In the months following Kingston City Council’s declaration of intimate partner violence as an epidemic, and in the days leading up to International Women’s Day, Have You Seen My Sister? is a concert dedicated to the missing and murdered women of Eastern Ontario.
Have You Seen My Sister? debuted in Kingston City Hall’s Memorial Hall on March 4. It is comprised of three song installments. Performing artist Aruna Antonella Handa, double bassist Michael Broadhead, and Queen’s upper- choir, The Caledonias, delivered a musically insightful and heart wrenching piece of art in one hour.
The first installment of Have You Seen My Sister? is a collection of songs written by Handa, depicting the harrowing series of events that starts with a woman missing and ends with a woman murdered.
The first two songs in this installment were sung in the dark, lit with only a projected image of the show poster and The Caledonias slowly moving flashlights across the space, as if searching for a missing person.
The third song, titled “Corridors of Privilege,” spoke to the disproportionate number of women who have been impacted by male privilege both before becoming a missing woman and after becoming a murdered woman.
The fourth song incorporated the reciting of names and ages of femicide victims in Eastern Ontario. Kingston City Councillor Wendy Stephen recited these names as The Caledonias and Handa repeatedly sang the word ‘gone’ with increasing levels of pain, horror, and dissonance.
The fifth song depicted the shame, loss, and bloodshed that comes with the unfortunate realities many women have experienced at the hands of gender-based violence.
The first installment grabbed the audience’s attention and shifted the atmosphere of the space to an uneasy and anxious feeling. Just as you settle into the panic, the third piece unleashes the anger and longing that resembles the feelings of any woman who has ever wanted to know what it’s like to live in a world without the patriarchy.
Then heartbreak takes over as the names of women and girls as young as 15 are pronounced dead to a dark room. Finally, you’re left feeling like you should have done more, but how can you do more when all you did in the installment was sit and take in a work of art?
It’s all symbolic, and that’s what makes artistic creations like this so powerful.
The second installment was the song, Jaime (Bones I) written by Handa about Métis artist Jaime Black. Black is the creator of the REDress Project, an initiative to draw awareness to the ever-growing list of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada.
Having a song about Black symbolizes the current movements and work being done to end gender-based violence. It shows there are people out there who want justice and equality for both the living and dead.
The concert concluded with a cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Behind the Wall.” Choosing a piece that’s historically and socially relevant to the shift in feminist messages through music was the perfect way to circle back to the initial meaning of this artistic piece.
This isn’t just a dedication to the people who have been impacted by gender-based violence, this is a declaration to society that we have all seen this inequity but now you must all hear it and listen to it.
Through a feminist lens, this show effortlessly depicts gender-based violence as a social issue deserving to be labelled a shadow pandemic. Taking an intersectional approach, this show is about more than just murdered and missing women, but also showcases the colonial and patriarchal history that built Kingston City Hall.
Memorial Hall is decorated with large portraits of historical politicians, all of whom are white men. Above these portraits, gold letter read: “In everlasting remembrance of those…who fought in defence of justice and liberty.”
I’m not sure if this room was booked for this concert for that reason, or if it just so happened to be that we were sitting in the corridors of privilege while enjoying a concert about forgotten women who have always longed for justice and liberty.
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