Statement on the Tragedy in Kamloops
“It’s collective trauma and collective grief that we’re feeling. And it’s almost like your spirit feels that. All the Indigenous people across the country are kind of feeling that right now. This news has been triggering a lot of that collective trauma that we’re still healing from.” — Jade Roberts, a Saskatoon educator and podcaster […]
WAM Accountability Plan
January 26, 2021 In early June 2020, WAM Theatre released a statement of solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, James Scurlock, and too many others. In that statement, the WAM Team and Board, as individuals and as an organization, committed ourselves to aligning […]
July 2020 Statement
July 2020 Dear WAMily, Since sharing our solidarity statement, we have been taking time to process and recognize how, in our first decade, we have excluded, exploited, and misrepresented BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists and community members. We are reflecting, both individually and as a team, on where we are now in our […]
Watch Kristen’s 2019 TEDx Talk
In February, 2019, WAM’s Producing Artistic Director, gave a TEDx Talk at the North Adams TEDx titled ‘The Discomfort of Community”. In the talk, Kristen shares how the more she works at the intersection of arts and activism, the more she recognizes how being part of the white, cisgender, able-bodied, middle class, heterosexual community is […]
2018 Diversity Statement
In 2016 WAM actively began exploring the intersection of gender and racial justice through our FACING OUR TRUTH project with local Berkshire social justice organization BRIDGE. That project began a journey that continues around WAM’s exploration of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. We don’t think it is enough to say we are inclusive, we feel […]
“Facing Our Truth” – January 2016
Playwright Yvette “Jamuna” Sirker, BRIDGE CEO Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant, and WAM Producing Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven joined forces to produce Facing Our Truth. DeeAnn Veeder wrote a two-part essay on her experience as a part of Facing Our Truth for Berkshire Mosaic. The Berkshire Eagle wrote about how “Facing Our Truth Packed the Colonial […]