Opening Night
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
7-9 p.m.
Wychwood Barns Gallery
601 Christie Street
(back of Barns at corner of Benson & Wychwood)
Shkinwe Win Singers
Opening Blessing & Song
Performance Circle
Host: Dave DeLeary
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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
7-9 p.m.
The LOOP Theatre
601 Christie Street
Artscape Wychwood Barns
(back of Barns facing onto Wychwood)
A second chance to see one of the ImagineNATIVE Festival’s highlight collections!
$8.00 (suggested donation for ANDPVA members $5.00)
EMBARGO COLLECTIVE
In March 2008, imagineNATIVE formed the Embargo Collective, an international group of seven Indigenous artists who have been collaborating and challenging one another to create seven new films.
Each of the artists chosen has an impressive body of work, demonstrating exceptional talent and vision. Each has a different focus in media arts: documentary, fictional narrative and experimental. And each represent a diversity of Indigenous nations. Their artistic achievements aside, these artists have been chosen for their enthusiasm for collaboration and their willingness to be open to challenge. They represent a younger generation of contemporary media artists who are at the forefront of the changing global landscape of Indigenous cinema and media arts.
Inspired by filmmaker Lars Von Trier’s documentary The Five Obstructions—in which Von Trier dared his mentor to remake his own 1967 film five times with a different set of rules imposed each time—imagineNATIVE has been facilitating the Embargo Collective, encouraging these artists to push their creative boundaries by asking them to construct a set of limitations for one another.
While the initial goal was to demonstrate how essential the collaborative process is to film, a far more profound and intimate result materialized over 20 months: As the filmmakers shared their experiences, inspired one another and created work together, a collective spirit was born. What you are about to see are the fruits of that collaboration, a true testament to what film can be when artists come together to create.
Tsi tkahéhtayen
The Garden
2009, Canada, 12 min, Digital Beta, Mohawk, World Premiere
Director: Zoe Leigh Hopkins
A mystical gardener harvests fruits from the earth that defy everyone’s expectations.
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The Cave
2009, Canada, 10 min, Digital Beta, Tsilhqot’in, World Premiere
Director: Helen Haig-Brown
A hunter on horseback accidentally discovers a portal to the afterlife in this fantastical version of a true Tsilhqot’in story.
Savage
2009, Canada, 6 min, Digital Beta, Cree, World Premiere
Director: Lisa Jackson
On a summer day in the 1950s, a young girl watches the countryside go by from the backseat of a car. She arrives to find that the end of her journey is only the beginning …
The White Tiger
2009, New Zealand, 8 min, Digital Beta, Maori, World Premiere
Director: Taika Waititi
An urban warrior returns to his tribal homeland in a quest to discover his cultural identity.
Cepanvkuce Tutcenen
Three Little Boys
2009, USA, 8 min, Digital Beta, Mvskoke, World Premiere
Director: Sterlin Harjo
Three young boys accompany their uncle to church and find out just how difficult it is to channel divine behaviour.
b. Dreams
2009, USA, 10 min, Digital Beta, Navajo, World Premiere
Director: Blackhorse Lowe
Romance and comedy come together to paint a contemporary portrait of love on a Navajo reservation.
First Contact
2009, Australia, 8 min, Digital Beta, Girrimae, World Premiere
Director: Rima Tamou
The lives of two brothers are drastically changed after they discover strange tracks while hunting.
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Friday, November 20, 2009
7-9 p.m.
in the LOOP Studio
601 Christie Street, Artscape Wychwood Barns
(front side of Barns facing onto Christie)
ANDPVA is proud to present an exceptional evening of experimental dance, video and spoken word. Explore the boundaries of performance and possibility, with an all-star line-up of
$8.00 (suggested donation for ANDPVA members $5.00)
This is a family-friendly event.
Outside Looking In
Tracee Smith
Tracee shares the OLI story through words and video documentary, using footage from the OLI performance in April. This presentation also shows the impact of Outside Looking In, on dancers, families and communities.
Tracee Smith is a member of the Missanabie Cree First Nation in northern Ontario. Ms. Smith holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Dance and has danced professionally in NYC, and LA with the top choreographers in the world of concert and music videos. She was recently named one of Canada’s 50 most celebrated artists by the Canada Council for the Arts 50th Anniversary, and was the first dancer to ever perform at Rideau Hall for the Governor General. She will be one of 16 Aboriginal artists featured for APTN’s ArtSayer series which will air during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Breaking Free
Christine Friday-O’Leary
This is a movement/theatre piece (work in progress) exploring barriers that we place on ourselves as individuals, gathering cultural identity in a mainstream society.
