[020] "Brothers In The Kitchen"
NEIGHBOURS v3: On 'performing the documentary' between a live storyteller and their audience, and the precarious boundaries of selfhood, overstretched by history.
Hello, Tired Ones,
Another week, another sign of life, another reason that showing up’s still worth it.
In my work as a writer, designer, and White-saviour-in-recovery, I come across important stories about progress that people are leading on their own terms.
These are stories that help me to remember: before there was bureaucratic care, or self-care, there was simply, well, care.
So come on in, sit down. For the next few minutes at least, I’ve got you.
February’s care workers: Neighbourhood storytellers
“I lived in the first century of world wars…”
Sourcing notes: Photo via TVO.org, with poetry excerpt by this week’s poet, Muriel Rukeyser.
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I’ll be taking some time over the next month or so to get new work lined up for the year ahead. As a result, I’ll very likely be on hiatus for the next 4-6 weeks.
If anyone in your circles needs support in plain-language writing for web design, please reach out.
I hope to find some low-key ways to share clippings or some of the Neat Stuff I Find On The Internet. Til then, I’ll be posting regularly to LinkedIn within my professional wheelhouse – capturing what I’ve learned from the overlap of everyday digital design + plain-language writing + mental health.
Stay cozy out there.
Some ambience, for pairing
"Tunstall" by Project Pablo & Patrick Holland, from the album Come To Canada You Will Like It (2018).
Percussive. Soothing. Back-road sunny driving. Listen to more.
Sourcing notes: via Flow State.
A healthy practice, to chew on
Brothers In The Kitchen: The uprising, exodus and survival of a Tamil minority, by Cyrus Sundar Singh. A Major Research Paper for Ryerson University’s MFA Program in Documentary Media. 2016.
On the performance of documentary between a live storyteller and their audience, and the specific role of the Kattiyakkaran, a cultural form from Tamil street theatre who “ties it all together”:
On December 29th, [2015] shortly after our Prime Minister welcomed the Syrian refugees, I pitched Brothers in the Kitchen as a live, site-specific performative documentary to… the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival [...] On May 4, 2016, it had its world premiere at the festival in Toronto.
The story recounted the uprising, exodus and survival of Tamil Sri Lankans who fled a brutal civil war and sought refuge in Canada. The ethnic conflict, between the Buddhist Sinhala majority and the Hindu Tamil minority, sparked a mass exodus following the deadly riots known as Black July in 1983. Subsequently, over time, a staggering number of Tamils found asylum in Canada—the largest Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in the world. Eventually, a significant number of them began work as cooks and dishwashers in the kitchens of many Canadian restaurants—hence the title of the documentary, Brothers in the Kitchen.
The production was a site-specific live-documentary, performed inside a restaurant in the presence of the storytellers and the audience, along with a number of supporting cast and crew all vested in ‘performing the documentary’. [...]
On that night, thirteen subjects of the documentary, ranging from a septuagenarian to vicenarians, amateurs to professionals, authors and politicians, told their stories live and in the flesh to an audience seated within the same space. With few traditional filters to mediate—such as film, editing, the two-dimensionality of a movie screen, time passage—what was left was a direct, face-to-face relationship between the storytellers and their audience. In the subsequent review of the documentary, writer Corey Mintz described the construct:
“As in any documentary, [Sundar] Singh interviewed dozens of subjects, then edited those down to essential pieces that, stitched together, form a clear narrative. But instead of splicing footage he had each interview subject recount their story live as part of an interactive, multimedia tapestry.”
The live-documentary unfolded in real-time. NOW Magazine’s film critic Radheyan Simonpillai described it in this way:
“At the intimate and interactive gathering, speakers shared traumatic memories, with support from video installations, a live band and dancers whose fluid Bharatanatyam movements channelled the show’s poetry, and on occasion, horror. A few technical glitches during the experimental production were welcomed as part of the collaborative process, and the audience was sometimes called on to read archival newspaper clippings aloud. […] The sheer breadth and depth of the show was astounding. It offered an immersive history on Tamil migration, the memories, music and art all informing a search for what the Tamil-Canadian identity has become, or is becoming.”
In the script, I chose to conflate the role of the male cook and narrator into one character called Brother, played by Dora Award-winning actor Anand Rajaram. Brother became the symbolic ‘stand in’ for the many brothers in the kitchen...
