wagner’s Ring Cycle), and so far I’m not crazy about the genre. Yes, the vocal gymnastics were damn impressive, but all they did for me was to make the dialog hard to understand. If not for the lyrics projected on the back of the stage, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the story except in the most general sense. And it meant that most of the time, I was looking either at the written lyrics or the performers.

Now that that’s out of the way…

The story takes place in an unnamed country with an unnamed but deeply misogynistic religion, where women and men are largely segregated and any hint of homosexuality is punishable by death. (The show notes call the country “Fundamentalia” but that name was never mentioned in the play itself; for what it’s worth, to my ears the characters’ names sound kind of Persian / Central Asian.)

We’re first introduced to Solana, a tough, confident butch lesbian. Originally Canadian, she’s traveled the world, seduced lots of women, but always left before things got serious. This is how she’s always wanted it, but now the unexpected has happened: she’s fallen in love! Before leaving forever, she decides to visit her love’s home for one more night of passion, and perhaps take a memento for the road. Staying is definitely not an option, since Fundamentalia is not friendly to women like her.

Lilah is married, with a daughter, but before meeting Solana she had never known passion or love. When she comes to visit in the night, Lilah tries to send her away, but finds herself unable to resist her feelings. They kiss and settle on the bed, but then Lilah’s husband Javan comes home. He catches the two of them together, and immediately decides to kill both. Lilah manages to calm him down (Solana, more pragmatic, just takes his knife away) and all the secrets come out.

It turns out Javan has had lots of male lovers, about whom Lilah has been keeping quiet for both their sakes. He did find love, many years ago, but his lover was found out and beaten to death; ever since then, Javan has been wracked with grief and survivor guilt, unable to find joy in anything, even his fleeting trysts.

Gradually, the three come to an understanding. Lilah and Javan will keep each other’s secrets, supporting each other as needed (though it looks like the support will be mostly one-way; he’s far more damaged than she is). And Solana? She begs Lilah to come with her, away from this country that will kill her if she steps out of line. She can bring her daughter, raise her in a country where women and queers are free. Javan categorically refuses to give up his daughter, threatening again to kill Solana if she tries it, and Lilah is on his side this time. Because how free can she actually expect to be? Lilah argues that Solana is likely to get tired of her soon, leaving her alone in an unfamiliar country, far from her roots and her family. True, this country is difficult, but it’s not without its joys. Besides, if she stays she can work for real change.

Solana has a difficult choice. Should she stay safe and go home, leaving Lilah with her heart torn in two? Or should she stay, prove to Lilah and herself that she can be more than a love-’em-and-leave-’em woman, put down roots somewhere and make a positive difference in someone else’s world?

In the end, Solana chooses to stay. Not forever, but as long as she can bear life in an oppressive woman-hating country. She also invites Lilah to come to Canada at some point in the future, so she can see other ways of life and make a choice herself. And so the opera ends on a cautiously optimistic note: it’s not clear what the future will bring, but whatever happens we can be sure that Solana, Lilah and Javan will face it together.

When The Sun Comes Out is a love story, but there’s much more to it than that. The love that it portrays is not so much about passion, but about loyalty, openness and mutual support. It is a love that conquers fear, despair and, perhaps someday, an oppressive culture. And there’s no trite Happily Ever After, which I do appreciate. It’s better to bravely face an uncertain future than to relax in an unrealistic cliché.

Speaking of clichés, I also liked how the story steered away from Solana blithely sweeping Lilah off her feet, out of her marriage, her miserable oppressed life and into a bright future in the liberated West. There are no black and white answers; though she doesn’t love him in the same way she loves Solana, Lilah is committed to her husband and their daughter. The same religion that justifies killing queers and uppity women, is the religion that gives her strength. All the things that Solana sees as chains, that she’s been running from her whole adult life, Lilah knows are her roots. Solana’s freedom would be Lilah’s loneliness. Besides, no country is perfect; after all, wasn’t Solana herself kicked out of her parents’ house at a young age?

