Deneh’Cho Thompson
Deneh’Cho Thompson (he/they) is a director, actor and playwright and displaced and dispossessed member of the Pehdzeh ki Nation. As Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan Deneh’Cho oversees the wîcêhtowin Theatre Program, one of few Indigenous theatre programs at a Canadian university.
Deneh’Cho’s research focuses on the development, naming, and centring of Indigenous pedagogies, new play development, and modes of collaboration while centering the values of reciprocity, respect and reflexivity. Deneh’Cho is also engaged in the (re)storying of personal family archives focusing on healing, resilience, and Indigenous storywork as a pathway towards the creation of new works of theatre.
This year, Deneh’Cho — with Pedro Chamale, founding Artistic Director of rice & beans theatre — co-facilitates multilingual theatre and performance that includes language(s) that you do not speak. This collaborative workshop explores principles and techniques that promote language learning, fluency, and inclusion in performance. Through the sharing of experiences and the testing of ideas, the collective of this workshop will develop and articulate ways of working that suit their own contexts. Methods that allow non-speakers to facilitate shared language proficiency have the potential to broaden the impact of language revitalization and reclamation efforts and to promote further inter-Nation-al knowledge sharing and exchange.