For Immediate Release: September 27, 2012
Media Reference: Janet Antone
Phone: (416) 531.1402 Fax: (416) 531.6377
E-mail: [email protected]
Native Earth: Treason Season
The 2012/2013 treason season comes at the crest of the celebration of the war of 1812, in which Native Earth is respectfully declining any participation. As Artistic Director Tara Beagan stated in our season announcement, “We instead want to make this season a dedication to those who educate others about true diversity by living an extraordinary life, against the odds. You, who fortify our international community by bridging continents with TransIndigenous cross-pollination. Those who practice our indomitable right to tell our stories. Those who seek to realize justice in spite of detrimental systemic structures that purport to do the same.’” This is all reflected and honoured in our 2012/2013 season and enhanced by the fact that this will be our 30th anniversary as North America’s first professional Indigenous theatrical creation and production company.
We have always strived to be a venue for First Nation artists, both locally and internationally.
We are thrilled to announce the opening of our new home, located at the recently named Daniels Spectrum building (585 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON). Our new home includes our new office and theatre space, appropriately named Aki Studio Theatre, which means “land, place, earth” in Anishnaabemowin. Aki Studio Theatre is a transformable, 120 seat black box theatre, which is available for rent. Contact rae@nativeearth.ca for more information.
This season’s dedication includes:
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
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Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring Nicole Joy Fraser
September 29, 2012
For this year’s Nuit Blanche festival themed “The Lights are on” Native Earth has chosen to ignite our season by inviting First Nations artists working in all disciplines to create interpretations of Thomas King’s A Short History of Indians in Canada. Which tells the story of a businessman’s first time in Toronto and his unsettling experience with the Urban Indian. This story is an exploration on how First Peoples are perceived in Canada; mystic, misunderstood and fleeting. Thomas King will kick off the evening at 7:00pm with a reading of his work that was the inspiration for the artist’s interpretations. Aki Studio Theatre comes alive with a video installation featuring interpretative responses to Thomas King’s story by participating artists enrolled in Native Earth’s Animikiig and Thundering Voices Program, students at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, established artists, Storytellers and community members.
Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival XXV
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Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring PJ Prudat
November 14-17, 2012
Besides being our 25th year of showcasing exciting new work from Indigenous artists across Turtle Island, this year’s festival will also see alluring new works by Montreal-based dancer/choreographer Lara Kramer, a searing satire by new playwright Andréa Ledding and a gorgeous collaboration by South Asian Canadian Sharada K. Eswar and Cree artist Rosary Spence. We are eager to see the work from the participants from our Animikiig and Thundering Voices program, always our most popular night.
Café Daughter
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Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring PJ Prudat
January 15-20, 2013
Produced by Gwaandak Theatre
Written by Kenneth T. Williams
Directed by Yvette Nolan
Featuring PJ Prudat
Café Daughter is a one-woman virtuosic performance, based on the life Dr. Lillian E. Quan Dyck. This is a family friendly show about a Chinese Canadian Cree girl growing up in rural Saskatchewan. The story begins in 1957: 10-year-old Yvette Wong helps out in her parents’ café. Her mother has charged her with a secret – to never tell anyone she’s part Cree. She’s incredibly bright and dreams of becoming a doctor, but is put in the slow learners’ class because of her skin colour. This is at a time when Aboriginal children were forced into residential schools, provincial law forbade white women from working in Chinese-owned businesses, and Chinese-Canadian men struggled to bring families to Canada.
Will Yvette flourish in the face of adversity and embrace her full identity?
Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way
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Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring Monique Mojica
January 31-Feburary 3, 2013
Produced by Chocolate Woman Collective
Written by Monique Mojica
Directed by José Á. Colman
Featuring Monique Mojica and Gloria Miguel
Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way written and performed by Toronto based stage maven Monique Mojica and performed with the fierce and ever-pioneering Gloria Miguel of New York’s Spiderwoman Theater. This dynamic mother/daughter team is directed by renowned Guna theatre artist José Á. Colman. Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way layers the stories of a girl soldier, Daughter from the Stars, and Sky Woman Falling (First Woman) with retellings of cultural stories of the Grandmothers of Creation. The play weaves realities to create a daring, dream provoking performance. It is a dramatic narrative in a tapestry of creation, conflict and healing towards wholeness. Chocolate Woman Collective reclaims Indigenous cultures through the artistic process.
The Deserters
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Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring Tamara Podemski
April 26-May 12, 2013
Written by Kenneth T. Williams
Directed by Tara Beagan
Set, Lights and Projection Design by Andy Moro
Fight Choreography by Christian Feliciano
Sound by Lucie Idlout and Andrew Penner
Starring Tamara Podemski, featuring Michelle Latimer, Nicola Correia-Damude, & Meegwun Fairbrother
In a time when global war threatens to extinguish the dominant female population, three women of opposing factions find themselves detained in a makeshift military holding cell. In close quarters, the soldiers must set their ideologies aside in order to survive. Seemingly left for dead, plans of escape jam to a halt when that rarest of creatures – a man – is dropped into their midst. Starring award-winning actor, Broadway-vet and certified Krav Maga instructor Tamara Podemski, Kenneth T. Williams’ play promises to shake up any complacent tendency to regard epic-scale wars as mere history.
Artists-In-Residence
Photo by Juan Camilo Palacio featuring Keith Barker
2012/2013 Season
Our playwright-in-residence is Keith Barker, an actor/director/youth facilitator who launched his playwriting career with The Hours That Remain through Native Earth while facilitating the Animikiig and Thundering Voices program (previously Young Voices) and Weesageechak festival over the past few years. Barker’s play will debut as a co-production between New Harlem Productions and Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company, this October, proudly introducing our new Aki studio theatre to Toronto. Barker will debut more of his writing throughout the season.
Our artist-in-residence is Archer Pechawis¸ a talented multi-media artist who affirms that his laptop is his drum, when it comes to traditional storytelling meeting the forever evolving technology of today whose work has been supported by Native Earth, through the Weesageechak festival with his piece Horse. Archer Pechawis is a published poet, his work “Bones” was featured for the City of Toronto’s 175th anniversary. Archer will be developing his works Elegy and Our Beautiful Future.
Our elder-in-residence Ernie Sandy is a fluent speaker in his Ojibway language, a teacher of Aboriginal studies, and a strong advocate for the revitalization and retention of Indigenous languages. Ernie lives his life within Native Earth’s 7 core values, which is why he is such a great fit. We welcome Ernie and are grateful for his guidance as we move forward with all of this year’s plans.
Check out our website often to see updates on presentations from both Archer and Keith.
We continue to proudly provide a home for artists from all mediums and are proud to serve as a platform to these fine artists for the season. We invite you to catch their work at the Weesageechak Festival and throughout their time with us.
2012/2013 Treason Season
Native Earth & Aki Studio Theatre at Daniels Spectrum
585 Dundas St E.
Toronto, ON
M5A 3B1
Box Office
Phone 416.531.1402
Email [email protected]
Group Bookings
Aqua, Outreach Coordinator
Phone 416.531.1402
Email aqua@nativeearth.ca
For more information
416.531.1402
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