When The Sun Comes Out is a great milestone, and an amazing experience in its own right, moving and thoughtful, full of nuanced points and surprisingly complex themes. It is a true masterpiece, and I applaud Leslie Uyeda and Rachel Rose for having created it!

Reflection / Refraction

The first Reflection / Refraction took place two years ago as part of the 2011 Queer Film Festival. It was an interesting experiment, and I’m glad they’re continuing it in the Queer Arts Festival.

The format is simple: five short films, curated by Jen Crothers and Kristina Lemieux, were each assigned to one performing artist that then have several months to create a response. The variety of those responses was amazing! Every artist picked up on something different and pulled the orginal film in a new direction.

Galactic Docking Company by Clark Nikolai / response by Ralph Escamillan

You all know Clark Nikolai, right? This short film is a classic, mixing old footage of the NASA control room with footage of model rockets docking, and men docking. Ralph Escamillan’s response is a dance that at first left me cold. He’s a great dancer, and the reverse strip tease—ie: starting out naked then putting on multiple layers of clothing—was a neat twist, but aside from briefly being able to see his penis, I didn’t get what it had to do with docking or rockets.

But as he explained later in the Q&A, his inspiration wasn’t the dicks, but the offbeat humour. His piece was meant to be a subtle satire of his generation: since other youth tend to take their clothes off as much as possible, he decided to do the reverse. Which makes sense, and maybe I was being overly literal in how the performances should go. I guess this is why I’m a Web developer and not a performance artist.

Dance to Miss Chief by Kent Monkman / response by Mette Bach

Kent Monkman’s ultra-catchy film remixes clips from old German Western films with an eye to deconstructing them. Mette Bach’s response is a very moving spoken work piece about her father’s sudden death and learning to dance the Argentine Tango. Apart from the “dance” theme the connection is extremely tenuous—and (I may be paraphrasing a bit) Mette herself admitted that she already had her story to tell even before seeing Miss Chief.

Which makes her piece not really a response to the movie. But you know what? Inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes and if this show gave Mette the impetus to tell her story, I won’t complain.

Herr by John Greyson / response by Tran ÀPus Rex

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen drag kings performing, either in movies or IRL. It’s quite an eye-opener: the jerky and overly controlled motions, the stylised swaggering, it all adds up to something weird and crazily over-the-top. I wonder, do women see something similar when they look at drag queens? Huh.

Anyhoo, Herr is a hilarious little film about a group of four drag kings that start out peeing in the snow and comparing how far it goes, walk and sit in sync when they’re not dancing, and bully their youngest member (while dancing). I thought Tran ÀPus Rex’s dance / strip piece (to Davie Bowie’s Fame), appearing as he did in a buttoned-up suit and tie, was just a continuation of that… but then it went in unexpected directions. Because underneath the suit? bright spandex tights and funky jewelry. And inside the plain leather briefcase? a gold lamé purse. I’m not sure what kind of symbolism I should read into that, but it was startling and awesome fun.

The Bus Pass by Narissa Lee / response by Cris Derksen

The Bus Pass is a cute and sweet movie of a woman silently pining for another woman on the bus, almost working up the courage to get her number… and then the other woman makes the first move, writing her number on her bus pass. Cris Derksen’s response is basically to remix and loop bits of the film (audio and video) while playing an electric cello. Catchy and simple. No extra story, no extra meaning. Sometimes that’s all you need.

The Hawker by Elisha Lim and Coco Riot / response by David C. Jones

A very short heartwarming film about trans visibility and community is refracted by David C. Jones into a wordless piece that’s mostly (I think) about hiding and then choosing not to hide. I missed some of the details of the story because, well, I do better with words and a clear narrative. But David pulled off a great performance, especially since apparently this was the first time he tried something without spoken words. Kudos.