Thursday November 10

23 Beds

by Celeste Sansregret

When her boss goes bankrupt and her roommate goes back to France, Sansregret decides to cut her biggest expense: an apartment. For 2 1/2 years, she inhabits the world of couch surfers, house sitters and vagabond performers with no fixed address. In a real estate obsessed society, what does it mean to be homeless?

Creator and Performer Celeste Sansregret 
Mentor Aria Evans 

Celeste Sansregret is a writer, actor, producer and senior arts administrator working in theatre, television and film.  She made her first stage appearance at age 3, and has appeared on stages across Canada as well as in film and television.  

A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre (Prime Time Television)  and the University of Winnipeg (Theatre) her writing awards include: a Banff Television Writers’ Fellowship and a Harold Greenberg Award for her feature script, NATURAL JUSTICE, an OAC Playwrights’ Grant ( PREDATION – with Native Earth Performing Arts) and a CBC Playwrights’ Relief Award to create  the pilot for BLACK WOLF. Her play, URSA MAJORIS, a love story about a crow and a bear was also developed at Native Earth through the Animikiig Playwrights’ Development Program. 

Sansregret has toured the country  on the national Fringe circuit with two solo shows she starred in and created:  WONDERBAR and IN A MAGIC KINGDOM. She retired from the CENTRE FOR INDIGENOUS THEATRE in 2019, where she served as Managing Director. 

Sansregret is from Treaty One Territory, in Winnipeg Manitoba and a long-term guest on Treaty 13. She is of Metis/Ukrainian descent and is a member of the Metis Nation of Manitoba. 

Ne temikilis pal ne kuyut papalut

by Alexa Black

Ne temikilis pal ne kuyut papalut delivers a series of images employing a traditional tarot deck as the basis for exploring around diversity, kyriarchy, and ceremony. Alexas’s work is strung together by the Nahuatl term nepantilism: signifying the transference of cultural and spiritual values of one group to another, thus being in a constant state of transition and building tolerance for contradiction, as inspired by the words of Gloria Anzaldúa.

Creator Alexa Black
Sound Designer Suzy King

Alexa Black is an artist of mixed Nahua Pipil, Maya and Irish heritage creating as a guest on traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Through self taught explorations in photography, drawing, painting and mixed media arts, Alexa found her passion deeply embedded in antiquated techniques of photography and classical illustration. Enamoured with tintype and wet plate collodion processes, she learned the foundations through a brief mentorship with Quinn Jacobsen.

Black seeks to reveal the magic of hidden realms that exist in parallel to our terrestrial and colonially defined reality. Her art is ignited by the energies of her indigenous ancestral territories, animism, and being an ally to marginalized populations. The work is built by reconnecting the seams of her fractured identities, by reclaiming and amplifying the voices of her silenced ancestors from matrilineal blood lines. Black divines dreams and visions shrouded in haunting atmospheric aesthetics that are symbolic of life’s beauty and cosmic initiations. Her work is primarily dedicated to deconstructing the disconnected and damaged societal tissue imposed by colonial standards of living.

Medea’s Masquerade

by Frances Koncan

A reading followed by Lindsay Lachance in discussion with the playwright, Frances Koncan.

Banished from her home by her tacky ex-husband, the sorceress Medea finds peace within the brick walls of a mysterious little castle on the prairie. After many years of isolation, she finally decides it’s time to meet her neighbours and throw a party. Unfortunately, an uninvited guest in the form of a deadly plague called Red Death shows up, determined to ruin her plans. 

This piece will be in-person as well as streamed online, available until the end of the festival, November 20, 2022.

Performer and Creator Frances Koncan

Frances Koncan (she/they) is a playwright of mixed Anishinaabe and Slovene descent. Originally from Couchiching First Nation, they are currently based in Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They are a graduate of the City University of New York Brooklyn College’s MFA Playwriting Program and are sadly only allowed to drink one coffee a day right now for medical reasons. Their plays include Space Girl (Prairie Theatre Exchange, 2023); Women of the Fur Trade (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, 2020); Torn Through Time (Manitoba Theatre for Young People, 2018); and numerous poorly-reviewed Fringe plays.

