Performances, Presentations & Lectures

August 8, 2020

August 7, 2020

August 6, 2020

List of Performances, presentations and lectures


Floyd Favel Presents the Festival- Theatre: Younger Sibling of Tradition

Floyd Favel is a theatre theorist, director, essayist, and Cree cultural leader based in Saskatchewan. He studied theatre in Denmark at the Tukak Teatret, a school for Inuit and Sami People. After-which he studied in Italy with Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish theatre director and one of the more influential theatre figures of the 20^th century. Since then he has travelled and worked across the country and world developing his own unique theatre process he entitles ‘Native Performance Culture’, or NpC- Indigenous theatre is an artistic genre with its own methods, techniques, and body of knowledge that is open to all Peoples and not defined by ‘identity’ and that it is multi-cultural in presentation.

Home – an indigenous adaptation of Uncle Vanya By Zagłębie Theatre and Miyawata Culture Inc.


Iwona Wozniak Floyd Favel – Grotowski from the Cree family – Theatre and Ritual in the Theatrical Method of Floyd Favel

Director of the Zagłębie Theater in Sosnowiec. A student of doctoral studies “Humanities without borders” at the University of Silesia in Katowice. A graduate of the Academy of Theater Practices in Gardzienice. She studied at the Theater Academy in Warsaw at the Faculty of Theater Studies, the University of Economics in Katowice and the University of Opole. Director, animator and cultural researcher.


Chief Arvol Looking Horse The World at a Crossroads

Arvol Looking Horse was born on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. At the age of 12, he was given the responsibility of becoming the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, the youngest ever. He is widely recognized as a chief and the spiritual leader of all three branches of the Sioux tribe. He is the author of White Buffalo Teachings and a guest columnist for Indian Country Today. A tireless advocate of maintaining traditional spiritual practices, Chief Looking Horse is the founder of Big Foot Riders which memorializes the massacre of Big Foot’s band at Wounded Knee. Chief Looking Horse’s prayers have opened numerous sessions of the United Nations and his many awards include the Juliet Hollister Award from the Temple of Understanding, a Non-Governmental Organization with Consultation Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. He lives on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.

Daphie Pooyak Cree Nakota Teachings

Identifying as a Nakota Cree traditional teacher, and cultural advisor. Daphie comes from Sweetgrass First Nation located in central Saskatchewan. Mother of 5 children and grandmother of 5 grandchildren. Over the course of 20 years she has worked as a professional educator specializing in cultural education, and land based learning. Daphie has also spent 8 years with Saskatchewan Corrections working with inmates in the area of healing n trauma. 4 years at Ekwaskeet healing lodge in Onion Lake Cree Nation and 2 years Nelson House Manitoba in there community healing lodge. Working in the area of addictions, healing and trauma. – [ ] In recent years she has facilitated several presentations through out Canada, USA and Mexico on healing trauma, natural law and traditional medicine. Some notable of which happened in 2015 where Daphie was asked too join in prayer and speak at “World Peace & Prayer Day” in Oregon. “The Parliament of World Religion” hosted by the United Nation in Salt Lake City. Her passion remains to her roots, in hosting traditional survival medicine camps over the past 10 years in her community Sweetgrass First Nation.Daphie has been taught healing from an early age and continues her practise in traditional healing and wellness. Recent focus of anxiety, and depression through guided meditation and healing hands

Dr. Kahente Horn Miller
and Tsi ni tsi wen:a: To Make Alive in the Minds of the People
LIVE August 6 at 10AM CST – 12PM EST
Zoom Webinar Link
Meeting ID: 865 4489 9334

Paintings To Power: The Meaning of the Mohawk Warrior Flag
RESCHEDULED

Dr. Kahente Horn-Miller (Kahente means “she walks ahead”) (Kanien:keha’ka/Mohawk) received her doctorate in 2009. She is a mother to four daughters and grandmother. Currently she is an Associate Professor in the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University and Assistant Vice-President, Indigenous Initiatives. As an active member of her community, Dr. Horn-Miller is a figurative bridge builder as she engage with issues that are relevant to her work and academic interests such as Indigenous methodologies, Indigenous women, identity politics, colonization, Indigenous governance, and consensus-based decision making. Her governance work and community-based research involves interpreting Haudenosaunee culture and bringing new life to old traditions. It is the fruit of her endeavors as a Mohawk, an educator, and a mother that she brings into her interactions with Kahnawà:ke:ronon (people of Kahnawà:ke) and the academic community. She Co-Chaired the Carleton University Strategic Indigenous Initiatives Committee which resulted in Kinàmàgawin, Carleton’s revitalized Indigenous strategy. In 2018 she initiated the Indigenous Collaborative Learning Bundles project which is successfully increasing Indigenous content in classrooms across disciplines.

