“We’re getting more and more submissions,” says artistic producer Amanda Goldberg about the SkirtsAfire, Edmonton’s only theatre and multidisciplinary arts festival featuring women-identifying and non-binary artists. “They definitely passed a hundred this year. There’s not a lot of space out there, but we’re doing what we can.”
The 13-year-old festival, which runs from March 6 to 16, has slimmed down into a more compact version as it navigates economic realities. For theatrical and dance productions they’ve set up shop in three southside venues, the Walterdale Theatre, Théâtre Servus Credit Union at La Cité Francophone, and Gateway Theatre. Meanwhile, Chianti and Holy Trinity Anglican Church are hosting two separate singer-songwriter nights, Songs in the Sanctuary and The Key of Me at Chianti.
Looking for a little laughter? You’ll get plenty of that with the Comedy Night on March 13 at 8 p.m. at the Walterdale. Also at the Walterdale is The Shoe Project, which returns for its fourth year with stories from women immigrants and refugees from around the world. It takes place March 8 and 9 at 7:30 p.m., with a Sunday matinee at 1:30 p.m. Also back again is Embodyment, a collection of movement pieces at Théâtre Servus Credit Union on March 14 at 7:30 p.m. and March 15 at 2 p.m.
Excerpts and works-in-progress are the focus of Off the Page at Théâtre Servus Credit Union on March 12 at 7 p.m., while Ocêpihkowan: It Has Roots utilizes Powwow dance, song, poetry and film at the Walterdale on March 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m.
“Off the Page, is a real favourite of the festival,” says Goldberg. “It’s dedicated to new work in all phases of creation, so things that are really just getting off the page. There’s a multi-disciplinary spin to it, with some scripts and more theatrical-based work, plus a cabaret piece, a spoken word and music piece, and a dance piece. It’s going to be a really cool variety show. A definite highlight is Ocêpihkowan by Sissy Thiessen Kootenayoois, which is a multidisciplinary piece about her journey as an Indigenous person with mental illness.”
This year’s mainstage production is Dance Nation by Washington-based playwright Clare Barron. First premiering off-Broadway in 2018, the play was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, that year also picking up Drama Desk and Obie awards. It’s been a particular favourite of Goldberg’s for some time, so much so that she’s attempted to get it produced in the city for a number of years now.
In fact, when Goldberg applied for the position of artistic producer at SkirtsAfire, she was asked to pitch a fantasy festival season as part of the final interview process. Top of the bill? Dance Nation, with Goldberg helming. Fast forward to 2025 and Goldberg is not only producing the festival but directing the play, which runs from March 6 to 16 at the Gateway Theatre.
“What I knew of SkirtsAfire, and what I knew of (co-founder and former artistic director) Annette (Loiselle’s) legacy before I even set foot here is that the festival was a place where women of all backgrounds, of all ages, of all disciplines, came together to tell stories and to support each other,” Goldberg says. “So, Dance Nation is a play about a group of 13-year-old girls who are competitive dancers, and there is no other reason for them to know each other aside from dance. That’s often a thing in our industry, there’s no reason for us to be together aside from the desire to tell a story, aside from our passion for storytelling. And so I just felt like a beautiful kind of reflection of this diverse group of people coming together to work towards something that they were passionate about.”
Goldberg points out that one of the unique qualities of Dance Nation is that the playwright asks that the ensemble of girls is played by a multi-generational team of artists. In the case of this production, that means a cast between the ages of 19 and 61 talking about what it means to be a girl, the hardships as well as the joys. The setup is quite simple, but the undercurrents are anything but, with themes of ambition, sacrifice and competition intertwining.
“It’s all within the landscape of being a young teen, where your identity is kind of just being discovered. There’s this journey of self-discovery, questioning who you are and where you fit in, and this dancing is also a fundamental part of their identity. So it’s interesting how this pursuit of perfection actually ends up stripping pieces of who they are. A lot of the play is about reclaiming identities in a world that is actively trying to define them.”
Heavy stuff, right? Maybe when you look deeply at it, but Goldberg says that it’s not the slog you might think it is.
“It’s a comedy, and it’s the first comedy script SkirtsAfire has ever done,” she notes. “Yes, there is a huge emotional landscape to the play, but it’s also quite funny.”
As noted at the top of the page these are tough times for artists. Even the act of creating feels revolutionary at a time when it feels like art is being dismissed as mere product. There’s little space in the margins to play, and certainly not much money to explore. That being said, there are always people who will hunker down and commit.
“When I was talking about doing this expensive main stage play, which has nine actors in it, I was telling a friend of mine who is a playwright about it,” says Goldberg. “I had all these worries about it. She said she was writing a play that had a large cast, and even if it never gets produced, she’s thinking of it as an act of resistance right now. So that’s what it is.”
SkirtsAfire
When: March 6 to 16
Where: Various venues
Tickets: Festival passes are $66.99 to $150.18, available online at skirtsafire.com. Single-performance tickets are also available.