Thompson's Highway to Hell...for Native Theatre!!

 Watch this video first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SghnqacuVs

I felt a single glistening tear spill from my duct and slowly make its way down my high cheekboned face as I came to the sad realization that when you are right, you are right, and these guys are right. I mean how couldn’t they be right, right? They are R.H Thomson and Paul Thompson, you don’t get more respected in theatre in Canada than these guys are; let alone Native theatre. Right? While I was sitting at the opening of Métis playwright Marie Clements’ aptly named Tombs of the Vanishing Indian co-produced by Native Earth Performing Arts and red diva projects, I thought the same thing. No one and nothing relevant is happening in Native theatre, not in years.

This litter strewn hillside that is Native theatre, will, no matter the efforts of Native Earth, red diva projects, Saskatchewan Native Theatre Centre, Full Circle: First Nations Performance, Cheyikwe Performance, Red Sky Performance, Kaha:wi Dance and Alberta Aboriginal Arts never amount to anything. Not even Kenneth T. Williams who in the past eighteen months has had shows like Thunderstick, Bannock Republic, Three Little Birds, Gordon Winter and Café Daughter produced from the Yukon (Gwaandak Theatre) to Ottawa (NAC) can save it. I also thought about how futile meager works like Dreary and Izzy, Quilchena, free as injuns or any of the other 16 plays written by Dora award winning playwright and new Artistic Director of NEPA Tara Beagan have been. I have no idea why companies continue to produce Annie Mae’s Movement by former NEPA Artistic Director Yvette Nolan. Don’t even get me started on Kevin Loring, Alanis King, Drew Hayden Taylor, Darrell Dennis, Daniel David Moses and The Turtle Gals. Why is all this effort put into these festivals like Weesageechak Begins to Dance or the Talking Stick Festival when nothing worthwhile is being produced?

Without an Avatar or Dances with Wolves-like white male to champion our cause how will we ever be important again? Where are you Jake Scully? Why have you abandoned us John Dunbar? Please help us…what was the guys name in Little Big Man again?  Cue the tomahawk music: duuuuuu, du, du, dudu, du, dum.

- Contributed by  Craig Lauzon 

OPEN

Monique Mojica, Gail Maurice, Cheri Maracle, Denise Bolduc, Wanda Nanibush, Laura Milliken...

Last night was a who's who of powerful indigenous women at the opening night of the Native Earth Performing Arts and red diva projects world premiere of Tombs of the Vanishing Indian by Marie Clements.

the show is on until March 27 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Many shows are now sold out, and word of mouth will kick that into high gear, so book now!

Marrow-deep

This week I was lucky enough to escape from the office and watch a run through of Tombs of The Vanishing Indian which opens on March 10^th at Buddies in Bad Times. I wasn’t sure what to expect having not read the script since its workshop at Weesageechak XXI, back in 2009.

I was blown away with what I saw; under the direction of Yvette Nolan the performers on stage weaved together the tale of three sisters torn apart so beautifully that I forgot that I was sitting in a rehearsal hall surrounded by old props and costumes. Instead I was taken into their personal dioramas and shown the lives of those before us.

The topic is not an easy one. It places the audience in 1973 America, in a time when the government was still intervening “for the good of the Indian” in how we raised our young, educated ourselves and how we chose to live. During these times of involvement the government sanctioned sterilizations of Aboriginal women, relocated whole communities, and continued the removal of children from their families to “kill the Indian in the child”. All of these scenarios seem outside of the realm of possibility to many of us now, but to the 3 million plus Aboriginal people living in North America it is very real.

I am always surprised at how little Canadians know about their history. In grade 10 social studies I was made to memorize all the prime ministers of Canada but not once did they mention residential schools, or the people who were on this land long before the founding of the nation. I was an Aboriginal student who didn’t really know my own history. All I knew was the history that was part of my families’ story.

My grandparents were sent to residential school; 6 out of 10 of their children were sent to residential schools because this would help integrate them into society and make them upstanding citizens. Instead what this did was create a great disconnect from those before us. We lost our language, our rituals and our sense of belonging to this land.

Now my generation is here and we are finding our way back to some sense of belonging but these stories, like Tombs of The Vanishing Indian, are deep within our marrow. In order for healing to happen both within the community and in this country we need to share the stories and acknowledge them and grow as a group because no matter how hard we try to push past this we can’t, we can only grow with it.

The history is in us.

-Contributed by Isidra Cruz