Résumés
Abstract
The subject of race does not often breach the surface of contemporary theatre in Newfoundland. When it does, racial prejudice tends to be presented in ways that absolve white Newfoundlanders of guilt while echoing Canadian nationalist sentiments that position racism, especially anti-black racism, outside the country’s borders (see Robert Chafe’s play Oil and Water). This kind of narrative oversimplifies Newfoundland’s complicated history, creating its own racist paradigms of ignorance that fail to acknowledge the institutional discrimination, international influences, and local prejudices that inform racial construction on the island.
By contrast, this article considers how transnational racist ideologies shaped Newfoundland’s early theatre scene by looking at the unstudied popular performances of The Rossleys. The Rossleys, a vaudeville-style performance troupe active in St. John’s from 1911-1917, featured numerous acts that epitomized colonialist rhetoric surrounding race at that time. From Wild West-themed shows to Blackface Minstrelsy, The Rossleys performed derogatory stereotypes to the amusement of white Newfoundlanders. Their performances undermine contemporary idealized fictions that glorify Newfoundland and Canadian histories without adequate consideration of their racist pasts.
Studying the Rossleys highlights the transnational dimensions of racial construction on the island. Newfoundland held a peculiar space in North America at that time—not yet a part of Canada, the future of this British Dominion was still uncertain. In addition, the Rossleys were international figures; the husband and wife team immigrated from Scotland and England to the US (where they were active performers on the vaudeville circuit) and eventually established their company in Newfoundland, regularly bringing acts from Europe and the US to local theatres. This article discusses how racial ideologies in Newfoundland’s early theatre scene were shaped by complex transnational networks, and in doing so, exposes erasures caused by patriotic imaginings of a racism-free Canada.
Résumé
De nos jours, on aborde rarement la question de la race sur scène à Terre-Neuve. Quand cela se produit, les préjugés raciaux ont tendance à être présentés de manière à absoudre les Terre-Neuviens blancs de toute culpabilité tout en faisant écho aux sentiments nationalistes canadiens qui inscrivent le racisme, et le racisme anti-noir surtout, en dehors des frontières du pays (voir la pièce Oil and Water de Robert Chafe). Ce genre de présentation simplifie à outrance l’histoire complexe de Terre-Neuve et donne naissance à des paradigmes racistes qui omettent de reconnaître la discrimination institutionnelle, les interférences à l’échelle internationale et les préjugés locaux qui informent la construction raciale sur l’île.
Dans cet article, Colleen Quigley et Melissa Templeton examinent comment les idéologies racistes transnationales ont pu façonner la scène théâtrale de Terre-Neuve à ses débuts. Pour ce faire, elles se penchent sur un corpus qui n’a pas été étudié jusqu’ici : celui des spectacles grand public des Rossley, une troupe vaudeville qui s’est produite à St. John’s de 1911 à 1917. Cette dernière présentait des numéros qui représentaient bien la rhétorique colonialiste sur la race à cette époque : des spectacles sur le thème du Wild West, des ménestrels en blackface, les Rossley jouaient des stéréotypes dérogatoires pour le plus grand amusement des Blancs de Terre-Neuve. Leurs activités sapent les fictions idéalisées d’aujourd’hui qui glorifient l’histoire de Terre-Neuve et du Canada sans s’attarder suffisamment à leur passé raciste.
Le cas des Rossley illustre la dimension transnationale de la construction raciale à Terre-Neuve. L’île, à cette époque, occupait une position d’entre-deux : elle ne faisait pas encore partie du Canada, et l’avenir de ce Dominion britannique restait incertain. De plus, le couple qui a fondé les Rossley était constitué de personnalités internationales : venus d’Écosse et de l’Angleterre jusqu’aux États-Unis, ils avaient participé activement au circuit vaudeville avant de s’installer à Terre-Neuve et accueillaient régulièrement des artistes d’Europe et des États-Unis dans des théâtres de la région.
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Biographical notes
Colleen Quigley is Head and Manuscripts Librarian (Performing Arts Collection) at Archives and Special Collections at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Queen Elizabeth II Library. Colleen holds a Masters of Information from the University of Toronto; a BFA in Dance from York University and an English major from Memorial. She has worked as a performer, dance instructor, and choreographer in St. John’s, Toronto, and Maine (USA), as well as in Amsterdam and Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Prior to her return to Newfoundland in 2010 Colleen was the first institutional archivist at Canada’s National Ballet School. Her research interests include performing arts and the relationship with memory, meaning and myth-making and concepts of individual and cultural identity and representation. She is an active member of the SIBMAS; Canadian Society for Dance Studies; Association of Newfoundland & Labrador Archives; DanceNL; Kittiwake Dance Theatre, Newfoundland and Labrador Library Association; Performance Studies International; International Council of Traditional Music; as well as the Association of Canadian Archivists and Society of American Archivists.
Melissa Templeton’s research historicizes African Diaspora dance in Montreal while considering its connections to Canadian multicultural policy, competing anglophone and francophone nationalisms, and racial construction in Québec. Dr. Templeton’s work has appeared in Dance Research Journal, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Dance Collection Danse Magazine, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. She received her PhD in 2012 from UCR and her research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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