DANCE | MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Eloise
by Jeanette Kotowich
Eloise is a character-derived dance performance choreographed, written and performed by Jeanette Kotowich, which brings insight to the practice of honouring traditional territory. Through paralleling the irreverent against reverence, the performance experience is a provocation, asking the question ‘How do we give thanks?’
Eloise invites the audience to witness and participate in protocol with sincerity, hilarity, and gratitude. This work honours the inner terrain of the body, the ties to land and experience that we carry with us from where we have come, and the physical land on which we currently stand. We are all our relations.
Festival Dramaturg: Lindsay Lachance
Jeanette Kotowich is a Vancouver based mixed blood Cree/Métis professional dance artist and choreographer. Jeanette is currently developing a full-length, innovative and collaborative solo performance called Valley, collaboratively directed by Charles Koroneho. Honoring her mixed heritage (originally from Saskatchewan) as a source of inspiration and reference point in her work, Jeanette is passionate about investigating a blend of contemporary and Indigenous practices. www.movementhealing.ca
Maggie & Me: A Healing Dance
by Christine Friday
Maggie & Me allows gifts and ancestral experiences to guide the choreographer in creation and manifestation. The character travels with us through dimensional realms of existence – spirit, dream, and present – the healing and revitalization of the Anishinaabe culture. With a movement style that is free, lyrical, and explosive, ME walks into her own power.
Creator/Choreographer: Christine Friday
Director: Robert Desrosiers
Lighting Designer: Rasmus Sylvest
Sound Designer: Rob Bertola
Traditional Voices and Hand Drum: Eddy Robinson, Gabe Gaudet, Tasheena Sarazin, and Dareen Nakogee
Dancers: Penny Couchie (“Maggie”), Waawaate Fobister (“Misaabe”), Christine Friday (“Me”) and Crystal “Beany” John (“Ancestor”)
Produced by: Friday Creeations
Christine Friday (Temagami First Nation) is a resilient Indigenous storyteller. She has over 25 years of professional dance experience, including choreography, solo, youth creations, and full-scale productions. She recently won the 2018 KM Hunter Award for Dance. She is deeply connected to the cultural wellness of her people and strives to maintain cultural traditions and gifts of her Anishinaabe. She recently launched her company Friday Creeations, a film and stage productions company. Her third dance film, “Path without End” will be released in 2019.
Consequence
by JP Longboat
Consequence transforms traditional Niitsitapii stories of Napi into a live multidisciplinary dance-theatre. Napi is in every person, reminding us daily that we are connected to Napi’s spiritual world, through an eternal spirit that gives us insight to how we deal with causal effects, in present and past time simultaneously, forever stepping forward together as a nation with the wisdom of the past.
Dancers: Byron Chief-Moon, Olivia Davies, Damien Eagle Bear, JP Longboat, and Tia Taurere
JP Longboat is Mohawk, Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River. He is a storyteller, multidisciplinary artist and performer with extensive professional training and practice in traditional and contemporary forms of visual art and performance. JP has trained, collaborated and performed with many professional theatre and dance companies across Canada. His work emanates from the cultural traditions of his people: language, land base, teachings, and stories shared within Longhouses and lodges, gatherings and rituals. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Circadia Indigena – Indigenous Arts Collective based in Ottawa. He also currently serves on the Board of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance.