Hélène Choquette – The making of Kanata : 2 years in the eye of a documentary filmmaker
To watch this conference, you must watch « Lepage au Soleil » Link Below
LIVE August 6 at 12PM CST – 2PM EST
Zoom Webinar Link
Meeting ID: 892 6263 1521

For 18 years, Hélène Choquette has devoted herself to writing and directing socio-political documentaries. She turns her camera on realities and individuals from here and elsewhere on the planet who otherwise would be without a voice. Internationally, she signed The Refugees of the Blue Planet one of the first documentary showing the situation of climate refugees (among prices : Best Canadian Feature Documentary, Planet in Focus 2007). Fists of Pride that unveils the situation of Burmese children exploited in boxing camps in Thailand (Special Mention – RIDM Inmates Jury 2012). In 2019, Lepage au Soleil: at the origin of Kanata followed over more than 2 years the creation of an original play directed by Robert Lepage and which created a national controversy in the summer of 2018. In Canada, Choquette tackles sensitive and inevitable social issues : Bonne à tout faire on the living conditions of foreing caregivers working for Canadian families; human trafficking in Canada with Avenue Zero which addressed, among other cases, the issue of missing Indigenous women in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. (award for Best cinematography, Gémeaux 2010, finalist for the Beyond Borders Award) ; homelessness through the unique relationship that unites men with their dogs in a A Dog’s of life.

Poetry Cafe organized by Janelle “ecoaborijanelle” Pewapsconias with Nokomis “Kecia Cook” from Treaty 5 Territory, Cooper Skjeie, Kalii, Nisga’a Nation in Nass Valley, BC  and Janelle ecoaborijanelle Pewapsconias, Little Pine First Nation
LIVE August 6 at 6PM CST (8EST)
Zoom Webinar Link Here


Émilie Monnet and Waira Jacanamijoy Mutumbajoy with Mélanie O’bomsawin La Vida est una Pinta – Painting Life

Waira Jacanamijo Mutumbajoy Was born in Yurayaco, in the municipality of San José del Fragua in Colombia. She studied International indigenous rights and the Carribean at the Pedro Arrupe Institute in the Deustro Bilabao University and graduated in 2003. She is also a researcher in contemporary indigenous arts in the Colombian Amazon with Tandachiridu Ingakuna Association and Onishka Productions. She accompanies the creation, direction and coordination of political processes and strategies for Organizational strengthening. She does this locally, regionally, nationally and internationally which has led her to participate in public workshops as an Inga Knowledge keeper. 

At the crossroads of theatre, performance and media arts, Émilie Monnet’s artistic practice addresses issues of identity, memory, history and transformation. Her performances draw on the symbolism of dreams and myths, both personal and collective, to tell stories that question our modern-day world. In 2011, she founded Onishka Productions, a Montreal-based interdisciplinary arts organization specializing in shows created by artists from different cultures and disciplines; and in 2016, she founded Scène contemporaine autochtone (SCA), an artistic and critical initiative foregrounding Indigenous performing arts projects. A scaled-down version of SCA was presented in Buenos Aires in March 2017, featuring Indigenous artists from Quebec and Argentina. The daughter of an Anishnaabe mother and a French father, Émilie lives in Montreal. Her artistic practice is informed by her many years of activism with Indigenous organizations in Canada and Latin America, and her participation in artistic projects involving women offenders and Indigenous youth.

Kent Monkman and Gisele Gordon Collaborating with Miss Chief

Kent Monkman (b. 1965) is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba), he lives and works in Dish With One Spoon Territory (Toronto, Canada). Known for his provocative interventions into Western European and American art history, Monkman explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experiences—across painting, film/video, performance, and installation. Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle often appears in his work as a time-traveling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples.

Lux Benson and Howard Clay The Arrival of the Sacred medicine

Dr. Gerald McMaster Artists I Knew

Gerald McMaster – curator, artist, author, and professor – is Tier 1 Canada Research of Indigenous Visual Culture and Curatorial Practice and director of the Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University (Toronto). He began his career at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (now the First Nations University of Canada). He has over 30 years of international work and expertise in contemporary art, critical theory, museology and indigenous aesthetics, working at such institutions as the Art Gallery of Ontario, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. He was chosen to represent Canada as curator at the prestigious 46^th Venice Biennale (1995) and the 16^th Venice Architecture Biennale (2018). In 2012 he was Artistic Director to the 18^th Biennale of Sydney (Australia). His most recent book Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work will be published in 2020. McMaster is a nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and a citizen of the Siksika First Nation.

