Making of Treaty 7 going national
“We all knew we were doing something that was bigger than all of us — it was truly a gift.”
On Tuesday morning, Michelle Thrush is nearly brought to tears when asked how it felt to be there the first time Making Treaty 7, the theatrical production that chronicles our province’s history from the First Nations’ perspective, was first staged in the late summer of 2013.
“We were at Fort Calgary, performing to a private audience of elders,” says the acclaimed actor, activist and current co-director of Making Treaty 7 (makingtreaty7.com). “As an indigenous actor, it was so beautiful to be in something that was indigenous-led and settler-supported.”
Back then, Thrush and her fellow artists couldn’t have foreseen the tragedies that lay ahead for their tight-knit team, nor the natural and man-made obstacles that would challenge their passion and determination to see the show that weaves dance, poetry and music in a theatrical setting become a story that would be told to Canadians from coast to coast.
Despite those challenges, Making Treaty 7 has sold out all three years of its run in Calgary and has expanded to be shown in video form at workshops.
Now, in addition to more Calgary performances planned for the fall, the show is finally going on the road, staging a June 15 performance in Winnipeg and a June 20 performance at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, as part of the centre’s Canada Scene Festival and Canada 150 commemorations.
“It’s telling our side of the story, how we understand it,” says Tsuut’ina Nation Chief Lee Crowchild, who is also board chair of the Treaty 7 Cultural Society. “It’s about extending our hand, saying ‘Come with us, we have things to show you,’ ” he adds. “This is the right time to tell our story; we are in a period of transition in this country.”
Thrush is nevertheless the first to admit that back in the winter of 2015 such a bright future seemed impossible.
A highway crash in Saskatchewan took the lives of Michael Green, one of the founders of the One Yellow Rabbit theatre troupe, Blackfoot elder Narcisse Blood and two other prominent First Nations artists. Their deaths came just a few months after the unexpected death of Richard McDowell, a One Yellow Rabbit member who was the sound designer for Making Treaty 7.
“We thought, ‘We’re done, we can’t go forward creatively,’ ” says Thrush of the loss of Green, the production’s driving force, and Blood, who served as a consultant. “Michael was our creative rock and Narcisse was our spiritual rock. It didn’t seem possible that it could survive without them.”
As the creative producer of Calgary 2012, Cultural Capital of Canada, Green had been looking for a legacy project that was truly Albertan.
“He contacted me and other local indigenous people,” says Thrush of her longtime theatre mentor. “Michael got really involved in native communities, he went to sweat lodges, he gained elders’ trust by being humble and genuine.”
Over time, Green, named Elk Shadow by Blackfoot First Nation, and his team created the story behind the signing of the historic 1877 agreement between the Queen and the province’s First Nations, an agreement that many say was the foundation for the development of present-day Alberta.
While the troupe, which includes about 30 performers on stage, survived a summer storm in 2015 — “people in the audience were wrapped in blankets,” says Thrush — the deaths of Green and Blood seemed insurmountable. The more recent economic downturn in the province, with its effects on arts funding everywhere, represented an even bigger threat.
Over time, though, she and her fellow artists found a new sense of purpose.
“We had to decide as a cast what was important to Michael and Narcisse,” says Thrush, who co-directs the show with One Yellow Rabbit’s Blake Brooker. “We leaned on one another, took care of each other.”
The show must go on, for other important reasons. “We are in a very uncomfortable time in this country,” she says, pointing to the recent culture appropriation controversy and other issues dividing the indigenous and nonindigenous communities.
“People are talking about building walls,” says Thrush, who will ensure Green and Blood’s legacy project will live on. “Our work with Making Treaty 7 is about breaking down walls.”