The TALK Participants
Yolanda Bonnell
Yolanda Bonnell (She/Her) is a Queer 2 Spirit Ojibwe/South Asian performer, playwright and poet from Fort William First Nation in Thunder Bay, ON. Now based in Tkarón:to, and a graduate of Humber College’s Theatre Performance program, Yolanda’s recently Dora nominated solo show bug, had its world premiere at the Luminato Festival in 2018, followed by a national tour. She was also a part of Factory Theatre’s The Foundry, a creation program for new career writers, where her play, Scanner continues to be developed. Yolanda was also invited to be part of the Banff Playwright’s Lab with her piece, White Girls in Moccasins, which is now in residency at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
Select theatre performance credits include: Doctor 2 / Abby 3 in Four Sisters (Paradigm Theatre/Luminato Festival 2019), Edith in Kamloopa (Western Canada Theatre/Persephone Theatre), Femi in Cake (Theatre Passe Muraille/New Harlem), Ipruq/Atugauq in The Breathing Hole (Stratford Festival), Fanny/Robert in Treasure Island(Stratford Festival), Theresa in The Crackwalker (Factory Theatre).
Upcoming: Valerie in The Unnatural and Accidental Women (National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre)
Tamyka Bullen
Tamyka Bullen is a POC Queer woman who is involved in social justice activism and social services for 20 years. She had and has worked with women, LGBTQA, youths, and deaf community. Tamyka’s first ASL performance was at Chester Newstand in 2015 and from that point, she started performing at different places and at different theatres. In 2018; it was Tamyka’s first time to perform for the Deaf That! and After the Blackout shows. Tamyka currently is the playwright in residence of Theatre Passe Muraille.
Robert Chartier
Robert Chartier trained with DanceAbility and has performed with Propeller Dance since its creation. He has performed annually with Propeller Dance at their stage shows, and in Toronto, Kitchener, and Kingston. In 2018, Robert was mentored as part of our Emerging Choreographers with a Disability Program, and debuted his first choreography, My Mother’s mother’s mother’s mother at EMERGENCE, our works-in-progress show. This very special work, inspired by Robert’s Wendake heritage, earned Robert a 2018 CBC Ottawa Trailblazer Award.
Theresa Cutknife
Theresa Cutknife is a mixed Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) and Puerto Rican Iskwew (Woman) from Maskwacîs, Alberta located on Treaty 6 Territory and is a member of the Samson Cree Nation. She is a recent third year graduate of the Centre for Indigneous Theatre (CIT) and is an emerging actor, playwright and director. Most recently Theresa was part of the Clay and Paper Theatre’s 2019 Performance in Public Space Ensemble for their production of The Echoes Project Part 2: Pigeon Pie. Next up as part of a decentralized approach to curatorial decision making, Theresa is one of five curators for the 2020 Rhubarb Festival at Buddies and Bad Times Theatre.
Raven Davis
Raven Davis is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, human rights speaker, community facilitator and educator from the Anishinaabek Nation, Treaty Four in Manitoba, Canada. Davis was born and raised in Tkaronto, (Toronto,) Ontario. A parent of three sons’, Davis’ work blends narratives of colonization, race, gender, disability, sexuality, Two-Spirit identity and the Anishinaabemowin language and culture into a variety of performances, and contemporary art forms.
Albert Dumont
Spiritual Advisor: Algonquin, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg
Albert Dumont is an activist, a volunteer and a poet who has published 6 books of poetry and short stories. In recognition for his work as an activist and volunteer on his ancestral lands (Ottawa and Region) Albert was presented with a Human Rights Award by the Public Service Alliance of Canada in 2010. In January 2017 he received the DreamKEEPERS Citation for Outstanding Leadership. Albert has dedicated his life to promoting Aboriginal spirituality and healing and to protecting the rights of Aboriginal Peoples particularly those as they affect the young.
