Performing Arts
Kaha:wi was the first full length production of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, Canada's most acclaimed dance company. The company is led by Artistic Director Santee Smith.
IPAA
The Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance is a multifaceted organization with geographically and artistically diverse Indigenous performing artists, arts organizations, and our allies.
Native Earth: Performing Arts
Centre for Indigenous Theatre
The Centre for Indigenous Theatre (CIT), an institution offering a unique Indigenous cultural, theatre and performance training program. CIT contributes to the advancement of an Indigenous cultural economy and the Arts generally, helping to mould young talent and professionals, organizing community presentations and workshops, and by working closely with alumni to share our learnings and our craft in a culturally appropriate and inviting setting.
Kaha:wi Dance Theatre – Santee Smith
“Our performance aims to be integrated, interdisciplinary, multi-dimensional, multi-voiced, intergenerational, inter-cultural, transformative, abstracted and literal embodied narratives. It spans ancestral to futurity, holding past, present and future in one space, experience, and body. Indigenous performance transcends the binary debate between traditional vs contemporary and includes processes and outcomes that are founded not only on euro-western methodologies.”
Red Sky Performance – Sandra Laronde
Red Sky Performance is a leading company of contemporary Indigenous performance in Canada and worldwide. The vision of Red Sky Performance derives from its creator Sandra Laronde (Misko Kizhigoo Migizii Kwe) which means “Red Sky Eagle Woman” in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) language from the Teme-Augama Anishinaabe (People of the Deep Water). Her vision is dedicated to expanding and elevating the ecology of contemporary performance informed by Indigenous worldview and culture.
Alberta Aboriginal Arts
Alberta Aboriginal Arts (AAA) is a professional Aboriginal Theatre and Performing Arts organization based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was co-founded in 2009 by Ryan Cunningham and Christine Sokaymoh Frederick, both Alberta Aboriginal Arts is a professional Aboriginal Theatre and Performing Arts organization based in Edmonton, Alberta. AAA was co-founded in 2009 by Ryan Cunningham and Christine Sokaymoh Frederick, both Aboriginal (Métis) from Edmonton. Our ambition is to foster a community of Aboriginal artists in Edmonton and across Alberta. We produce events that bring artists of multiple disciplines and Aboriginal traditions together. Our goal is to encourage and support collaborations in art and performance in contemporary and traditional styles and to bring these creations to audiences across Alberta. We strive to develop a strong Aboriginal theatre going audience in Edmonton and encourage non-Aboriginal audiences to attend our events as well. AAA provides audiences of all cultural backgrounds a chance to experience challenging artistic works that speak from a uniquely Aboriginal voice.
Gwaandak Theatre
Gwaandak Theatre, the Yukon’s only Indigenous-centered theatre company, was founded in Whitehorse in 1999 by theatre artists Leonard Linklater and Patti Flather.
Gwaandak Theatre’s vision is to illuminate Indigenous and Northern stories around the world.
Our stories question, honour, and celebrate. They explore themes around decolonization, cultural identity, social justice, underrepresented voices and human rights. We tour to both tiny communities and major centres, and provide comprehensive study guides for secondary schools and colleges.
Gwaandak Theatre develops, produces and tours plays for both youth and adults. Our programming also includes new play workshops, readings and training for theatre artists.
Savage Society
Telling our own stories based on myth, tradition, and the contemporary Indigenous perspective, Savage Society was created in 2004 for members to produce their own stories as practising Indigenous Theatre and Film Artists. Artistic Director Kevin Loring is a member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation from the Lytton First Nation in British Columbia.
We develop work that reflects our world view, sourcing traditional stories and cosmologies and our contemporary realities as Indigenous people for both professional and community settings.
Savage Society operates on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ (Katzie), Qayqayt, kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem ), Kwantlen and sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsawwassen) Nations.
Article 11, Indigenous Activist Arts
In our combined thirty-seven years of professional theatrical experience, we have become aware of some serious needs in the contemporary Indigenous arts ecology. This includes a dearth of Indigenous Designers, Stage Managers, Production Managers, Designers, Producers, and Administrators. We will do our part to address these needs by ensuring every project includes paid apprenticeship positions with clear guidelines well-supported by the entire creative and administrative team.
We create work that provokes active thought and dialogue in our audience, and solicit ongoing feedback about our work in a candid, respectful and mutually satisfying way. This includes consulting with peers, veterans and emerging artists as well as with non-artist stakeholders.
Our projects are an investment in the development of the contemporary Indigenous theatrical canon. This investment necessarily extends beyond a premiere production. We disseminate our full-scale productions as complete yet evolving works, not as touring versions of something that has been more whole. This is an acknowledgement that we as Indigenous peoples are not bound by colonial borders, but bound by common experiences and concerns for humankind. Our work includes the full breadth of society, and while it prioritizes the Indigenous perspective and Indigenous artists, we believe that our contemporary stories and art also inherently include the non Indigenous population. This active inclusion in practice and execution will inform the public works on offer, and will contribute to an increase in understanding of relevance among a multitude of peoples.