Aboriginal Performance Series at PuSh Festival

Vancouver's PuSh Festival is celebrating its 9th year as one of the city's signature events. Every year The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival presents both contemporary performances from leading Canadian artists and develops new works for the stage.

It's a series I look forward to every year - it manages to be innovative and experimental while maintaining a high calibre of production and I'm always discovering new favourite artists and works. Veda Hille and Bill Richardson's Craigslist Cantata that premiered at PuSh remains one of my favourite live performance/theatre experiences ever.

This year I'm thrilled to see that PuSh is presenting an Aboriginal Performance series which "aims to profile compelling and virtuosic projects that transform perceptions... to foster a broader understanding and interaction of contemporary Indigenous artists and their diverse cultures". Right up RPM's alley!

The series kicked off last night with Beat Nation Live - the cross-platform collective that includes Kinnie Starr, Jackson 2Bears, Cris Derksen, (RPM's own) Ostwelve, JB the First Lady, and the Tangible Interaction Digital Graffiti Wall by Corey Bulpitt and Gurl23. It was a high energy performance that had people on their feet and dancing by the end of it. The collective has honed their collaborative efforts - I saw them almost a year ago at the beginning stages of their work together and they've only gotten better.

During her introduction to the performance, senior curator Sherrie Johnson shared that she was inspired to create the Aboriginal performance series after spending time in New Zealand. She experienced many festivals there that featured work by contemporary Indigenous artists along with the programming of non-Indigenous artists and it made her wonder why that is not the case in Canada. Indeed, we have festivals focused only on Indigenous performers in this country, but there is an undeniable lack of inclusion of current Indigenous works in "non-Native" festival programming.

With that in mind she returned to Canada and to PuSh with the plan to seek out the most cutting edge and current Indigenous artists. The result is this diverse and exciting series.

Running from January 31-February 4th at The Cultch in East Vancouver is No. 2, a theatre piece from Toa Fraser of New Zealand centered around a cantankerous Fijian matriarch.

From February 1-4, at the Waterfront Theatre, is Almighty Voice and His Wife, the moving and funny play by First Nations playwright Daniel David Moses. It "tells the story of a Cree man arrested for killing a cow without a license, and the ensuing manhunt that gives rise to his status as a martyr and a legend."

At Performance Works on February 2nd, actor, choreographer, director and educator Micheal Greyeyes will deliver his "keynote manifesto address" Staging Ethnicity, exploring the complexities of "native" theatre and the impacts on those who create and experience it.

I'm really looking forward to the performance by Calgary's Ghostkeeper - the noisy pop band from Shane Ghostkeeper and Sarah Houle. They'll be rocking Performance Works on February 3rd. Check out the just-published Redwire interview with Ghostkeeper for more on them: http://www.redwiremag.com/site/redwire/features/push-festival-aboriginal-performance-series-ghoskeeper-interview/.

Vancouver - which shows will you be checking out? I hope to see you there!

Christa Couture, Editorial Manager

For more information on tickets, times and performances visit http://pushfestival.ca/festival-events/aboriginal-performance-series/.

Red Slam arrives on Redwire's Sentinel Shores

Front lady for Tdot's Red Slam Collective, Mahlikah Awe:ri, speaks on growth of the group and the ways that they give back. Red Slam will be headlining Redwire's upcoming show Sentinel Shores: A Group Show and Event Exploring Land Defense February 2nd at Rhizome Cafe, Coast Salish Territories.

Marika Swan @ RPM: Wanna introduce yourself?

Mahlikah Awe:ri : My name is Mahlikah Awe:ri aka MC AngelHeart I am one of the four founding members of the Red Slam Collective. We also have other members that are a part of the collective now. We have four core members: we have a core drummer, a core bassist, we’ve added a saxophonist and then we mix it up with sometimes bringing in other emcees or a beatboxer or our B-boys.

MS: Who is making it out to Coast Salish Territories next week?

MA: So we’ll have MC 7^th Son (Annishnaabe), Miles Turner (Six Nations, Mohawk), Isaac Llacuachaqui aka Riverwalker (Inca),  myself (Mik’maw, Mohawk), Jav Bravo (Aztec), Will supporting us on bass and Paul our saxophonist cant make it but he’ll be there in spirit.

MS: How did the collective come together?

MA: In the fall of 2008 I was asked to do something at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, which is our Friendship Centre, around spoken word.  At that time I was getting back into slam poetry competitions and I noticed there was no other natives in the circuit. So I thought maybe I should expose some other people to this art form. A set of people came to the workshops and they were into hip hop and into music. I had met Isaak a year before at an open mic so I asked him to join in. So it was 7^th Son and Miles and our former member Lena who were always going. The youth coordinator encouraged us to apply for a grant to take things to the next level and take some of these lyrics and turn them into actual songs.

We applied and with that grant we got a mentorship with Digging Roots. Digging Roots took us on and got us to apply for another grant to record the single Bring It Back at their studios. They taught us how to make music and record in the studio and all the business side of music as well.  We started with local booking at community centres and then we got a travel grant to go to different reserves and cities across Ontario. This was the spring to the fall of 2010. So we ended up doing a lot of little shows and it was really great exposure. We also got a chance to bond as a crew and figure out where we wanted to go. When we ended our tour at the ImageNATIVE opening for Martha Redbone, we thought 'we need a band'. So we started working with other musicians and figured that synergy out and then we ended up with a new sound Isaak calls soul-rock hip-hop.

