Wildside theatre fest redraws boundaries of Quebec's English community

Close your eyes and picture this: A member of the English-language community of Quebec.

Did you conjure a person of English, Irish or Scottish descent?

Me too! And I am a member of the English-language community.

But why wouldn't I imagine one of the hundreds of black, brown or various other non-white people I know and whose mother tongue is the language of Shakespeare?

My Vincentian family has been in Montreal for 60 years, but I've just never felt included when people speak about Quebec's English-language community. And neither do most people of colour I know.

Here's us being honest:

The English community is so-called because it represents the people who've been in this unceded Indigenous territory for a few hundred years. Many of us who speak English because of colonization only started coming here afterwards.

But I've also witnessed first-hand how creators in the province's arts-and-culture scene are changing who we imagine when we think of the English community.

Think outside 'our community'

Centaur Theatre's Wildside Festival — which runs until January 13th —  is among the projects working toward that goal.

"I work to find performances by artists who feel marginalized in some way ... [artists] who might be from either a cultural or socio-economic background who, for some reason, just would not be seen on the regular stages," said Johanna Nutter, the festival's curator.

Seeking artists from the margins not only changes what the people on the stage look like, it also changes the stories being told about the English community.

This year's Wildside Festival features, for instance, queer stories, women's stories and more.

"We lose sight of just how small the English-language community is in the province. I mean the Canada Council has designated us a minority," Nutter said.

"But we can support each other, as many minorities do, by opening ourselves up and looking around more widely at what is happening outside of what we might consider 'our community.'"

Check out the schedule for this year's edition of the Wildside Festival here.