Desire and diaspora are always intertwined. At this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival, beginning June 30, multiple productions by artists from Caribbean diasporas are reminding audiences that the political is personal, and vice versa.
In Rhoma Spencer’s Danse Macabre, winner of this year’s Fringe new play contest, a designer of Mas — elaborate masquerade costumes for Toronto’s almost 60-year-old annual Caribbean carnival — reckons with the ancestral meanings of her work. Momme Domme, by Blemme Fatale productions, invites the audience to witness women accessing their ancestral matriarchal power. And Ex-Change of Words, a two-hander written and co-produced by Danny Sylvan, puts gay interracial and age-gap relationships under the microscope. In separate video conversations, the lead artist behind each piece spoke about approaching themes of Blackness, diaspora, power, and desire.
“Momme Domme is ‘how to be a domme 101,’” said Lamesha Ruddock, the show’s creator. As her domme persona Peggy Mitchell, Ruddock leads a rotating cast of four women through a BDSM workshop.
“BDSM, dom, and domme culture can reveal conversations around exclusion, exploitation, the commodification of feminine bodies, and what it means for women to own their sexuality and pleasure,” said Ruddock. “In Momme Domme, we teach the basics, like how to spot a sub, how to choose a fake name, how to regain control, how to know how much to charge: the real questions.”
The audience plays the part of a “committee of public safety” that has commissioned the performance, and that holds the power to decide what happens onstage — or so it would seem at first glance.
“The cast knows what’s coming but the audience doesn’t,” Ruddock said. “‘Who’s really in control? Who’s really empowered?’”
Those same questions, in a different context, ricochet through Ex-Change of Words. Sylvan plays Derek, a Black queer man in his early 20s, who’s recently ended a relationship with an older white man named Curtis, played by Ryan Kelly.
“Curtis is at a crossroads,” Sylvan said. “He’s grieving the love of his life, who’s passed away; he’s trying to maintain a platonic friendship with Derek; and he finds himself in a new romantic relationship, but as ‘the other man.’”
The concept for Ex-Change came to Sylvan after the end of a real-life relationship in 2017. He hadn’t initially planned to step into the role of Derek, a character who at first glance shares many similarities with Sylvan himself.
“It will be a little nerve-wracking to step into those shoes,” he said, “since the character of Derek is related to my own experience. But it’s also exciting, because I know this character and this script so well.”
Spencer’s Danse Macabre finds seams of difficulty in carnival’s celebrations. The play stages a conflict over who has permission to wear a particular Mas — and by extension that Mas’ history.
“At the centre is a queer, Black, Trini-Canadian Mas designer named Cisco,” said Spencer in a virtual conversation. “Her band is called Danse Macabre, and this year, the king’s costume that Cisco’s creating is one that speaks to African history and civilization, and by extension, her ancestors.” Tensions flare when a white performer connected to the band’s main investor stakes his claim to wear the Mas.
Spencer said that she began writing Danse Macabre in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, and the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Some bright bodies came up with ‘All Lives Matter,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Hell, no.’ You have to understand why the Black among all that matters.”
In Danse Macabre, memory scenes evoke key moments from the Black diasporic past. In Momme Domme, the workshop’s ultimate goal is a liberated future.
“I found a lot of my Black femininity and my power through domme-ing,” said Ruddock. “‘What does it mean to build a matriarchal earth through soft and benevolent power? What does it mean to be a muvvah with two Vs?’”
Ruddock described Momme Domme as being closer to performance art than to a scripted, narrative play. The workshop taking place onstage will be an extension of a longer exploratory process in which Ruddock worked with six women, each with different levels of experience in performing and BDSM. (Out of the six performers, a rotating four appear on stage.)
To get everyone on the same page, Ruddock led the performers through an onboarding ritual focused on collective care, the establishing of a consent framework, and the cast getting real training in domme-ing.
“People who didn’t even get the entendre of the show’s name are now growing as experts,” said Ruddock. “It’s been refreshing and really hopeful.” Ten percent of Momme Domme’s profits will go to the Cleo May Collective’s Black sex workers’ fund.
Speaking about Ex-Change of Words, Sylvan said that he hopes the play will trouble audiences’ preconceived notions about what they’re seeing onstage.
“Interracial relationships, as well as age-gap dating, are prevalent in the gay community,” he explained. “Once audiences get to know the world of the play, I hope it will challenge them to see the balance of what beautiful things can come out of these kinds of relationships, as well as things that are tougher to navigate.”
Spencer said that she hopes Danse Macabre will reach people who might not know the history of Carnival, even if they’ve been attending the Toronto version for years. Before immigrating to Canada in 1999, Spencer grew up in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, where histories of Black resistance to enslavement and colonialism have influenced the practice of Carnival all over the world. As the founder of Canadian-Caribbean Arts Network and a former artistic director of the Pan Alive steel pan competition, Spencer knows that history well.
“When the [Toronto] carnival was given as a gift to the nation in 1967 to commemorate the 100-year centennial of Canada, the architects of the event at the time wanted to present the pretty and nice side of the carnival,” she said. “Not the traditional side, which is first and foremost about protest. It was how Africans took to the streets to celebrate their emancipation and confront society.”
“In Danse Macabre, we see the Canboulay Riots in Trinidad in 1881, which is the nucleus of why Carnival as we know it today exists,” she continued. “I do believe that wherever the carnival exists, the ancestors exist. Today, some bands are bringing out more traditional Mas. Little by little, you’re seeing it.”
Danse Macabre, Ex-Change of Words, and Momme Domme aren’t the only works by Caribbean artists at Fringe this year. Sincerely E, by Neisha Pierre, paints a picture of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants who travelled to the U.K. in the mid-20th century. And solo show My Journey Back to ChihSang uses storytelling, comedy, and bubbles — yes, bubbles — to chart Chinese-Triniadian artist ChihSang’s journey from the Caribbean to Canada, as well as toward a new sense of self.
It’s fitting that these productions will take place during Toronto’s Carnival season, which kicks off June 13 and culminates with the grand parade on August 1. That date is also Emancipation Day: the anniversary of slavery’s official abolition in the British empire.
“Prior to emancipation, the colonizer played Mas on top of lorries and floats, but once Africans were emancipated, they took to the streets,” said Spencer.
“The Carnival that we know in Toronto, and diasporic carnivals all over the world, exists because of that post-emancipated African presence.”
The Toronto Fringe Festival runs June 30 to July 12. Tickets are available here.
Toronto Fringe is an Intermission partner. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Nathaniel Hanula-James
Nathaniel Hanula-James is a multidisciplinary theatre artist who has worked across Canada as a dramaturg, playwright, performer, and administrator.
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