(Photographs by Alexa Bella Katya and James MacLean.)
In the summer of 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, Luke Hathaway and Garry Williams wrote a screenplay entitled This Is Not Safe. The screenplay explores themes of eros, queerness, and contagion; of solitude and community; of the co-inherence of the spirit and the flesh. In August 2020, when public health restrictions briefly loosened, they gathered on a beach with friends to make the movie. Unsurprisingly, they failed. This ten-minute short captures something of the spirit of those days. There were agonized conversations with collaborators, there were mermen in resplendent garb, there was clowning on the beach, there was beautiful music. Collectively, we were transformed.
This Is Not Safe: A Meditation was produced by DaPoPo Theatre under the auspices of the Digital Originals Program of the Canada Council for the Arts, with the support of Saint Mary’s University, Shakespeare by the Sea (Halifax), and a generous team of collaborating artists (see credits). With music by Alexa Bella Katya and Colleen Collins, and text by Garry Williams, Luke Hathaway, and Thomas Nashe. Videography and editing by Claire Fraser.
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