Schedule for Saturday, Feb 5

Mique’l Dangeli

Facilitator

Mique’l Dangeli was born and raised on the Annette Island Indian Reserve, and is of the Tsimshian Nation of Metlakatla, Alaska. She is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Arts at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Her work focuses on Indigenous visual and performing arts, protocol, cultural resurgence, sovereignty, decolonization and language revitalization. Dangeli is a dancer, choreographer, educator, curator and activist. As one of the youngest advanced speakers and teachers of her people’s language, she is dedicated to teaching Sm’algya̱x in community-based and university-accredited classes as well as mentoring educational staff in their process of language acquisition and the creation of pre-K to high school programs. For the past 15 years, she and her husband, artist and carver Mike Dangeli (Nisga’a Nation), have led the Git Hayetsk Dancers, an internationally renowned Northwest Coast First Nations dance group specializing in ancient and newly created songs and mask dances.

Reneltta Arluk

Panelist

Reneltta is an Inuvialuit, Dene and Cree mom from the Northwest Territories. She is founder of Akpik Theatre, a northern focussed professional Indigenous Theatre company. Raised by her grandparents on the trap-line until school age, this nomadic environment gave Reneltta the skills to become the multi-disciplined artist she is now. For nearly two decades, Reneltta has taken part in or initiated the creation of Indigenous Theatre across Canada and overseas. Under Akpik Theatre, Reneltta has written, produced, and performed various works creating space for Indigenous led voice. Current works include Pawâkan Macbeth, a Plains Cree takeover of Macbeth written by Arluk on Treaty 6 territory. Pawâkan Macbeth was inspired by working with youth and elders on the Frog Lake reserve. Reneltta is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program and Reneltta is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to direct at The Stratford Festival. There she was awarded the Tyrone Guthrie – Derek F. Mitchell Artistic Director’s Award for her direction of the The Breathing Hole. Reneltta is Director of Indigenous Arts at BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Dakota Alcantara-Camacho

Panelist

Ancestral Lineages: Matao/CHamoru

Dakota Camacho is a multi-disciplinary artist / researcher working in spaces of indigenous life ways, performance, musical composition, community engagement, and education.

Camacho holds a Masters of Arts in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Gender & Women’s Studies as a First Wave Urban Arts and Hip Hop Scholar. 

Camacho is a chanter, adjunct instructor, and core researcher for I Fanlalai’an Oral History Project based at the University of Guåhan. 

Camacho co-founded I Moving Lab, an inter-national, inter-cultural, inter-tribal, and inter-disciplinary arts collective that creates community and self-funded arts initiatives to engage and bring together rural & urban communities, Universities, Museums, & performing arts institutions. 

Camacho has worked at festivals, universities, and community organizations as a public speaker, facilitator, composer and performer across Turtle Island (USA), Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, Sweden, and South Africa.

Rosemary Georgeson

Panelist

Rosemary Georgeson is a Coast Salish and Sahtu Dene artist, writer, and storyteller. 

The recipient of the 2009 Vancouver Mayor’s Award recognizing her as an emerging artist in community arts, Rosemary has applied her talents in dozens of theater, film, and performance projects throughout Canada. Rosemary was the 2014 storyteller in residence for the Vancouver Public Library.

Born to a fishing family, Rosemary worked as a commercial fisherman along the west coast for three decades. Rosemary has spent her lifetime reconnecting with her Coast Salish ancestry and family and is now working to publish a digital and print book and build an installation that shares and celebrates the reconnection of family and strong Coast Salish women from around the Salish Sea. This installation will be launching in the summer of 2022 on Galiano Island.

Ronnie Dean Harris

Panelist

Ronnie Dean Harris aka Ostwelve, is a Stō:lo/St’át’imc/Lil’wat/N’laka’pamux multimedia artist based in New Westminster, B.C. Beginning in music, he has explored various mediums such as TV, film, visual + sound design along side various research subjects including history, cosmology, genealogy and Indigenous policy.  Ronnie can be heard as the voice of Dad/Walter Mabray on the PBS/WGBH series Molly Of Denali and seen on various other TV + film projects.

Ronnie is currently the Indigenous Cultural Developer at Massey Theatre and Eighth + Eight Creative Spaces and a Board of Directors member of the 2 Rivers Remix Society. 

Meena Natarajan

Panelist

Meena Natarajan is a playwright and director and the Co-Artistic and Executive Director of Pangea World Theater, a progressive, international ensemble space for arts and dialogue. She has led the theater’s growth since it’s founding in 1995. She was on the Advisory Council of the Community Arts Network and has served on the board of the National Performance Network. She is currently on the board of Longfellow Rising, an organization in Minneapolis committed to rebuilding the Longfellow neighborhood destroyed during the uprising of 2020 and using theatre and the arts to build community vitality. She has written several full-length works for Pangea, ranging from adaptations of poetry and mythology to original works dealing with war, spirituality, personal and collective memory. 

Michelle Olson

Panelist

Michelle Olson is a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and the Artistic Director of Raven Spirit Dance. She studied dance and performance at the University of New Mexico, the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre and was an Ensemble Member of Full Circle First Nations Performance.  Michelle works in areas of dance, theatre and opera as a choreographer, performer and movement coach and her work has been seen on stages across Canada. She was the recipient of the inaugural Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award.  She is currently teaching at Langara’s Studio 58 and pursuing her MFA in Theatre at UBC.

S7aplek Bob Baker

Witness

Bob Baker (Squamish Ancestral name is S7aplek, Hawaiian name is Lanakila) is co-founder and Spokesperson for Spakwus Slolem (Eagle Song) the most reputable Dance Group of the Squamish Nation.

Born and Raised Squamish, Bob has been exercising his Culture through Singing, Dances, and various presentations, for over 35 years . Accomplishments range from revival of Sea-going Canoes and traditions, to Cultural projects such as the 27 ft. Grandmother Welcome Figure, at Ambleside Beach Park, to dance presentations in Taiwan, Hawaii, Japan, Switzerland, (Montreaux Jazz Festival), and opening Ceremonies for Western Canada Summer games, Nation Aboriginal Hockey Championships, International U18 Lacrosse Championships, and recently, opening ceremony for the Canada Aboriginal Music Awards. To Blessing Ceremonies for B.C. Ferries, in Flensburg, Germany and the Tallships flotilla Blessing Ceremony here at English bay, Vancouver. On-going performances and projects continue through-out the Lower Mainland, Vancouver, Squamish-Whistler and Vancouver Island.

In the warmer months Bob can be found training in the traditional dug-out war canoes, as well as the Great Sea-going Canoes, and as a steersman for Tribal Journeys, and the Pulling Together Journey, visiting Villages along our beautiful coasts of British Columbia and,Washington State.