CIty poet teams up with musicians for national tour NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA
When: Aug. 6, 4 p.m. Where: TCU Place Tickets: Free admission Zoey Roy is touring Canada this summer as part of the National Youth Orchestra’s Edges of Canada tour. The Saskatoon poet and community educator said there are many layers behind her decision to take part.
Actor, educator and Signal Theatre artistic director Michael Greyeyes contacted Roy to be part of the collaboration. The project would pair classical music with spoken word and commemorate the work of Piikani Blackfoot poet Zaccheus Jackson, who died in 2014 after being hit by a train.
“What I really appreciated about Zaccheus was that he came from a rough beginning, succumbed to that life at one point but it didn’t defeat him ... He made something of himself and poetry was really the part that saved his life, just like poetry saved my life,” Roy said.
The NYO commissioned pieces for an initiative called The Unsilent Project, which includes performances of Jackson’s poetry alongside compositions by Juliet Palmer and Ian Cusson. The finale is Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration.
The program was developed during a year-long series of exchanges and workshops led by Signal Theatre.
Roy is performing her piece Unsilent on tour stops.
The poem speaks to the inner child and encourages Indigenous children to recognize their worth and beauty.
“We talk about the trauma of Indigenous people as if it happened in the past, as if residential school was a beginning and end of trauma, but that’s not true. There are more Indigenous children in care today than were ever in residential schools. The success rates of children in elementary and high school are drastically lower all across Canada. That’s a policy issue, that’s not the children. It’s not that Indigenous children are less smart or less brave. But these children are internalizing lack of worth because our society is telling them they’re not as valuable as the next child.”
The performances also feature Saskatoon rapper Lindsay ‘Eekwol’ Knight and her piece Grounded.
The tour is a Canada 150 event, a celebration Roy has qualms about as an Indigenous person. It’s important to her that truth and reconciliation not be seen as a celebration.
“I really wanted to collaborate and try to get them to understand, those Canadians who (think they) know better than Indigenous people, that you actually have a lot to learn from us too. If you’re going to benefit from this land, at the very least you should recognize whose land you’re benefiting from.”
Roy said she’s excited to showcase the irreverence and truth of Jackson’s art.
“These young people in the orchestra have worked extremely hard and they’re very diligent about being the best musician they could possibly be, so the audience has high expectations. The audience comes dressed up very fancy. Most of them are white, most of them are old,” she said.
“One of Zaccheus Jackson’s poems, Invicta, ends with ‘But right now North America is just a f---ed up fancy restaurant and I’m looking forward to the day that I can’t get a reservation.’ This is the first time in 57 years that anyone has said f--- on an orchestral stage for the National Youth Orchestra.”