Thought Residencies

It's Eva. This is thought eleven and it's about the coolest fucking people in the world, and those are my parents. They're across the country right now and they're both in their like, mid-late seventies and my dad, he came to Canada in the seventies and worked as an engineer, and then after he retired he started writing stories and self-publishing them, and then recently self-published this memoir...

It's Eva Barrie. This is thought number ten. I miss tapping someone on the shoulder when they've dropped something. I miss two-handed handshakes that feel really strong, but caring at the same time And High-fives that went embarrassingly wrong, and the more embarrassing decision to try the High-Five again. Grabbing your friends hand out of excitement Or out of compassion. The awkward and subtle "w...

It's Eva. Thought…9? I think. And I'm longing for libraries. One of my favourite libraries is the Calgary Public Library. It's beautiful! It's architecturally stunning and one of the reasons I love it so much is that they have all this programming and don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty certain, they have child-minding programs for parents who are taking adult learning classes there.  Which I t...

It's Eva. Thought Eight. I'm thinking about Uncertainty. We do a lot to feel certain, and we feel good when we feel certain - like we've succeeded, or we've done something right, really right. And now, a lot of us are looking at our calendars and seeing a lot of question marks where there used to be periods. I've been doing the emotional rollercoaster of that, and right now, on my rollercoaster ri...

Eva. Thought seven, with a flurry of good things. Good thing number one: I once met a dog that if you said SPEAK it would bark, but if you said WHISPER it would bark softly. Good thing two:The book the Red Tent by Anita Diamant. It's so good. It just makes me want to have my period and live in a yurt. Good thing number three: My family gave me a personalized puzzle last year, and I finally got aro...

[sounds of children yelling and playing] It's Eva. Thought five.  I'm currently sitting outside of a little…I wanna say they're three-five [years old]…and it's a ballet class where they're currently throwing soccer balls at each other. So I'm thinking about imagination, I'm thinking about how we foster fun and creativity and recklessness into young people. I'm thinking about how this is probably t...

It's Eva, thought five. I'm thinking about the coronavirus and capitalism, and - yep, here it is, here's my socialist rant - and how we're asking people to stay home and not work, but living in a society that judges someone's worth in the society by their working non-stop. I'm thinking about how staying home, staying isolated, is a privilege. I'm thinking about how these moments award "fend for yo...

It's Eva. This is my fourth thought.  The other day on Facebook I saw a photo of a kid, who's the kid of one of the very first directors who invited me to assist them (so she's like 7 or 8 or so now). And what's really exciting is that I can track the length of my career by this child's life. And in essence, we're growing together.  She's gone from being cooked inside her mama, to learning things...

Hey it's Eva, and it's my third thought. On the weekend I got to see the Imagine Van Gogh Exhibit in Montreal which was super cool and it got me thinking a lot about how we love to attach narratives to an artist's work. It's really delicious, it's really satisfying to imagine... and craft these stories around why people created what they created. And I think about it in terms of modern playwriting...

It's Eva Barrie, this is my second thought. I'm thinking about mistakes; I'm thinking about failure. I'm curious about the difference between the two. I feel like sometimes when I make a mistake, or when I feel like I've failed, I stop. And I don't know how to move forward, and I feel really paralysed. And I feel a deep shame, often, and think about some of the people that I idolize or I put on pe...

My name is Eva Barrie and this is my first thought. I'm thinking a lot about Lobbies. Or more so... I'm thinking about the conditions we create for people to experience a play or an event. So one of my favourite theatres is the Schaubuehne in Berlin and there's a bar in their lobby, with a table reserved for the artists of the production, so that afterward, the artists can drink or hang out at the...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is thought number twelve, which is also the last thought of this residency. I've been craving focus. I don't know if it's me or the outside world but I feel like my life is very scattered and my ability to pay attention somewhat compromised. It's difficult to have any thought that has any depth when you can only think in fifteen-minute increments, or when you'r...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Eleven. I'm thinking about two things – one was said to me and the other one I read – and for some reason these two things are resonating with me today. The first one is "You can never get enough of what you don't need" and it was said to me by a massage therapist. The second one was written by playwright Sarah Ruhl and it's "Life doesn't get...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Ten. I'm thinking about translation because this is what I've been doing intensely for the past several days and I am grateful to be able to travel from one world to another like that, and to have the joy of seeing what's unique in both worlds. But I'm also aware of the loss, of all those things that don't travel well between languages because...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Nine. The process of having a thought is interesting. Usually it happens sort of unnoticed in the background. But when you have to have a thought to record it, then you find yourself thinking about your thoughts, editing them, and trying to decide which one is worthy and which one is not. And so, I've been sitting here for about twenty minutes...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Eight. Here's a list of things that give me anxiety: deadlines, traffic jams, being late, avoidable conflict, unavoidable conflict, too much sugar, not enough sugar, financial insecurity, patterns that repeat indefinitely – like flowers on a wallpaper, bad theatre, climate change, overpopulation, inequality, presidential elections, having to d...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Seven. My thoughts today were a little bit like this: "Go!" "No, I don't have time." "But it's beautiful outside!" "No, no, it's gonna make me late." "Go, go, just for five minutes!" "No! I'm so overwhelmed!" But in the end, I went and I looked at the river for five minutes, and it was completely worth it.

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Six. I was walking to the subway tonight, and I was walking fast because I was in a hurry. I was also trying to solve a problem in my head so I wasn't paying much attention. But at some point I noticed a sculpture and I almost just glanced at it and walked away but I decided to stop and really look at it. And it immediately made me feel happy...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Five. Today, I was in a workshop titled The New Climate Story at Columbia University in New York, in a beautiful room that overlooks Manhattan. Out of a group of about fifty, there were only three of us in the theatre and the rest of the group was half journalists and half scientists. And I was reminded that though what we do in the theatre is...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought Number Four. I didn't watch the Oscars and I also haven't see the movie "The Joker" but I am very grateful for Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar speech where he called out the injustices of the world and talked about how we have become disconnected from the natural world, and how our egocentric world view is causing us to plunder its resources. I'm grateful th...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is thought number three. To eat the ice cream or not to eat the ice cream? That is the question. Is it better to be emotionally fulfilled and physically uncomfortable or to be physically well but emotionally deprived? I think life is full of these dilemmas and when we go for black and white solutions, we're usually missing part of the picture. This said, I'm ea...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is Thought #2. I've been reading the book  The Patterning Instinct  by Jeremy Lent and it talks about how with the advent of agriculture, we developed the concept of boundaries and lines and squares. As long as we were hunters and gatherers, we saw the world as fluid – boundaries were permeable and everything was sort of a curve. But with agriculture, when we s...

My name is Chantal Bilodeau and this is my first thought. I wonder what it means to be blessed these days. I'm sitting on my bed drinking a cup of Chai tea out of a cup that says "Blessed" and I think about all the climate disruptions, the coronavirus, um, terrible elections in many countries, protests – all the things that are changing this world – and… maybe being blessed just means being – …  a...

Marcus Youssef here, thought number 15, I think. In the rehearsal room with Back to Back Theatre working on their project, The Democratic Set. Thinking about the way narrative is constructed in this image-based video/theatre project and how the creator/facilitators just kind of respond to offers that all these individual non-professionals and professionals make in these little, short pieces; and t...

Marcus Youssef, thought number 14. I'm thinking about the nature of this form, the thought residency. I think the intention is to capture a thought in the moment of having it. That's been my experience. I have a thought and I think, "OK, this will be great. This is a thought worth exploring or sharing." But it's funny. Something happens because I don't alway -- I don't usually go and record that t...