Image credit: Sara Melvin
Jason
Celia Green
Sat 18 April | T1
6:30 - 7:35pm
Duration: 65 mins
Access Key: V
Jason is a solo performance work that grapples with transformation, shame, and sexuality from a transmasculine experience. Wearing a disfigured men's suit with extra arms, too-long pants with bulging knees, and clutching a precious collection of Magnum XL condoms, a figure appears. He is wet, alone, and trying to feel better.
Unfolding over 60 minutes in an almost silent landscape punctuated by the crinkle of a plastic "THANK YOU" bag and the sound of skin on skin, Jason makes visible the internal efforts required to inhabit a body in transition. Borrowing from binary gendered expectations of sexuality—high-pitched moans, low growls, thrusting hips—he engages in a range of repetitive physical gestures: smacking, shaking, tumbling, throwing, in an attempt to transform emotional emptiness into pleasure and freedom.
Tangled in shame, charm, and sensuality, what emerges is contradictory, rhythmic, laborious, and sweaty. Confronting, funny, and tender, Jason offers an intimate window into the pain and pleasure of inhabiting a gender non-conforming body. Loneliness is put on display, and the audience is invited into a shared experience as Jason reaches toward a fantasy of leaving the confines of his body and being re-birthed as something new.
Credits:
Choreographer & Performer: Celia Green
Collaborator & Dramaturg: Augusto Bitter
Costume Designer: Malcolm Leblanc
Lighting Designer: Karine Gauthier
Rehearsal Director for premiere: Tia Kushniruk
Created with the support of LA SERRE - ARTS VIVANTS, The National Ballet of Canada's Open Space Residency, and Toronto Dance Theatre.
The creation of this work was funded by the Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council
Special thank you to Leslie Green, Lucie Green, Celeste Midori, Sara Melvin, Masha Granich, and Kalale Dalton-Lutale.
Content Notes:
Nakedness and sexual content, moments where performer interacts with a raw fish on stage.
Image credit: Matt Hertendy
Celia Green’s practice includes choreographing, directing, writing and performance. They create highly physical, intimate performances that explore emotion, sensation, mess, and the pursuit of freedom—always infused with humour. Grounded in care and rigour, their collaborative practice and creations draw on their experiences as a queer, trans-masculine person and their background in care work with children and families. Celia’s work has been presented by OFFTA, English Theatre Berlin, the Toronto Dance Love-In, The SummerWorks Festival, and The Rhubarb Festival. Celia was the curator of GOODIE BAG! - a week-long event with Dancemakers that offered free massage, tattoos, portraits and acupuncture for trans performers. Celia has completed residencies at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, LA SERRE, P.A.R.T.S and Toronto Dance Theatre. They recently won the award for Best Performance in a Short Film at Canadian Film Fest for their performance in the short film Greenhorn by Sabrina Way.