♪ Opening theme music ♪ Hello and welcome to this episode
of ArtsAbly in Conversation. My name is Diane Kolin. This series presents artists, academics,
and project leaders who dedicate their time and energy to a better accessibility
for people with disabilities in the arts. You can find more of these conversations
on our website, artsably.com, which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com. ♪ Theme music ♪ Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation
with Kristine Maitland, who is a storyteller, a singer, a dancer,
a photographer, and a public speaker. You can find the resources mentioned
by Kristine Maitland during this episode on ArtsAbly's website in the blog section. ♪ Kristine sings ♪ Your tongue was kissed
by sea and mist tenderly. I can't forget how
two hearts met breathlessly. Your arms opened wide
and closed me inside. You took my lips,
you took my love so tenderly. You took my lips, you took my love so tenderly. ♪ Audience claps. ♪ Welcome to this new episode
of ArtsAbly in conversation. Today I am with Kristine Maitland, who is
a storyteller, a singer, a dancer, a photographer, and also a public speaker. Welcome Kristine. Thank you.
I do appreciate that. So you have a rich artistic life, but I think it started with the storytelling. Can you tell us a little bit more about
your background? Okay. So, my name is Kristine Maitland. My pronouns are she her. In terms of a little bit more about me
I was originally diagnosed as a child as autistic and then
diagnosed in my twenties as having ADHD before receiving my most recent diagnosis
as being bipolar. Personally, I view myself as being on
the spectrum of the first two. A little bit about my sort
of artistic practice. I am a singer performer of jazz, soul,
R&B, as well as folk, Americana, medieval, and Renaissance music. I am also a dancer with a background
in ballroom, Latin, and swing, with training in ballet
as a child and some knowledge of belly dance and renaissance dance. I teach rhythm and motion and movement. I am also - I've been a writer
since the nineties and a researcher
mainly of black history. I am known for making TV and radio
appearances, mainly because I'm a media ho and I'm a photographer. Lastly, I live in Tkaronto in the traditional
territory of the many nations, including Mississaugas
of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee
and Wendat peoples and live in a city that's now home to diverse nations, including the
First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. But while I am a Canadian, I recognize
my heritage as being Guyanese and honor my mother and my female ancestors,
including my grandmother Carmen, my aunt Margaret and my great great aunts. How did it start, all this attraction
to the arts in your family? My mother, definitely my mother. She was the one who took advantage
of being in Toronto. My parents separated when I was three
and my mother made the decision to stay in this country. She had come with my father from the West
Indies and then that didn't work out. And instead of going to the United States
to live with my grandmother, my mother decided to stay here because
she knew there were more options and opportunities, especially in the arts. So I went to the library regularly. I went to events at the U of T. My first introduction to Poculi Ludique
Societas, which is a medieval theater company, was when I was five. I took ballet starting at the age of four. Did that till I was twelve
with a ballet instructor who was trained at the Bolshoi. So.
And I did storytelling. My mother did storytelling
with me when I was very little. So, like, I know my own family
history, like, to the nth degree. And she also collected children's
books, so she would read to me. I mean, my mother is 50 now, not 50. I'm 50 plus. My mother is 80 and still
reads children's books to me. So it's very much part of the culture. And even, like, when you look at my teens and in my twenties, my mother would take storytelling classes with me. I wasn't the type of kid who was like,
oh, mom, why are you with me, Ma? That wasn't my, my style. I, you know, I did things with
my mother all the time and still do. And so from storytelling because
her storytelling was for children. But if I understand correctly,
you were more attracted in storytelling about lived experience
or adulthood or things like that. Well, actually, that's
not totally accurate. My mother told the stories of our family and then as I got older, I would find out more personal stories about the family. And you know how my, I found out about my grandmother's participation in the war, World War Two, I mean. You know. Then stories would be, for example, I lost my great aunt to 9/11 because she was a nurse
and she died from the toxic dust, from the, from the two towers. So, like, these are all stories
that play a part in our lives. And. And then. So when it comes to my own
storytelling, it depends on the venue. So I'm very active
in the LGBTQ2S community. So those stories tend to be a little more - They can be a bit more erotic,
they can be a little more explicit. Whereas if I'm telling stories of history,
especially the black history I do, then it will be. It won't be as much so, you know, so that. So it gages. What I don't do is
storytelling for children. I'm trained to do it. I worked for Toronto Public Libraries
from 1988 to 1999. I even. I built two puppet shows
for Toronto Public Library. But. So I'm trained to do it, but it's not
