Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Nightwood is thrilled to present a series of pop-up performances by 7th Cousins throughout our 2017-18 season. This vital project asks, “How can we be together?” through both the personal and political perspective of two Canadian women who walked a 700 km journey through the Bible Belt of Pennsylvania, tracing the migration of their Mennonite ancestors. Described as an automythography, 7th Cousins explores the truth and tales of a real and imagined past, present and future.
Written and performed by Christine Brubaker and Erin Brubacher
Collaborators: Christopher Stanton, Andrea Nann, Kaitlin Hickey and Erum Khan
Nightwood Theatre presents a 7th Cousins production
Special inaugural performance July 31, 2017 at 8pm
The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 344
Limited seating
__
September location to be revealed…
Our Chat with the Cousins
Some folks like researching and creating family trees. Some like to go high-tech with DNA mapping. Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker went even further. They retraced the steps of one of their ancestors on a 700km trek over 32 days, using their shared family and Mennonite history as a jumping off point for a broader exploration of relationships and human interaction.
Inception? Erin and Christine hit it off and got chatting when they met in 2012 – and thought it would be fun to make up some stuff about being related. Later, they found out, via Erin’s dad’s research, that they actually are related; and that one of their ancestors walked from Pennsylvania to Ontario.
Inspired by that journey, Erin and Christine plotted a journey of their own. Walking 700km during the summer of 2015, they started in Lancaster, PA and followed the Susquehanna River, winding along river crossings and detouring around highways, arranging to stay with people along the way via Mennonite Your Way. Thirty-two days later, they arrived at Brubacher House (John E. Brubacher’s house, now a heritage museum) in Waterloo, ON, which Christine described as “a natural destination for us.” For the final 5km of the walk, they were joined by members of the community and greeted with a hymn.
Surprises? On a personal level, Erin was struck by “how hard it is to be with another person ... and pretty incredible.” Christine “was blown away by how beautiful it is” and how she was “surprised by the unquestioning commitment and beliefs of our Christian hosts.”
On a political level, they noted the differences between PA and ON Mennonites: the PA folks tended to be more evangelical, while those in ON were more “left-wing folk.” Or, how they’d meet "these really kind people" and then find out they’re home schooling their kids to keep them from an education that includes evolution and homosexuality. These encounters created a sense of “simultaneous tension and immense generosity.” Erin also noted that this was pre-Trump administration, so the vibe south of the border may be decidedly different now.
Most memorable moments? Erin remarked how differently they remember the same experience; sharing individual takes on something that had happened 20 minutes earlier and finding they had two different versions of the same event. They also had a bear sighting, putting them on high alert to stay clear of mother and cubs!
What did they learn about themselves/each other? Erin and Christine developed a mutual admiration for each other – as well as learning what drove each other nuts – and truly became family on this journey.
Christine was impressed by Erin’s “remarkable resiliency." And how she regarded herself in contrast to Erin’s faster pace: “I think that my pace is slower than what I ever would have defined it as… My internal rhythm of thinking.”
Erin noted that she was “continuing to be simultaneously surprised and not surprised at an evolving admiration of another person" and how she was astounded by Christine’s ability to juggle and be deeply there in what she was doing while she was doing it. Of herself, she feels "older… I hit some kind of threshold," becoming more aware of her own aging process.
Why pop-up? Christine talked about the idea of a Brubaker family dinner and they did a performance in her house, with guests walking to the event. During the process of preparing it for production and working on grant writing, though, they found that trying to articulate the show as a traditional theatre piece wasn’t working – and took away from what made it special. “The show is much more nomadic than that, it’s much more dextrous than that. It actually exists in a variety of places. It kind of mirrors the walk.” That’s when the idea of pitching the show to happen in a series of places came about.
Doing it as a pop-up presentation adds “a level of intimacy.” Erin pointed out “the venues we’re choosing will really be echoes of the kinds of places we encountered on our walk… places of gathering, meeting places… places of communities coming together, faith." And how, as performers, they’ll be “responding to a space, allowing our memories to evolve over time, and the parts of the show that are improvised to change, as our relationship to what we experienced changes.”
Also from 7th Cousins:** The Unpacking at SummerWorks. This summer, Erin and Christine are heading back to Pennsylvania for a family reunion and will create a new performance during the seven-hour car ride home, a distance that took them 32 days on foot. Welcome the Brubach/kers back to Toronto the moment they arrive at a one-time-only potluck performance.
7th Cousins’ inaugural performance is July 31 at The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 344. Stay tuned for more pop-up performances in September and December.
Photo: Christine and Erin Brubaker.
2017-07-18
Toronto: "Seventh Cousins" has its first pop-up show July 31