Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Portage Avenue?
Abolition Geography in Winnipeg Square
Composed in response to Maura García’s artistic process and choreographic explorations while participating in Serpentine Whispers - the 2024 Young Lungs Dance Exchange Research Residency
Gislina Patterson is a playwright, performer, director, and dramaturg. Their play “i am your spaniel, or, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare by Gislina Patterson” was developed by the Stratford Festival Lab and the SummerWorks Lab. It was presented through development at the Prairie Theatre Exchange Festival of New Works and the London Ontario Media Arts Association’s Queer Frontiers series. “spaniel” premiered at the 2023 SummerWorks Festival, and was presented at Buddies in Bad Times as part of a retrospective of We Quit Theatre’s work along with “805-4821” and “Passion Play”, a duet on synth and cassette loops interspersed with improvised erotic revisions of bible stories. Gislina dramaturged and directed Dasha Plett’s award winning play “805-4821” which has toured to SummerWorks, OFFTA, PushOFF, Théâtre Catapulte, and Buddies in Bad Times.
They co-directed the premiere of “Rencor Vivo” by The Mariachi Ghost with Jorge Requena Ramos at the Prismatic Festival, and were the 2019 recipient of the Reg Skene Award for Emerging Artists.
Their first play “Heavenly Bodies” was nominated for the Harry S. Rintoul Award for best new Manitoba play. They are a member of Vocal Image Ensemble Winnipeg, which provides audio description for live arts events. Upcoming projects include “The Tireseas Project”, a collaboration between blind and trans artists with Sick + Twisted Theatre, and “Eat Me”, an erotic lesbian melodrama about real estate, student loans, and cannibalism supported by the Winnipeg Arts Council and Manitoba Arts Council.