a favorite thing for me to do. And this must have evolved
into your black history research. Black history has always played a part
in my life because my mother would tell me stories of black history,
but particularly black history in the Caribbean, mainly because
people don't talk about it much. So this is something I retain. But when I started university, I got involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is a medieval / renaissance reenactment group that started in the sixties. My easy explanation of the SCA is it's a
bunch of white guys who put on armor and bash each other's brain in with stick. (Laughs) That's simplistic. And I think I defend my friends in
the SCA, but basically that's what it is. But when I joined the SCA, the Ontario chapter had one black, two black people in it, and I was one of them. And I had a friend, a musician, who was doing collecting black history research, but he's a musician and tends to be a bit flighty. So I took the project away from him
and I started collecting the data. And I still do, mainly, but I specifically about medieval and renaissance history. That's my field, because in the nineties, it was hard to find. You know, it's gotten easier now
because, like, in the nineties, we didn't have Google. And even in the early aughts, with Google, doing research still wasn't easy because we didn't have the keyword searches
to be able to do that kind of work that has since changed. But in those days, literally,
I was doing the work by hand. In terms of history, you spend
your whole life in Toronto, so you must have seen periods of evolution, of how your research was perceived and how black history evolved in the city. It's still. I'll be honest, it's still problematic
because, like, in the nineties, I tried to sort of communicate
with school boards and so on. I was ignored because I'm dealing
with basically white academics. And then even in the SCA,
it was a bit tenuous. People would question why
I felt the need to do it. So that that was an issue and, you know, so it was a battle. These days, my issue is when dealing with academia, I have people who basically will lie to me and tell me that they're not doing
the research that they're actually doing. I've had that happen a couple
of times because everybody's, like, holding on to their research. Like, you know, you've dealt
with academics. You know what it's like. Yep. You know, and when they're not. And especially when you're speaking
to somebody who doesn't have three letters behind their name,
you know, I have a BA, you know, you know, I don't have a PhD,
and therefore I don't have the credential, the street cred when dealing with
these people, even though three quarters of the time
I know more than they do. Yeah, but we have. We have this discussion about,
okay, it's great to have a PhD. It shows that you did a lot of studies
and spent a lot of time with academics. But okay, it's fine to have none,
and it's fine to have a Master. It's fine. It's all about what your motivation
in life is and what. What you like to do. It's not about. It's important to have three letters. And I think it's funny because I also feel because the research is so accessible. The days of being able to keep things
locked away in a library, like an academic library. Forget public. An academic library who, unless you happen to have the library card, you know, because you're a PhD and you can get in, you know, in the nineties, because I was a U of T grad and an alumna,
I was able to get a library card. And then after a certain point,
I had to pay for that privilege. Yeah.
These days, Toronto Public Library has access to JSTOR. It has access to, like,
the major academic journals online. So I don't, you know, I can just
go online and look this stuff up, you know, I mean, here's classic. When Toronto Public Library got hacked and the system went down, I happened to be speaking to a journalist from CTV
and told them that I was flipping out because I couldn't access the JSTOR. JSTOR got a touch with me
and gave me access directly, you know, so it's just like they
recognize the importance of this stuff. Speaking of that, speaking of
journalists, you're also a writer, right? You're writing these. So what do you write? Okay. So I started writing
in my - well, actually first started writing in high school. I would do exposes, you know, and then
when I was in, when I was in university and more to the point, when I was just
finishing it, I started writing for the varsity, which is the school paper, the main paper for U of T. You may know the name Naomi Klein. Naomi Klein was the editor at the time. And so I would write, you know,
opinion pieces and so on. I also, that was the point
where I started doing interviews. So I would interview over,
I interviewed like a whole bunch of Canadian writers
who were just starting their careers. Like people like Guy Gavriel Kay,
for example. And, you know, and now, like,
they're like Governor, you know, Governor General Awards winners, you know,
but I knew them at the beginning, so I, but my first, like,
paid piece was thanks to Michele Landsberg,
who I met through my mother, through storytelling. That's how I got the gig. And she was the one who got me
an in with the Toronto Star. So my first piece was published there. Then I wrote for the Toronto Star. Toronto Star had a Afro canadian magazine that it had for a couple of years. And I wrote for them. And essentially my relationship with them
