I met Celia Jade Green at the tender age of 14, when we both entered our first year at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts. I was enchanted by Celia’s indifference to social status, her vast collection of party dresses for day-to-day wear, her laughter- always coming easily- and the way she sometimes ate boiled hotdogs out of a thermos for lunch. Since then, our friendship has shifted and grown and changed in a way that I can only describe as uncomplicated; and without growing pains. But not without magic, without captivating moments full of love and clarity. Our queerness has informed both our art practices and our friendship, bringing us closer together as we discovered something mutually secret and shared. Her presence on stage today is truly encapsulating of every growth endured and felt within the last decade, something we have all known: the lineage of a developing personhood, but in particular the growth into womanhood, and within that, the overwhelming coexistence of both distress and euphoria.
Celia Jade Green is an actor, performer, and storyteller. She uses both language and movement in conjunction to convey strong imagery and themes within her work onstage. She often considers gender, the fragility of identity, and the incidental nature of bodily movement when paired with emotion as guiding forces behind her practice.
British Columbia born, she has been moving through space with long-limbed excellence since she was a wee child. Adolescence in Toronto brought opportunities with Soulpepper Theatre, Mirvish Productions, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and Nuit Blanche. A Humber College graduate, her training includes workshops with the Mexican-American performance art group La Pocha Nostra, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, Kaeja d’Dance, and the P.A.R.T.S summer school in Brussels, Belgium; in contemporary dance. Celia is also artist in residence at Quote Unquote Collective- a feminist theatre company in Toronto, working closely with Amy Nostbakken as peer mentor to her budding career.
In her spare time, you can find her tie dying underwear, dreaming about a farm homestead, stewing fruit for jam, giving a girl a smooch on the cheek, or bouncing to disco wherever the music is loudest.
-Bio written by Celeste Midori. One of my very best friends:
What ‘hood are you in?
I live near Davenport and Ossington with my parents…it’s beautiful! Quiet and lots of trees. I want to move out but….$$$$$. You know…..!
What do you do?
I am a creator, performer, writer and choreographer.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working towards the presentation of my first full-length theatrical work, Wah Wah Wah, which will premiere at this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival. It is a highly personal, highly physical look at the messiness of being violated as a young, queer woman. I am specifically looking at micro-moments of sexual harassment, those moments where you ask yourself if anything even happened even though your guts KNOW something happened. I’ve been crafting, shaping, busting open and refining this piece for four years now and am both terrified and excited to share it with the world.
Where can we find your work?
You can find my work on stage at the SummerWorks! We open on August 8th at 7:45 pm, and have shows on the 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th. The performance on the 17th will be a relaxed performance, and on the 18th will be ASL interpreted by Tamyka Bullen. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of alchemy will be created by having us perform alongside each other.
For more on Celia Jade Green, please follow her on Instagram.
