A white, cis woman’s misconceptions of identity within the opera sector    Who are you? How do you see yourself? How would you define yourself to someone else? Would you include your physical features? Personality traits? Beliefs? Which of these do you value the most? Which of these attributes do you want people to measure you by? When we start thinking about identity, we can get confused by what we’re trying to say. How we identify as individuals and how we identify as people are two conflicting ideas that are often abused within the opera community. I came to this realization when ..read more

A Progressive Farewell to the Tragic Women of Opera Photo by: Bill Knight - Image from English National Opera’s 2018 production of La traviata Violetta (Claudia Boyle) welcomes death as Germont (Alan Opie), Dr Grenvil (Henry Waddington), Annina (Martha Jones) and Alfredo (Lukhanyo Moyake) look on Once upon a time, Woman lived in a fantastical kingdom. Woman, forlorn, lonely, and with an air of tragedy about her, meets heroic Man and they fall in love. Some curse befalls Woman and she is fated to die [or suffer another form of doom]. Man finds his courage, confronts the curse and tries to sa ..read more

Renee and her twin sister's baptism in 1994 In accepting the invitation to write this blog in respect of Asian Heritage Month, I grappled with what to speak about. Partly because I had never before been asked to write anything that was meant to speak to my heritage, but more so because speaking as an Asian person about Asian heritage, in any capacity, carries a responsibility to make understood that my perspective is only one of the hundreds and thousands of perspectives that belong to Asian heritage; Perspectives that are so easily relegated to an umbrella term that renders them invisible ev ..read more

An opinion piece. Whether you are aware or not, it never hurts to reiterate that the arts are so much more than tangible or rigid practices. This lack of understanding is very much apparent in our arts education and continues to be prevalent in our training of arts educators. The arts promote innovation, collaboration and the overall wellbeing of individuals and their communities at large. And yet, year after year, it continues to die. I firmly believe that arts education holds the greatest value to the success of our educational systems and that it is vital to the livelihood of our future gen ..read more

How the patriarchy has made men natural-born performers  Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels   It has now been over a year since COVID-19 has kept us indoors. It has been a year full of changes like face masks, equidistant stickers on floors, and a really confusing use of colour-coding; however, it’s the societal and systemic changes that have affected me most.  As a queer, cisgendered, white man, I continue to spend a lot of time to reflect on my privileges, as well as the space I take up in my friend groups and the industries I work in. It has been a challenging, rewarding, emb ..read more

This is both a love letter to the Indigenous Artists who have supported, guided or offered me their wisdom as well as a reflection of the ways that spaces and organizations try to decolonize and Indigenize the art-making process. We don’t celebrate the living enough and this is my offering to them and the organizations I’m inspired by. Soundstreams - Two Odysseys, photo by Dahlia Katz. Mask commissioned by Two Odysseys co-director Michael Greyeyes, created by Nisga’a carver Mike Dangeli. To all and every Indigenous Woman, Matriarch, Two-Spirit, Knowledge-Keeper, Elder and Human-Being who has ..read more

An interview with IRCPA founder and artistic director Ann Summers Dossena If you are a member of the arts community in Toronto or across Canada for that matter, the name Ann Summers Dossena should be a common one for you; if it is not, understand that it needs to be. Ann has been and continues to be one of the biggest champions for not only opera but art across our continent, doing the thankless work behind the scenes to ensure that the world around the “art” continues to support those that create it. Working as an agent internationally, touring orchestras and chamber ensembles around the wor ..read more

A Trans perspective on creating safer spaces in opera Last week the COC hosted a panel called “Gender & Opera,” led by their new Disruptor-in-Residence company, Amplified Opera. A key question emerged over the course of the panel: how can the opera industry create safer spaces for artists to explore and innovate without fear of encountering serious harm based on their gender identities and presentations? The general consensus was that white, cis, straight men, never having been forced to advocate for their own humanity, are uniquely underqualified to lead such spaces. So why do w ..read more

A black artist’s take on Black History Month    It’s Black History month in case you’ve forgotten by now. This month always carries a strange weight for me and I recently have begun to understand why. Reflecting on even being present in the room while my partner, who is a teacher, watches When they see us–the Netflix docudrama highlighting the story of the central park five–with her class has brought about an understanding of the insignificance of my qualms over status as a young artist. The abuse of power, disregard for humanity, absence of empathy, and reprehensible iterations of ..read more