was they would call me up and say, can you write an article on x? And I would meet the individual, interview
them, write the piece, get paid. I mean, that was pretty much it. So that was the sort of stuff
I was doing as a writer. The last, I must admit,
because of COVID and everything else, I haven't really been writing much. I'm hoping to get back into the scene. Last piece I did was for Huffington Post, and it was an article on the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II,
who used to live next door to me. So I, you know, and so it was sort
of a conversation about the royal family and of the time versus Meghan Markle, who my mother met by the way! You know, my family, you know, these people come into
our lives and in, in very weird ways. I want to go back to singing. I know you're a jazz singer. You have a beautiful voice. Yeah, among other things. But I heard some excerpt
of jazz, so I was very, very happy. When did it start? When did you start singing? Well, I sang in church because
I was raised as a Roman Catholic. More specifically, I was raised
as an Irish Roman Catholic. The church was mainly Irish, go figure. But so I sang in church,
but when I was my. The church was actually St. Cecilia's, which is the patron saint of music. And singing was very much a part of my early education, elementary school education. But one of the standouts
during that time was there was a Canadian singer named Bobby Gimby. He sang part of Expo in Montreal in, what was it, 67. And there's a song called Canada. You know, "Canada, notre pays." So on, so forth. So we. My school did a gig with him
at Ontario Place, when Ontario Place was Ontario place, in 1976. So, like, that was my first, like, big show thing, because it was like, I don't know, 200 kids
singing with him, you know? And we also appeared on television
a couple of times and sang with him then. I didn't sing again actively until high school because I went to Humberside Collegiate, which is
also a very music oriented school. And so I sang in girls choir. And then after that. After that, I was doing
the Medieval Renaissance stuff. I also did. I sang Sephardic music
because it was easier than singing in Portuguese, as I discovered. And so I did a lot of that.
I did a lot of. So we're talking 14th,
15th, 16th century material. I have a knack for learning to sing phonetically, so I sing in about eight different languages. There's only.
There's certain languages I won't touch. Polish is one, Turkish is the other. Phonetically, it's just like. It's easier to sing in Mandarin. So, you know, so I did that,
and then I started doing gigs where I'd be singing and doing jazz. So a lot of times it would be for festivals, concerts, that sort of thing. Particularly in the LGBTQ community. That's where I would
sort of appear, sing, leave. You sing with someone, right? You sing with a double bassist. I. Funny story with that. I have.
I talk to people. I have no problem. People say the Torontonians
are sort of closed. Not true. They're just afraid of either. If they don't want to
deal with you, they're gonna have their headset on anyway. So I talk to people all the time,
and I saw him with his double bass going up the stairs, and I raced up after him,
and I asked him, do you play Jazz? Because some of them do classical, right? And he says, no, I do jazz. I said, would you be
willing to partner with me? He said, sure. Man did not know me from Adam. Did not know if I could sing new squad. Turns out he was my next door neighbor. He literally lived around me. He doesn't anymore, but at the time
he was literally living around the corner from my house. So we started doing stuff. Well, we started doing stuff together
and then Covid hit. We literally had done our first bookings and then that was the end of that. So I've only performed with him once
since, and that was last year. What's his name? Oh, Steven Falk. F-A-L-K. What are your performing spaces in Toronto? I just recently, literally,
like a week ago, did a gig at The Painted Lady, which is sort of a club mainly for burlesque performers. So I joined up with them. I think it was "Good Morning,
Goodbye," something like that. It was - it's specifically for performers
who identify as bisexual or within that spectrum. So we did that show
and that went really well. Like, the performers were, ah, amazing. Absolutely amazing. So it was fun doing that and I think
it was fun having me there because a lot of time with those,
with burlesque shows, it's. It's a lot of strip,
strip, strip, strip, strip. With luck, you might get a drag
king, which we did, actually. He was amazing.
But. But with me as a singer,
it sort of broke things up. And in fact, that was the cool thing
about the show, is that they had, we had somebody who was a gymnast, we had strippers, we had, like, we had everything and we had me, so. Which broke it up quite nicely. I like variety shows. If you're going to be spending that kind
of money to come to a show, good to get, you know, your bang for your buck. You also added an extra artistic
practice, which is photography. Yes.
That started with the cell phone. I actually had enough. I have another camera, but,
you know, but the cell phone's great because I can just take pictures. And I, I like, like, I take a lot of flora and fauna, but I also like to take, I don't take pictures of people
because that's personal space. And, you know, then there's the legalities
of, you know, getting permission to take the picture of them and I don't
want to be bothered by that. So.
