It’s been a busy summer since the relaunch of safeword back in June. By hosting our events digitally, we’ve been able to connect with so many different artists and audiences nationwide. Our Flip the Script! Summer Symposium Series kept us intellectually and spiritually nourished from June-September featuring an amazing roster of guest speakers including: Taiwo Afolabi, Jennifer Alicia, Sadie Berlin, Davey Samuel Calderon, Nick Green, Lindsay Lachance, Amy Lee Lavoie, Pesch Nepoose, Omari Newton, Tyler Pennock, Andrea Scott and Brenda Wastasecoot. We’re so grateful to all the invited guests, our Digital Producer Nicole Eun-Ju Bell, ASL interpreters Denica and Jo-Ann, and the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting us through our inaugural adventure. And in July, we also welcomed 32 students to our first ever seminar course Head, Heart, Gut: The Foundations of Trauma-informed Practice with Ronnie Ali, the lead consultant of Leaves on a Stream. Thank you Ronnie for grounding us and reminding us of the wisdom of our bodies. We also want to thank our enthusiastic and inquisitive cohort of learners. It was a blast learning from all of you!

 

I find as an artist and organizer that if I just put my intention out into the universe that others will inevitably answer the call and lead me to somewhere new. This was the case when I invited Taiwo Afolabi to our Dramaturgy Now event in June. Taiwo had already been dreaming up his own series about decolonizing dramaturgy and before long, he invited safeword to come along on the journey. Taiwo has curated a five-episode, online series that examines dramaturgy and theatre creation from a distinctly African perspective. Audiences will encounter award-winning playwrights, dramaturges and directors from all over this diverse continent including Burkina Faso, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Decolonizing Dramaturgy: Theatremakers from Africa in Conversation will live stream on HowlRound Theatre Commons every Wednesday at 12pm ET from October 20th - November 17th, 2021. You can access the streaming links HERE and learn all about each episode and guest artists HERE. safeword offers our administrative, marketing and communications support as a co-producer along with HowlRound Theatre Commons (USA), Pan-African Creative Exchange (UK/South Africa), University of Regina Theatre Department (Canada), and Theatre Emissary International (Nigeria). After only five months of relaunching our collaborative, safeword has gone from national to international!

 

We are cooking up some exciting, new learning opportunities to program for next year but we also want to learn from YOU. How are we doing so far? Do you like what we’ve been offering or would you like to see something else? We’re still trying to reacquaint ourselves with our audience so your feedback is incredibly important to us. That’s why we’ve put together a rapid-fire, five-question How We Doin’? Survey to ask our patrons what they want to see more of from our professional development programming. You can access the survey HERE. Or better yet, do you have a project proposal that you want to pitch to us? Let us know by filling out our Cruise form available HERE. We’re always looking for bold, imaginative, forward-thinking collaborators to partner with. Who knows where our next journey will take us?

 

Stay safe out there,

 

Brandon Crone (they/them)

Artistic Director of safeword