Fringe Fighting: Canadian combat & physical theatre company brings the fight to the East Coast

There’s some extra action at the Fringe Theatre Festivals in the Maritimes this year.

Affair of Honor was started to show that combat and physical theatre is a space for everyone.

“We wanted more opportunities in stage combat, and we couldn’t really find any plays that had a lot of roles, exciting roles for women,” said Nova Scotia native Jackie T. Hanlin. “Usually, they were just kind of slapped or pushed down.”

“So we wanted to change that. We decided to create our own company, write our own stuff, and just do it ourselves, because that’s the quickest way to get stuff done.”

Hanlin and Nathania Bernabe created the company about eight years ago, and their first performance was one that hit close to home.

“We went to a library, and we tried to find so many shows that we were excited about, that featured a lot of people trying to do any kind of fight or fight choreography. It was more male characters. And again, one of the things that we didn’t see was just like some really cool women characters,” said Bernabe.

“The first show we produced was called Soul Samurai by Queen Nguyen. It was about a Filipino vampire slayer. And that’s really crazy because like having something for a Filipino, not to mention like a vampire slayer that was just like really up our alley.”

Based in British Columbia, bringing combat fighting into the main stage space was important for them.

“To provide opportunities for, upcoming artists, for women, artists, for non-binary, just in general, underrepresented people on stage, like we always say, it would have meant a lot to see people who look like us on stage when we were little.”

Hanlin was born and raised in Dartmouth but has not come back home to perform.

“I am super excited to come back and share my art form that I’ve been doing for a decade now, with my family here, with my hometown,” said Hanlin. “Super excited to share with East Coast audiences and see if they get a kick out of what we do.”

“It’s been years, and that’s a crazy long time to not be able to come back and share. And we’ve been slowly working our way across the country. We’ve made it to Toronto with some training opportunities. We’ve been to Quebec. We’ve been to Edmonton. And we’re just trying to get all the way across.”

“It is awesome to be able to come out here just because we have brought Jacquie home,” added Bernabe. “And so this was a huge undertaking for our company just because Jackie’s family for the whole time we’ve been here has not actually seen any of our shows.”

Multi-Vs will be hitting the stage at the Fundy and Halifax Fringe Theatre Festivals.

Running Aug. 19 to 23 in Saint John, and Aug. 27to Sept. 7 in Halifax, Affair of Honor breaks barriers with audiences too.

“The response is generally quite positive. People find this really fun. Typically, people who don’t like theatre really get a kick out of our show,” said Hanlin, pun intended. “We’re a good kind of gateway in there because we’re loud, we’re funny, but we’re a little more accessible, to people who might not be quite typically into theatre.”

“We give a fun night of theatre, but we really, want to connect with each other. Especially in a time where social media is so prevalent in our in our lives of just look off your screens and connect with the person across from you is kind of the big one,” said Bernabe.

Part of why they do what they do is to allow a platform for people to realize they can do it too.

“And then the other thing is, again, the empowerment of what the body can do. People always say, ‘I’ll come and train with you when I feel more fit’, and we’re like, no, come to us now because we want to you to be impressed with what your body can do now and what it can learn,” added Bernabe. “And so, one of the things that we hope is, more empowerment of being like, ‘you can do this’, this is something that is possible.”

“You get to learn like how to use your arms, legs and fists. But then also you get to learn how to use a single sword, like kind of all that swashbuckling style that you kind of see in Pirates of the Caribbean, and then you get to learn how to use a big staff or a bow staff.”

The pair say if people can take one thing away from their performances, it’s that they will bring a smile to your face.

“We just share what we do and the connections that we’ve made with audience members in the past, having women or young people come up to us after shows just thanking us for doing the show has always meant a lot. Just because they walk away with a sense of ‘that was awesome’,” added Hanlin.

“The same vibe when you walk out of an action movie and you’re like, ‘I can be James Bond’. We’ve kind of given that to a lot of audience members, and we’ve had repeat young people come back to our shows. We’re just getting a lot. So we’re just super excited to share that as wide as we can.”

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