I'll Be Home For Christmas

Sunday afternoon, I was at The Betty Oliphant Theatre to watch Raw Taiko celebrate their 25th anniversary. It was formed in 1998 to allow Asian-Canadians especially women to create community and engage with issues such as misogyny and racism. In 2020, I enjoyed their set at The AGO a week before Covid news became a local matter and people started panicking.

There were 8 compositions that included several new works but also from their 2 decades of existence. The recital's theme was home and so in between the pieces, videos showed members talking about what this word meant to them. There was the typical remembrance of inter-generational meals but as the members were women or non-male, trans, queer, and often involved in community or social work, the concept of "home" encompassed deeper ideas of belonging, acceptance, and safety.

Coincidentally, I was at a concert on Saturday where the artists also tackled "big issues". But I was generally nonplussed with the vanilla "expand your mind" attitude there. These reflections felt deeper as they were personal and came from lived experience. There was no prevarication or blunting unpleasantness in vague therapy talk. Even land acknowledgement (de rigueur but generic and rote in most performances nowadays) included pointed reminders that these treaties were broken and we are all part of the existing colonial settler system. And for one of the works Palestinian keffiyeh were tied around a drum and worn by the orator.

As a matinée, there were quite a number of children in the audience. I don't know how much of the complex nuances they understood but hopefully something settled in their unconscious as ways to question the status quo. The pieces that used the entire ensemble were unsurprisingly the most thrilling as the air vibrated with the drum beats. The smaller works that fared best involved choreography thanks to the experience of some members in dance and movement.

Taking the streetcar home, I passed by the encampments at Allan Gardens park. Raw Taiko had already given answers as to why some people prefer to live outside in tents. Because it was home: where they can keep precious mementos, be among people who accept them, and sleep in a (relatively) safe place.