Post by Okwes on Oct 26, 2006 13:34:25 GMT -5
Beyond beads and buckskins
MICHAEL HARRIS
Special to The Globe and Mail
Yvette Nolan can pass for white. Her mother is Algonquin and her father is Irish. Growing up in Winnipeg, she says, "made for an interesting time."
One memory: She's a teenager, shopping at the Bay. Mom, an educator, is ahead of Nolan in the checkout line. The woman serving them takes mom's new shirt, puts it in a brown paper bag and staples it shut. Daughter Nolan gets a new striped plastic bag for her purchase. Have a nice day.
The big problem with the word "pass" is that it sticks its reverse -- "fail" -- on those who don't.
Such issues are the crux of Honouring Theatre, a national tour of indigenous theatre from Canada, Australia and New Zealand that is making its fourth and final stop in Vancouver this month. Nolan, artistic director for the Toronto-based theatre company Native Earth, has written the Canadian content.
Nolan's Annie Mae's Movement is a brief and historically interesting play, despite its inclination toward overwrought sentiment and two-dimensional characterization. The drama recounts the political wrangling of the real-life Annie Mae, who worked for the American Indian Movement in the United States. Nolan calls her "a woman in a man's movement, a Canadian in America, an aboriginal in a white-dominated culture." Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was slain in 1976.
It's a worthy subject. But theatre and therapy are divided by a very thin line. What struck me most about Annie Mae's Movement and the New Zealand contribution Frangipani Perfume (written by Makerita Urale) was their raising of identity politics to the level of gospel and, subsequently, their diminishing of all other theatrical fuels.
Sometimes the result is bizarrely engaging. In Frangipani Perfume, for example, three Polynesian women working as cleaners in New Zealand dream of their lost home. Naiki, Pomu and Tivi grow ever more pissed off at their lot in life, and then turn on each other. "Shut up! I hate you!" they scream in succession, before entering a techno-swordfight dream sequence. Neat.
But not exactly subtle. Maybe it isn't time yet to be subtle about issues of colonization and diaspora. As Nolan puts it: "My struggle has been to not become silent."
There are hundreds of indigenous theatre groups around the globe and Nolan hopes to build an international community. "Loss of language and loss of land are the common issues," she says. "We're pushing to break that beads and buckskins idea."
With luck, Honouring Theatre will tour Australia in 2007 and New Zealand in 2008. And true to her Irish roots, Nolan may open up Honouring Theatre to the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland as well.
In Canada, playwrights such as Tomson Highway, Drew Hayden Taylor and Margo Kane (all affiliated with Native Earth) help to create more nuanced perceptions, Nolan says. "We've moved beyond the drunk and the tipi hopper," she adds, "but there's still the wise Indian."
When I ask Nolan about times when she felt invisible, times when she felt crudely represented, she gives a little laugh, as if I'm asking her to point out sand on the beach.
"Examples? There are so many. It is just the way one lives."
Honouring Theatre, which includes Annie Mae's Movement, Frangipani Perfume and Windmill Baby, runs until Oct. 22. Tickets are $20 to $24 at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 E. Cordova St., 604-689-0926.
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061020.THEATRE20VAN/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Theatre/
MICHAEL HARRIS
Special to The Globe and Mail
Yvette Nolan can pass for white. Her mother is Algonquin and her father is Irish. Growing up in Winnipeg, she says, "made for an interesting time."
One memory: She's a teenager, shopping at the Bay. Mom, an educator, is ahead of Nolan in the checkout line. The woman serving them takes mom's new shirt, puts it in a brown paper bag and staples it shut. Daughter Nolan gets a new striped plastic bag for her purchase. Have a nice day.
The big problem with the word "pass" is that it sticks its reverse -- "fail" -- on those who don't.
Such issues are the crux of Honouring Theatre, a national tour of indigenous theatre from Canada, Australia and New Zealand that is making its fourth and final stop in Vancouver this month. Nolan, artistic director for the Toronto-based theatre company Native Earth, has written the Canadian content.
Nolan's Annie Mae's Movement is a brief and historically interesting play, despite its inclination toward overwrought sentiment and two-dimensional characterization. The drama recounts the political wrangling of the real-life Annie Mae, who worked for the American Indian Movement in the United States. Nolan calls her "a woman in a man's movement, a Canadian in America, an aboriginal in a white-dominated culture." Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was slain in 1976.
It's a worthy subject. But theatre and therapy are divided by a very thin line. What struck me most about Annie Mae's Movement and the New Zealand contribution Frangipani Perfume (written by Makerita Urale) was their raising of identity politics to the level of gospel and, subsequently, their diminishing of all other theatrical fuels.
Sometimes the result is bizarrely engaging. In Frangipani Perfume, for example, three Polynesian women working as cleaners in New Zealand dream of their lost home. Naiki, Pomu and Tivi grow ever more pissed off at their lot in life, and then turn on each other. "Shut up! I hate you!" they scream in succession, before entering a techno-swordfight dream sequence. Neat.
But not exactly subtle. Maybe it isn't time yet to be subtle about issues of colonization and diaspora. As Nolan puts it: "My struggle has been to not become silent."
There are hundreds of indigenous theatre groups around the globe and Nolan hopes to build an international community. "Loss of language and loss of land are the common issues," she says. "We're pushing to break that beads and buckskins idea."
With luck, Honouring Theatre will tour Australia in 2007 and New Zealand in 2008. And true to her Irish roots, Nolan may open up Honouring Theatre to the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland as well.
In Canada, playwrights such as Tomson Highway, Drew Hayden Taylor and Margo Kane (all affiliated with Native Earth) help to create more nuanced perceptions, Nolan says. "We've moved beyond the drunk and the tipi hopper," she adds, "but there's still the wise Indian."
When I ask Nolan about times when she felt invisible, times when she felt crudely represented, she gives a little laugh, as if I'm asking her to point out sand on the beach.
"Examples? There are so many. It is just the way one lives."
Honouring Theatre, which includes Annie Mae's Movement, Frangipani Perfume and Windmill Baby, runs until Oct. 22. Tickets are $20 to $24 at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 E. Cordova St., 604-689-0926.
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061020.THEATRE20VAN/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Theatre/