Jill Carter bug: Activating Healing in ‘Irreconciable Space’

Jill Carter (Anishinaabe-Ashkenazi) is a theatre practitioner and researcher, currently cross appointed to the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies; the Transitional Year Programme; and Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. She works with many members of Tkaron:to’s Indigenous theatre community to support the development of new works and to disseminate artistic objectives, process, and outcomes through community-driven research projects. Her scholarly research, creative projects, and activism are built upon ongoing relationships with Elders, Artists and Activists, positioning her as witness to, participant in, and disseminator of oral histories that speak to the application of Indigenous aesthetic principles and traditional knowledge systems to contemporary performance.    Jill also works as a researcher and tour guide with First Story Toronto; facilitates Land Acknowledgement, Devising, and Land-based Dramaturgy Workshops for theatre makers in this city; and performs with the Talking Treaties Collective (Jumblies Theatre, Toronto). In September 2019, Jill directed Encounters at the Edge of the Woods. This was a devised show, featuring Indigenous and Settler voices, and it opened Hart House Theatre’s 100^th season; it is the first instance of Indigenous presence on Hart House Theatre’s stage in its 100 years of existence as the cradle for Canadian theatre.

Virginie Magnat In Search of Healing: Artaud’s Quest for Alchemical Theatre and His Encounter with the Tarahumara

Virginie Magnat is a performance scholar-practitioner from Occitania, France. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of California and is Associate Professor at UBC’s Okanagan Campus located on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Syilx people. Her interdisciplinary research spans the fields of performance studies, cultural anthropology, arts-based qualitative inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. She co-leads a UBC-funded international research cluster exploring the cultural, spiritual and environmental dimensions of health and well-being. Her two monographs The Performative Power of Vocality (Routledge 2020) and Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women (Routledge 2014) along with the Meetings with Remarkable Women companion documentary film series (Routledge Performance Archive) are based on embodied research and multi-sited fieldwork funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (https://www.routledge.com/authors/i19586-virginie-magnat).

Dr. Dawn Martin Hill Where Science and Prophecy Meet

Dawn Martin Hill, Mohawk, PhD in Cultural Anthropology and founder of the Indigenous Studies Program, McMaster University. She is Mohawk and resides at Six Nations with her family. She is the only First Nations CIHR College of Reviewers Chair. She has been publishing Indigenous knowledge research since 1992, her book, Indigenous Knowledge & Power: The Lubicon Lake Nation in 1997 documents the human impact of oil and forestry extraction in northern Alberta. She has numerous peer reviewed publications in Journal of Aboriginal Health, NAHO and chapters in books including, In the Way of Development, Strong Women Stories and Women’s Spiritual Traditions. She directed and produced three films on culture, women and Indigenous community healing. Her primary research over two decades is working with women and youth to develop Indigenous ways of knowing strategies, holistic assessments of community wellness, traditional medicine and improving quality of life. She is PI of three Global Water Futures Projects, Co-Creation of Indigenous Water Quality Tools, an Indigenous knowledge led scientific team, and Ohneganos: Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, Training & Co-Creation of Mixed Method Tools, all-female led teams. She founded the Haudenosaunee Environmental Health Task Force to build infrastructure of environmental health research located on Six Nations to explore how Indigenous families’ wellness is impacted by lack of access to clean water.  She is publishing a Haudenosaunee research teams CIHR-IIPH , “Tehtsitehwa: kenrotka: we (together we pull it from the earth again) – The Ohero:kon youth Health Intervention”, focused on rites of passage program for youth as a nation building strategy. She presents at the IPPF-UN with her governance teams supporting young community women  research on exploring environmental rights of Haudenosaunee women to land, water and bodies.

Åsa Simma – Reflections on performing arts among the Sami Peoples
August 7 at 11AM CST (1PM EST)
Zoom Webinar Link
Meeting ID: 811 9242 9169

Åsa Simma was born into a nomadic reindeer herding family, migrating between north Sweden and Norway depending on the season. She was taught the traditional Sami singing called “yoik” , during that time yoiks was forbidden. She was part of the movement to diminish the yoiking ban. She left for Denmark where she took an actors education. Åsa Simma has been very active in the global indigenous peoples movements. She has toured among Australian Aboriginals, lived with Inuits from Greeenland and North American Natives. Worked as a film dramaturgist  and  script developer at the International Sami Film Institute. Presently she is the CEO of the Sami Theatre.

