Queer Dance

This poem was performed at Peterborough/Nogojiwanong’s amazing black box theatre “The Theatre On King” where I did a residency that ended in two nights of performance of new work. I’m blessed to have worked with ASL Deaf Interpretation with Gaitrie Persaud and her company Phoenix The Fire, also to Micheal Morritt his excellent videography. Thank you to the Canada Council for funding this manuscript project.

I wrote this one after the mass shooting at Club Q happened in Colorado Springs in 2022. This happened during the lockdowns and it was especially isolating to experience this grief. When I perform it in public, it’s like a little cure for that memory. I chose to make the music pretty fun and novel, because that’s the feeling I get in queer dance spaces. Before the last queer was saved, mainstream news was already getting the narrative wrong, the pronouns, the heroes. I wanted to get it right and honour their stories.

I find it especially heinous when we are gunned down in our own spaces, when we are so carefree with our bodies. The music represents that end of the story. That our spaces are full of joy, while also holding the tension of fear of gathering. Being queer is not tragic, it’s a joy that gets interrupted.