by Kelly Many Guns
Since 1981, Theatre for the Living has been helping communities tell their stories through the expression of theatre. This year, director David Diamond and associate director Renae Morriseau will present šxʷʔam̓ət (Home) on March 3rd through to the 11th at the Firehall Arts Centre. It is hoped that audiences will find Home provocative and entertaining. This production is created and performed by an Indigenous and non-indigenous cast, and asks us to imagine what reconciliation really means.
I spoke with Diamond and asked him about Home.
“The play grows out of an organic process, and this is how Theatre for the Living works,” Diamond said. “The play will develop struggles, and it will try and try and answer what reconciliation means. I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and people’s perception of the world around us changes.”
If you want innovative theatre that is engaging and challenges your perceptions, than checking out Home would be it.
Theatre for the Living has a 36 year, multi-award winning history of creating cutting edge, interactive theatre that challenges perceptions and creates social change. With 11 performances slated, Home will weave stories based on real-life, and challenge the audience to make reconciliation real and honourable. When referring to reconciliation, Morriseau says that the deeper understanding we have, the better.
“The production sounds like it’s going to be heavy, but it will be a lot of fun and very interactive, only the subject is not.”
The title of the production, šxʷʔam̓ət (Home), is based on an hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (a local Indigenous dialect) word used to reference home. This word has so many different meanings to all of us who are living on this land.
The Theatre for the Living says there’s a conversation happening in Canada about reconciliation, and how it is manifesting action in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities across this country. The City of Vancouver has officially declared that Vancouver sits on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. But what do these initiatives really mean? If we are sincere about the desire for reconciliation, what kinds of shifts in perceptions and behaviours need to take place? What is the pulse of change each of us are shaping? How do we break down the walls of colonization that surround us all? Is Reconciliation possible without respecting promises and guarantees made regarding Indigenous consent for projects on Indigenous land?
In šxʷʔam̓ət (home), the production will invite audiences to change the patterns of behaviour inside characters who are struggling with these issues – patterns that audience members may recognize inside themselves – and rehearse true reconciliation.
The cast will consist of seven original actors of Inuk, Cree, Okanagan, Ho-Cak, Snaw-Naw-As, and a range of diverse performers.
Diamond is the recipient of the Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre in NY (2010), as well as the Mayor’s Arts Award for Community Engaged Art (2012). Morriseau is Cree and Saulteaux, and she is originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She works across Canada and the US in theatre, film, television and music. Among numerous honours, Renae was the recipient of the 2015 Mayor’s Arts Award for her work to cultivate social justice and inclusiveness through theatre and music.
