TORONTO - A play about a young woman escaping a village under siege near Burma is one of many different tales brought to life on stage by a group of young people in Toronto, but for most of them it is a case of art imitating life.
Some theatre companies in the city are offering programs to help young immigrants and refugees to Canada express themselves by sharing their personal stories on stage.
Marjorie Chan vividly remembers the poignant performance, as the young woman recounted running from her village to seek sanctuary in a jungle.
"She was just 16-years-old," said Chan. The teen eventually escaped to Canada and soon became part of the unique theatre experience.
Chan is the co-ordinator of Crossing Gibraltar, a program which takes in young refugees and newcomers to Canada, and through the tools of theatre, helps them tell their stories through performances.
Started in 2006 under the umbrella of Cahoots Theatre, the program has flourished. Crossing Gibraltar has become so popular it will become its own entity by the summer of 2011.
"The training that we do is general theatre training, where we involve them in story telling, where the onus is on the creation of their own stories — sometimes that means it's the story of them coming to Canada and sometimes it doesn't," said Chan.
The training involves a lot of work and time commitment from the young students, who range in age from 14 to 22. They are paid to train, and put on a performance at the end of the 10-week session. Chan said there are challenges such as language barriers and cultural differences.
Each of the students also receives a mentor to help with the adjustment to acting, to performing and to the city in general.
"Coming from another country, here, you often feel small already, because it's huge and most of the countries they are coming from are Third World countries," said Nina Lee Aquino, artistic director of Cahoots Theatre, a former mentor, and, at one time, also a new immigrant.
For Chan and the mentors, it’s about understanding everyone’s individual story. Chan said she remembers asking a student about what surprised him in Canada. She was expecting the answer to be the snow or even the food, but one boy told her buildings — not tall buildings, not skyscrapers, just buildings in general.
"You really get to see a glimpse of their life. Not only are they telling you, they're presenting it in the most theatrical way, through monologue, through dance and some of them are so heartbreaking, honest and vulnerable," said Aquino.
For Diego Garcia, 17, theatre opened up his life to the arts. Garcia immigrated to Canada from Colombia a few years ago. He barely spoke English. He said he was painfully shy.
"It helped me to know that artistic side of me that I didn't know I had. I didn't know I was an artist," said Garcia, who took part in the program in 2007.
"I loved drama from that moment."
Crossing Gibraltar is not the only company offering programs to young newcomers.
Modern Times Stage Company in Toronto runs a youth theatre unit, which encourages young people between the ages of 16 to 21 from diverse cultural background to participate in acting classes.
"We recognize the difficulties, and very specific difficulties, that young people and young artists from diverse backgrounds have in order to establish themselves," said Peter Farbridge, co-assistant director of Modern Times Stage Company.
When Farbridge and artistic director Soheil Parsa started the company in the late 1980s, there were few actors or artists from diverse backgrounds working in theatre.
But now, people from many cultures are not only participating on the stage, but are in the audience watching.
"It doesn't matter what kind of accent they have, or that English is their second language. They still have a voice that's valid,” said Aquino, describing why programs like these are so important.
“That's powerful, that's true and theatre really gives them that edge."
