NEKESA MBADIWE’S PORTFOLIO TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Giant Stitch Ripper: Print Ad • Demonstrates ad to be used in magazines • Applications used: InDesign 2. Giant Stitch Ripper: Script • Demonstrates script for television ad • Application used: Scrivener 3. Spotify: Print Ad • Example of a print ad to a targeted audience (ie. people who would read sewing magazine s or blogs or listen to sewing podcasts ) • Application Used: Photoshop and InDesign 4. Product Description: Make A Move On Dress • Example of a product de scription to se ll a dress I made • Applications used: Microsoft Word 5. SEO Product Description: Billy Book case • Demonstration of search engine optimization in description for an Ikea product • Applications used: Microsoft Word 6. Play wrights Canada Press Blog Post: LGBTQ+ Plays • Creative piece 7. Barbara Newhall Follett: Disappearance • Creative piece 8. On The Danforth: Dancing Through Strife • Creative piece FOR GIANT MISTAKES GSR GIANT STITCH RIPPER 5.5 inches (clear cap included) Neatly opens buttonholes Red ball for protecting your fabric Easy way to quickly rip out mistaken stitches $3.99 Buy One, Get One Free * * * * Script for Giant Stitch Ripper ( as pictured previously ) INT: AN OFFICE. A DESK WITH A SEWING MACHINE ON IT. PILES OF MULTI - COLOURED FABRIC STREWN AROUND. A YOUNG PERSON SITS IN FRONT OF THE MACHINE. THEY LOOK STRESSED OUT. NARRATOR (Voice over) Sometimes you make big mistakes.... The person looks around at the mess of fabric, picks up two pieces haphazardly put together. Contrast thread, so the stitches really show. NARRATOR (Voice over) There's nothing like starting over. For big mistakes , you need a very big stitch ripper. The person picks up the stitch ripper! Rips through all those mistake stitches. Smile s contentedly, then flicks the sewing machine back on and begins to sew again. The noise from the machine fades as the Narrator spea ks: NARRATOR (Voice over) Giant Stitch Ripper is the tool you need in the sewing room to fix those big sewing mistakes Make A Move On Dress This fun and dynamic galaxy dress is a throwback to a more swinging time! Bold and unique, you’ll be the most compelling girl on the dance floor. This 1960’s style dress is slim - fit and tight to show off those curves. The fabric is sturdy cotton with glittery stars that make up dazzling constellations. With bell sleeves and a matching cummerbund belt, you’ll be ready for whatever life throws your way. Date night, dance night, or just a night out with the girls, the Make a Move On Dress ensures you’ll be twisting the night away in style. Item Details: * Bell sleeves * Knee length pencil skirt * Boatneck bodice * Lapped back zipper * Matching cummerbund belt is removeable * Coordinating colours include purple, blue, silver, and grey * Made locally in Toronto *COMES WITH A MATCHING MASK* Billy Bookcase*: Your Organization Life Saver The Billy bookcase is perfect for all of your organizational needs. Convenient and easy to put together, Billy will make organizing your life a breeze. The bookcase can be used by itself or put together to expand with your growing organizational needs. The Billy bookcase isn’t just for books. It’s perfect for all sorts of organization: use it in your kitchen to expand your pantry storage, in your home office to organize your files, in your closet for bags, boots, and shoes, or in your nursery to fill with picture books and toys for a new arrival. With Billy, everything you need will be in one convenient place. Billy bookcase is your organizational best friend. Dimensions: 31 1/2 " (80 cm), 11 " (28 cm), 79 1/2 " (202 cm) Colour: White Materials: Made from 100% industrial grade particle board *This is an Ikea product 11 Books to read with Pride By Nekesa Mbadiwe June marks Pride Month! It’s been fifty years since the Stonewall Riots, and Pride is celebrated around the world to honour the past and love the present. We can help champion queer voices through the printed word so check out these 11 books, all by and/or about LGBTQ+ people The Gay Heritage Project by Damien Atkins, Paul Dunn & Andrew Kushnir Three of Canada’s most gifted performers, Damien Atkins, Paul Dunn, and Andrew Kushnir, go on a search for the hi story of gay people. Through their own lineages, and other places too, the trio discover forgotten stories and some well - known ones to compile an extraordinary history lesson that shines a new light on contemporary gay culture. Body Politic by Nick Green The Body Politic was a newspaper on the forefront of the LGBTQ+ movement in 1970s Toronto. Now, Phillip, who was a reporter for the paper, is an aging journalist who's trying to figure out how to use Grindr. Told in two alternating timelines, Phillip rec ounts his story about the paper and leading the LGBTQ+ movement. Late Company by Jordan Tannahill One year after their son Joel’s suicide, Debora and Michael Shaun - Hastings sit down to dinner with Joel’s bully and his parents. They’re looking for closu re, but the powder keg has been lit and accusations are thrown around for everyone’s real or imagined part in the tragedy. I Have AIDS! by Sky Gilbert When stand - up comic Prodon tells his lover Vidor that he has AIDS, this news barely interrupts dinne r. And it shouldn’t. They live in an age where AIDS isn’t a death sentence, and many gay men live and deal with the condition. Following Prodon through the five stages of acceptance — Denial, Partying, Loss of Control, Religious Conversion, and Acceptance — I Have AIDS! Is a black comedy about gay men that is neither tragic nor sad. Lilies by Michel Marc Bouchard In 1912, two boys at a Catholic college fell in love while working on a play about St. Sebastian. Their story ends tragically: one boy is sent to p rison and the other dies. Years later, as the remaining inmate is about to be released, he is visited by the monsignor, who was also party to the events as a boy. The inmate stages a show of the event, and forces the monsignor to admit his role in the trag edy. Gertrude and Alice by Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton with Karin Randoja Visiting the reader in the present day, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas come to find how history has treated them. The couple recounts stories from their forty - year relati onship, meeting iconic writers and artists, and Alice’s long - lasting and never wavering devotion to Gertrude. Before they go, they find out what has become of their artistic and cultural influence, and how their lives and work are — or are not — remembered O utside by Paul Dunn Daniel is ready to talk. And his friends, Krystina and Jeremy are ready to help him. Speaking to his new school, Daniel talks about the bullying and depression that drove him from his old school, while simultaneously Krystina and Jerem y set up for their first gay – straight alliance meeting while dealing with the feeling that they didn’t do enough to help their friend. Told in two narratives that intertwine, the teens find comfort in perspective and power in numbers. Freda & Jem’s Best of the Week by Lois Fine Freda and Jem have an unconventional family. Jem is a butch dyke from Montreal who never saw herself marrying and having kids, until she meets Freda. Freda shows Jem’s vulnerabilities, something Jem surprisingly likes, and they bu ild a life and family together. Years later, as their dynamic shifts, Freda and Jem have to figure out how to exist with each other while accepting their new reality. Queer/Play: An Anthology of Queer Women's Performance and Plays edited by Moynan King This anthology includes plays, performances, and interviews by emerging and established queer artists. This collection is diverse and finds itself at the intersection of queer life and art, examining the resulting cultures and identity. Queer/Playfeatures work by Shaista Latif, Nathalie Claude, Alex Tigchelaar, Jazz Kamal “Nari,” d’bi.young anitafrika, d’bi.young anitafrika, Hope Thompson, Flerida Peña, Gein Wong, and Evalyn Parry. Q2Q: Queer Canadian Performance Texts edited by Peter Dickinson, C.E. Gatc halian, Kathleen Oliver & Dalbir Singh This anthology is a look at contemporary queer performance practices — from solo performance to political allegory to family melodrama to intersectional narratives that combine text, movement, and music. Q2Q: Queer Can adian Performance Texts features work by Donna - Michelle St. Bernard, Katie Sly and Jonathan Seinen, Shawn Wright, Minh Ly, lee williams boudakian and Kamee Abrahamian, Sunny Drake, and d’bi. young anitafrika. Two - Spirit Acts: Queer Indigenous Performance s edited by Jean O’Hara The plays within this anthology — by Muriel Miguel, Kent Monkman, and Waawaate Fobister — touch on desire, identity, and community as they tackle misunderstandings of the Indigenous people and explores what it means to be a queer and I ndigenous. Want more? Check out our LGBTQ+/Queer Category ! Dancing Through Strife Nekesa Mbadiwe I started dancing because I had fallen in love with dance at Bandstand on Broadway It was quick, falling for dance, and the week before I actually started lessons I spent every spare moment on Googl e and YouTub e , searching Lindy Hop videos until I thought my eyes were going to fall out I began lessons at a weird time in my life: I had just graduated university and I wasn’t sure what I wante d to do with my life. It was something fun to do ; something to get my mind off of the turbulent situation I was in. I didn't realize the impact that dance would have in my life. I am filled with anxiety. It’s something I work on all the time, but being an anxious person is really what I’m all about Da nc e really helped with that. After o ne year of dance , I've performed and competed , and I can safely say that it's one of the smartest decisions I've made in my life , and a great way to help deal with my anx iety Dancing has made me more social, more daring, and more confident. It's also changed the way I look at life in a weird way. There is a huge difference taking dance classes as a kid — I took about ten years’ worth of dance as a kid plus musical theatre in high school — and doing it as an adult. I've been really lucky to have teachers who also care about dance and are committed to really teaching and fostering a love for dance. Pegasus Dance and Art Centre has been an institution o n the Danforth since 1986. Focusing on a holistic approach to dance, Jane Davis - Munro, has been teaching students for forty years. "We don't teach kids to be great dancers, we teach dancers to be great kids," Davis - Munro said. She and her mother started Pegasus with preschool programs and now has grown to hold Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Hip Hop classes as well as music and art classes for all ages — adults included! Pegasus strives to teach their students how to be