Twitter/IG/FB/TikTok: @franceskoncan.

Indigenous Dance Panel

with Brian Solomon, Samantha Sutherland, Waawaate Fobister moderated by Jeanette Kotowich

Gathering in spaces created for us and by us is essential nourishment to our Spirit. This is a gathering of artistic kinship; a place to land, connect, laugh, and share what is current and relative in our creative practices. We will touch on themes of wellness, language, community, ceremony, embodiment, and storytelling in relationship to our dance practices and beyond.

This panel will be streamed online on November 10 at 7:30 PM ET and available to view until the end of the festival, November 20, 2022.

Multi-award nominated, winner and loser, creator B. Solomon is of mixed Anishinaabe and Irish settler heritage, born in Shebahonaning on the North Channel of Lake Huron. His multidisciplinary work is raw, challenging and full of spirit. His commissions have been presented and toured across Turtle Island and abroad. With social advocacy at the core, he is passionate about helping people relearn the nature of their ancient bodies, and take back the space those bodies occupy.

Samantha Sutherland is a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Tkaronto. Her ancestry is Ktunaxa and Scottish/British Settler. She graduated from the Arts Umbrella Dance Diploma Program in 2018. She has worked as a guest artist with Ballet BC and an associate artist with Red Sky Performance. Samantha has presented choreographic works in the Matriarchs Uprising Festival by O.Dela Arts, and the Indigenous Arts Program at the Paprika Festival. Samantha explores what aspects of her culture, history, and traditional knowledge can be pulled into her contemporary dance practice. She questions how she can use a dance practice built with a fairly euro-centric training, and still honour Indigenous values and the act of decolonization. She strives to keep what she values and loves about classical training and use it to tell the Indigenous story.

Waawaate Fobister – is an actor, dancer, playwright, choreographer, instructor, and a producer, currently residing in Shoal Lake. A proud Anishnaabe from Grassy Narrows First Nation. A recipient of two Dora awards for outstanding actor and play for Agokwe, Humber College outstanding actor, Mark S. Bonham Centre award from University of Toronto for their advocacy and public knowledge in sexual diversity. Waawaate also has many nominations, including Ontario Premiers’ Award, K.M Hunter Award and Sterling Award – Edmonton.

Waawaate trained and studied Theatre Arts – Performance at Humber College, Indigenous Dance at Banff Centre for the Arts, Summer School Intensives at Toronto Dance Theatre, Intensives at Centre for Indigenous Theatre and Kahawi Dance Theatre. Waawaate has performed in many major theatre companies across Canada and their work and research has taken them to many places as an artist, including Japan, UK, US, and many coasts across Turtle Island.

Waawaate has had numerous residencies as playwright and choreographer, including Banff Centre for the Arts, Native Earth Performing Arts, Playwrights’ Theatre Centre, Playwrights Workshop Montreal and Magnus Theatre.

Jeanette Kotowich is a multi-disciplinary iskwêw, independent dance artist, choreographer, producer, facilitator, and professional Auntie of Nêhiyaw Métis and mixed settler ancestry. Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, Jeanette creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of Indigenous performance, Indigenous futurism and contemporary dance. Her creations have been presented at theatres and festivals across so-called Canada, including Kwê at Matriarchs Uprising and The Dance Centre’s Dance In Vancouver. During the pandemic, Jeanette’s been creating a series of short experimental dance films and has been artist-in-residence at Raven Spirit Dance, NAC Indigenous Theatre, Shadbolt Centre and The Dance Centre. In the summer of 2020, she conducted land-based research in her home province of Saskatchewan, fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, de-colonial practices and embodied research towards the creation of Kisiskâciwan: Jeanette’s work references protocol, ritual, relationship to the natural/spirit world and Ancestral knowledge. Her practice is intergenerational and vocational; it’s a living and lived experience. Jeanette resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) əl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories, colonially known as Vancouver. movementhealing.ca

Animikiig means Thunderbird: A look at where Animikiig Creators Unit began, and where it is now

with Yvette Nolan & Lindsay Lachance