Troy Emery Twigg
At age six, Troy Emery Twigg gathered some stray dogs and cats together, dressed them from his grandmother’s old clothes bag, and turned them into the audience for his one-person show.
That boy from the Kainai Nation in southern Alberta already knew where his career path lay.
“I wanted to do ballet and modern dance, but I kept it private,” says Twigg, 47.
“There was shame in it because everyone else around me was rodeoing and doing sports.”
That childhood dream, through hard work and talent, is now an almost three-decade career in dance, writing, acting, directing and teaching, both nationally and internationally.
Bullying in high school — “I was a two-spirited, weird kid” — gave way to self-confidence and respect from others with the teen’s dance creations. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree (Lethbridge), and did master’s dance studies at York, but during history lectures “always wondered, ‘Where do I and my people come up?’ I realized they didn’t — and there was a lot of work to do.”
In 1993, Twigg met legendary
One Yellow Rabbit co-founder Michael Green, who became a friend and mentor.
“I learned I could tell my own stories; there wasn’t any formula or guide to follow.”
With Green, Twigg and other Indigenous artists created a major theatrical work, Making Treaty 7.
“He called me in Toronto and said I needed to move back home and work with him. We travelled across the country pitching the idea, connecting with elders and bringing the community together.”
Making Treaty 7 told the story of Alberta’s creation from the point of view of First Nations. It debuted in 2014 and was performed across Canada.
Twigg’s 2020 is fully booked, including writing scripts as co-director of Quest Theatre’s young people’s group, following an eye-opening elementary school talk about the fur trade.
“I played all the characters, and what was supposed to be 20 minutes was an hour. These kids, none of them Indigenous, were, at the end, speaking to me in Blackfoot. They want to learn the history of the land.”