Aboriginal inspiration fuels tales
Reconciliation is one of the most pressing issues facing Canadians. But what does reconciliation really mean — is it simply another word for “assimilation?”
These and other questions are the inspiration behind šxw?am̓ət (home), a new production that features an indigenous and nonindigenous cast in stories inspired by the idea of reconciliation.
(In “šxw?am̓ət,” š is pronounced like English “sh”. xw sounds like the “wh” in “which.” Stress is on the first syllable, like in the name “Amit”. ?am̓ sounds like the first syllable in the word “omelette”. ət sounds like the second syllable of the word “comet”.)
“It’s three threads woven together,” said David Diamond, of Vancouver’s Theatre for Living, who is directing the project with Journeys Around the Circle Society’s Renae Morriseau.
One of those threads involves a white family that adopts an indigenous son, and the repercussions of keeping the secret of his origins from him.
In another thread, a father’s history as a residential school survivor affects the relationship between he and his daughter, an activist in the fight against Kinder Morgan who is also learning the culture of her estranged mother.
The third thread weaves in a young woman born in Canada and of Filipino descent and an indigenous man with a history of cyclical foster care as a youth—both struggling to find their place of belonging. The stories and structure grew out of a workshop with 22 participants, including the production’s seven cast members. Originally, over 130 people applied to be part of the project; 40 were asked back for interviews.
“We were looking for people who were engaged in and struggling with the issue of reconciliation,” said Diamond.
“And we left that very open-ended, for them to define.”
One of Diamond’s questions to prospective participants was: “Is the invitation to reconciliation an invitation to assimilate more deeply?”
The cast includes Asivak Koostachin (Inuk/Cree), Madeline Terbasket (Okanagan, HoCak and Anishnabe), Mutya Macatumpag, Nayden Palosaari (Cree), Rev. Margaret Roberts, Sam Bob (Snaw-Naw-As/Coast Salish) and Tom Scholte. Three are members of Canadian Actors Equity.
“They’re not hired because they’re Equity members or because they’re professional actors,”
Diamond said. “They were hired for the same reason as the rest of the cast — they have deep engagement in their own in the issues, and they rose to the occasion.”
Diamond’s company, Theatre for Living (formerly Headlines Theatre), specializes in work that engages the community.
To this end, šxw?am̓ət (home) “asks lots of questions and offers no answers,” he said.
“It says we have these real issues, and we don’t know what to do. What do we do?” Each performance begins with a straight read-through by the cast. Then the audience is invited to take the places of the characters while the actors stay in character. Together, they “work toward honourable reconciliation,” Diamond said.
“We get to turn the theatre into a very creative laboratory, and seek transformation.”
The director believes all theatre is political. But the intention isn’t to move reconciliation from a political to a theatrical context.
“Theatre is good at some things and not others,” he said.
“Structural change is absolutely necessary if reconciliation is going to be real and honourable. But there are historical precedents all over the planet of change occurring, and then manifesting into the same oppressive structure one was trying to fight against. I think that’s because we don’t realize our patterns of behaviour create those systems. And theatre is really good at looking at human behaviour.”
What šxw?am̓ət (home) can do, he says, is make reconciliation “something that happens on the ground, between human beings who look each other in the eye and have to question their profound, fundamental relationships to each other. Because you can’t legislate respect.”
Note: šxw?am̓ət (home) will culminate in a live, interactive, global webcast on March 11 at 7:30 p.m.
We were looking for people who were engaged in and struggling with the issue of reconciliation.