Thought Residencies

My Great Great Grandfather Johnny Tselaxi'tsa was the Chief of my people and he was an incredible ambassador and representative for out peoples rights, sovereignty and for the equitable treatment of the Syilx people. He travelled all around the world, there are stories of him going to Buckingham Palace demanding to meet with the King, going down to Rome to meet with the Pope. Speaking on behalf of...

There's something about walking slowly that I enjoy so much. And some people say they walk slow, and they don't. Cause I walk really slow, you could, you could almost say I'm walking backwards. But there's something about the ability to, breath and think and contemplate at that pace that allows it...allows the thought to...resonate of off things, that I...love. So I'm slowing it down everybody, I'...

In As You Like It, Rosalind says to Duke Frederick, "we do not inherit treason" but don't we? Don't we all inherit, whatever all our predecessors do and steward us? Don't we all inherit everything that they do, treason, good, bad, the ugly? That line is really sticking with me right now. I think, if not, or if we don't or if we do, whose accountable for it all then, how do we, compensate or recogn...

I was listening to Stop Podcasting Yourself on my lunch break, which is one of my...*car honks...favourite...omg Quelemia Sparrow I think just waved at me hahahah. Umm one of my favourite podcasts and it got me thinking about something I've been focusing about with my artistic practice, where for the past couple of years I've been trying to investigate, with Kamloopa, why living in sustained joy o...

I'm walking home from rehearsal on the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Skxwú7mesh peoples territories. On their land and I'm looking out at a body of water, with a lot of people hanging around a lot of people on it and wondering if anyone is taking a second thought, or any thought to recognize whose land their on, what does it mean and how our presence impacts it all. That's what I'm thinking about.

Hello this is Camila and this is my eleventh thought. I don't really have any like, thought out thoughts about this but I just wanted to kinda of reflect on crying at work. In my last thought I said I almost cried at a picture, which is true but um, I mean like, just crying as part of the process. I mentioned I'm a recovering actor, meaning I'm trying to find my way in now having tried to recover...

Hey, this is Camila and this is my 10th thought.   Yeah, I just saw a picture of yarrow - this beautiful plant - that my friend posted, just popping through the snow and it's beautiful green leaves - you should look up it (?!!), it's so delicate and gorgeous - and it just popped up, through the snow, and it's bright green lime self,  and I almost cried. And the show I'm working on is just about th...

Hi! This is Camila and this is my ninth thought.   Today I'm thinking about, I don't know, the stories we tell each other. The stories we tell each other casually. I think theatre is so beautiful as a way to highlight stories and bring them into a (sometimes literal) spotlight, but there's always these mini stories we tell each other right? You know? About what happened in our day or something we...

Hey!   This is Camila and this is my 8th thought. It's kind of expanding on something I was thinking about earlier in the month, about force and ease when learning new things, and this is kind of building off of that. I have new words now. I'm talking specifically about an example in circus - there's a bunch of circus in the show I'm doing, like aerial stuff and tricks and parkour - and we were ta...

Hey. This is Camila and this is my 7th thought. Consent is the bomb. Consent is the shit. I swear in every single situation. Not just in the rehearsal hall, but, in the rehearsal hall it's amazing. Because, basically, when you really connect with your scene partner and are on the same page, and agree to push boundaries together, that is magic.    And it's not just a sexual thing, it's not just lik...

This is Camila. This is my 6th thought. They're little thought snippets.    Thought snippert number one: Spring is a secret hustler. It starts off really cold and right at the end - boom - it blooms. And that's only what we see. It's secret because all the work happens underground, underneath the surface. There's lots of activity right now but it's just inside. And that's badass.    Thought number...

Hi! This is Camila and this is my fifth thought. I mean, in a nutshell, I'm thinking a lot about perfectionism. This is something I think about constantly when I'm making... anything. Anything, point blank. But definitely when it comes to making art, making theatre. Perfectionism, as in my own. And today it manifested in a lot of thoughts that sounded like 'well, a good artist would do this', or '...

