"There is no one phrase to describe what Cat Kidd does except, perhaps, force of nature."
- Charlebois Post

Hyena Subpoena tells the tale of Mona Morse, who has fled civilization to live in a tent in South Africa's famed Kruger Park. Each animal she encounters on the bushveld is matched with a formative event in her past, as Morse discovers zoological allegories to explain her harshest, most darkly comic life lessons.

Through Mona's tales of hyenas, lions, antelopes and elephants, Kidd explores the conflicts between predator and prey, individual and collective, human beings and the rest of the natural world.

A central purpose of this work is to look at mental illness, or generally those issues which alienate individuals from collectives. These attract a special type of stigma, which Kidd likens to the reputation of the hyena. Her young narrator's tales of calamity may be seen as a love letter to all those who, like the hyena, defy easy categorisation and so find themselves exiled to the outskirts of respectability.

"Rapid-fire metaphor… effortless rhyme… Cat Kidd continues to set the bar very high for the hybrid art form of spoken word, both in Canada and abroad… She is at the top of her game here with writing and delivery that are crisp and concentrated."
- Tanya Evanson, LitLive

Representing the work of a powerful artist at the height of her craft, Kidd's Hyena Subpoena embodies "a keening and wickedly funny ode (...) to all who wander the margins of society" (Kai Cheng Thom, Montreal Review of Books).

Hyena Subpoena combines live soundscape by DJ Jacky Murda and a video installation of South African wildlife footage to recreate Mona's campsite.

Watch the trailer at bit.do/M1SFF_hyena

Cat Kidd is a Montreal writer/performer described as "an adult blend of Dr. Seuss and Aesop's fables'. She is best known for her zoology-themed multimedia performance poetry, combining narrative verse, fine-tuned delivery, video installation, and original soundscapes by DJ Jacky Murda.

Relationship to Art and the Animal

Hyena Subpoena responds as to a summons to the theme Art and the Animal.

It was written in testimony of our kinship with them. Each of the seven pieces draws from a different creature to illuminate an episode in the early life of the narrator.

It has remained my point of view since childhood that all the other ones who have eyes and a mom are not so different from me. They care for their families and feel fear, mourn losses and celebrate happy milestones like birth or Spring. They rely on their environment and each other for sustenance. As a child, I wished that more people could see how they are just like us.

Today, my sense of friends would extend even to those without eyes or moms, who share our reliance on oxygen or water. The Slovenian cave salamander is eyeless, but can survive years without food, as none of us can. The Sea Peach resembles a human heart rooted to the ocean floor, its survival relying on the health the waters as ours does. Both these creatures have been teachers at deep and wordless levels. With words as tools of divination, I try to tap those lessons.