What if we were them and they were us…? Upstairs, In Our Bedroom (in development) is a multimedia performance that tells choreographer twin duo Same As Sister’s joint autobiography alongside the true story of the Barbadian-Welsh outsider artists, June-Alison and Jennifer Gibbons, popularly known as ‘The Silent Twins’. Unjustly committed to the infamous Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital from 1981-1993, the Gibbons channeled their imaginative inner worlds through a singular and relatively unseen body of creative work, including novels, short stories, poetry, diaries, and drawings. Combining dance, narration, and video, Upstairs, In Our Bedroom reconstructs the defining moments of these intersecting stories of twinship, blackness, and mental illness to question who gets to be called an “Artist” and for what reasons.

Co-Direction and Choreography Same As Sister (Hilary Brown-Istrefi and Briana Brown-Tipley)

Performance Same As Sister with Kiebpoli Calnek, Sabrina Canas, Abigail Linnemeyer, Peggy Piacenza, John Pickup and Asia Stewart

Dramaturgy Susan Mar Landau

Sound Design Arjuna Meadows

A/V Design and Programming Jeremy Kadetsky

Disability Arts Advisor Rachel da Silveira Gorman

Stage Management Shana Crawford

Upstairs, In Our Bedroom (in development) was made possible, in part, through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program, funded, in part by the Jerome Foundation. The project was developed, in part, through a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and support from Dancemakers, Toronto, the HERE Artist Residency Program in partnership with IRT Theater’s Archive Collective Development Series, NYC; and a Plug-N-Play Residency at Toronto Dance Theatre.