Justin Many Fingers
Mii-Sum-In-Iskum (Long Time Buffalo Rock) Is a founding member and the new Artistic Director of the Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society. His Government name is Justin Many Fingers, and is a Queer, Indigenous, disabled, and MAD artist from the Kanawa Blackfoot Reserve in Southern Alberta.Justin is a international artist who studied in performing arts. He has worked with the Artists and companies from Australia, Thailand, Nunavut, Japan, Greenland, United States of America, and Mexico. Justin is a graduate of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, three-year acting conservatory. He also studied at the Soulpepper Actors Academy and their 2012 season. Justin has studied in both western and indigenous performing art forms for five and a half years through out Canada. The Elders he has learned from and work with are Narcisse Blood, Alvine Mountainhorse, Beverly Hungry Wolf, and Raymond Many Bears.
Julie Tamiko Manning
Julie Tamiko Manning is an award-winning Montreal actor and theatre creator. Her first play Mixie and the Halfbreeds (with Adrienne Wong), is a play about mixed identity in multiple universes. It was recently produced by fuGEN, Toronto’s Asian-Canadian theatre company and is on the list 49 Plays by Women of Colour. She is working on her third play called Mizushōbai(commissioned by Tableau D’Hôte Theatre) about Kiyoko Tanaka-Goto, a Japanese picture bride turned “underground” business woman in 1930’s British Columbia. Julie is currently an acting mentor with Black Theatre Workshop’s Artists Mentorship Program.
Leslie McCue
Leslie Kachena McCue is a member of the Mississaugas of Curve Lake First Nation. Leslie is an artist who also works freelance for various organizations in arts administration, facilitation, project coordination and curation. Her work is driven by her past, her passion to educate, and the motivation to empower others.
Leslie was selected as a three year Fellow for the International Society for the Performing Arts, is the Project Manager for Mola Dulad Media Collective’s Ancestral Future’s Project, is currently at the Royal Ontario Museum as an Indigenous Knowledge Resource Teacher and Coordinator for the ROM Youth Cabinet. Leslie is also the Administrator for the Indigenous Theatre Collective – Chocolate Woman, a Resident Artist Educator at Young People’s Theatre and works independently with Kaha:wi Dance Theatre and Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto.
Leslie was recently offered a Thread Artist Residency with Musagetes Foundation to research and explore Indigenous death, dying and grieving practises to create restorative spaces. The work will result in an art installation and video that will aim to reclaim our original practises and dismantle western influences on how we process death.
Leslie is grateful to a part of the Think Tank at Prismatic and to curate alongside Barak for The Talk.
Shahin Sayadi
Shahin Sayadi was born and raised in Abadan, Iran; he arrived in Montreal, wearing shorts and a t-shirt on February 1, 1986 and, notwithstanding the bitter cold, decided to stay. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Onelight Theatre and Prismatic Arts Festival, presenting the works of Indigenous and artists of colour in all art forms. Through his theatre work, he has written, acted, directed and designed theatre works that push the boundaries of production and storytelling, while bringing a unique and accessible voice to the stage. His background in technical scenography allows Shahin to lead each team of theatre artists and technical professionals involved in Onelight productions through a disciplined collaborative development process in which all aspects of the show are developed simultaneously. In addition to his artistic work, Shahin also contributes to the development of the profession in labour issues in performing arts. He sits on the Board of CAPACOA (the largest network of Canadian arts presenters). Shahin is a life-long fan of Bruce Lee.
Tyler Simmonds
Tyler Simmonds is a public speaker and filmmaker who speaks openly about his experience living with mental illness, reminding people that recovery is possible and emphasizing the importance of vulnerability, mindfulness, and achieving your “flow state” through creativity and meditation. Tylers is clearly a message that resonates with many. In 2016, the Huffington Post named him one of the “10 Inspirational people under 30 you should be following on Twitter.” Twitter is where Tyler engages with over 35 thousand followers. Through his advocacy work Tyler aims to inspire others.
Tyler has found success in film, with his Award-Winning piece “In My Mind”, which is just one of the many artistic projects he has displayed over the years. Through his many channels, Tyler is inspiring people in Nova Scotia, across Canada, and around the world with the power of vulnerability, creative fearlessness, and authenticity.
