The Tao of US

I fear if I say this, I'll be punished.  I got this thing in me that doesn't want to trust it, doesn't want to believe it, doesn't think I deserve it ...

But the truth is I feel lucky.  I feel happy. It's been going on a few years now, it's a project still incomplete, I still got a lot of messed up small me to sort through, but as an adult I've never known this. I'm thankful for it, I'm lucky for it. But the truth is, if you asked me, how's it going, I gotta say, it's going good.

For long time I've been living out of a frustrated worldview, illusions of what my age means, what and where I should have been, things I long should have achieved.  There was no now.  There was a tormented past of almosts and should have beens, and a future I thought I wanted that seemed forever receding into non-being.  And then, in time, you get older, you sink into the now more, the this is it, this is truly where and who you are.

We just wrapped the Strong Medicine theatre to video promo shoot.  A piece about anti-smoking, respecting tobacco, etc.  But the prayer that was answered here wasn't about the "educational message" of the show (that was brilliantly created in the script by Yvette Nolan I should add), it was about touching upon another "you're a lucky human being" experience. 

I'm supposed to write about the process, filmmaking stuff, and I thought I would sit down here and chat about that.  But the truth is, and I realize this could sound heavy handed, but I don't really care about "filmmaking"

anymore, this shoot helped confirm that.  I want to share this profound experience of being alive.  That's it. I have no idea if I'm any good at what I do, or try to do, or if what I do is any good, or if I have anything insightful to say about an art form I'm struggling to get better at.  But I do know this: NEPA has human beings involved in its doors.  Human beings with spirit.  Kindness. Smiles.  A chance to celebrate and be alive with other good souls.

I'm sure I sound like a wanker by now.  A little hammered at an after party?

I'm not.  I'm in an airport lounge by myself. Drinking water and eating a granola bar.  Sexy, I know.  But you know what I really think about the shoot? I'm gonna miss them.  Life's funny that way.  For all the studying of the craft that I've done, which began 17 years ago in the same location we shot this project at (York University campus), I've learned this: the art form ultimately doesn't matter.  The deliverable doesn't matter, or any sense of job well done.  It's the people.  The relationships. Them. That momentary and all too fleeting Us. And while there was that Us I was stupidly happy.  And I hope the path leads to more Us's, with all of Them.

-Contributed by Shane Belcourt

Dispatch from Aotearoa

The second annual Matariki Development Festival kicked off on Monday, June 20^th, in Wellington, New Zealand. Native Earth and Tawata Productions enjoy a tuakana – teina relationship, an elder sibling – younger sibling dynamic, that has allowed us to offer guidance and advice as Tawata developed their festival.

Hone Kouka and Miria George, Executive Producer and Artistic Director of Tawata, participated in Weesageechak XXI and XXII, working with our actors on Miria’s new plays Urban Hymns (2009) and Sunset Road (2010), both of which went on to successful productions in New Zealand. Last June, they launched Matariki Festival, which is modelled on our own Weesageechak Festival, a week of developmental workshops of new plays by Maori writers, public readings of those plays and a number of ancillary events.

Both years of Matariki, Hone and Miria have showcased a work by a First Nation writer from Canada. Last year, Tara Beagan directed a reading of Two Old Women; this year, Keith Barker’s The Hours That Remain is getting a reading.  Hone and Miria’s thinking is that the Maori writers get the opportunity to see where their Canadian cousins are at in terms of playmaking, to see what issues we share, how and whether our worldviews are similar. 

Another annual event in the Matariki festival has been a korero, a discussion about First Nations Canadian theatre, with the Tawata whanau. This year, while a slideshow of images from Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, Almighty Voice and His Wife, Café Daughter, Gathering Light, Thunderstick, and Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way looped on the wall of the Circa Two Theatre, the talk turned to home, and primacy of place.  Like us, indigenous theatre practitioners here are without space, and therefore at the mercy of the mainstream producers who do have facilities.  As in Canada, there appears to be a swelling interest in indigenous work here, which is heartening, although it does mean that what gets produced is still being filtered through a certain gaze, because most of the artistic directors here are pakeha, as in Canada.  The news that Native Earth is going to be the operator of the studio space at the new Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre galvanized the assembly, and now, suddenly, all the talk here is about space, a home for artists, for programs, for our stories.

More to follow.

-contributed by Yvette Nolan