An Artist-led Gathering of Sharing, Workshops & Teachings

yuse’lu skweyul mukw’ ‘uw’ sq’uq’ipulup

Friday

September 16

Saturday

September 17

Sunday

September 18

Artistic Sharing

Evocative and heartwarming presentations in the Chief Dan George Theatre

Workshops

Participate in an array of engaging workshops and panel discussions in the Barbara McIntyre Studio

Performances

Xe’xe’ Productions

The theatre work in the Hul'q'umi'num' community started as an applied theatre project learning how to use improvisational theatre to promote language fluency and to learn skills for integrating into language classes. As skills levels progressed, two plays were developed through public performance: stle'luqum ni' 'utl' lhap'q'um' | The Monster at Newcastle Island and hw'I'ttsus lhqel'ts' | Jealous Moon: A play in Hul'q'umi'num'. The third play, s-hwuhwa'us 'i' tthu q'ullhanumutsun| Thunderbird vs. Orca, is currently under development for the performance in summer 2022. For the festival the theatre troupe will perform Jealous Moon: A play in Hul’q’umi’num.

Sturgeon-WomXn Rises

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Performed by Lindsay Delaronde

Artist Statement: Sturgeon- WomXn Rises dances the strength and perseverance of Sturgeon medicine. This powerfully enormous fish carries with her prehistoric epochs held in her scales. She has unchanged herself for millions of years and has been the witness to the evolution of time.

She rises to teach the language of remembering, giving gratitude and offerings to the natural world. Swirling in the river she activates mother nature’s natural pathways to revive our devotion to water, rivers, non-human beings and the invisibility of the spirit.

This dance incorporates Indigenous artistic aesthetics and spiritual symbolism through using multi-media. Images of tobacco plants are projected, which is a sacred medicine used by many Indigenous nations is a conduit to the creator and used to carry prayers. Tobacco is an offering of gratitude to all living beings on planet earth and is given as a gift to affirm respect in spiritual matters. Language is layered in the visuals of the tobacco plants through audio. I play my recorded voice reciting the Ohenton Kariwahtehkwen (the words that come before all else) thanksgiving prayer. The visuals of the tobacco and the Kanienkehaka language express Haudenosaunee epistemologies through embodied artistic practices such as dance and movement. Merging body and fish create an imaginative and playful pathway for deeper understandings of the language of the planet beyond our human limitations. We can learn to listen beyond the conditioning of our colonized environments and listen to nature. Nature is law, nature is our greatest teacher to Indigenous power, responsiveness and endurance. Witness Sturgeon- WomXn Rises and stay close to the river’s edge to hear the call below the current. What is your response?

Scenes from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital

The play by Laura Cranmer, Scenes from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital, will be read by actors who are also language learners of each of the main Indigenous language families of Vancouver Island, Hul’q’umin’um’, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, and Kwak’wala. The multilingual script is based on Laura’s three-year stay at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital as a young child. While federal colonial laws greatly constrained Indigenous bodies and lives by corralling whole populations into federal institutions, such as residential schools and Indian hospitals, these spaces became meeting places for the great diversity of unique languages specific to their traditional territories.

In this play, the Indian hospital is now re-imagined to be the confluence of the island’s great linguistic diversity embodied by three young girls—Dorothy Myth representing Kwak’wala, Esther Williams representing Hul’q’umin’um, and Mary Robins representing Nuu-Chah-Nulth—whose growing friendship in Ward B consists of delight in language comparisons while sinister undercurrents are revealed in dialogue and action between the medical staff.

 This play script is the foundation of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant (co-applicants Drs. Amanda Wager and Laura Cranmer) to support the translation of the Hul’q’umin’um’, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, and Kwak’wala Languages by fluent language experts from each language family, as well as to support the hiring of language learners to be coached in the pronunciation and teachings of their languages.

 *For those who share similar historical experiences in the Nanaimo Indian Hospital (or other institutions), the content may have a triggering effect. For counseling support please call the Indian Residential School Survivors (IRSS) 24/7 Crisis Support Line at 1-800-721-0066 or Kuu-us Crisis Line at 1-800 588-8717, also available 24/7. Lastly, there will also be counsellors present for audience members who may need support either during or after the performance.

 Mother Tongue

Performed by Visible Bodies Collective

Mother Tongue encounters in deep reflections of diverse languages, bodies, and vibrations from the land. Engaging the physical culture of our times, Global Indigenous woman are pulsing onward in power and truth. We gather in radical performance circles, we reverberate together and make old languages sing again through our Mother Tongues.

Workshops

General Forum: Language Heroes: Challenges and Connections

With Hul’q’umi’num’ artists years of teaching and research experience, their guidance during the general forum will provide a foundational platform for the Festival. The artists will discuss the role of language revitalization in communities and within educational settings. It will allow the audience to grasp the challenges, obstacles, and connections around the reclamation of endangered languages.

Kweyulutstun

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Thomas will sing songs in his traditional language, he will lead a workshop on devising scripts, and he will give a talk on his PhD research. As part of this research, Thomas is planning to create a play based on the origins and heritage of a family name - Kweyulutstun. His proposal is to reconstruct Snuneymuxwqun syuth - the true knowledge of the language and culture of his community. He plans to develop a play around his family name that goes back five or six generations followed by the current era of cultural revival and renewal and the responsibilities associated with that name to future generations. Jones has approached this work with true humility with the genuine goal that as the current holder of the name it is his responsibility to future generations to undertake this work.

Rehearsal in the Round

The three young patients central to the play Scenes from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital—Dorothy Myth representing Kwak’wala, Esther Williams representing Hul’q’umin’um, and Mary Robins representing Nuu-Chah-Nulth—recite a monologue in each their own language. Depending on availability of each Language Expert, this workshop will feature a thirty-minutecoaching session in pronunciation with the language learner / actor rehearsing the monologue of their character. Handouts of the monologues will be made available to the workshop attendees in order to follow along with the coaching session. This rehearsal session will conclude with a thirty-minute question/answer period between workshop attendees and the Language Expert and Language Learner.

*For those who share similar historical experiences in the Nanaimo Indian Hospital (or other institutions), the content may have a triggering effect. For counseling support please call the Indian Residential School Survivors (IRSS) 24/7 Crisis Support Line at 1-800-721-0066 or Kuu-us Crisis Line at 1-800 588-8717, also available 24/7. Lastly, there will also be counsellors present for audience members who may need support either during or after the workshop.