Barak adé Soleil
Barak adé Soleil is an award-winning contemporary artist, independent curator, and facilitator who has been working professionally since 1991. Barak’s creative practice speaks to the expanse of performativity and the labor of the body; utilizing techniques drawn from the African diaspora, queerness, disability culture, and postmodernism. Barak is the founder of D UNDERBELLY, an interdisciplinary network of artists of color, and recipient of the prestigious Katherine Dunham Choreography award given by New York’s AUDELCO for excellence in Black Theatre.
Recent acknowledgments for creative works include: 3Arts Foundation Award (2016); 3Arts Robert Rauschenberg Residency Fellowship (2017); and Art Matters Foundation Award (2017). Recent presentations include: “from here to there” for 2018 exhibition Chicago Disability Activism, Arts & Design, 1970’s to Today at Gallery 400; and “a series of movements” for both 2018 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art (Toronto), and VAE’s Everyday Series at Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC. At 205 Hudson Street Gallery, NYC, the newest work ‘markings” premiered as part of the 2019 group exhibition Refiguring The Future.
In Canada, among various endeavors, Barak has served as Artistic Director for Tangled Art + Disability, developed creative work at Montreal Arts Interculturels (MAI), and currently working as a Consultant in Artists’ Impact for The Deaf, Disability Mad Arts Alliance of Canada (DDMAAC), and co-curator of The TALK: 2019 for the upcoming Prismatic Arts Festival.
Barak is presently based in Chicago and continues to work globally, engaging with distinct communities across Turtle Island, Europe and Africa.
Lee Su-Feh
Lee Su-Feh is an artist whose work encompasses choreography, performance, teaching, mentoring, dramaturgy, writing and community-organizing.
Born and raised in Malaysia, she was indelibly marked by teachers who strove to find a contemporary Asian expression out of the remnants of colonialism and dislocated traditions. Since moving to Vancouver in 1988, Lee has created a body of work that interrogates the contemporary body as a site of intersecting and displaced histories and habits. In 1995 she co-founded battery opera performance with David McIntosh, and together they have led the company to earn a reputation for being “fearlessly iconoclastic”, producing award-winning works that take place in theatres, on the street, in hotel rooms and in print.
She is currently in the middle of her three-year stint as an Artist-in-Residence at Toronto’s Dancemakers Creation Centre.
Syrus Markus Ware
Syrus is a Vanier scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. Syrus uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture, and he’s shown widely in galleries and festivals across Canada. He is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter – Toronto, a part of the Performance Disability Art Collective, and a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. His on-going curatorial work includes That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019) and BlacknessYes!/Blockorama.
Paul Wong
Paul Wong is a media-maestro making art for site-specific spaces and screens of all sizes. He is an award-winning artist and curator who is known for pioneering early visual and media art in Canada, founding several artist-run groups, leading public arts policy, and organizing events, festivals, conferences and public interventions since the 1970s. Writing, publishing and teaching have been an important part of his praxis. With a career spanning four decades he has been an instrumental proponent to contemporary art.
Wong’s career is diverse and broad. He has been described as a “rebel without a handbook” by the Georgia Straight, 2010, a “Chinese Canadian Warhol” (Taxi Magazine, 2004), and as a “master of the video camera in Vancouver art, making him to video what Emily Carr and Jack Shadbolt were to painting, or Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall to photomontage” (Michael Turner, 2008). He has been an artist his entire life; he has no other occupation.
Rosina Kazi
Rosina Kazi is the lead singer of the protest electronic duo LAL, who were long listed for the Polaris Prize for 2019 for their album DARK BEINGS, a musical project that speaks to the natural world and human nature, addressing issues from the environment to the experiences of Queer/2 Spirit/Trans and /or BIPOC and allied community.
They/she are a queer/gender fluid/ non-binary, culturally Muslim and Bengali identified artist. Rosina helps run the alternative DIT (Do it Together) community and arts accessible (physically and financially) space Unit 2, a space dedicated to supporting QT2SBIPOC and friends in order to support an arts ecosystem verses industry. Rosina also co-curates shows, participates in theatre and other collaborative art making practices and runs workshops around sound, recording and poetry.
Rosina currently lives and was born in the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenni-lenape and the Wendat Nations.