Christine began her professional career in 1992 with In the Land of Spirits Production which toured across Canada. This in turn led to a three year contract with Desrosiers Dance Theatre, touring across Canada, Aruba and New York City. She won the YTV award for dance and has received many grants from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation for her choreography as a solo artist. She has taught dance with youth in the Yukon, Banff, Ottawa, Toronto, Bear Island, Moose Factory, Centre for Indigenous Theatre School and Kanata Native Cultural Society. Selected dance credits include works with, Earth in Motion, Menika Thkar, Michael Greyeyes, Santee Smith, Tribe, Raoul Trujillo, and Benito Concha’s Secret Souls. She has been involved with five productions of the Aboriginal Achievement Awards including choreographing for the Awards in 2008. She worked five years in Cape Croker First Nation establishing two annual events: a youth arts camp and Concert event while coordinating community cultural workshops. She continues to work on creating an original full scale production called Passage, which has been developed into a dance film. She works full time as a yoga instructor and a mother. She continues to develop and host an annual summer dance youth program for her community on Bear Island, Lake Temagami.
ReGeneration
by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm
Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is an Anishinaabe writer of mixedblood from the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. She has lived and worked at Neyaashiinigmiing, Cape Croker Reserve on the Saugeen Peninsula in southwestern Ontario since 1994. Her spoken word, poetry and other works have been published, recorded and performed around the world. When Kateri is not writing she keeps busy with her consulting company DammWrite! Consulting and Communications, working with First Nations groups and projects. She is also the Managing Editor of Kegedonce Press, a small publishing company she set up in 1993 to publish and promote the work of Indigenous writers, artists and others in the publishing field.
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
7-9 p.m.
in the LOOP Theatre
601 Christie Street, Artscape Wychwood Barns
(back side of Barns facing onto Wychwood)
ANDPVA invites you to join us for a truly inspiring evening of music. We have gathered performers from a variety of Nations and musical genres to share their amazing talents with you!
$8.00 (suggested donation for ANDPVA members $5.00)
This is a family-friendly event.
Veronica Johnny
Veronica Johnny is an Aboriginal artist of Cree, Chipewyan, & Ojibwa heritage, hailing from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. Since beginning her musical journey, Veronica has become a seasoned performer as both solo artist and a member of groups; amassed studio experience on either side of the mixing console; promoted or managed other musicians, and facilitated performance and inspirational workshops – with particular emphasis on developing the talents of youth & women.
She’s a rock singer/guitarist (of The Johnnys), a student of the traditional aboriginal hand drum (with Brenda MacIntyre - Medicine Song Woman) and a singer/songwriter of her own style of original acoustic music. For Creator Within, Veronica Johnny performs new and known ballads of love, loss, and healing, some of which were written in a creative effort for this festival.
Jason Burnstick
2007 Juno Nominee, CAMA Award Winning and 2009 Jessie Richardson Award Nominee (DORA Award) lap slide guitarist, Jason Burnstick is a musician and composer who performs with his arsenal of weissenborns and double neck lap slides. Known for his ability to freely move from one style to the next, Jason attributes this freedom to his musical upbringing. There is an obvious flavour of blues and Latin influences in his style stemming from the guidance and support he received from his older brothers and the Latin texture is accredited to the 1994 Juno nominated Andean Group Kanatan Aski. Currently, Jason has stepped back into his blues roots and armed himself with a very precious gift from his musical hero Pure Fe, a double neck lap slide. Jason feels that he has found his voice and that the weissenborn and lap slides may be his final musical resting place.
Asani
Asani (“rock” in the Cree language) is a contemporary Aboriginal women’s trio from Edmonton, Canada that captivates audiences with their breathtaking harmonies, dynamic vocal artistry and powerful rhythmic style. Members Sarah Pocklington, Debbie Houle and Sherryl Sewepagaham, carry with them the traditional influences of First Nations and Metis music accompanied by drums and rattles, their songs resonate with a unique blend of traditional vocals infused with the contemporary sounds of jazz, folk and blues.
Asani’s debut CD “Rattle and Drum” (2005) was nominated for 11 music awards throughout North America, including Canada’s Juno Award for ‘Aboriginal Recording of the Year’. Asani also won the Canadian Aboriginal Music Award in 2005 for Best Female Traditional/Cultural Roots Album.
The Group performs frequently in Canada as well as around the world, including featured shows at both Carnegie Hall, New York and the Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C. They have also composed and performed for several film and television documentaries and soundtracks.