Vanessa Spence is a classically trained theatre performer, creative writer/author, and professional human being. In her eight years of industry experience, she started out using her talents and passions to engage marginalized youth through self-developed theatrical edutainment workshops to encourage a healthy sense of self-expression and individual creativity. She has performed in plays and has shared her poetry on stages across the GTA. Presently, Vanessa has grown to coach aspiring artists and live performers reach their full potential with the application of classical and devised theatre performance techniques.
Vanessa is the author and publisher of her debut book, Stretch Marks, which shares her pregnancy through poetry. She is currently in the developmental stages of the Stretch Marks live production which will act as a magnifying glass for the mental, physical and emotional battles one faces during the journey of bringing forth life and motherhood.
As an ambassador for her community, Vanessa supports the non-profit community as a workshop facilitator and consultant in the areas of theatre and performance techniques, confidence building for women, social media, and online communications. She was the founder and Director of POC Culture which sought to connect and provide outlets and opportunities for creatives. Vanessa was recognized for introducing new-age arts culture to Peel Region by the City of Brampton as a recipient of the Mayor’s Making Black History Award for February of 2019. She founded Virtu Arts in 2019. The company creates space to educate, develop, and share Black/African/Caribbean diasporic creators and their stories with the world. Virtu nurtures artists through every step of their creative process by offering skill-building workshops facilitated by influential artists, one-person play development programs, and by producing live performances.
How did you get started in the arts?
I went to school for theatre performance at Humber College in 2011. I always tell the same story; I chose to go to theatre school right out of high school to piss of my parents a little bit. I felt like that was the first decision I was making for myself. They couldn’t tell me what to do, that was what I wanted to do with my life, so I did that. But then when I was in the program, I realized just how difficult it is, a life in the arts. We look at it from the outside, or at least I did, and thought that it was easy, and it was a simple, easy route. As I went through the program and as I continue to live through it now, I realize this is not that easy in the slightest. This is the hardest route that I could have taken, but I didn't realize that until I actually started walking the path. This should be a very respected thing that people do.
I also learned and unlearned some things about myself and I thought that if everyone took the time out to do this kind of work, learning the techniques that we use in theatre performance, we can create a better world, we can actually change the world just by rethinking who we are as people, as human beings, and gaining empathy. If we did that every day, then this world can truly be a better place. The arts can change the world in this way. But then I looked into myself and I said okay, well before I try to change the world, how about I change what's right in front of me first. I need to change what's around me or else nothing's ever going to change.
Like you’ve already mentioned, working in the arts comes with different challenges. You have been in the industry for close to 10 years. What keeps you going?
Riffing off of my last answer, it’s the fact that I truly believe that if folks take the time out to practice the techniques that we use in the arts, and specifically in theatre performance, we can truly be better, just as a human race. Taking the time to look within ourselves, unlearning, relearning, taking the time to understand what other people are going through, and how whatever's going on in their daily lives affects the decisions that they make, and so on and so forth. If we take the time to actually understand people in that way, but also to understand ourselves in the way that actors understand the characters that they are playing, then this world can truly be a better place. Just knowing that keeps me going, it really helps me to cut through all the crap that I have experienced.
What has been the most rewarding experience of your career so far?
I think it's producing a play from nothing, zero to 100. My first play is Stretch Marks Part One. I really used it to prove myself to myself, to show myself that a life in the arts was not a weird, crazy decision that I made just right out of high school to make other people angry. It was a decision that I made because I knew that I had more to give. I have more to offer to the world.
I wrote the script, and then I really wanted to cast it. I didn’t want to act in it, but because of the pandemic I had to pivot a lot, so I ended up acting in it myself and then I had to prove myself to myself in that way, but then also having to do all the odds and ends on the back end of the production, producing the marketing, sending out emails letting people know what’s going on, going into the rehearsal hall, figuring out the character, finding out ways that I could tell the story so that it really resonates with people. All of that I had to do. I did it with a very amazing team of people, a small but mighty team. I met new people, and I really came out of a shell that I was living in for a few years. It was very liberating. In the end, it was extremely rewarding. It was everything I had dreamed of and more.
