Fringe Fest's Wings Over Water proposes
a world where cycles can be broken
and belonging can be achieved

» The Other Press explores home and landing with play creators Three Flying Birds Collective

 

CJ Sommerfeld
Staff Writer

 

(4 The more | study birds, the more | think
about the knowledge that birds carry in
their bodies when they migrate along paths
which their ancestors traveled.” Anjalica
Solomon, a co-creator and lead actor in Wings
Over Water, tells the Other Press during a Zoom
chat. A bird’s migratory patterns imitate those
of their ancestors, and while this is a cycle that
is inno need of breaking, Three Flying Birds
Collective’s novel play explores other cycles in
life that could benefit from being broken.
Wings Over Water was created by: Anjalica
Solomon (they/she/he), Shane [Chantal]
Dobles Gerring (they/she), and Sarvin Esmaeili
(she/they) who together comprise the Three
Flying Birds Collective. “We’re all friends, we
got together and created this play during
the pandemic,” Solomon intimates. "The
three of us have really unique sensibilities.
We’re bringing together Sarvin’s directorial
and narrative sensibilities, my musical and
poetic sensibilities and Chantal’s acting and
choreography sensibilities and melding all of

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them together. The viewers should be prepared
to witness a marriage of all of these offerings
and talents that we have. Anyone that comes
to the show will feel the love that we have for
each other and our love for telling stories.”
“[The protagonist] Baby Bird is very much
taken from my own experience, interacting
with the world in a curious way—almost like
a child-like way. We chose birds because me
and Anjalica spend a lot of time in the forest,”
Gerring, the second co-creator and actor in
Wings Over Water explains while seated in
the forest. “We really took an interest in the
way that birds are, so we got some bird books.
Baby Bird came a lot from thinking about
our ancestral history. | wrote a poem about
belonging and reaching out to ancestors, feeling
disconnected and [diasporic]. The character
Baby Bird, and their mission, came out of this
need for belonging—it very much came from
my very own experience of diaspora.”
Solomon continues, explaining how her
fascination with birds and their ancestry
prompted her exploration of belonging: “This
ties back to the search for home, migration

and travel; Baby Bird’s character is always
traveling through these portals.” During these
travels, Baby Bird comes into contact with
seven different characters: Grandmother Bird,
Patriarchy Bird, Anarchy Bird, Blood Bird, Party
Bird and Dream Bird. Solomon illuminates how
these different characters could be interpreted
both as different versions of Baby Bird’s self,
but also as different people which we interact
with on our life’s journey.

Esmaeili, director, dramaturge and
the third co-creator of Wings Over Water
elaborates on the thought-provoking nature
of the play: “Our main theme is home and
landing. ‘What is home? What is motherland?
Who can define home?’ Baby bird keeps
flying and going to all these places, | think the
audience expects to find ‘the place’ of landing.
But we want to challenge the audience and
ask, ‘Is home one place? Or can it be more
than one place?”

Gerring continues: “The play ends [in]
a raw way—in a way where there isn’t
a hierarchy between the audience and
performers. The lights kind of come up, and

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Something we say all the time when we’re going into rehearsal, is that we treat
the play like a ritual, and in our ritual, we are exploring questions of where we
belong and how we accept ourselves for who we are and where we are.

— Anjalica Solomon