Odofemi
Morgan M Page (Odofemi) -- Hot Trans Feminist Babe, Santera, Writer, Artist, Married to a Ukulele named Dreamwife. This is where I put all of the stuff that I'm thinking about (obsessively, in the middle of the night). Toronto. http://odofemi.com/
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Trish Salah reading her poetry during Imogen Binnie’s Nevada Book Launch at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, April 24th 2013.
Trish Salah is a total genius, trans lady poet who basically invented trans poetry, so y’all need to listen and learn to this amazing trans woman of colour. I still am in awe of the fact that I got her to perform at this event!
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READING AND PANEL DISCUSSION ON TRANS WOMEN WRITERS
WITH IMOGEN BINNIE, TRISH SALAH, MORGAN M PAGE (ODOFEMI), AND KILEY MAY
Wednesday, April 24th, 7 pm - 9 pmYoung Centre for the Performing Arts
50 Tank House Lane
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Author Imogen Binnie is on tour with her new novel, Nevada, and she’s making a stop in Toronto!
Nevada is the darkly comedic story of Maria Griffiths, a young trans woman living in New York City who is trying to stay true to her punk values while working retail. When she finds out her girlfriend has lied to her, the world she thought she’d carefully built for herself begins to unravel, and Maria sets out on a journey that will most certainly change her forever.
Imogen will be joined by local writers Morgan M. Page, Kiley May, and Trish Salah! Together, these four amazing writers will discuss their experiences as trans women and/or femme-of-centre trans writers, and their hopes for the future of trans literature.
Bios:
Imogen Binnie is the author of the zines The Fact That It’s Funny Doesn’t Make It A Joke and Stereotype Threat. Additionally, her work has been anthologized in The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, released in Fall 2012. She is currently a monthly contributor to Maximum Rocknroll and has previously written for Aorta Magazine, The Skinny and PrettyQueer.com. She writes about books atwww.keepyourbridgesburning.com. Nevada, her first novel, was released by Topside Press in April, 2013.
Trish Salah is a writer and a lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her writing appears in recent issues of The Volta, Feminist Studies, and The Cordite Poetry Review, and in the collections, Troubling the Line, Selling Sex, and Féminismes électriques. Her current research is on the emergence of transsexual and transgender literatures. She sits on the editorial board of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, and is co-editing the journal’s fourth issue, focused on Trans Cultural Production. She is the author of Wanting in Arabic (TSAR 2002), and recently completed a new poetry manuscript, Lyric Sexology.
Kiley May is a Mohawk Storyteller, Artist, Creator and Shaman. Kiley is also Two-Spirit—a femme of centre Trans person, who happens to also be Queer and Genderqueer and uses they/their/them pronouns. Kiley does creative storytelling with film, photography, writing, journalism, fashion, dance and performance art.
Morgan M Page (Odofemi) is a transsexual performance + video artist, writer, activist, and Santera in Toronto. Her video work has screened in Canada, Korea, and Hong Kong, and she regularly performs and lectures across Canada and the United States. She is the founder and curator of TWAT/fest, the world’s first trans women’s arts festival. Her writing can be found at PrettyQueer.com. Her website is Odofemi.com.
This event is FREE of charge. Brought to you by Topside Press and the Student Association of George Brown College!
The Young Centre for the Performing Arts is wheelchair accessible (accessible washrooms available), and ASL interpretation will be available! One thing to note is that the Young Centre is in the Distillery District, which is largely paved with cobblestones, which might be difficult for some to navigate. If you have any questions or requests for how we can make this event accessible for you, please feel free to contact Kate at kate.klein@georgebrown.ca!
Tips for parking, and for getting to the Young Centre via TTC:http://www.youngcentre.ca/plan_your_visit/index.html
Accessibility info for the venue: http://www.youngcentre.ca/our_venues/accessibility.html
Check out Topside Press while you’re at it! http://topsidepress.com/ -
SAY IT TO MY FACE - Performance Documentation (4 mins)
SAY IT TO MY FACE is a 40 minute long endurance performance by transsexual artist Odofemi (Morgan M Page). Exploring her experience as the target of multiple transphobic hate websites and petitions created by radical feminists, Odofemi stands naked at the front of a room. Projected onto her body is video footage of the hate websites. Audience members are instructed to approach the artist, where they are given a piece of paper with one of the actual comments on it. They are told to read it aloud, into the microphone, and then look Odofemi in the eyes. Odofemi moves as little as possible and does not react. Eventually the audience realizes that they have become implicated in perpetuating both the artist’s and their own trauma, and retaliates by giving the artist improvised positive affirmations, effectively reclaiming their agency.
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Photo of me during my performance at No Pants, No Problems Montreal lastnight at Il Motore. I performed to Peaches’ Mommy Complex while dressed as the Virgin Mary and gave myself a c-section on stage.
In the audience was Métis transsexual performance and video artist legend (and my personal artistic role model) Mirha-Soleil Ross, making this one of the highlights of my performance career. My continued use of (transsexual) pregnancy as a theme in my cabaret performance work is an homage to Mirha-Soleil’s 9 month long Pregnancy Project, in which she wore a pregnancy bump for nine months every time she left her house.
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Still from I DON’T NEED A SPACESUIT TO FUCK YOU video by Odofemi, in collaboration with Johnny Forever, Jessica Whitbread, and Tania Anderson. 2013.
Part of our larger multimedia project of the same title, encompassing posters, photography, video, and performance.
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A still from the video of Morgan M Page/Odofemi’s performance SAY IT TO MY FACE.
I’m so, so proud of this work, and am excited about performing it again soon.
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