Sitting here right now and looking back , I wonder about some of the decisions that I made, but it’s still the most rewarding thing because I was so proud of myself and am still so proud of myself.
Your debut book, Stretch Marks, shares your pregnancy through poetry. Did you write the book during your pregnancy or after?
I wrote during my pregnancy. When I found out that I was pregnant, it was the end of November and I was about three months pregnant. On January 2nd or 3rd I picked up a notebook at Chapters, and I just started writing every single day, twice a day, three times a day, I was writing everything that came to mind because I realized that just being pregnant was so much more than a baby coming out of me. I was really focused on the motherhood part, if I would be a good mother, or what my definition of a good mother was and so I just said to myself, I'm going to write everything that I'm thinking, good, bad, ugly, whatever, just to have it. Once I had my daughter, I said I can do something with this. Why not do something with this? I decided to self publish the book. I didn't realize it, but it was actually the catalyst for Stretch Marks and the entire Stretch Marks series.
What was your process for turning a book of poetry into a play?
The process was really just me trying to get back to who I was before having a child. Getting back to Vanessa. I just started writing again and I realized that the writing was poetry. So I said, okay, well, this is not a book now this is not just simple poetry, this is the story that I want to tell, and it's coming out of only one person, for now. The writing continued for maybe a year and a half after having my daughter. I gave myself a lot of time. I went through a bout of postpartum depression and I think the writing of the play really got me out of that depression because I was able to share my story through the play. There were so many things that needed to be said about the postpartum experience, because like I said earlier I was just writing the poetry while I was pregnant and yeah, that's all nice and all the hormones are all up in your grill, and you are happy and awesome, and everybody just loves a pregnant woman. But no one gets you ready for what happens once the child is born. I had to find myself again, and that came through my writing, that came through my artistry, that came through art, seeing plays, reading plays, and really reconnecting with myself.
What inspired you to start Virtu Arts?
Virtu Arts started as POC Culture in Peel Region. After I finished school, I moved back in with my family and I realized that there was nothing in the region to keep me hooked to my artistry, to keep me interested in developing my artistry as a Black artist. And I just said, I know that we're here and you can't tell me that we're not, because in Peel Region we are the first, if not the second visible minority in that entire region. I would always travel to Toronto to see a show and the people I was meeting were from Peel Region. We were all just kind of collecting in Toronto. I said let's cut that middleman, let's not pay $7.25 each way to get to Toronto on the GO bus, why don't I create that space here? And that’s what I did. POC Culture turned into some awesome events. I helped build community around there and make connections with local businesses, and even with government. I realized that art really has power. We have so much power, as Black artists, as POC artists, and just as artists in general.
I moved to Cambridge, Ontario in 2019 and I wanted this to be more legitimate and not just somewhere people could go to share their art. I wanted to be able to help people create and develop their art, to be a coach for Black artists. I moved to Cambridge because the housing was affordable for us at the time. I looked around and I did not see myself. I looked around and I did not see myself in the places that I wanted to be in, so I didn't feel like I could be there. So I said well you know what, let's turn POC Culture into a theatre company, and we're going to help folks develop, and we are going to help produce, and we are going to educate Black people in the community, Black artists in the community through the power of the Performing Arts. Once again, if we practice daily the techniques that theatre performers use, we become better people because our job is really to understand another human being. I wanted to be able to continue to build community around the arts, around Black artists and around Black audiences. Virtu Arts was something that I already had and something that I was able to do.
The representation wasn't there. I wasn't seeing myself. If I was experiencing that and I was only here for probably a few months before I realized that, I can only imagine how someone would have been feeling if they were born here, and they weren't able to see themselves in positions that they wanted to be in or on stages that they wanted to be on. So, we're really here to represent for the Black community in the Region of Waterloo, to be able to advance their careers and stories of our people.
What is the meaning behind the name?
