Toka: blood feuds, sexuality, and colonialism woven into movement

17 Apr 2022 - Photos by Brian Medina

"Settler colonialism is ongoing and continues to be about land," says director Cole Alvis (Lilies) of Toka. "The war in the Ukraine is about land. This play is about land. lemonTree is committed to critiquing colonialism and continuing a conversation with our audiences and communities about what it means to be an uninvited guest on stolen Indigenous lands and waterways." 

In a press release Toka's playwright, choreographer and performer Indrit Kasapi (Box 4901, Lilies, Hello Again, House Guests) writes "When I wrote the very first draft of Toka in 2017, I was asking the question: 'How does the main character Ermal get out of a generational blood feud?'” His process then lead him to explore how Albanian blood feuds, which "can seem like a 'barbaric' justice system," also intersect with community and, he hopes, ultimately forgiveness.

"Indrit has been writing this play for over six years," says Alvis. "In that time, we were both in the training program at Factory Theatre, me as a director, and he as a playwright developing this script. I directed a reading of it and the show really started to gel when Indrit stepped into the role as choreographer and the performers got on their feet. There was a paring down of the text that happened once we saw what could be communicated through bodies rather than words. I’m billed as dramaturge on the production because of the informal conversations we’ve had about the show, including supporting the importance of Indrit returning to Albania as part of the writing process. Breathing that mountain air was crucial to the development of this play."

This is not the first time the two have worked together. "Indrit and I have been running lemonTree creations for over a decade," says Alvis, "and while he has directed me in productions like MSM [men seeking men] that he also choreographed, we have only recently begun leading the room together.  Indrit is working in a place of heightened text and physical storytelling that I find compelling. In an early workshop he played Ermal and I was held rapt by his performance, his movement in particular. Along the development process Indrit chose to step out of the role to focus on writing and choreography. As fate would have it, one of the dancers suffered an injury just before we were to begin and Indrit was back onstage as one of the Apparitions. While performer injuries are not good news, it feels right to have Indrit in this show."

Alvis is in awe of Kapasi's art. "Indrit leads the dancers in this coproduction and expresses the emotional landscape of the story through movement. It was unique to read draft after draft of the early script when half of the story had yet to be created in the dance studio. Some of the most significant moments of storytelling happen in movement with little to no text. The political is woven into the movement. Metaphor exists in a gesture, a glance. The story is made potent by what goes unsaid, what is felt by the characters and the audience."

The pandemic sadly interfered and what was to be a theatre piece had to be filmed. "We hired Kejd Kuqo an Albanian filmmaker and composer and he brings the visual story to life," says Alvis. "Working within the budget of a modest indie film, Kejd’s resourcefulness and artistry elevates the footage from an archival recording of a live performance. This meant we worked more like a film crew shooting scenes in a day and never returning to them. Unlike in theatre where the show routinely runs from the start to finish, much of the creative team will be experiencing the show in order for the first time when we open."

Dance is very visual but the creators wanted Toka to be accessible to all, with English and Albanian captioning. "One of the ways I contributed to the filmmaking was creating the script for the audio description," says Alvis. "This accessibility initiative is how blind audiences, or those with low vision, receive the play. The task of swiftly and efficiently telling the audience what action is happening during a pause between the text, and Maddie Bautista’s beautiful sound design, was challenging but rewarding. In the intro off the top l describe the characters and our mountainous set designed by Andjelia Djuric, yet the craft of audio description is to offer only what is happening to allow the audience to experience the story. We’re calling what I’ve created 'Non-Traditional Audio Description' and, out of respect for the performers and sound designer, I chose to be succinct so the work of our creative team is uninterrupted."

Toka also deals with that other barbaric practice, gender and sexual rigidity. "We reference the queer lens in our mandate to state explicitly that we are a queer company," says Alvis. "In this play, both siblings push back on the gender binary implicit in the Albanian custom of gjakmarrja (blood taking) that sees only men participating in the blood feud. An internal conflict for Ermal is whether he is ‘man enough’ to maintain the family honour and enact revenge for his brother’s death. With Ermal embroiled in the process of taking someone’s life, Arjola is in charge of the chestnut orchard and breakout performer Kat Khan finds delicious moments of masculinity where Arjola refuses to be passive in her family’s blood cycle."  

Alvis then circles back to the themes of colonialism. "Indrit was inspired after his return to Albania and the characters deepened, particularly Mrs Noka. Early drafts focussed exclusively on the Mirashi family who displaced the Noka’s in the shuffle of land enforced by the Albanian government during the fall of communism. This state sanctioned reorganizing favoured the Marashi’s (of whom Ermal and Arjola are descendants) and left the Noka’s with land that wasn’t viable creating poverty-like conditions for their family. Telling this story on stolen Mississauga-Anishinaabe, Onkwehon:we and Wendat land has resonances that saw Indrit reluctant to speak for the displaced characters, so as to not appropriate an Indigenous experience. While these parallels are present for audience interpretation, the play is steeped in the mountains of northern Albania and once we started to hear from Mrs Noka the script really started to sing. Our approach to Toka was to offer Albanian-Canadians, new Canadians, and all settler audiences a narrative about land dispossession in the mountains of Albania while considering the responsibility we have to the injustices here on Turtle Island." 

As audiences will be watching from the comfort of their own homes instead of participating in a collective experience, Alvis recommends accompanying the stream with "A stiff drink, on the rocks. I hope audiences see the heart we put into this digital production and enjoy its evolution from live performance into film."