Last week a sister artist and I were driving in Peterborough on our way to a performance. As we crossed over a hill we saw two police cars parked on the left side of the road with their flashing lights on. Six police officers were scattered around the cars. My heart began to pound. In an instant I had surveyed the country-side to assess exactly how isolated we were. There was no-one else around.

 

I fumbled with my phone. How quickly could I find video-record, and where would I put the phone to record the scene about to unfold? Images of lynchings, beatings, shootings and other (police) brutalities of Black bodies flashed through my mind. Panic! Panic! Panic! And rape! Could they, would they, also rape us?

 

The car slowed down as one of the officers signalled us to stop. We stopped. An officer peered into the car while the others stood aback watching. ‘Had anything to drink today?’ I kept the phone out of view. My friend answered ‘No.’ One of the other officers then said ‘The sticker on the front says 2010.’ My heart jumped! They have found a reason to ask us to ‘exit the vehicle.’ I searched for the record button. ‘Check the other sticker on the back,’ the peering officer replied. I found the record button. ‘The one on the back says 2015.’ I pressed the record button. ‘Ok you are free to go.’ The breath rushed back into my body. The tears subsided into my soul. Ase Ancestors! WE WERE NOT MURDERED BY THE POLICE!

 

This is often the state of traumatic stress disorder that comes with being Black and womxn (or male, queer and or non-normative in any way) in this world. Images of Black bodies before, during and after racist, misogynist, classist and ableist violation proliferate the media. Not only do we experience violence first hand, we are also consistently vicariously traumatized and live in a state of psychological, emotional and social terror; these legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and ongoing colonial racist militarist state-sanctioned systemic oppression. 

 

On Turtle Island (Canada), the plight and status of Indigenous peoples, Black peoples, women, people of colour, people of different sexualities, genders and abilities are experiences marked by oppression and exclusion. Theatres in Toronto which receive substantial funding are still largely white, male and hetero-normative.

 

The Watah Theatre is my attempt at providing a sacred space for Black people to introspect, heal and co-create lived experiences that nurture our loving humanity while challenging systemic oppression through the cultivation of wholistic performing arts. It is a culmination of years of rigorous mentorship by my elders such as Anita Stewart (a pioneer dub poet and my mother) Amah Harris of Theatre in The Rough, Dr. Winsom Winsom, ahdri zhina mandiela of b current theatre, Verle Thompson, Itah Sadu, Star Jacobs, Lillian Allen, Angela Robertson, Djanet Sears, Layne Coleman, Kelly Thornton of Nightwood Theatre, Iris Turcott, Buddies on Bad Times Theatre, Albert Shultz of Soulpepper Theatre, Richard Rose of Tarragon Theatre, Playwrights Canada Press, Black Theatre Workshop, Obsidian Theatre and Ilana Landsberg Lewis of The Stephen Lewis Foundation.

 

They taught me that in the absence of what I have need, I must create from what I have.