And I have friends who are photographers. I'll let them do that, but I'll take sort of more whimsical photographs. Like, there was a picture I took in when I was in London of - they were doing this weird project and they were making a paper chain across a bridge and there was a sign, you know, saying, you know, please donate Stapler. I mean, it was so ridiculous, you know,
because their stapler had died, you know? You know, so it's those sort of pictures
I like to take, you know, sometimes you know, graffiti, stuff that people have taped on walls, that sort of thing. sort of whimsy, those are the sort
of photos I like to take. And it goes back to your storytelling, right? It always tells a story in that. It's a photo story, basically. The other thing I like to take
are pictures of architecture. I like the forms of things. And Toronto has some great features that people don't really look at, mainly because they're either very high or. I think we take them for granted. We've got stuff we tend to have. A lot of our architecture tends to be
a bit brutalist, but at the same time, we've got sort of,
you know, if you look at some of the old banks and so on, some of the, you know,
the carvings and so on are amazing, but we take them for granted. It's interesting how they, in Toronto,
particularly how they mix architecture. So they would have this old building
in the middle of gigantic towers. Do not get me started on that. It's the. The whole glass building thing is boring. Yeah.
You know, it's not creative at all. And.
And I. And I think, and especially, one of
the things that I keep on poking my politicians about is housing in the city. When I was about six or seven, they built. They were going to build
an Ontario housing complex apartment in my neighborhood. I live in High Park. And everybody was freaking
out because it was just like, you know, it was a lot of NIMBY. They didn't want any of
these poor people here and so on. And my mother, on the other hand,
was like, look, you can build it. Just make sure it looks like all
the other buildings in the neighborhood. The point being is that
you are where you live. And if you build a house or apartment or whatever that is not to standard, then the people who live there
will feel like they're not to standard. You know. So it's these things, you know,
I take into account and I. If I was going to get into yet another thing, architecture's of interest to me, you know, I'll hook up
with Brad Pitt and we'll talk shop. Oh, he's a big architecture junkie. Who'da knew? So what's the next step for you?
What do you have? Do you have some projects
in mind that you want to accomplish? Actually doing choreography would be cool. And the reason why I say that is
because I've been watching a lot of dance on YouTube and Instagram and so on. Variety of styles, whether we're talking,
you know, that sort of hip hop freestyle that they seem to be doing now. West coast swing, tango,
ballroom, like, variety. And what really drives me nuts
is this feeling of necessity to do tricks instead of just dancing. The only person who seems to not be doing this whole tricks thing is Debbie Allen. Debbie Allen opened up
a dance academy in California. I think it's California. And I've been watching her kids,
and it's none of that stupid trick thing. And also her kids aren't,
you know, these skinny minis. The variety in terms of size
of the children who are dancing. Race is not a factor. Is mainly black kids, but not necessarily,
you know, I'd like to see, you know, in terms of the dance world, a wider scope. And, you know, so I'm sort of
been thinking about how, you know, what I would put together, how I would, you know, attract people to do the dancing with me or do it individually. I'm still sort of up near. I see. That's a lot of things.
Yeah. That's a lot. I have a question about
working in environments where we promote accessibility in the arts. Do you think about that a lot? How is your process about that? I'll tell you, I. And I've been doing this, actually,
since I started working, doing stuff in the SCA because I used
to run events in the SCA, and that is, is that I scope venues, and it's amazing how many of them suck in terms of - especially you don't want
to deal with the churches because you can't get in them. You know, they're not accessible. And also, I have to sort of. I think there are other things
we have to take into account, like noise level, lighting, you know. I've gotten older and I've met people who have issues, especially my friends with children who are autistic, I've been sort of noting that there are all these sort of issues with sensory. And, you know, and it's a question
of how do we work with that. You know, these are all the things,
you know, how do we. I've seen, you know, efforts with
doing, say, visual art with the blind and how do we, like, how do we be on the ball with dealing with disabilities when you come across them? But people aren't educated in this stuff. You know, they have a vague
notion, like they might know things like sign language here.
