Curtains Up Winnipeg

Erica Wilson is not prepared to live in anyone”s artistic pigeon hole. The best part? In her February 6 show “Miss Carcass Caresse: Soft Waters”, at Kiyanaan Indigenous Theatre Festival she gets to define the terms in which she creates as, well, an artist. This year’s national indigenous arts development and showcase recipient has created a piece built around her burlesque persona. Equally importantly, it also allows her to break down other boundaries within her creative practice -she describes the show as “actually six distinct unique themes with six unique art styles”. I, for one, am drawn to the promise of burlesque, puppets, circus and water imagery all in one show.

This is the kind of work that comes about when artists are given space to explore their own voice because absolutely no one else in the world is going to mix up this particular concoction. And yet. In our interview Erica Wilson described frequent experiences in the arts being pigeonholed as an indigenous performer, not allowed to branch out past ‘indigenous’ roles. Situations where the opportunities stopped the moment she was interested in not exclusively being identified by ethnicity. It’s the age old problem of thinking that art by minorities can’t also be universal, which is an old story…

“When you’re an indigenous woman that has power in community and power around people, you’re supposed to be modest. That you have to be completely wearing the ribbon skirts and have the feather, and that’s really lovely but that’s also a huge pigeon hole that is boxing people in” -Erica Wilson

It’s far from a radical idea that artists need to follow their own creative voices. Marginalized voices, and indigenous voices even more so, need to be allowed to say what they want to say following their own creative voices. In other words, not just continuing to put out the narratives about ethnicity, or gender, or well, anything else. we’ve all heard before. In Erica Wilson’s description of her ecclectic show: ““I had the mental space, I had the time, I had the energy and also I would call it sacred rage to be like I’m going to complete my tasks”. Even better, this sacred rage is going to fuel something both sexy and funny. Honestly, is there a better way to process an artist’s thought provoking ideas than laughter and titillation?

Burlesque seems like a natural place for someone drawn to “big abstract things” such as Catholic imagery, gothic culture, surrealism and circus. Erica Wilson explained that burlesque performers impressed her “knowing that none of them had to play within their gender or their race”. The genre represented a way of escaping some of the rigid constraints she has struggled with. According to her, “eventually with my rage I was like you know what I can do this too”! And she did. And she has. Across Canada.

The unusual moniker “Carcass Caresse” fits in part because it celebrates “just the weirdness of being this fleshy bony thing”. Caress is soft and sexy, but carcass is a reminder that we are in the end, just bodies. An appropriately distinctive name for a very distinctive artist.

Miss Carcass Caresse: Sweet Waters will be playing February 6, 2026 at Prairie Theatre Exchange as part of Kiyannan Indigenous Theatre Festival