Jon Hedderwick (November 15-21)
Spoken word artist Jon Hedderwick develops a long-form performance based on his Bubby Sarah’s (Great Grandmother) coming to Canada. Themes of migration, intergenerational trauma and anti-Semitism. Presentation to small invited audiences. Jon also works with the JCC, delivering a virtual workshop in story shaping with members of the congregation.
Jon Hedderwick is a poet, spoken word artist, organizer and educator of mixed Ashkenazi Jewish and Scottish heritage, living in the territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinabek in Nogojiwanong – Peterborough, Ontario. Jon performs, organizes, and mentors emerging poets as the current Artistic Director for the Peterborough Poetry Slam Collective. He is one half of the spoken word duo WordCraft, as well as being one the co-creators and lead artists of the Take-out Poetry Project. His poetry has been featured at poetry slam and spoken word series across Canada, as well as at The Words Aloud Poetry Festival, the Storytellers of Canada National Conference, the Saskatoon Poetic Arts Festival and the Precarious Festival, where he was artist in Residence at Trent Radio. He was the producer and host of the show Blank Pages, Pens and Stages at Trent Radio between 2018 and 2020 and was the lead producer on the documentary Pushback. He has also produced a series of cinepoems, an EP entitled “The Whisper Sessions”(2019), and four chapbooks of Poetry. Jon is currently workshopping his first full-length, one-person play entitled “Enkidu.”
About this event
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/bubbes-tape-tickets-204505059137A One-Person Show, composed, workshopped and performed during the Precarious3 Festival by Jon Hedderwick
Please read the entire event description. Thank you.
When Bubbe Sarah was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and couldn’t live alone anymore, Jon went to her apartment with his family to help with the boxing and sorting. While packing, he was told he could have a blank cassette tape he found in the drawer of her dining room hutch. Jon threw it into a box, planning to make a new mix tape.
That evening in his bedroom, listening to the Weekly Top 40 Countdown on AM640, Jon was poised; cassette loaded, finger on the record button of his boombox, waiting for some terrible, one-hit-wonder to begin playing, when the thought occurred to him… “Is this a blank tape?”
He pushed play instead of record.
It wasn’t blank.
Bubbe’s voice. An early memory of hers recorded before she would lose them all. A soldier harassing people in a marketplace in a Polish town, ransacking Jewish stores and looting with his friends—the police intervened, and in the altercation that followed the soldier was shot and killed.
Jon stopped the tape, ran to tell his mother what he had found, and… she took it away.
On his thirty-seventh birthday, after years of asking, she gave it back and Jon learned how narrowly Bubbe Sarah had escaped from this story with her life, and the role her own mother had played in averting an ethnic cleansing.
Set in the family kitchen, as Jon prepares matzo ball soup, and waits for his daughter to return home from her first semester away at college, he has decided that it is finally time to give this story, and the tape, to her.
Content Warning: discussion of genocide, antisemitism and violence; images/video of war and antisemitism
Jon Hedderwick is a poet, spoken word artist, organizer, and educator of mixed Ashkenazi Jewish and Scottish heritage, living in the territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinabek in Nogojiwanong – Peterborough, Ontario. He performs, organizes, and mentors emerging poets as the current Artistic Director for the Peterborough Poetry Slam Collective. Jon is one half of the spoken word duo WordCraft, as well as being one the co-creators and lead artists of the Take-out Poetry Project. He has published four chapbooks of poetry and produced an EP of spoken word poems. His poetry and storytelling has been featured at poetry slams, spoken word performance series, and festivals across Canada.
This is a PWYC event. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. If you are unable to pay please select the “pay at door” option during checkout. Enjoy the show, no questions asked, no judgement!
There will be a livestream of this event Saturday Nov 20th at 8pm. Those wishing to watch from the comfort of their own home may select the “donation/online livestream” option at check-out. A URL will be sent to all participations the day of the show.
Audience must have two valid doses of a Covid Vaccine (+14 post second dose) in order to attend this event. Masks must be worn at all times, no exemptions. Proof of vaccination and ID must be presented at the box office.
The Theatre on King reserves all rights to limit capacity.
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