Theatre festival an act of representation, resistance

Red Beti’s Decolonise Your Ears New Play Reading Festival, happening this weekend, presents ‘stories that might not otherwise be heard,’ says founder.

Red Beti Theatre is holding its fifth annual Decolonise Your Ears New Play Reading Festival at Theatre Aquarius in downtown Hamilton. The three-day festival will feature a staged reading of a new work along with a different, artist-led professional development workshop each day. 

“After five years, Decolonise Your Ears has become more than a festival,” says artistic director Radha S. Menon. “It’s a movement that centres IBPOC voices and creates space for stories that might not otherwise be heard.”

The theatre company explains on its website that decolonizing theatre means “expressing culturally specific ideas, mythologies, music, and dance; Indigenous, Black and racialized bodies occupying space in celebration of our unique identities; and subverting rigid hierarchies in favour of a more equitable approach. It means having time to explore our voices, develop our practices and explore lesser-known cultural forms without having to negotiate, conform or squeeze into parameters that we did not choose.”

Red Beti Theatre, is “Hamilton’s first feminist IBPOC theatre company,” and was founded in 2011 by Menon. She is a longtime playwright and author with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Her plays, including Blackberry, Sita’s Revenge, Ganga’s Ganja, Rukmini’s Gold, Rise of the Prickly Pear, and The Circus & The Washing Machine have been staged in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and India. 

The press release for Decolonise Your Ears describes theatre as “one of the oldest tools for storytelling. Yet, much of what we see on stage in Canada still reflects … colonial frameworks, leaving Indigenous, Black, and racialized voices pushed to the margins. To decolonize theatre is to change that.” This goal requires that we “make space for culturally specific mythologies, music, and traditions. It’s about telling stories rooted in lived experiences without forcing them to fit into rigid, Eurocentric parameters. It allows Indigenous, Black, and people of colour (IBPOC) artists to take the stage on their own terms.”

Asked about the relevance of the festival within the current geopolitical climate, Menon, who is known to be a direct and outspoken advocate for her views, says there are high stakes indeed to attaining and maintaining visibility and having one’s voice heard: “Controlling the narrative means retaining power. Why do you think the vile Israeli regime killed all Palestinian journalists?” 

Menon is passionate about representation on stages and screens, believing that inclusion is vital “for all to feel valued within Canadian culture.” The vehicle of the Decolonise Your Ears New Play Festival emerged as a natural result of those values.

“When I was a young artist, I didn’t realize how radical some deemed my content,” Menon explains. “Throughout my practice, I struggled to find a seat at the table, first in the U.K. and then Canada. It was only when I moved to Hamilton that I could see systemic exclusion as clear as day. When I moved from Toronto to Hamilton in 2008, I had a child in school and had to make it work. I founded Red Beti Theatre … and then Decolonise Your Ears New Play Festival in 2021 due to this.”

The first festival happened during COVID restrictions, forcing it to be virtual.

“It was a hit, and folk connected with us during the talkback portion after each presentation,” Radha recalls. “Each year the festival, presented at Theatre Aquarius’ Studio space, has grown as Red Beti Theatre connected with more artists, community and funding bodies.” 

Last year, she added professional development workshops to the lineup.

“This year’s festival continues its commitment to artist development with workshops led by acclaimed industry professionals such as Romeo Candido, Josh Taylor and Anand Rajaram.”

As a local theatre creator, Menon says that the Hamilton theatre community still has much room for growth where true inclusion, positive collaboration, and allyship are concerned. She said when she attended a recent townhall-type event for the theatre community, she was among only a handful of IBPOC people in the room. 

As for this weekend’s Decolonise Your Ears Festival, Red Beti promises that “audiences won’t just watch powerful theatre but they’ll also have the chance to grow alongside it.” The scheduled artist-led professional development workshops are open to all ticket holders, with an aim to have the festival be “as much about community building as performance.”

Tickets are pay-what-you-can with suggested rate, artist rate, and pay-it-forward options. They can be purchased ahead of time online, or in cash at the door. Each ticket constitutes a pass to the entire program of the festival.

Menon and Red Beti Theatre welcome the Hamilton community to experience the festival, which continues to be an important mechanism for artistic endeavour as well as representation: “In today’s world, where cultural erasure is still common, the urgency of this work cannot be overstated. The Decolonise Your Ears Festival is not just theatre, it’s a collective act of resistance, reclamation, and joy.”

Menon concludes: “Audiences will be entertained by these new plays that will make them laugh and may even move them to tears at times. They will be brought into worlds rarely seen. My hope is that this festival will continue growing and support even more artists and connect them with hungry and curious audiences who want to hear new voices and walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” 

Here is an overview of this year’s line-up:

Friday, Oct. 10 

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Movement with Josh Taylor, 

7 p.m.: Brick Lane Bargain by Radha S. Menon, a feminist reimagining of Radha and Krishna’s myth set in London’s Brick Lane Market. Telling this love story with a feminist lens through the eyes of goddess Radha, Brick Lane Bargain is an adaptation of 12th-century poet Jayadev’s Gitagovinda depicting Krishna’s erotic love of women, especially Radha and his antics to bed them. The subversion of this tumultuous and illicit love affair between Radha and Krishna, a god and goddess manifesting on earth in London’s eclectic Brick Lane Market turns the narrative on its head while examining Krishna’s questionable antics with a critical humanist lens.

Saturday, Oct. 11: 

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Acting with Anand Rajaram

7 p.m.: Ancestors Soup by Carly Anna Billings, blending humour and cultural reclamation in a deeply personal story.

Ancestors Soup by Carly Anna Billings brings her signature blend of comedy and cultural exploration to the festival. A mixed, second-generation Italian-Canadian and Ojibwe artist who only learned once she was halfway through high school that her family was Indigenous, explores this in her hilarious pressure-cooker play. Why did they hide their native blood? The answer is simple: to avoid Canada’s mandatory Residential ‘School’ system.

Sunday, Oct. 12: 

3 p.m.: Nbwaachaadaa Nokomis by Danielle Boissoneau, exploring healing and intergenerational responsibility through Anishnaabe traditions. 

Danielle Boissoneau offers Nbwaachaadaa Nokomis, a work that delves into the

immense responsibility of healing divisions, both within oneself and one’s family lines. Also from Hamilton, Boissoneau is Anishnaabe kwe from the shorelines of the Great Lakes whose poignant play explores how to cope intergenerational grief, a direct consequence of colonialism. This is a play that all settler-guests on Turtle Island must witness.

5 p.m:  A special presentation of The Hanging, featuring the Hamilton Aerial Group.

6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Storytelling with Romeo Candido. 

NEED TO KNOW

Red Beti Theatre’s Decolonise your Ears Festival
Oct. 10-12
Theatre Aquarius
Norman and Louise Haac Studio Theatre 
190 King William St., Hamilton
Tickets here
More info: redbetitheatre.org