CANADIAN CHEMISTRY TEST
Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists share stage in touring show
Jason Collett has one hard and fast rule when it comes to the New Constellations tour.
The performers must watch each other at work.
“The artists aren’t allowed to just hang out backstage,” says the singer-songwriter, talking with Postmedia from his home in Toronto.
“Typically, whenever we do benefits together, that’s how it goes. Everybody is a snob about their peers, and they’re just hanging in the green room until it’s their time to be on stage, and they’re too cool for school. But with this show, a key part of the chemistry is the audience getting to watch not just who’s performing, but getting to watch artists watching other artists perform. I always think of the show as an extension of a kitchen table, post-dinner party, where the guitars come out and stories get shared.”
Artists intermingling is the key thrust of New Constellations, a 13stop Canadian tour that stops at the Bronson Centre on Saturday.
Specifically, it’s meant to have Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists sharing a stage. It will visit Canadian cities and Indigenous communities in the next couple of weeks, mixing literary arts and music with a rotating roster of artists performing in various cities. That includes A Tribe Called Red at the Bronson Centre and Feist at the tour-ending Toronto show on Dec. 20.
“We’re really just trying to keep the focus simple in that it’s Indigenous next-wave artists sharing space with notable non-Indigenous artists as a way of coming together,” Collett says. “On one hand, it’s to showcase next-wave Indigenous talent — the next wave beyond the Tribe Called Reds and the Tanya Tagaqs. The flip side of the coin is that it’s an opportunity for artists like Feist ... to actually engage with Indigenous artists. It’s not an easy thing to do in our landscape and country. We’re trying to make it easy and accessible.”
New Constellations is an offshoot of variety shows that have been going on in Toronto for the past 10 years. Collett, a veteran singer-songwriter and member of Broken Social Scene, co-founded The Basement Revue with poet Damian Rogers. The shows mixed music and literary arts, leading to such compelling pair-ups as Feist and Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood being backed by the Sadies.
In 2014, The Basement Revue
did a benefit show for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women featuring a number of performers on the New Constellations tour.
So Basement Revue teamed with Revolutions Per Minute — a record label and artist collective specializing in Indigenous music — to expand the project.
Armed with federal funds from Canada 150, the two groups turned New Constellations into a multi-layered project. Beyond the tour, it also offers workshops in various communities for Indigenous youth and a long-term mentorship program that will have Indigenous artists being guided by the likes of Cree/Dene musician IsKwe, Polaris Prize-winning Colombian-Canadian singer Lido Pimienta and Weaves singer Jasmyn Burke.
Collett says the shows aim to attract both Indigenous and nonIndigenous audiences.
“It’s very much like an old-school revue ... short sets,” says Collett. “I’m a big fan of ’60s Motown revues, where you have to go out, and you only have three songs, and you have to kill it. It makes everybody bring their best game.”