Command & Conquer

Friday night, I was back at The Horseshoe (but only virtually). As part of NAC (National Arts Centre) live stream showcase on Facebook, a sister act named Command Sisters was doing an acoustic set on stage. That was their actual names since several other Command(s), mostly from their childhood home of Alberta, showed up in the chat to cheer them on. Charlotte and Sarah played a few tunes off upcoming their debut EP: I Can Do What I Want Too, Low Profile, Lonely Lullaby. But they were relatively new so their set had numerous covers such as Hey Ya! (Outkast), Blinded By The Light (The Weeknd), and Free Falling (Tom Petty) or songs written during the pandemic (the Christmas adjacent Steal Your Heart, the Tindr diss Someone Else's Dream). On the latter, Charlotte revealed that Sarah finally found her "berta boy" not on dating apps but Zoom.

They both played guitar but split duties with dark-haired Charlotte on vocals and platinum-blonde Sarah doing harmony and guitar solos and fills. Their sound had a 90s RnB feel updated with the hip-hop style of the last several years. Combined with a good set of pipes, they won over some new fans who were watching because of the NAC sponsorship or had stumbled upon the live feed.

The sisters moved to the Toronto suburbs of Scarborough a few years ago but now lived in the East End. The "Legendary" Horseshoe was one of the venue that they frequented regularly for shows. They had met the singers of the B52s at NAMM who still remembered playing there in the 80s. So it was a special moment for the sisters to finally play here even if there was no physical audience. It was a nice sentiment but I've to numerous no-cover shows there so it isn't that hard to get on that stage.

With their musical chops, fashionable outfits, and photogenic looks, I wasn't surprised to hear that they signed with Republic/Universal about 2 years ago. But I didn't find their mainstream sound as compelling. I checked out their official videos afterwards and the electronic pop meets synthesizer rock sounded a bit generically corporate. Compared to tonight's set, sometimes less is more.

Black Swan

On Friday, I enjoyed my first live stream dance recital thanks to Citadel & Compagnie. It was a one-woman show with Syreeta Hector called Black Ballerina. First shown as part of Summerworks, she continued developing it at residencies in Belgium and Canadian Stage. Tonight was perhaps its most complete form with props and multiple steadi-cams.

Once you know that Hector has Black and First Nation (Mi'kmaq) heritage, the premise and symbolism of the piece were clear. The strength of the dance was in its execution. Hector laid on the stage, clad in black sweat pants and a hoodie. Slowly, she rolled and twitched as skittering, moaning noise echoed. At one point, she raised the hoodie's cowl high overhead with an extended arm, turning herself into some giant, mysterious spectre.

We still haven't seen her features. When she uncovered her head, it was with her back to the cameras, to reveal a cascade of long blonde hair. A documentary voice-over narrated about the mimic octopus, a creature that can hide and even resemble other animals, while Hector moved through nascent and tentative classical ballet movements.

Her internal conflict became apparent when she finally removed the wig, put one pink pointe shoe, and one gold sneaker. Hector danced in a stop-and-start manner with a mix of ballet and street, hampered by the mismatched footwear. The recital moved into its most free-flowing acts when Hector replaced that pointe with the other sneaker, and reveled in contemporary and hip-hop steps as A Tribe Called Red and Kendrick Lamar played. At one point, she flashed a grin at the camera. The final act had her return to her ballet roots complete with a soft tutu. Under a spotlight, she moved through various positions while a white powder drifted down to cover her face and torso.

The show was followed by a question-and-answer between the virtual audience, Hector, and artistic director Laurence Lemieux. The dancer talked about growing up in the Maritimes and not being taught (at home or in school) about her heritage or history. This erasure obviously had an effect on her. But I also felt that the looping back to ballet after joyously dancing to Lamar's Be Humble also revealed another conflict. As much as Hector identified with other Black artists, her reality of growing up in Halifax did not overlap fully with living in Compton or other heavily Black (and poor) areas in the U.S. Her "tribe" was as complicated and multi-dimensional as her racial background.

These live streams are becoming interesting. Like acts of faith, the audience was larger than one that would fit in the actual physical space. They also watched from everywhere, including places where these small productions would never tour. As for myself, even though I could attend this performance if allowed, having it virtual was a net positive. Being an old geezer, I often nap in the afternoon nowadays. I woke up only 15 minutes before the start time and would have missed it if I had to travel cross-town. But tonight, I even had time to start dinner before settling down to watch.

