Focus on: Century Song

“There are so many things happening in the show," laughs vocalist and performer Neema Bickersteth. "They all integrate so well together that it's its own thing. But what is that? For me it feels, on the inside, like a classical recital but in the form of a pop concert.”

Developed by Canadian performance company Volcano, Century Song is a multidisciplinary solo show rooted in classical singing. This collaboration between Bickersteth, choreographer Kate Alton and director Ross Manson offers a theatrical journey through wordless songs, movement and immersive onstage projections, telling stories of black women in Canada throughout the last 100 years.

Bickersteth was born and raised in Alberta, Canada after her parents moved from Sierra Leone. Although she trained in and performed classical singing and opera, she became increasingly drawn to the openness and discussion happening in experimental theatre.

“I hadn't actually realised this until I was in the process of Century Song – I realised that generally I had been putting a mask on in order to sing classical music.”

Roles in the standard repertoire, often royalty and peasantry, were all conceived for white people to play. She had been performing with the metaphorical mask of a white person, on top of playing the characters themselves. 

Century Song is all about removing masks and constraints in order to portray authentic stories. As in a classical recital, she is herself as she sings: “I don't feel like I'm a character from the early 1900s. I feel like I'm Neema, in those times.” 

Unlike a recital, however, the piece has an innate theatricality. Elements of projection, fine art and costume were gradually added through the development process to an expressive vocabulary of movement and music to embody the realities of different eras. 

“It's sort of like I've time travelled, and I go through the struggles that I feel in my DNA,” she says. One character, a woman in the 1970s, was inspired by her mother, who juggled working and raising children in a dynamic era of liberation.

The show premiered three years ago. Then, as now, Century Song’s unique form is open to being experienced on many levels. “For me it’s always a personal journey,” says Bickersteth, “but what resonates on the stage can definitely be political.” With sequences added and reworked since its original incarnation, she reflects that the show has, without being cerebral or didactic, developed a closer bond with the present than ever before.

“The piece has grown for sure. I don't know if that's because the world is different, but it definitely feels like I don't doubt its relevance now.”