confident leaders and conscientious individuals in their community, with fundraisers in the community and throughout the world. Knowing how dance can impact and shape a life, Davis - Munro calls Pesagus' way of teaching a holistic approach to dance, teaching students values like empathy, emotion and inclusion. Not only are Pegas us' students in tune to their community, they are taught to extend their talents to the world. Joy of Dance Centre, with a wide range of classes from jazz and lyrical to west coast swing and musical theatre, is a place instructor Kimberly Pilc sees as a l andmark in the Danforth community. "It's a life stop," Pilc says. Her assistant, and former student Ayaka Tani agrees. "I feel like all the kids in this neighborhood mostly have ended up here or dropped by here," Tani adds. Pilc says that dance truly is he r life and that she sees Joy of Dance as a family. The centre provides a place for students as young as three to grow and foster their love of dance well into adulthood At eighteen, Tani has been attending Joy of Dance for eight years. "Well, I feel like anyone who knows me outside of here knows that I'm generally shy...quiet. But ... when I'm dancing I don't really have to be that kid," she says and points Pilc out as her dance role model. As an instructor who has been at Joy of Dance, for the past twelve y ears, Pilc has seen her students grow and move on. She feels that the studio is different because they aren't just a competition studio. Joy of Dance also gives students the skills to "use dance and connect that to their heart and soul so when life gets cr azy, everybody has a place to balance and check and make the bad times not so bad." I don't know when it clicked for me. I started classes and I started going to social dances and then I never looked back. The change within me was gradual, but I didn't s ee it until other people started telling me how confident I was. I thought I was largely myself, with one change: all I did was talk about swing dance. But once my friends and people I met started commenting on how I changed, I realized it too. Through da nce, I was able to find a part of myself that had been hidden for so long. It's a way for me to connect to the world in ways I couldn't even imagine possible. It's opened up a whole new world of possibilities and changed me for the better. I'm glad that so mething I did mainly on a whim has impacted my life so pro fo u ndly , and I am glad to see students learning and growing in the same way I have in the Danforth. The Mysterious Disappearance of Barbara Newhall Follett Nekesa Mbadiwe Barbara Newhall Follett was born in 1915 to Wilson Follett and Helen Thomas Follett. Barbara’s father was a literary editor, and the writing genes ran strong, as Barbara herself was a literary prodigy. Her first novel, The House Without Windows, was publis hed in 1927, when Barbara was just twelve years old. She also, by this age, created a fictional world and a fictional language. The House Without Windows, published by Alfred A. Knopf where her father worked, ran to very good reviews and Barbara became a little bit of a celebrity. She gave her opinions on children’s books on the radio. In 1928, Barbara’s second novel, The Voyage of the Norman D , was published and was again given good reviews. Now 14, Barbara was reaching the apex of her career. That year , Wilson left Helen for another woman, which devastated the young teen, as she and her father were very close. After Wilson left, Barbara’s family fell on hard times. As the Great Depression worsened, Barbara was working as a secretary. Barbara met Nicker son Rogers in 1931. The couple spent 1932 travelling and were wed in 1934. At the beginning of their marriage, Barbara was reported to be happy. She still wrote, although she was no longer in favour with publishers. But by 1937, cracks began to appear in t he marriage. Disappearance: On December 7 th , 1939, Follett left the apartment after a fight with her husband with about $30 ($550.66) and a notebook. This is according to Rogers himself, who said this, and then didn’t report her missing for two weeks an d didn’t have a missing persons report issued until four months after the disappearance. The missing person’s report listed Barbara under her married named Rogers, so no one even really knew who was missing. The media didn’t learn of her disappearance unti l 1966. Barbara thought Rogers was cheating on her. Their marriage was filled with dissatisfaction. I’m inclined to think that Nickerson murdered his wife. He didn’t report her missing for two weeks under the guise of “waiting for her to come back.” He didn’t officially file her missing for four months. He was hiding something, and Barbara’s mother thought so as well. In 1952, Helen was trying to get the police to take Barbara’s disappearance seriously. But Barbara was a person who loved adventure. The House Without Windows was about a young girl named Eepersip who runs away from her home with no windows to live in idyllic Nature (successively, a meadow, the sea, and, finally, the mountains). Her second novel was about a costal voyage, inspired by one s he took in Nova Scotia. She and her husband spent time travelling before they married. Together, they hiked the Appalachian trail and backpacked through Europe. So, I hope that Barbara left and made her own life in the world. I hope she built a gorgeous lo g cabin and lived in her own world.