Ottawa’s Fringe binge is over, and while some people are counting the days until the next festival, others, such as Luna Allison, are taking a well-earned break.
Allison, one of Ottawa’s best-known spoken-word artists (and frequent contributor to Xtra), won the award for Outstanding Original Work for her one-woman show, Falling Open.
Falling Open is a blend of fictional and non-fictional stories of sexual abuse told from both the abuser’s and survivor’s points of view. In the performance, Allison plays a doll in a pink-and-white dress who shares stories with the audience from the confines of a small, comfortable bedroom.
The doll “has access to the full story, to a level of perspective and understanding unlike any of the other members of the family that this story centres around. Through her, I wanted to explore the idea of being an object, a witness and an oracle all at the same time,” Allison says.
Allison’s performance was powerful, her narrative engaging and her uncomfortable story well deserving of a Fringe award.
For more about Allison’s work, visit lunaallison.com.
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