BLACK LIVES

MATTER

Our home page statement reads:

As mourning and protests continue across Canada and the US, we stand in solidarity with protesters, demanding justice, institutional change, and reparations for a system that has disadvantaged, oppressed, and killed Black people for generations.

We, as an organization with predominantly white leadership, acknowledge that we have failed in the past to connect with communities of colour, and we must do better to reach these artists and audiences. We are committing to using this time to listen, to learn, and to work towards this goal, developing specific plans, and policies that support this aim. We intend to share this work, as we move towards action.

We affirm that we have benefited from a history of white supremacy, colonialism, and political and cultural dominance that has hurt all communities of colour. We accept the responsibility for our actions and those of our ancestors. We are resolved to do better, and are eager to do so. We further acknowledge that marginalized communities have no duty to do this work for us, or to trust this statement. The duty is on us to earn this trust, by doing the work.

We urge white people to embrace this opportunity to join this struggle, to seek out unheard voices, and to encourage us all to actively pursue justice and equity, in our work, our home, and in our community.

We must do better. We will do better. Black Lives Matter.

HOWEVER

We are currently taking the time to pause, listen, and reflect. We are so grateful to the members of our theatre community in Halifax, in the Maritimes, across Canada, and across the globe, who have boldly spoken out against the racism and injustices that we are complicit in perpetuating. We are dedicating ourselves to learning about these deeply entrenched systems, so that we may actively dismantle them through both our art making practice and our daily lives. We will be sharing readings, resources and upcoming workshops on our Anti-Racism in Theatre page. We welcome you to connect with us to discuss these resources, ideas you have, or questions you have for us. We also welcome your criticism, and hope that we may help hold each other accountable.

Our next steps are to critically analyze the way our theatre cooperative has been operating. We will strive to bring marginalized and underrepresented voices to the forefront. We will be finding ways to put Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour into leadership roles. We will be interrogating our own power structures, and redistributing who has decision making abilities. We will be creating accessible opportunities for the mentorship and training of marginalized emerging artists.

We recognize this statement to be incomplete, imperfect, and merely

performative allyship if it is not followed with direct action and an

ongoing effort to dismantle the systems of oppression that have led