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