Connecting the kinship between Indigenous women, their land and their waterways, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Indigenous Theatre’s performance of Homelands brings storytelling and dance together in one fluid multimedia production from Sept. 19–20.
“The reason for the title Homelands is because of the fact that my family and I live in Six Nations, but every time that we travel into what is our traditional ancestral lands, there’s a shift in our body—an awareness that we recognize and remember the land.”
Santee Smith / Tekaronhiáhkhwa, is the artistic director for Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, meaning “to carry” in the Mohawk language, or, Kanyenʼkéha. She is a multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Ohswé:ken / Six Nations of the Grand River, and is opening NAC Indigenous Theatre’s new season with Homelands.
Santee Smith. Photo by David Hou.
“Although it’s not immersive theatre, it does have a sense of being immersive because of the multimedia projection,” says Smith. “We dance behind a scrim and use lots of beautiful imagery of nature travelling through from the cosmos through the seasons.”
The performance cycles through all four seasons with only three female performers dancing on stage. Smith says that they embody everything, from the stars to landing on earth, and even includes the Thanksgiving address—the Rotinonshonni (Haudenosaunee) tradition of acknowledging every living entity.
Smith says it was important for her to stress that the key creators of this piece are Indigenous creators—specifically Haudenosaunee women. This is because the context of the entire performance reflects working on traditional lands.
(B-F): Santee Smith, Katie Couchie, Sarah Prosper. Photo by Remi Theriault.
“That’s always present, the sense of honouring, calling and response to nature,” says Smith. “[We] try to evoke a landscape, a natural world, bringing all of the research that we did and the multimedia from outside working in the land into the theatre.”
Smith says that although the show is quite technical, the performance highlights the transformation the characters go through within the body, but also as a part of their natural environment.
The landscape is the central theme throughout. Smith says that everything filmed in preparation for this performance was done on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee.
“That really goes into a very cultural aspect of how we would say, ‘Where are you from?’ You would say, ‘What clay are you from’ or ‘Oh nihsen’tarò:ten,’” says Smith. “Everything in the piece is from a Haudenosaunee worldview of the importance of our interconnectedness to the natural world.”
Homelands is also a part of the SPHERE festival, which takes place from Sept. 10–20. It hosts performances that explore the relationship between the arts and the natural world.
(L-R): Katie Couchie, Santee Smith, Sarah Prosper. Photo by Remi Theriault.
Homelands and Smith’s personal work as an artist are land-based, and she says that a lot of work is done spending time listening to the land and working with hands, body, mind and heart in the land and waters.
“It’s really that reconnection and creative process in response to land, which is what I’ve been working on for quite a few years,” says Smith. “It’s a way of life that is very inherent in our cultural ways.”
Smith hopes that audiences are taken on a journey through these lands and waterways, but that they also take the time to reflect on their connections to the lands—on Turtle Island and beyond.
“As human beings, because of our capacity, we have a responsibility to maintain the natural cycle, to take care of this delicate balance,” she says. “This has been ancestral knowledge that’s been passed on to align ourselves with the natural world—I hope that gets awakened in a deeper way through witnessing the work.”
Homelands performs from Sept. 19–20 at the Babs Asper Theatre at 7:30pm. Ticket information can be found online. For more information about the NAC Indigenous Theatre’s programming, check out their website.
.gif)
