Thursday November 18


ANIMIKIIG NIGHT 1
 Watch where the Animikiig Creators’ are at in their final year with us. This is your chance to enjoy special previews of these talented Indigenous creators’ latest certain-to-be-produced work!

Learn about Animikiig Creators Unit here.


Savage is a Word in the English Dictionary
by Brefny Caribou

Savage is a Word in the English Dictionary explores the myths of Canadian history, the horror show of colonization, and how they manifest as all too real dangers in lives of Indigenous peoples today told through the eyes of one young Cree woman who finds herself literally haunted by the disembodied head of the statue of John A. MacDonald.

Dramaturg by Monique Mojica
Performed by Brefny Caribou
Sound Editing by Padraigh MacDonald

Brefny Caribou  is a Swampy Cree/Irish-settler performer and creator from Toronto. She holds an MFA in Acting from York University. With curiosity, patience and lots of humour, Brefny focuses her attention on works surrounding identity and decolonization, striving to evolve her artistic practice on the regular. Brefny was a co-creator of The Solitudes (Aluna Theatre/Nightwood Theatre), a collective-creation piece centred around the histories of eight ensemble members, inspired by the world of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, which had its world première in January 2020. Brefny made her Stratford debut in 2021 season playing Zhaboonigan Peterson in Tomson Highway’s The Rez Sisters. As a writer, Brefny participated in Aluna Theatre’s Winter Artist Residency, and she is currently a part of Native Earth Performing Arts’ Animikiig Creators Unit.


CITY NDN LUV
by Kelsey Kanatan Wavey

Keni feels weighted. Like they are in the center of a collision of worlds. Or at the bottom of a lake. Or in a void. And tbh they are. Keni returns home to Winnipeg, and realizes how disconnected they have been to their relations. Between an underground club, taking care of their sick brother, and defending their rural kin as a new hydro dam near Keni’s rez is almost opened- Keni might get lost in the Void forever. 

Dramaturgy by Audrey Dwyer
Performed by Ashley Cook, Kat MacLean, Sheldon Stockdale, Jesse Wabegijig

Kelsey Kanatan Wavey (they/them) is a proud member of Tataskewyak Cree Nation. They are a native and white person, more specifically, Muskeg Ininowahk (Swampy Cree) and 5th-generation German/Swedish American settler. They grew up in Winnipeg and moved to Vancouver to attend Studio 58 and graduated in 2019. Kelsey’s acting credits includeWomen of the fur tradeSkyborn: a land reclamation Odyssey, The Unnatural and Accidental Women. Directing: Cerulean Blue (Studio 58),  Boy and the Moon (Assistant, Neworld), Gather: Stories in Nature (Neworld)Kelsey is currently part of the Arts Club’s Emerging Playwrights’ Unit, and writing credits include: 50 cent Lemonade (the cafe, Neworld) and Institutionalized(fourplay studio 58). Kelsey is a cancer sun and new fave food is refried beans and could answer sims trivia. 


Within the Layers
by Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey

This piece looks at all the parts of who we are, the land we come from and the ancestors we are apart of. This piece also looks at all those places in between, what we know of our self and what we don’t know. It is a journey of connection, seeking out those special people that help to illuminate beautiful parts of our self, so we can grow together.

Dancer/Choreographer by Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey
Composer Edgardo Moreno
Dancer/Collaborator Bella Waru
Mentor/Dramaturg Penny Couchie
Videographer/Editor Brad Trudeau
Videographer
Irihipeti Waretini

With generous support from Aanmitaagzi, Friday Creeations and Jumblies Theatre.

Animikiikwe Couchie is an emerging multidisciplinary dance artist from Nipissing First Nation. She is a graduate of Ecole de Danse Contemporaine de Montreal and Canadore College’s Theatre Arts Program. In 2019 she attended the Intercultural Indigenous Choreographer’s Lab at the Banff Centre for the Arts.  

In 2013, Animikiikwe performed in the premiere of “When Will You Rage?” at the Capitol Centre, North Bay, Ontario, choreographed by her mother, Penny Couchie. Animikiikwe has worked with a number of large-scale community engaged arts projects as a performer, choreographer and collaborator, including What Was My Backyard and Odaabaanag, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto and Aanmitaagzi’s, Serpent People at Nuit Blanche 2017 and Citadel Theatre, Toronto, Dances of Resistance, Nipissing First Nation, Ontario. From 2018 to 2019 Animikiikwe danced in Bill Coleman’s interactive dance theatre work, Felt throughout Toronto and Montreal. In 2019 she performed in Unnatural and Accidental Woman for the National Arts Centre’s, Inaugural Opening of their Indigenous Theatre section.



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