Anand [Rajaram, an actor] played the role of ‘Anonymous,’ a real person who provided his personal testimony of his experiences of fleeing Sri Lanka, his passage on the cargo ship, The Aurigae, and his time working in the kitchens of many Toronto restaurants. However, Anonymous did not want to be identified within my documentary:
“Although it has been thirty years since we arrived, I still feel ashamed. If we had arrived by airplane we would feel better. In the early days, the white people would shame us for arriving on a boat. They called us ‘boatpeople’ and used it as a demeaning and subjugating term. I worked in the kitchens as a prep cook and got into many arguments with the bosses about the condition of our arrival. I tried to tell them the story but they did not want to hear it. They accused us of being so poor that we were opportunists who jumped the queue for a better life. We did not want to leave -- we had to leave--or die!”
Because Anonymous would not appear, I placed Anand behind a six-foot screen (an opaque white sari) and backlit him in silhouette like a shadow puppet. Anand performed the verbatim words of this absent subject. ‘Anonymous’ wasn’t the only subject who did not want to appear in front of an audience, or unavailable that night, and some ‘Brothers in the Kitchen’ could not take time off work. Others I had lost touch with over time. [...]
I also employed the device of a Greek Chorus—a theatrical convention whereby a group of characters in a collective voice comment on the dramatic action. ... A similar theatrical convention exists in Tamil street theatre in Tamil Nadu in South India and in Northern Sri Lanka. That tradition includes the character, Kattiyakkaran. This name is a composite Tamil word, Katti: to tie, and Karan: man. So, a Kattiyak-karan is he who ties it all together – the one who weaves together a story’s disparate threads so it all makes sense.
This character is allowed to break the conceptual fourth wall, address the audience directly, offer opinions and elicit commentary—like a Greek Chorus. However, I flipped the male gender of the Kattiyakkaran with a female trio and coined the gender specific Tamil-English moniker for my Tamil Chorus as Kattiyakkari-Gals—a play on the English word “Gal” and the Tamil feminine plural form, Kattiyakkarigal. The members of the Tamil Chorus were professionally trained: dancers (fully versed in Bharathanatyam), singers, and actors. The Kattiyakkari-Gals danced, sang, and recited poetry and provided context akin to B-Roll or cutaways in conventional documentaries. Their poetry, songs, and dance helped to provide much needed breaks from the interviews that were akin to the talking heads of traditional documentaries. [...]
The documentary concluded with the collective recital of the full Happyfish poem by the Kattiyakkari-Gals, Brother, and by all present—a nod to the understanding that everyone inside the space played a part in ‘performing the documentary.’ [...]
Where there is a camera, we perform to it. Whether it is a selfie, a group shot, documentary, drama, or the six o’clock news, we are influenced by the presence of the camera. Similarly, the presence of audience can also influence the story and the storyteller. […] There is a heightened energy that captivates the gathered who, are not only there to receive but also to participate. And much like theatre or a religious revival meeting, the symbiosis between the storyteller/artist/preacher and the audience can seem sacred. An ephemeral bond is created during the exchange of music, song, or story. This exchange is as old as the caves and the campfires.
Brothers In The Kitchen—The Symbiosis Of The Storyteller And The Audience.
Sourcing notes: via reporting from Radheyan Simonpillai, Brothers In The Kitchen serves up moving stories at Hot Docs, NOW Magazine. May 6, 2016.
A poem, to cleanse the palate
"Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) by Muriel Rukeyser, from The Speed of Darkness (1968).
It begins:
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
On the frantic search for reconciliation, and the precarious boundaries of selfhood, overstretched by history:
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.I lived in the first century of these wars.
Sourcing notes: via @poetryisnotaluxury on Instagram.
Something sweet, to top it all off
And now, a very happy baby—discovering her new passion in life.
A dare, til next time
I dare you to email me with the first thought that comes to your mind about the newsletter: hello@chrisconnolly.ca.
You could tell me what you’d like to see more of, and less of. Or you could tell me where else you turn to learn about care work and mutual aid.
Either way, it’s a dare.
That's all for this week.
Remember: Drink when you're thirsty, nap when you can.
Kind regards,
Chris Connolly
Manager, Personalized Care
(Acting Director, Standardized Care)
Humane Resources Division
The Dept. of Emotional Labour