{"id":41068,"date":"2022-03-25T13:21:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T13:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?post_type=cu_story&p=41068"},"modified":"2025-02-03T11:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:30:16","slug":"life-love-and-resistance","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/story\/life-love-and-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Life, Love and Resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n\n \n \n \n \n
\n\n
<\/div>\n \n
\n
\n\n

\n Life, Love and Resistance\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

From her childhood living room to the Canadian stage, English alumna Sarah Waisvisz (PhD) recounts her artistic journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Nick Ward<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a playwright, dancer, multi-disciplinary performer, dramaturge, and teacher of drama, Dr. Sarah Waisvisz (PhD \u201814) is an artist through and through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child, Waisvisz would retell fairytales to her family, with stuffed animals playing the leading roles. This creativity led to plays performed with friends, elaborate make-believe worlds, and many, many short stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Maryse Fernandes and Margo MacDonald in Heartlines. Photo by Andrew Alexander.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today, her award-winning plays are seen by audiences all over North America, with her most recent show,\u00a0Heartlines<\/a><\/em>, currently being put on at the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) in Ottawa (with tickets selling out fast).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heartlines<\/em>, in many ways, is a story about intersections, the culmination of Waisvisz\u2019s learnings and experiences as an artist and person who lives at the intersections of her Afro-Caribbean, French, Dutch, and Jewish heritage. In fact, the play was inspired by Waisvisz\u2019s own relatives, including her grandmother and great grandmother, two Jewish women who hid in the countryside of France with several small children during the Second World War.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heartlines<\/em> is the reimagined story of the lives of Jewish French surrealist and avant-garde artists Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun, who were active in the French Resistance during the rise of Hitler and anti-Semitism. Through these vibrant characters, the celebrated two-act play explores the illimitable mosaic of identity during a time of violence and tragedy. While Heartlines<\/em> tells a story about the past, it is undeniably relevant to our present.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst completing her PhD at Carleton in the Department of English Language and Literature<\/a>, Waisvisz researched Caribbean literature and literature of human rights, exploring resistance, diaspora, art during times of conflict and trauma \u2013 all themes that are meaningfully and thoughtfully confronted in Heartlines<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waisvisz is one of two award-winning Carleton English graduates whose plays have been recently picked up by the GCTC. Sanita Fejzi\u0107\u2019s <\/em>Blissful State of Surrender<\/em><\/a> completed a sold-out run at the theatre from February 22 to March 6, 2022. Read our interview with Fejzi\u0107 here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Margo MacDonald and Maryse Fernandes in Heartlines. Photo by Andrew Alexander.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hi Sarah, thanks for taking the time to have this conversation. Can you tell us a bit about Heartlines?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heartlines <\/em>is a two-act play about the life, love, and resistance work of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, two French artists who were also Jewish and queer. Cahun and Moore are known in art history and queer culture as gender-warriors who used photography, writing, and collage to express not only their artistic interests in surrealism but also their anti-fascist beliefs. The play\u2019s first act is set in Paris during the height of their artistic exploration, while act two is set on the isle of Jersey during the Nazi Occupation of WWII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the process of putting together this play?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making this play was a collaborative process over many years. Playwriting is not like writing fiction or poetry; at many stages of the process, you share the work with others, take in their input, and eventually release it to a creative and production team who takes over and puts their own stamp on it. I\u2019ve been very fortunate to work with brilliant collaborators over the years, and although I am the writer behind the script, I am grateful to everyone who has been part of the workshops, rehearsals, and readings, and whose comments and ideas have shifted the writing for me. Heartlines <\/em>belongs to all of us who have worked on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You write, you act, you dance \u2013 what draws you so deeply to artistic expression? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as a child, artistic expression was important for me. I studied classical ballet, loved to work with art supplies, and I wrote short stories. Earlier still, I was a ruthless toddler director who demanded that stories, make-believe games, and puppet shows included the dialogue and endings I wanted. My poor mother!  When I was an older child, I wanted to be both a ballet dancer and a writer. It\u2019s wonderful that I can still have dance and writing in my life, albeit not as a Prima Ballerina with a side career writing best-selling novels \u2013 which somehow seemed possible at age 10!