Photo by Ivor Picou, CARIFESTA XIV, Trinidad & Tobago, August 2019
Photo by Ivor Picou, CARIFESTA XIV, Trinidad & Tobago, August 2019
Photo by Ivor Picou, CARIFESTA XIV, Trinidad & Tobago, August 2019
Photo by Ivor Picou, CARIFESTA XIV, Trinidad & Tobago, August 2019
Photo by Tsholo Khalema, The Theatre Centre, Toronto, May 2018
Photo by Tsholo Khalema, The Theatre Centre, Toronto, May 2018
Photo by Tsholo Khalema, The Theatre Centre, Toronto, May 2018
Photo by Courtnay McFarlane, BAND Gallery & Cultural Centre, Tkaronto, June 2019
speaking of sneaking
Ginnal is desperate to flee from Yard and settle in Foreign. When he meets a Spider who sets him on the journey towards a new home, Ginnal learns the real cost of freedom. speaking of sneaking is a theatrical mash-up of dance, poetry, and pantomime; collapsing past and present, where the archetypal Jamaican ginnal and the mythical African Anansi meet.
“speaking of sneaking complicates the traditional understanding of crookedness within the Jamaican archetypal ginnal. The play presents a case in defence of the ginnal. For a person like Ginnal — Black and queer — to survive in the white supremacist capitalist heteropatriachy constructed and sustained by the oppression of Black and queer people, sometimes it is necessary to be crooked and play the trickster to reach safety. speaking of sneaking is an original Anansi tale of why Jamaicans do not trust ginnals.”
creative team
Direction and Dramaturgy: d’bi.young anitafrika Movement and Choreography: Brian Solomon Props, Set and Costume Designer: Rachel Forbes Lighting Designer: Andre Du Toit Sound Designer: Jesse Ellis Stage Manager: Victoria Wang Assistant Stage Manager: Alexandra Sproule Workshop Stage Manager: Kathleen Jones Performer and Playwright: daniel jelani ellis
Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominations:
Outstanding Production, Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Performer, Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Lighting Design
ellis is a smallish, lithe man with the body of an acrobat. He is also a human chameleon, magically turning from a five-year old boy to a back-bent granny with a flick of the wrist. He needs only a large barrel and a bench on wheels to tell a story that is part about life in a big cold city and part steeped in African / Jamaican mythology. The Caribbean Camera
ellis is a joy to watch as he fiercely inhabits the space, shifting between several colourful characters and invoking a very palpable sense of place. It is a piece that is all the more rewarding when you understand the process and the specific mythos ellis is drawing from. Mooney on Theatre
speaking of sneaking investigates the complex relationship between immigration and displacement, yard and foreign, home and abroad. AfroToronto
ellis is also a chameleon. Characters appear and disappear and interact with a deceptive ease more akin to possession than to acting. Accents, voices and physical appearance transform instantaneously and convincingly. A conversation between a 10- year-old boy and his grandmother was an actual dialogue, the feisty elderly woman was there on the stage. Even the dance moves, again many hilarious and viciously pointed, seem to be performed by characters with completely different physicalities, abilities and training. As a calling card, speaking of sneaking proves emphatically that there may not be anything that ellis can't do. MyGayToronto