Aida Jordão

Aida Jordão
Born	Lisbon, Portugal
Education	University of Toronto (PhD)
Notable works	This is For You, Anna

Aida Jordão is a Portuguese-Canadian playwright, theatre director, and academic. She is a co-founder of the feminist theatre group, Company of Sirens, and she co-created This is For You, Anna, a germinal Canadian feminist theatre play.

Early life and education

Jordão was born in Lisbon, Portugal. At age 9, she and her family moved to Toronto, Canada.^[1] She has a PhD from the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation was titled, "Ines de Castro in Theatre and Film: A Feminist Exhumation of the Dead Queen."^[2]

Career

Jordão is sometimes credited as a member of the Anna Collective, a group of women who co-created the play, This is For You, Anna, for Nightwood Theatre.^[3] As Jordão left the collective before the play's completion to work as an actor in Portugal,^[4] the play is most consistently credited to Suzanne Odette Khuri, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Baņuta Rubess, and Maureen White.^[5] In 1986, Jordão co-founded the feminist theatre group Company of Sirens with Lina Chartrand, Catherine Glen, Lib Spry, Shawna Dempsey, and Cynthia Grant.^[6] As part of Company of Sirens, Jordão co-created the group's most popular play, The Working People's Picture Show.^[7][8]

In 1991, her bilingual Portuguese/English play, Funeral in White, premiered with Company of Sirens. Twenty-two years later, it was published by Fidalgo Books.^[9] Mary The Slasher, a play Jordão co-wrote with Rebecca Burton, premiered at the second Hysteria Festival, co-presented by Nightwood Theatre and Buddies in Bad Times.^[10] At Nightwood Theatre's 22nd Groundswell Festival in August 2005, Jordão's play about a woman who had been a communist leader in the Spanish civil war, Las Pasionarias, premiered.^[11] In 2006, Jordäo worked on the puppet play Camoes, the One-Eyed Poet of Portugal about the Portuguese poet, Luís de Camões.^[12] The play was co-created with David Anderson, Nuno Cristo, Mark Keetch, and Larry Lewis.^[13]

Jordão works as a sessional lecturer in the Spanish and Portuguese departments of the University of Toronto and York University.^[14]

Works

Plays:

• This is For You, Anna (co-created with the Anna Collective, first staged 1983)
• Funeral in White (first staged 1991, published 2013)
• Mary The Slasher (co-written with Rebecca Burton, first staged 2004)
• Las Pasionarias (first staged 2005)
• Camoes, the One-Eyed Poet of Portugal (co-created with David Anderson, Nuno Cristo, Mark Keetch and Larry Lewis, first staged 2006)

References

1. "Jordão, Aida". Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. 2018-01-11. Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
2. "Aida Jordao - Contract Faculty". York University Department of English. Archived from the original on 2022-01-03. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
3. Riley, Jessica (2019). "Canadian Drama in the New Millennium: Inherited and Evolving Dramaturgies". Anglistik. 30: 17. doi:10.33675/ANGL/2019/1/4. S2CID 167203269.
4. Scott, Shelley (2010). Nightwood Theatre: A Woman's Work is Always Done. Athabasca University Press. pp. 66–69. ISBN 978-1-897425-55-8 – via Google Books.
5. Filewood, Alan, ed. (1993). "This is For You, Anna: A SPECTACLE OF REVENGE". The CTR Anthology: Fifteen Plays from Canadian Theatre Review. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442658226 – via Google Books.
6. McGuigan, Lynn (2021-01-24). "Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia - Company of Sirens". www.canadiantheatre.com. Archived from the original on 2020-06-27. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
7. di Cenzo, Maria; Bennett, Susan (1992). "Women, Popular Theatre, and Social Action: Interviews with Cynthia Grant and the Sistren Theatre Collective". ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. 23 (1): 74.
8. Bell, Laurie (1987). "Working People's Popular Appeal" (PDF). Broadside: A Feminist Review. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
9. Jordão, Aida (2017). "The Alt Stage and the Po-mo Page: Canadian Spaces for an Anglo-Portuguese Dramaturgy". Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales Au Canada. 38 (2).
10. "Stage Scenes". NOW Magazine. 2004-11-25. Archived from the original on 2022-01-03. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
11. Crew, Robert (2005-08-15). "Fest showcases 13 plays by and about women; New works culled from 150 entries Topics range to personal, political". Toronto Star. p. G06.
12. Keung, Nicholas (2006-07-22). "Heroes and villains; Puppets, fado bring Portugal's greatest poet back to life Camoes revered around the world". Toronto Star. p. B01.
13. Ouzounian, Richard; DeMara, Bruce (2006-07-13). "Stage". Toronto Star. p. G10.
14. Likhodi, Lidia (2018-03-12). "York University faculty strike enters second week". The Varsity. Archived from the original on 2018-03-16. Retrieved 2022-01-03.