Starlight Caberet embodies the great efforts of resistance, revolutionary movements, transformative paradigm shifts of consciousness, and radical love as Indigenous responses to the impacts of intergenerational trauma. Planet Earth is our only home. This realization becomes clear when you look up to the stars. Starlight beaming at atomic speed from the beyond reminding us we are alive, here, connected.
Starlight Caberet—SKODEN! is an applied theatre project rooted in the experiences of Indigenous/BIPOC women and 2SLGBTQIA+ activists. These stories span decades across Turtle Island at the intimate locations of identity, home, family, and friendship to the more visible spaces within Western classrooms, media, front lines, and settler colonial systems. Stories of activism will be shared through ‘kitchen table talks’ and then interpreted and imagined through the libratory practice of burlesque and performance in a caberet setting. We hope that the freedom of expression, reclamation, and subversion of power that burlesque provides opens up a space for the audience to challenge preconceived notions and imagine new, generative worlds at the intersections of Indigeneity, sexuality, and activism. As well, Starlight Caberet will highlight the tension between shame culture/patriarchy, outside of and within our communities, and the pandemic of violence against 2SLGBTQIA+ and women. In this sacred Indigenous space, we make visible the authority and sovereignty of our rights, bodies and laws.
Through local protocols, and in good relationship with local Lekwungen peoples, we will be ‘given the floor’ at the Belfry Theatre to tell our stories of activism infused with the spirit of caberet. Through the trans-conceptual spaces created within the settings of the kitchen table and the cabaret, Indigenous activism is reframed through a lens that presences joy, hope, freedom, love, sexuality, Indigenous feminism, and comedy. The audience will be asked to dress in cabaret fashion, bring cash and participate in the performance. All donations collected will be given to the SACRED program at PEERS.