A love story at heart, Where Have All the Buffalo Gone? explores the magical journey between two Métis people and seven different periods of Métis history in Canada. This powerful and relevant piece will be performing at Meridian Theatres @ Centrepointe on Oct. 18, and it’s definitely something you don’t want to miss.
“The play is first and foremost, a love story,” says Métis playwright Tai Amy Grauman. “Second, it’s a historical epic. It’s about Esquilu and Napau and the Buffalo’s journey through time.”
Grauman says she was originally inspired to write this play after a trip to Jasper, Alta.
“I was at a fireside chat and this cultural leader was talking about the buffalo and the disappearance of the buffalo across Alberta,” she says. “And this little boy said, ‘What happened to the people when all the buffalo were gone?’ And this story is what happened to the people when the buffalo were gone.”
Cast from Where Have All the Buffalo Gone? Photo provided.
Where Have All the Buffalo Gone? is also a true celebration of Métis culture — from jigging to fiddle music. Grauman’s deep ties to the Métis community, with both her parents’ lineage descending from the Calihoo and Beauregard families, are everywhere in this performance.
“I wrote this play in one day,” she says. “[My heritage] is just intricately intertwined for me, You can’t have one without the other.”
One of the key focuses of this play is, of course, the buffalo. It’s represented on stage with a larger-than-life puppet.
“I don’t know how else you would represent the size and presence of a buffalo except for making it, in terms of scale, as a puppet,” says Grauman. “It’s really important to me to include an animal in my plays because I don’t think we’re that separate from animals. It’s just such a big part of our history that most people forget.”
While Grauman says she’s pleased to see more Métis-centred stories become more common recently, there is still much work to be done around the way these stories are told.
“For the pieces I write, I really prioritize centring Métis women because in Métis narratives, historically men like Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are mostly prioritized. This is my ancestor Marie Calihoo’s story. It’s about her life and her story and it’s giving history back to the Métis women where it belongs.”
Make sure to catch Where Have All the Buffalo Gone? at Meridian Theatres @ Centrepointe on Oct. 18. There are two performances that day, at 1:30pm and 4:30pm. Tickets can be purchased online.
