(Per)Forming Ourselves and Others in Toronto’s Multicultural Caravan Festival
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: As a first-generation Canadian, my home is filled with performances that gesture “back home” — or what my father calls the “old country,” a place that is only alluded to in the smells of the kitchen or when my mom forgets the English word and tells me to grab her a bunyak. As Dad sits in a sunny kitchen window, he reminisces about being back home in Croatia. “It’s like being home in Krk,” he says, referring to the home that he left almost fifty years ago, only returning for a few visits since then. Dad replays his memories for a very particular audience: his children and grandchildren. Although I’ve only been to Krk twice, Dad’s performances, albeit nostalgic and ideal, act as a touchstone for my perception of self and family history. By watching his performance, I become a part of a larger community and feel connected to a place and a people outside of Canada. At the same time, however, Dad’s performances also carry the hardships of immigration. The process of learning English was slow, and his accent remains an auditory reminder of the elements that refuse to assimilate to his new home, marking him as different, symbolically reflective of the ways he clings to the “old country” or rather, how the “old country” clings to him. Yet the idealized home Dad longs for does not actually exist except in his performances. Performing what I call the “homeland imaginary” signifies an incomplete relationship or communion with the “new country” as well as the “old country,” for both actor and audience. Dad’s performances are always marked by his partial assimilation to his new home, and I, in attending to his performance, am only partially connected to another place.
Source: Canadian Theatre Review
DOI: 10.3138/ctr.140.010
Author: Jacqueline Taucar
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2622469484