Molded in outports during the early 1970s and brought to St. John’s pubs with great controversy in the late 1980s, the screech-in has secured itself into the “Newfoundland experience” of many who visit its shores. Chad Griffiths’ re-envisioned screech-in is an earnest yet subversive reimagining that retains the ceremony’s most familiar elements and casts them back towards a two-way mirror of tradition, identity, and otherness. Throughout this interactive and improvisational multimedia performance, participants are thrusted into a ritual that rips at the seams which bind scarcely-explored tensions of contemporary Newfoundland culture: hospitality and belonging, pride and exploitation, folklore and faux-lore. Performed only on days when cruise ships land in St. John’s Harbour, their passengers and the public-at-large are invited to become co-creators in a dramatic, humorous, and ever-controversial Newfoundland “rite of passage”.
A fundraiser for the Eastern Edge Gallery
participant, $30
observers, PWYC
Bar service available by donation
16 July (Sun)
21 July (Fri)
29 July (Sat)
4 August (Fri)
If you have any questions and/or would like to participate please email Chad directly griffiths.chad@gmail.com