Eugenia Sojka and Aneta Glowacka From early transcultural encounters with Indigenous writers and artists to the immersion in the theatre of Floyd Favel. Polish and Upper Silesian journeys  into Indigenous cultures in Canada.

Eugenia Sojka, Ph.D., D. Litt., Associate Professor at the Institute of Literary Studies,  University of Silesia (US),  Poland,  Adjunct Professor at the Department of English,  UFV, Canada; former Director of the Canadian Studies Centre at US and vice-President of  the Polish Association for Canadian Studies. She holds  a  Ph.D. in English with a specialization  in Canadian literature from Memorial University of Newfoundland.  Her  interests focus on Canadian  Indigenous and Diasporic  literatures and cultures,  and specifically on Indigenous  drama,  theatre and performance.  She is the author of numerous journal publications in the area of Canadian  and English Studies and critical theory.  Since 2000 she has been organizing annual Days of Canadian Culture at US.  She organized and co-organized several international conferences and many workshops  devoted to Indigenous cultures –  the most notable conferences were in 2007: “Canadian Indigenous cultures and art. Exploration and Celebration of Indigenous Knowledge” and in 2017: “Indigenous Canadian and Upper Silesian Expressions of Culture in Storytelling, Drama, Theatre and Performance – Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives.” The events / projects offered space for Indigenous voices in the Polish academy (e.g. Tomson Highway,  Lee Maracle, Monique Mojica,  Armand Ruffo, Jo-Ann Episkenew, Dawn Martin Hill,  Jo-Ann Archibald,  Michelle LaFlamme, Hereditory Chief Richard Atleo, Dan and Mary Lou Smoke, and many others). 

Aneta Głowacka is a Doctor of Humanities specializing in cultural studies. She is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Culture Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). Her theatrical research focuses on theatre and local cultural relationships, political theatre and institutional theatre. She is an editor in the Polish journal “Opcje”. She is a member of the International Federation of Theatre Research, the Polish Association of Theatre Research and the Polish Association for Canadian Studies. 

Dr. Dave Courchene The importance of language and identity

Dave Courchene is a respected Elder and Knowledge Keeper of the Anishinabe First Nation. He has devoted his life to creating a healthy environment for current and future generations, carrying messages of hope and peace around the world. Dave’s leadership and stewardship have had global influence – from lighting the sacred fire at the UN Earth Summit in 1992, to delivering the keynote and conducting the opening ceremonies at the 2010 G8 Summit on World Religions, to sharing the stage with spiritual leaders including the Dalai Lama. His work and vision have been recognized through many prestigious honours, including the National Aboriginal Achievement (INDSPIRE) Award in Culture, Heritage & Spirituality, the Volunteer Manitoba Award for Outstanding Community Leadership, the International Award of Excellence, the Aboriginal Circle of Educators Award, and the International Indigenous Leadership Award. Dave shares the ancient knowledge of the Original People of Turtle Island, that he believes can act as the foundation in supporting the New Life that Mother Earth is now entering, and that the Elders have confirmed has arrived.

Jesse Archibald-Barber Performing Ceremony and Community in Making Treaty 4

Jesse Archibald-Barber is from oskana kâ-asastêki and is a professor of Indigenous Literatures at the First Nations University of Canada. He has edited the award-winning anthology kisiskâciwan: Indigenous Voices from Where the River Flows Swiftly, and he was a founding producer and co-writer of the Making Treaty 4 performance. His recent work includes co-editing Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage, and he is currently working on a new performance project called Beneath the Starry Map.

Kahentinetha Horn

Dr. Ursula Neuerburg Denzer Goose Break in Oujé-BougoumouGoing North to connect thoughts on performance with teachings on traditional and contemporary Indigenous Dwellings.
From Uncle Vanya on Poundmaker, via Mashteuiatsh to the Shaptuans in Oujé-Bougoumou.