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In your experience, what are some of the qualities of leading an artistic life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading an artistic life is not always easy, but for many artists it\u2019s not a choice. The impulse to create or to be proximate to a creative process is as natural as the impulse to breathe, and it\u2019s hard to imagine life without that if you are an artistic person and an artist. Whether or not we make art for a living, or in parallel to our professional work, creative expression is our life-force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is art so important in our particular moment?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was in exile in 1938, in a collection entitled Svendborg Poems<\/em>, Bertolt Brecht wrote the following: \u201cIn the dark times \/ Will there be singing? \/ There will be singing\/ Of the dark times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have long been inspired by these words and by the work of writers like Brecht and Paul Celan who used their skill to witness and comment on war and suffering. It\u2019s not always easy to write during <\/em>the difficult moment, but we nevertheless need to find a way to write about it, even afterwards, so as not to lose it, not to let its urgency dissipate into the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Scottie Irving and Maryse Fernandes in Heartlines. Photo by Andrew Alexander.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you approach writing the same way you approach dance or acting?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a great question because I am the kind of playwright who imagines movement, music, and atmosphere even as I imagine words or dialogue on the page. Everything is interlocked and connected for me, both in my body and in my mind. Hence why it was crucial that Heartlines <\/em>feature a live sound score and that it be created and played by a composer\/musician who could be part of the rehearsal process itself, rather than an add-on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us a bit about your time at Carleton in the Department of English Language and Literature, and what impacts that experience had on you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pursued my PhD at Carleton in the Department of English Language and Literature, where I had the good fortune to learn from incredible professors and researchers. During those five years, I primarily read and researched Caribbean literature and literature of human rights. Some of the themes I worked on then included resistance, diaspora, art in times of conflict, and the role of art in witnessing trauma. Heartlines <\/em>is deeply connected to many of these themes and ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who and\/or what inspires you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This play is inspired by my own relatives who resisted, in various ways, during WWII. For example, my grandmother and great grandmother, both Jewish women, fled Paris and lived in the countryside of France during the War, with several small children. My great-grandmother spoke German because she was originally Swiss, and somehow, they organized themselves to listen to illegal BBC broadcasts and pass on messages to the Allied parachuters who landed on their property; afterwards they would unravel and use the parachute material as thread and cloth. I don\u2019t know how they managed this; I think they had documents proving they were Catholic, but that didn\u2019t guarantee evasion or safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think about how my relatives survived the war, there is always an element like that that seems too incredible to be true but is <\/em>true. When you grow up with stories like this, with European relatives who remember, WWII is never far from your mind. This is not necessarily the same experience for the majority of North Americans, although Canada of course had its share of veterans. But for Europeans, WWII isn\u2019t too far back in time. The wounds are still felt and inter-generational trauma has a long reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next for you, Sarah?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to return to a script that I had to put on the back burner since trying to bring Heartlines<\/em> into production, first at the Ottawa Fringe undercurrents festival and now at the GCTC. The other script is called Double Helix<\/em>, and it is partly inspired by time I spent in West Africa studying traditional Malinke dance. Double Helix<\/em> is, at its heart, about the legacy of the Middle Passage on a mixed-race family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From her childhood living room to the Canadian stage, English alumna Sarah Waisvisz (PhD) recounts her artistic journey By Nick Ward As a playwright, dancer, multi-disciplinary performer, dramaturge, and teacher of drama, Dr. Sarah Waisvisz (PhD \u201814) is an artist through and through. As a child, Waisvisz would retell fairytales to her family, with stuffed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[816],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-41068","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","hentry","cu_story_type-general"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/41068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/41068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41135,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/41068\/revisions\/41135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=41068"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=41068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}