Sign language. I had a - I was at a Mayworks event this year, and they had sign language interpretation available,
except they had two interpreters. No, no, they didn't have two interpreters. They had three. And this confused everybody. They couldn't understand why the
deaf person needed three interpreters. Two is normal because you, you know,
the interpreters need to have a break. But having three, why? It's because in sign language, or when you have interpreters, a lot of the time the
interpreters are hearing, so they can't sign in dialect. That's how come they have the
other interpreter who happens to be deaf. I happen to learn this watching a TV show. But, you know, this is shit
that most people don't know. And more the point, they don't understand. They don't understand that sign language
is done in different languages. Sign language in America
and Canada is different from sign language in Australia or in UK. You know, so it's like most people
are totally unaware, and then you have African Americans, they do their sign language differently, you know, but most people don't know that. I never met. I never met an ASL african
american interpreter. So how different is it from ASL? They. It's a dialect. It's an american dialect. I can't speak for black ASL interpreters here, but from what I understand, in the United States,
especially with the southerners, they have their own sign dialect. Because I've seen this with comedians in Australia and in the UK, there's a chick named Catherine
who does signing for Adam Hills. Brilliant! In fact, she's more fun
to watch than the comedian. But I gather with. With the African American sign they have, it has its own - It's not ASL, I forgot. I think it's called BSL. BSL is British sign language. Right. But BASL. I see, huh, interesting. Well, I learned something. I didn't know that. so I came across it watching a Rap concert. But again, how it works in performance versus how it works in general speech could be two different things. Not totally up with that, but I did come
across it, and it was just like, as I say, there's so many variants. Accessibility in the arts. It's really something that fascinates me
because there are so many aspects of it. And when you start really paying attention
of the details of the ASL or the sign language interpreters, and then
the ramps for wheelchair users to access stages, because most of the accessibility,
when we talk accessibility with a theater, for example, they say, oh, yeah,
no problem, we're accessible. We can host wheelchairs in the audience. Yeah, that's not what I meant. Are you accessible to the performers? Yeah, this sort of not thinking with theaters and so on just drives me up the wall. Or simple things like, there's a new Nia, which is an arts venue for - geared towards the black community. It's lovely. It even has an elevator. It's too small. Like, I'm conscious of the fact that if you have a person in one of those bigger driving wheelchairs, there is no way in hell it's gonna get in here. I am not a small person. I can barely fit in this space, you know?
So it's. It's a. Like, I find myself, you know,
this sort of haphazard. Let's put in an elevator, but they don't think about
the type of elevator, and, you know, or they don't, you know - thought isn't put into washrooms. Because the thing I've noticed is
that, okay, now we have the call to have gender accessible washrooms, you know, so we have parity, but then they don't put in the wheelchair access. It's like I. You know, because I I've been using,
you know, non gendered washrooms because I go to gay bars. You know, I remember one gay bar. They used to write Us and Them,
you know, but in terms of the accessibility,
there isn't thought with that. Well, thank you for that. Well, I have a last question for you,
and it's about people who might have inspired you or motivated you in
your career, in your life as a performer. If you had to think of
one or two people who really counted in your career,
who would it be and why? Two. One, Nina Simone. Because, a, she was a genius and totally mad! As a representative of somebody
who had mental health issues, it was patently obvious. But at the same time,
it wasn't like she was wrong. Like, I mean, she just didn't
have the patience to put up nonsense, so she had her moments
when she would be a bit glitchy. But, you know, for me, she. She is tantamount to, like. I mean, she was also living in a, living in a time of political strife, and, you know, chose to speak up. So definitely Nina Simone. The other one is a little more personal,
and that would be Odetta, because I met Odetta a year before she died. She did a concert at Hugh's Room,
and I just happened to snag a dick at. And I went to Hugh's Room,
and she did her performance, and she was ace, her last song. I don't remember what it was. She had the entire audience
singing along with her. And, of course, me being me,
I had to sing with gusto. And then we all applauded.
Yay. You know, and so on, and then everybody
went on their way, and me being a bit ballsy, I went up to her and I said,
thank you very much for the performance. And she looked at me and she said,
are you a professional? And I said, no. She looked at me dead
in the eye and said, why? You know, and it was just like. And that, that was like,
that was the point where, like, I mean, I had always seen myself as an amateur
singer, but, I mean, we had, this is a woman who performed with all
the greats, you know, this is a woman who was on a show with Johnny Cash. I mean, she, she worked with all the big
ones, and she took the time to sort of point to me and say,
you should be singing professionally. Who am I to argue? She detected you in the audience, right? Yeah. So, yeah, those are the two. Well, thank you again
for this conversation. Thank you. Yeah, I wish you all the best
for all your projects, and, yeah, see you around in the artistic scene.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye. ♪ Closing theme music ♪