Indigenous - my/maSCENA

First Nations: The Encounter

By Nathalie de Han on 29 May 2023 Indigenous

International First Peoples’ Festival Fans of the First Peoples’ Festival (IFPF) can rest assured that they will continue to experience this summer the same elements that have made the festival so popular: the large competitive video film section; concerts that will be creations and commissions—not just touring shows; the visual art section, to be held at La Guilde; and, last but not least, the activities on the Place des Festivals. “Together with Daniel Áñez, who leads No Hay Banda, a group of musicians who also produce events, we have combined our efforts to bring the Chamber Ensemble of the Experimental…

John Rutter (Photo provided)

Music and Beyond: The Big Comeback!

By Charles Geyer on 26 May 2023 Classical, Contemporary, Indigenous, Ottawa

It’s back! And it promises to be as big and bold as ever. It’s Music and Beyond, Ottawa’s summer music and arts festival which—every July since its inception in 2010—has blossomed across the capital in a gloriously scatter-cast profusion of musical sounds, styles and intriguing interdisciplinary programming. “The public is ready to return,” says Julian Armour, the festival’s plucky and indefatigable founder and artistic and executive director. “We’re doing a big festival! We’re going to do about 64 different major concerts.” It’s a bracing and welcome assertion of renewal, after the scaled-back famine years of global pandemic. Rock and a…

Tomson Highway (Credit: Sean Howard)

Tomson Highway: Music and Beyond Meets “Cree Bossa Nova”

By Zenith Wolfe on 26 May 2023 Indigenous, Ottawa, World Music

In the last two years, Cree composer and playwright Tomson Highway has published two books, recorded his newest album Cree Country, won the Governor General’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Theatre, and become an Order of Canada officer. With plenty of passion left, he’s now on a new mission: introducing the country to Cree bossa nova. On July 6, Highway will perform for his second season at Ottawa’s Music and Beyond festival. He last played at its summer 2018 concert, which he called a sign of the music industry’s post-pandemic “resuscitation.” He’s being accompanied by cellist and festival organizer Julian…

Jim and Owen Adams, an Indigenous father/son duo, keep exploring teachings from the Medicine Wheel in Real People Dancing, soon to be enjoyed again in Toronto's Seaton Village neighbourhood. Picture credit: Porch View Dances

Toronto’s Kaeja d’Dance: real life dances

By Nathalie de Han on 25 May 2023 Arts Industry, Dance, Indigenous, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, Theatre, Toronto

Toronto’s Kaeja d’Dance returns for its 12th year in Toronto’s historic Seaton Village with the award-winning Porch View Dances: Real People Dancing In Real Spaces. The idea behind the Porch View Dances project is to pair non-professional dancers with professional choreographers. After spending some time rehearsing, the new cast eventually invites neighbors to watch the result, paying what they can. People interested to perform have to answer a short questionnaire about themselves and why they want to be involved but no dance background is required: it’s about creating movement and pleasure. Porch View Dances mingle ordinary lives and artistic expression through dance and…

Montreal/New Musics 2023: Feb. 23 to March 5

By Wah Keung Chan on 13 February 2023 Contemporary, Indigenous

Hearing new SMCQ artistic director Ana Sokolovic talk about the 2023 Montreal/New Musics (MNM) festival, it’s hard not to get excited. “I joke that the only problem with this festival is that it is in Montreal. It’s because when we go to the festivals very often it’s not in our city, and then we go to spend the entire time in that city. And we’re seeing absolutely everything,” she said. “Everything is happening during the events—during the concerts, but also in between the concerts. During the lunch, during the supper, during the cocktail, having this opportunity to talk with people…

Andrew Balfour: Storytelling through Music

By Catherine Kustanczy on 6 February 2023 Folk, Indigenous

Medicine is an important element of composer Andrew Balfour’s creative pursuits. “People think of music as a refuge, but music can also be a powerful entry point to healing,” he says. The notion of healing is one close to the Cree composer’s heart. His work is characterized by the combination of polyphony and Indigenous themes related to history and identity. He skilfully pokes holes in the Eurocentric narrative of classical music even as he uses its foundations to explore serious issues. Such a creative instinct has painful roots. As an infant, Balfour was taken away from his Cree mother as…

Émilie Monnet presents Okinum, her signature show

OKINUM: THE DREAM’S PATH

By Nathalie de Han on 1 October 2022 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Indigenous, La Scena Online, La Scena Spotlight, Scena Arts, Theatre, This Week in Montreal

Émilie Monnet presents Okinum, her signature show. Credit: Clark FergusonBecause her healing process still resonates within her, Émilie Monnet presents a new incarnation of Okinum, her signature show. Espace Go, Oct. 4-22. Finalist for the Prix Michel-Tremblay (2019), finalist for the Grand prix du livre de Montréal (2021), Okinum is autobiographic: “Okinum is dear to me, it is my first play, the birthing of my voice as a theater artist,” confides Émilie Monnet. Inspired by the recurring dream of a giant beaver, Okinum is an intimate reflection on the notion of inner dams, a tribute to the power of dreams…

First Peoples’ Festival: The big step forward

By Nathalie de Han on 12 August 2022 Indigenous

More than ever, the priority of this year’s International First Peoples’ Festival—the event that reaffirms the relevance and importance of First Nations artists, filmmakers, storytellers and dancers—is to create encounters, decompartmentalize imaginations, and free up talents capable of bringing forth the unprecedented. After a brief break, the director of the International First Peoples’ Festival is back at work. André Dudemaine has directed the festival for more than 30 years and, with his team, is putting the finishing touches on this year’s edition. For the visual arts section, which will be presented at La Guilde, the Festival will welcome Abenaki author,…

Tim Brady with the NEM: Cultural Dialogue

By Justin Bernard on 8 August 2022 Contemporary, Indigenous

Tim Brady loves a good challenge. His latest: setting poems in an Indigenous language to music. To do this, the composer-guitarist chose a poem collection entitled Uiesh (“Somewhere”) written by famous Innu poet Joséphine Bacon. “I really loved Joséphine Bacon’s work,” he said. “I thought it would be quite a challenge to compose music a singer would perform in an Indigenous language. The linguistic, grammatical, and syllable structures are very different from European languages. Joséphine helped me a lot, and I concluded that my music needed to use a simpler rhythmic language, more clear-cut to help each syllable stand out.…

CD Review | Elle (Analekta, 2022)

By Zenith Wolfe on 26 July 2022 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Indigenous, Piano, Strings, Violin

Elle Angèle Dubeau, solo violin; Valérie Milot and Antoine Mallette-Chénier, harp; Lydia Etok and Nina Segalowitz, throat singing; La Pietà Analekta, 2022 Angèle Dubeau, solo violinist and conductor for the string ensemble La Pietà, has decided to use the ensemble’s 25th anniversary album, Elle, to showcase a variety of contemporary female composers. The result? A thrilling experience where the listeners never gets too comfortable with one style. Just as they come to understand the cool and brooding nature of Rebecca Dale’s Winter, for example, they’re surprised by the fiery Inuit throat singing of Katia Makdissi-Warren’s Mémoire. The album is filled with…

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