Gender in the Medium

I really enjoyed experiencing Ashes on the Water. It was interesting and powerful for multiple reasons, but here I would like to focus on the ways that gender plays into the podplay. I was tempted at first to call it a “feminist” piece because it is centered on the narratives and resilience of women, but I am not sure whether Quelemia Sparrow identifies as a feminist. It would also be risking anachronism to give the narrative a label such as “feminist,” which did not exist when the story being told occurred.

However, it cannot be ignored that Ashes on the Water intentionally remediates an historic event as a living herstory told through the voices of women. Although there are men mentioned in the story, their actions are relayed through the words of the women-identified characters. The water and Earth are also both spoken to and of as feminine entities. (Re)birth, motherhood, and femininity are woven throughout the story as the underlying common thread that connects humanity. Indigenous womanhood and femininity are posited as exceeding the violence of settler colonialism and the disasters that result in its aftermath.

Although the podplay is focused on the power and resilience of womanhood, it never claims to define in an essentialist way what a woman is. Birth and motherhood are central to the story, but nowhere does Sparrow suggest that femininity requires giving birth. In fact, through the quite literal interpellation of the listener into the story with the spoken directions, Ashes on the Water forces the listener, no matter their gender identity, to imagine occupying the fleeing mother’s embodied gendered experience. Following the path and performing the actions of the narrative on the land where it actually occurred gives the listener a physical, grounded connection to the women-identified characters that is unique to the medium of the location-based podplay.