Northcott shared sentiments, adding that to the many reasons they are counting down the days until the lockdown is over. “It would be a dream and desire to work with Jay in actuality.” “They are one of those weird, exciting, challenging, brilliant minds,” Huizi said of Northcott. Huizi has aspirations to create with the ENBY ensemble in person and work with Northcott again.
Though Huizi and Northcott deem the project a success, they are still eager for the time when Zoom is not a necessity and in-person theatre performances can recommence. Northcott agreed, saying while they believe Zoom will never be the ideal platform for theatre to exist on, the co-facilitators and artists still managed to create a “good atmosphere and ambience” for their production online. “We were able to just hold space together and spend time doing exercises that are generative in the Zoom world,” Huizi said. “There was just this feeling of being able to have conversations and explorations and jokes and art just exist from a freer place.”Īs with most of the productions Northcott has worked on in the last year, all the workshops and the final ENBY showcase took place on Zoom, which was a challenge Northcott said both facilitators decided to “lean into.” They had pre-planned video components but also left space for live discussion between the artists, which both agreed was the best part of the event. “Because we were all non-binary, there was really no contextualizing that had to be done around our experiences,” Huizi said. Ximena Huizi, Northcott’s co-facilitator for the event, echoed their sentiments, saying the ensemble was a rare chance for a group of “smart, charming, generous, and talented” non-binary artists to work together in a safe space. The ENBY Ensemble brought together eight non-binary artists together over Zoom to produce a creative showcase filled with performance, music, art, media, and experimentation. Ximena Huizi, left, and Jay Northcott artistic-facilitated The ENBY Ensemble, a project that took place in the winter and spring of 2021. Northcott describes the project as “the first of its kind in Canada.” The project brought together six non-binary artists and two non-binary facilitators to collaborate over 10 weeks and develop a creative showcase. Each project has been closely tied to Northcott’s values, identity, and beliefs, whether it be working as the Indigenous arts program producer for Paprika Theatre or directing a show about white supremacy’s impact on the queer community for Pencil Kit Productions.Īnother of Northcott’s passion projects is the ENBY Ensemble, an initiative from Cahoot Theatre in Toronto that took place in the winter and spring of 2021. In the last few months, Northcott has worked with prominent theatre companies across Canada such as Soulpepper Theatre, Canadian Stage, and Gwaandak Theatre in Whitehorse. “But now, people are creating new and different things.” “When the pandemic first happened, all the shows got cancelled, and everybody was scrambling for six to eight months,” Northcott said. However, in 2021 alone, Northcott has finished 12 theatre projects and has nine more scheduled to take place before the end of the year, something they did not anticipate. Artists were working 36 per cent fewer hours, and job loss in the arts sector accounted for 11 per cent of total jobs lost in the year. In 2020, one in four Canadian artists lost their jobs, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey and the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts. This sentiment is not one that has been widely shared by Canadian artists in the past year.
“I’m booked and blessed,” Northcott said. Between directing, writing, producing and performing, Northcott has been able to make a living with theatre throughout the pandemic - and is actually securing more gigs than ever before. Northcott, whose pronouns are they/them, is a multi-disciplinary freelance artist and theatre-maker located in Toronto. For Jay Northcott, the show must always go on, even during a pandemic.
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