TransCanada Literary Reading & Performance Series
Hiromi Goto & David Bateman
The Cowboy & the Geisha
11:30 - 12:30 pm February 5, 2008
Florence Partridge Room, McLaughlin Library (384, 3rd fl)
Sponsored by TransCanada Institute and the School of English and Theatre Studies
Download Poster (PDF)
Semi-autobiographical story-telling is blended with fictional vignettes to create parallel narratives in a criti-comical exploration of race, representation, sexuality, and desire.
Against a backdrop of popular culture (that often relies upon and perpetuates racist, sexist, homophobic constructs), this multi-media performance begins as a kind of dual monologic exchange that gradually blends into a fast-paced dialogic script that reaches its climax by bringing these two heavily gendered narratives into collision. The biological imperatives of male and female are turned inside out at the outset, along lines of race, class, and sexuality, thereby rendering this collision course an onstage duel involving a Geisha and a Cowboy.
David Bateman has a PhD in English literature, has taught creative writing across the country, and has published two volumes of poetry with Frontenac Press. He has performed his solo work across Canada and parts of the U.S. over the past fifteen years.
Hiromi Goto's short stories and critical writing have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the author of four novels, including Chorus of Mushrooms, and co-wrote the screenplay to the award-winning NFB short animation film, Showa Shinzan.