Hey! This is Camila and this is my fourth thought. My brain feels like total mush today because I spent the whole day writing for a bunch of different projects, and my brain is now mashed potatoes. And so it's almost like a waiting room in a video game. And this is what it sounds like, also. Musically. (She plays the omnichord.) Yeah. That's called the writing brain mush theme. 2018, April. That's...

Hi, this is Camila Diaz-Varela and this is my third thought.    Yesterday in a fight choreography session, we were learning a new sword sequence and there was some really interesting thought that got dropped, some wisdom, and it was this: the first time you do a fight, or learn a fight, you usually just go full throttle, full energy, full grip into it and it's not unusual to be sore the next day....

Hi! This is Camila Diaz-Varela and this is my second thought. Today's thought is about the springtime. It's the spring guys. It's awesome. It's awesome. I'm in Ontario - no I'm not, I'm in Edmonton right now. I usually am in Ontario in the spring, and the lands are very different. Edmonton is much more north, much more west. But they both have wild leeks that grow, which is pretty cool. Probably d...

Doo doo doo. Hey, this is Camila Diaz-Varela and this is my first thought. It is about wholeness. I find it really easy to compartmentalize myself, and it's a way that I've been able to survive for the part couple of years as an artist. Trying to separate the different things that I do. I'm a theatre maker, playwright, musician, arts administrator, recovering actor, and I'm realizing that part of...

Last post here friends. And I'm going to give it up to my gramps, his fourth and final hope for his children.  But before I do, I've made a few changes that I'll explain. My grandfather was a minister in the United Church and so had a specific relationship to the idea of God. That word "God" doesn't really mean the same thing to me, but I'm still captivated by the notion of Faith, a secular faith...

My third hope for my children is that they will feel a sense of responsibility for the world of the present and the future. There is always the temptation to use the gifts of one's heritage for self-serving purposes. The urgent problems of our global village require the understanding and efforts of all people of goodwill. We are being challenged by the Third World, and by those Canadians who are b...

My second hope is that my children will always be conscious of their place in our family. In the past the extended family provided a means of moral and psychological support for its members, both young and old.  In our urban, industrialized society, when families are scattered widely, new ways must be found to keep in touch. If relationships are to continue, they must be nourished. Letters and vis...

Hi there, Brendan McMurtry-Howlett here. For today's thought I'm going to have a guest posting from my grandfather (Doug McMurtry). He passed away at 97 about a year and a half ago but he wrote this piece in 1976 called The Hopes For My Children. Here is one section: My first hope is that they may learn to find their place in the natural order of creation. The Indigenous people have shown us that...

I've been thinking more and more about embracing inefficiency. I have spent so much energy in trying to work more efficiently, build structures that promote efficiency, save time and money. But actually I find so much joy comes from inefficiency, the indirect route from a to b. There is beauty and magic and humanity in the inefficient. It seems to me an important form of resistance to the relentle...

I keep hoping I'll one day feel like an expert at making theatre. But is is possible to feel like an expert at something that is supposed to be new and fresh each time you approach it? Every time I go to coach or teach or dramaturge or direct, I keep hoping I'll one day show up with short cuts and ways of being really efficient, and having all the answers. But maybe that's just capitalism trying t...

Hi there, Brendan McMurtry-Howlett again. I've been thinking about the idea of transcendence, and more specifically the transcendence of concept. What that means to me is when you hit that point in a project where you move beyond what you originally thought your project was about, to what it REALLY is about. It's something I'm always striving for in my work, when I let go of whatever clever little...

I've been thinking about and learning about the treaties and the nation-to-nation relationships that underpin the social, political, and legal fabric of this country Canada. I've started reading up on some of the treaty negotiations and agreements across this country, and it's been really interesting, perhaps I should say revealing, to read the official Canadian Government accounts of the treaty a...

Hi there, this is Brendan McMurtry-Howlett and this is my thought for the day. I've been thinking about how much of the creative process, for me, is just about perseverance. To stick with a project, or idea, or piece of writing long enough that it stops feeling terrible and turns into something concrete that I don't feel half bad about. I run into this all the time, but I can never say exactly wha...