We have always been very forthright in our lyrical content in terms of issues that we know are relevant to our people. On a global scale because we are connected globally. Whether that’s about land, water or whether it’s dealing with residential school or whatever it is. When we were first trying to get bookings when we got our travel grant, there were some people that were hesitant to book us because of the lyrical content of our pieces. But now that we’ve had occupy all over Toronto and everywhere else we’ve had certain things come to light through the media in our different communities about the quality of our water and all this other stuff. Now we are inundated in our inbox. We cant even keep up with the amount of requests for us to come out and perform at various events dealing with the same stuff that people, even some of our own people, didn’t want us to be talking about. And I’m proud of us as a crew that regardless of what people had to say when we were coming up we steered that course and we kept on it. I mean, we talk about other stuff. We talk about love. We talk about the party. We’re people, we’re human. But at the same time we cant ignore the real issues that are affecting us.

MS: Tell me about the workshop side of the work you do.

MA: Yeah so aside from being a hip-hop fusion band we do Four Directions Community Arts Engagement workshops. We usually build collaborations with either a social group or a school or an arts organization and we deliver workshops based on what the kids want to do. My role is the artistic coordinator for the workshops, and based on what they want to do which members of the crew would be best to come in. So when we went on that tour in 2010, wherever we did a show we also had a workshop. It’s also a great way to embed our traditional teachings... so starting with orality. Rap is orality and our people are storytellers. Usually I’ll start by telling a traditional story and then I flip the same story but totally in rhyme. Then we’ll start getting them to write lyrics to visuals by various Indigenous artists that explore the same themes as the original story did. They come up with the hook and they decide what themes they want to discuss. Based on those themes we weave together a set of bars for each verse and then they decide who wants to be the emcees and who wants to be the musicians. And then we come together collaboratively and record it so that they can see how far they have come. We love doing that kind of work. We’ve got a lot more of that stuff coming up.

MS: Well we are all really excited to have you. It’s going to be pretty cozy at Rhizome but I think it’s going to be really special. We’ll have some speakers and some films and then mix it up with some live music to keep the energy flowing.

MA: It’s really timely for us, many of us have family out on the west coast so we’ve been talking about this for a while.

MS: So I was checking out a live clip of you all performing 7 Fires on youtube and was loving it.  What's that track all about?

MA: Woo yeahh! That’s a track a co-wrote musically with Isaac Riverwalker. We’ve just been working on that track in the studio.  I wrote the lyrics and its about the Annishnaabe 8^th Fire prophecy. Looking at the prophecies that have already happened and what it is that we need to do now as a people. It’s become a big track for us, people seem to like it. We weren't going to play that one but maybe I should talk to the boys and put it on the set list.

The Collective expresses their creativity through their Okra (story) and their Owena (word) in the spirit of indigenous oral traditions using contemporary poetry live reggae hip-hop soulrock and drum talk. A variety of themes are expressed in their music and poetry, but the underlying goal is too uplift, self-identify and unify through spoken word. SLAM (Spoken Lyricism Arranges Meaning).

Find out full event info at redwiremag.com. Sentinel Shores: A Group Show and Event Exploring Land Defense February 2 @ Rhizome Cafe, starts @ 6pm

Featuring Artwork by Joi Arcand, Erin Marie Konsmo, Christiana Latham, Chandra Melting Tallow, Marika Swan and Carrielynn Victor

Screenings of A Mothers Nature by Vanessa Claxton Bloodland by Elle Maija Tailfeathers Business as Usual by Jay Cardinal Villeneuve

And Special Guests: Arthur Manuel and Ta'kaiya Blaney

With RED SLAM COLLECTIVE!

Here is a video of the Red Slam Collective performing 7 Fires live:

VIDEO: Cheyanna Kootenhayoo - "Nightmare Before Dubstep"

The clever Nightmare Defore Dubstep sound project spoof is created by Cheyanna Kootenhayoo feat. Heebz the earthchild.

Cheyanna J. V. Kootenhayoo, is a young multi-talented Dene/Nakota women from Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, and originally from Cold Lake, Alberta. Starting from no sound, Cheyanna spent a few days with Logic and Pro Tools recording and re-designing voice overs, and sound FX, and music for this one minute clip from A Nightmare Before Christmas as a final school project. A Nightmare Before Dubstep features Heebz the earthchild from duo Mob Bounce, check it!

Intro and Outro tunes generously donated to Redwire TV by A Tribe Called Red.

VIDEO: Rapsure Risin - Short Doc on RedwireTV

Here's a new short documentary about Stó:lō hip-hop artists Rapsure Risin made by Damien Bouchard hosted online by our good friends at Redwiremag.com!

Rapsure Risin is a Stó:lō hip-hop group consisting of Carrielynn Victor aka Numinous and Theresa Point aka Apt Exact, that have been touring and recording their musical talent over the last decade. Both mothers and community workers, they live a full life of music and motherhood along side their work with the Stó:lō communities.

Damien Bouchard is an Anishinabe film making Native from North Western Ontario who was recently profiled by our friends at Redwire. This is one of his films that was featured on the Redwire TV youtube channel.

Watch RedwireTV - Rapsure Risin by Damien Bouchard:

For more info, check out Redwire Native Youth Media Society at: Redwiremag.com