Said The Whale

On Wednesday night, I saw a live stream concert that left me disappointed. It wasn't so much the performer but the choice of platform. The set opened with Maggie Koerner growling a bluesy drawl on If I Die. It was a good start but I was nonplussed. This seemed a departure from what I knew of the artist. Then I laughed because all this time my brain fart had me thinking it would be Maggie Rogers.

In addition to the virtual audience, there was a smattering of live attendees since the show was taking place at The Chloe in New Orleans. It was a duo set with Joshua Starkman on guitar, and later on Zack Feinberg to close out the show, to celebrate Koerner's birthday IA good performance with original material like Love Drug and an excellent cover of Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter, but it didn't have the fire of her show in Toronto last year.

I didn't enjoy this concert and my first experience with the platform StageIt. They gave a viewer the option to tip the artist "gift coins" where 10 pieces would be $1. So the chat screen, instead of being full of insightful or appreciative posts like Molly Tuttle's last show, often filled up with different tip amounts.

I don't begrudge paying a performer; artists sometimes put links to venmo or paypal as a virtual tip jar. But I became astonished tonight to see some viewers were contributing hundreds of dollars. I then noticed in the show's description a list of rewards for top supporters. The #1 supporter, if they contributed at least $444, would get a private performance. No doubt this structure was meant to follow StageIt's FAQ that "rewarding top supporters often incentivizes fans to tip who otherwise may not have."

 

It was nice payday for a $1-ticket show, probably worth thousands. After all, I noticed that the #3 supporter tipped almost $400. Yet there were still 2 others ahead of them and another 80 behind. I wondered if they thought getting a sticker and a koozie was worth it. This online platform felt cynical and grubby: tipping without limit, displaying your current rank in the queue, showing the top 5 but of course not their contributions ("Maybe if I keep tipping I'll move up!"), and that bald-faced FAQ.

 

StageIt's monetization scheme was of a kind with paying streamers and youtubers (which can lead to them churning out right-wing and polemical content to keep their fans' "engagement"), loot boxes, in-app purchases, and chasing microtransactions big-spenders. It's nasty business and I won't use them ever again. But they weren't the only guilty party. Koerner anticipated (and incentivized for) $400+ from a single viewer. She should give that private performance to at least her top 5 supporters.

The Devil Wears Stola

On Saturday, I watched my first live-streamed play. Local theatres and dance companies have offered shows during this pandemic time, but they were mostly pre-recorded. Tonight, Factory Theatre was premiering on Twitch a one-person play called acts of faith.

It opened inside of a city apartment with its bay windows and water radiator. A young black woman (Natasha Mumba) proceeded to tell us a joke about Jesus on the cross. This was the titular Faith who grew up in Kitwe, Zambia. At the start of each new scene, she would regale us with another religious joke including several with the well-known "... and a rabbi" set-up.

Faith engagingly told us about her life, mostly between 13-years-old and her current 18. A "miracle baby" who arrived after several miscarriages, she lived with her mother while her father and brothers were off working the copper mines. She became an actual miracle to her neighbours when Faith convinced a snobby class-mate to stop her bullying ways by pretending to channel God's Words. This lie caused the first major rift with her mother.

The second, which led to 3 years of estrangement between them, came after Faith visited her cousins in Lusaka. There, she met "Father Hot Stuff" with his English accent, tousled blonde hair, tattoos, and hip sermons. But Faith quickly found out this holy man had grabby hands. Unfortunately, her mother could not accept her daughter's testimony.

Disillusioned with the church, Faith sat in the back pews with all the "sinners" and away from her pious mother. Things came to a head when Father Cody, after making his Instagram-documented missionary tour through various African cities and always with his arm around a young girl, came to Kitwe. We then found out what happened next, why Faith was now living in Toronto, and the uncanny experiences that followed.

I first saw playwright David Yee back in 2016. Given the magical realist tone of Acquiesce, I wasn't surprised with the seemingly supernatural elements nor the push-pull between parent and child, filial tradition and youthful modernity in acts of faith. But as essentially an oral memoir taking place in a single setting, the latter lacked an immersiveness that would allow an audience to, well, have faith in the material. As such, I felt some details seemed cliché when recited whereas a bigger production might imbued them with more truth.

But Mumba was excellent in her role. She believably combined mischievous irreverence, heartfelt belief, and painful loss. Faith was a woman you were happy to talk to and sad to hear about her trauma. We left her not knowing whether there was a happy ending for Faith, but we were hopeful of a miracle.