Justine Bonczek, the Program Director of Risen: Calgary’s Queer Youth Art and Theatre Show, was not sure at first how she should be titled: "I guess that’s what you’d call me. I like Master of the World, myself," she laughs.
She is a Member-At-Large on the board of the Miscellaneous Youth Network, "That’s my biggest hat: I wear a lot of hats," she explains. "You can also call me the one who is screaming into phones, and talking to insurance, and organizing everything, and trying to do marketing." Pretty ambitious for a 19 year-old who claims she didn’t have anything to clean in her house, got really bored, and decided she wanted to run a theatre show.
"Also because I had attended so many amazing functions like Project Blue Sky, The Coming Out Monologues, and so many drag shows: there’s so many places to express yourself onstage, but I really wanted to have a show that celebrated many different mediums."
"The thing about ‘Risen’ is that we’re having a theatre show and an art show, so there’s so many different ways to find your voice. Just put it up there in the spotlight."
Besides the variety of musical/stage components that have been proposed (live acoustic music, spoken word, a theatrical presentation, modern dance), the ‘Risen’ organizers have been receiving concept art, photography, oil paintings, and text-based art.
"I don’t want to watch a show that’s a bunch of 15 year-olds talking to another bunch of 15 year-olds for 40 minutes about what it’s like, because I’ll get bored... So we have 30 year-olds talking about what it was like to be queer 15 year-olds; we have people who are 11 hoping to know what it’s like for them in 5 years... We felt it was really important that we have representation from parts of the community that weren’t just the queer youth community."
Because she works with the Miscellaneous Youth Network, and facilitates a queer youth group, that’s a big part of Justine’s priorities. She wanted to have a queer youth framework: "All of the proceeds are going to support queer youth in Calgary."
Justine is very excited to have previewed the venue for the event.
"The entire thing is just absolutely gorgeous. It’s an old church, and the staff there were so friendly, it really made a good impression on me... It’s actually where the Pride dance is being held this year." As she explains, ‘Risen’ is happening in what is basically an extremely large room with a removable wall in the middle, "so you can still be part of the art gallery and watch the show, or you can (specifically) sit and watch the show and not feel like you’re completely disconnected from all the amazing artwork we’re getting."
Be there or be square!