Ursula Neuerburg-Denzer, Ph.D., born in Cologne, Germany, is Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre at Concordia University, where she teaches acting, directing, and performance creation. Her research oscillates between somatic performer training, Rasaboxes, and the performance of space and place, particularly in the meeting of Indigenous and non-indigenous world views. As a performer /director she worked in the 80’2 and 90’s in Berlin and New York, during that period co-founding Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artist. She is a certified Rasaboxes instructor, and volunteers regularly at the Bread & Puppet Theatre. Since her move to Montreal she has engaged with Indigenous drama and performance. She is collaborating on a cycle of plays on Indigenous housing with Floyd Favel and Emilie Monnet among others, Attawapiskat is no Exception (2014), Dwellings (2017, with SSHRC funding). Neuerburg-Denzer’s book chapters include “The Making of Attawapiskat is no Exception: Positions, Implications and Affective Responses” in: Staging Dream Homes, ” Psychophysical Preparation for the Rasaboxes with Strasberg and Stanislavski.” in: Rasaboxes Sourcebook: Theory, Performer Training and Practice, and “Building DWELLINGS – a collaborative Performance Creation. Telling creation stories during Montreal 375-Canada 150” (forthcoming). A collection of essays on Somatic Engagement is in the works.

Dr. Sabina Sweta Sen-Podstawska Mudras in Waskawewin: The meeting of Odissi Dance and Plains Indian Sign Language in Floyd Favel’s theatre method AND Master of the Dew [ a work-in-progress performance based on Odissi dance technique and Plain Indian Sign Language]

Born to a Silesian mother and Bengali father, and raised in/between two cultures, her life has evolved around an eagerness to learn, experience and share artistic expressions of indigenous cultures through both research and performance. She is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Silesia in Poland. She holds a PhD in Drama (the Exeter-NIAS Intangible Histories joint doctoral program) from the University of Exeter, UK, an MA in South Asian Dance Studies from the University of Roehampton in London and an integrated BA-MA in English Literature and Culture from the University of Silesia in Poland. Her research interests embrace sensory-somatic awareness in Indian classical dance, body-mind relationship, somatic studies, psychophysical training and performance, somaesthetics and emotions in performance, multiculturalism, transculturalism, multi-ethnicity, minority cultures, diasporas, dance and performance of Indigenous People in Canada. She is also a dancer and performer, continuing her practical explorations through the medium of Odissi dance.

Meewasin Oma Choral singing from the Native American Church led by Kelly Daniels.
Part of the Sacred Performance Set.

Kelly Daniels, Lance Crowe and Elmer Ballantyne

Santee Witt Lakota Singer Songwriter
Part of the Sacred Performance Set.
https://soundcloud.com/santeendottiewitt

Cecile Moosomin Native American Church Singer
Part of the Sacred Performance Set.

My name is Cecile J Moosomin . Im 39 yrs old. I was born from Assinaboine and Cree people of Grizzly Bears head descendancy. I am a 2 spirited woman. I have 5 children and 1 adopted . 4 daughters and 2 sons. I am also a grandmother to numerous grandkids.My late mothers name was Karen J Moosomin/Ballendine. My father as I was told was Late William Sunchild of Sunchild First Nation. My grandparents had a strong role in raisimg me as did my parents later on. My late dad William was a Roadman and my mother followed him in this way (Native American Church). The first time I ever sang with a drum and Gourd was in 1994. My dad encouraged me and called me over to where he had his drum tied. That was the most wonderful blessed experience. First time singing in a ceremony I was 18 and recovering alcoholic and drug addiction. This medicine saved my life and I am thankful everyday and night. My children see me and and follow when they are able. My daughters all sing and my son drums for us. To this day we still practice our traditional ways and stand courageous in our traditional languages. We continue to encourage other women to sing as well. This is a good road. The elders said it’s good but not easy. The truth has always set us free. Free to express ourselves to our kind loving Creator for all this life is. We are a thankful family. I wish all our born and unborn and children and to all youth to continue on. Keep praying and dont ever give up. Pinamaya.

Cucurucha at the Miyawata Stage
Part of the Sacred Performance Set.

Curtis Peeteetuce Monologues from Oedipus at Colonus
LIVE August 8 at 2PM CST (4PM EST)
Zoom Webinar Link
Meeting ID: 893 0927 8503

A Story Without Words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=221gCef65gQ

Curtis Peeteetuce is Cree from the Beardy’s & Okemasis First Nation. Since 2001, he has had the honour of working with many talented artists in theatre, radio drama, music and film. Curtis is the playwright of the popular Rez Christmas story series, which has been presented since 2001. He is also the recipient of the 2012 Saskatoon and Area Theatre Award for Outstanding Male Performance for the role of Floyd in Where the Blood Mixes and has been nominated as a playwright and sound designer. Curtis dedicates all his accomplishments to his beautiful son Mahihkan.

A special Thank you to Leni Krivy for her support and donation to the festival