Amanda Todd’s life reflected by National Arts Centre Orchestra
Amanda Todd’s famous 2012 YouTube video — which has been viewed 46 million times by people all over the world — was not intended as a suicide message.
“I am so tired of people talking about me, spreading rumours and making fun of me,” she told her mother, Carol Todd. “I just want to get my story out there. I’m struggling, but I just want to make sure people know they can be strong.”
She achieved that goal with a series of flash cards set to music. She held them up to the webcam, ending with one that says: “My name is Amanda Todd.”
The National Arts Centre Orchestra is staging a multimedia piece that salutes Amanda for standing up to cyberbullies and giving voice to their targets.
“My Name Is Amanda Todd” is part of an epic and innovative four-part series called Life Reflected, inspired by four Canadian women. The others are fiction writer Alice Munro, Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe and astronaut Roberta Bondar.
On Oct. 10, 2012, five weeks after posting her video, Amanda killed herself at age 15. She had been hounded by a man online. At his request, she had flashed him on her webcam. The image was widely circulated.
After that, Amanda was bullied no matter what school she attended. It was too much when even her boyfriend and his parents went on the attack.
A man from the Netherlands faces charges of harassment and extortion in connection with Amanda’s case.
Donna Feore, who is staging all four segments of Life Reflected, sees Amanda and her story as inspiring and has come up with a way of expressing that in a work that will have its world premiere in Ottawa on Thursday. At that concert, led by music director Alexander Shelley, all four segments of Life Reflected will be presented together for the first time.
“Amanda loved social media,” notes Feore. She also loved music and writing.
“What we are presenting is not a memorial,” Feore emphasizes.
She and her collaborators came up with a plan to celebrate Amanda and her struggle by immersing the audience in the world of computer graphic design, created by the Montreal production firm Normal, paired with a new piece of music by B.C. composer Jocelyn Morlock.
When Carol was approached in 2014 about including Amanda in the Life Reflected series, she was reluctant to sign on.
“They told me it was about four Canadian women who lent their voices to Canadian history,” she recalled in a phone interview from her home in Port Coquitlam, just east of Vancouver.
She knew all about Munro, Joe and Bondar. But she hadn’t thought of Amanda in the same way.
“I didn’t consider Amanda a woman. She was my little girl.”
And she didn’t want Amanda to be presented merely as a suicide victim. Then Carol met Donna. They bonded. Fast forward: Carol Todd is flying to Ottawa, along with her son, to attend Thursday’s concert.
“When something is that important, you want to do it with people you trust,” Carol says. “When I met Donna, at first I was skeptical. But we clicked. She was full of energy and easy to talk to.”
And there was another connection. Amanda and Feore’s 19-year-old daughter were born just a day apart. “Carol is an amazing woman,” says Feore. “We have a lot in common. We sat and talked for a long time. She was excited about using graphic design and music to tell Amanda’s story.”
Feore knew that Carol had set up the Amanda Todd Legacy to fight cyberbullying. Amanda loved snowflakes and the snowflake is a symbol used by the organization.
From that came the idea of representing Amanda on the NAC’s big screen as a snowflake.
As was the case with the other segments in Life Reflected, the objective was to combine a strong visual element with words and an original symphonic experience — and no talking.
The reason Carol Todd said yes to Feore was the emphasis on hope and creating awareness.
Parents, both know, are perplexed by kids who spend hours on their computers.
“We don’t know who they’re talking to,” says Feore. “This is a language a lot of us don’t understand. It can be correctly used or it can be abused.” With My Name is Amanda Todd, the National Arts Centre Orchestra is trying to spark conversation between generations and help the audience understand how social media can be useful and liberating; or dangerous and destructive.
“Amanda found her voice by writing her message and she made people see it,” Feore says. “That’s how she was liberated. It was a very big deal to tell her story.”