Ivan Coyote

 (photo credit to TD 365)

Ivan Coyote, a story-teller from the Yukon, engages with story-telling as a way to explore our individual and collective identities. In their keynote address Friday, March 16th at the Breaking the Silence conference in Saskatoon, Ivan shared a few short personal stories, as well as an article written for an online publication and an excerpt from a speech. Ivan was on stage with a podium in a theatre with the audience in seats, which spoke to the academic nature of the conference, but their storytelling attempted to bridge the gap between academia and lived experience.

 The conference and lecture where in Saskatoon, and I drove up Friday afternoon with two friends. We got into the city half an hour before Ivan was supposed to speak, so I was dropped off at Broadway Theatre. It immediately reminded me of Vancouver (Broadway theatre, Starbucks on the corner) and the times I visited my older sister there as a teenager (duffel bag in hand, hoping no one realizes how young and over-excited I am). I walked into the lobby of the theatre and it was the other audience members, rather than posters, that let me know I was in the right place. While I don't mean to assume anyone's gender or sexual identity based solely on appearance, there is something incredibly comforting being in a crowd of other queer people and our allies. I waited in line only a few minutes, and was quickly ushered into the theatre, where I struggled to find the people I was meeting there. The theatre was larger than I expected (it was said that 270 people were in attendance) and the audience was quite diverse - it included academics from the U of S, high school students, and community members just interested in seeing a queer Canadian storyteller. After being introduced and welcomed by a few people involved in the conference, Ivan came on stage and I immediately appreciated the informal and relatable nature of their storytelling. After Ivan's performance we were rushed out of the theatre again, and encouraged to head over to a nearby bookstore for a signing event but the bookstore was much too small to fit even half of the people from the theatre.