Virtu Arts is three pronged. We had to pivot when the pandemic hit, so Virtu meaning virtual because we wanted to create more virtual spaces to practice theatre. Virtu meaning virtuoso, someone who is very skilled in their fine art. Learning and education is very important to me and to Virtu Arts as a company, so being skilled and educated in the artistic discipline that you choose is important to us. Lastly, virtuous. Being a virtuous human being.
You are newish to Waterloo Region. What would you like to see more of in this area?
Do I even have to say it? I want to see more Black stories; I want to see more Black artists being put on the stages. I want to see more Black artists being called for residencies, more Black artists as dramaturgs. I want to see more Black lighting designers, more Black costume designers, and more Black people as theatre makeup artists, more Black people as stage managers, as directors, more Black playwrights, producers, artistic associates, artistic directors, etc. I know that we are here, and we are capable, we just need a space. Yes it can be Black people from the region, but also maybe it can be like Toronto, and you can see Black people coming from all over, because there is a company here to serve them. So that's what I want to see. More Black people taking up space.
Virtu Arts was the first Festival Company in Residence at Pat the Dog’s Femme Folks Fest this year. How did you make that connection?
The connection was based off a seed that I had planted in 2017, and now I was now able to see the fruits of that continue. I worked with Pat the Dog and Lisa O’Connell in 2017. I did a reading with them. That was my first time working in Waterloo Region and with Lisa. I was at the point where I was on the fence of whether I wanted to be in theatre anymore or be working in the arts anymore. After speaking with Lisa and understanding what she wanted to do in the region for artists who identified as femme, and also what she was doing already in the region, that stuck with me after I finished that reading. When I moved to Cambridge, she was the first person in the arts that I called because I remembered having that conversation and I wanted to know if she was still doing the same things that we spoke about. So I contacted her and she was still the same person that she was when we spoke before. I let her know what I was doing with Virtu Arts and I wanted to see if she would be able to share Stretch Marks with her network. We kept the conversation going and I said I want to do kind of what you're doing, but with Black people and not just femme folks. I guess she saw something, a connection. She came up with the idea to do the company residency and it was the first one that that Femme Folks Fest has ever done. It's a fairly new festival, the first year was in 2020, and it got shut down because of the pandemic.
What is in the works for you/Virtu Arts?
The next thing in the works for me personally, Vanessa Spence as the artist is, I'm working on Stretch Marks, Part Two. We're looking to have a workshop production of Stretch Marks, Part Two to be available in late 2021, early 2022. I'm currently working on a draft and the second draft, I’m so happy to say, is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the Region of Waterloo, and the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, so I'm very blessed, very happy. Thank you to everyone.
And what's next for Virtu Arts is of course producing the workshop production of Stretch Marks, Part Two. We also have awesome workshops coming up. What we want to do is have three workshops every year, and we want to do three good workshops. We don't want to have a workshop here and there and we don't want to do one because there's a certain trend going on. We want to have these workshops set in stone and we want to be able to give people the time to sign up and give the facilitator the time to put on a workshop for these artists. Last month’s workshop was called Writing in the Native Tongue, by Teneile Warren, an artist working in Waterloo Region. We were incredibly happy about that. Right now I'm writing a whole bunch of grants, and I really want to be able to have Virtu Arts present another Blackout Forum in early 2022. The Black Out Forum is a conversation starring artists from the Black/Caribbean/African diasporas to speak candidly about the good, the bad, and the ugly of being an artist in regions where we are not well represented. It was such a great experience for us doing the Blackout Forum this year. I want to continue doing it, I want it to be able to grow. We also want to be able to help folks develop their plays. There are a lot of Black writers here in the region, and I want to be able to have Virtu Arts help the development of their work, because it's very important to continue building what Black Canadian plays look like. There are so still so few of them. There are some great plays, but there are still not enough of them. I want to be able to help develop those plays, and see them published, see them produced on actual stages.
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Story by Glodeane Brown
Photos provided by Vanessa Spence
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