Schedule for Thursday, Feb 3

Lindsay Lachance

Facilitator

Dr. Lindsay Lachance is from an Algonquin Anishinaabe family and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC. Lindsay has played a leading role in the creating and direction of the Indigenous Theatre department at the National Arts Centre as the first Artistic Associate. She earned a PhD in Theatre from the University of British Columbia and, in January 2018, successfully defended her dissertation titled “The Embodied Politics of Relational Indigenous Dramaturgies.” Lindsay’s academic work exists at the intersections of Indigenous Theatre and Critical Indigenous Studies, where she celebrates and supports Indigenous theatre theory and dramaturgical structures.

Santee Smith

Panelist

Santee Smith/Tekaronhiáhkhwa is from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan from Ohswé:ken / Six Nations of the Grand River. Santee is a multidisciplinary artist, who dances forward from an ancestral path of creatives and activists. Santee trained at Canada’s National Ballet School and completed Physical Education and Psychology degrees from McMaster University and a M.A. in Dance from York University. Santee premiered her debut work Kaha:wi – a family creation story in 2004 and one year later founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre which has grown into an internationally renowned company. Through embodied storytelling and conceptual design her work speaks about identity, Indigenous narratives and continuance. Santee is a sought-after creative collaborator, teacher and speaker on the performing arts and Indigenous performance and culture. Smith is the 19th Chancellor of McMaster University. 

Tammy Hailiopua Baker

Panelist

Playwright/Director Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her work centers on the development of an indigenous Hawaiian theatre aesthetic and form, language revitalization, and the empowerment of cultural identity through stage performance. Baker is the artistic director of Ka Hālau Hanakeaka, a Hawaiian medium theatre troupe based on O‘ahu. Originally from Kapa‘a, Kaua‘i she now resides in Kahalu‘u, Ko‘olaupoko, O‘ahu with her ‘ohana.

Tara Beagan

Panelist

Tara Beagan is a proud Ntlaka’pamux and Irish “Canadian” halfbreed. She is cofounder/director of ARTICLE 11 with Andy Moro, based in Mohkinstsis. Beagan served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts from February 2011 to December 2013. She’s been writer-in-rez at Cahoots Theatre (Toronto), NEPA (Toronto), the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Berton House (Dawson City, Yukon). And during pandemic times at Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg). Seven of her 32 plays are published. One won a Dora Award. In 2020, Honour Beat won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama. Recent premieres include Deer Woman in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Honour Beat opening the 2018/19 season at Theatre Calgary, The Ministry of Grace at Belfry Theatre in Victoria, and Super in Plays2Perform@Home with Boca Del Lupo (Vancouver). Beagan was the 2020 laureate of the Siminovitch Prize for theatre, playwriting. In 2022 she will direct the premiere of the Kenneth T. Williams work The Herd at Citadel/Tarragon/NACIT.

Deneh’Cho Thompson

Witness

Deneh’Cho Thompson (he/they) is a director, actor and playwright and displaced and dispossessed member of the Pehdzeh ki Nation. His artistic practice focuses on new plays and new play development. As Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan Deneh’Cho oversees the wîcêhtowin Theatre Program, one of few Indigenous theatre programs at a Canadian university.  Deneh’Cho’s research focuses on the development, naming, and centring of Indigenous pedagogies; new play development (in various roles) and Indigenous collaborations –  centering the values of reciprocity, respect and reflexivity.

Dolina Wehipeihana

Facilitator

Dolina Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Raukawa) is a producer, arts manager, choreographer and performer. Dolina is currently Kaiārahi Māori at PANNZ (Performing Arts Network New Zealand), General Manager of Kia Mau Festival, and Chair of Atamira Dance Collective Charitable Trust. She is also a co-director and producer for Betsy & Mana Productions, and an advocate for contemporary Indigenous theatre and dance.  As a producer she has toured New Zealand work to Australia, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and Edinburgh.

A founding member of Atamira Dance Company, her creative background also includes dancing with New Zealand companies such as Black Grace and Touch Compass and independent choreographers and projects such as the Limbs Retrospective and Maui One Man Against the Gods. Dolina is currently a choreographic practitioner in the collectively created work Te Wheke by Atamira Dance Company, which premiered in June 2021.

Margo Kane

Panelist

Cree-Saulteaux Metis performing artist, Margo Kane is the Founder and Artistic Managing Director of Full Circle: First Nations Performance.  For over 40 years she has been active as an actor, performing artist and community cultural worker.  Her desire to share artistic performance that has meaning for her people is the catalyst for her extensive work, travels and consultation within Indigenous communities across Canada and abroad.  Moonlodge, her acclaimed one-woman show, an Indigenous Canadian classic, toured for over 10 years nationally and internationally.  The Sydney Press (AU) during The Festival of the Dreaming praised it as being ‘in the top echelon of solo performance.’  

She developed and runs the annual Talking Stick Festival celebrating its 20^th Anniversary this passt year and numerous programs including Moccasin Trek: Arts on the Move!, Indian Acts and an Indigenous Ensemble Performing Arts Program in Vancouver.  

She has received numerous awards and honors including an International Citation of Merit from ISPA – International Society for the Performing Arts, an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of the Fraser Valley, the Order of Canada from the Governor-General and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from SFU – Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC.

ShoShona Kish

Panelist

ShoShona Kish is an Anishinaabekwe community organizer, producer, activist, songwriter and JUNO award-winning touring artist. In 2018 ShoShona was recognized for her work internationally with the prestigious “ Professional Excellence Award ” from the WOMEX organization “for her role in the ongoing revolution, using the medium of music as an agent of change, to awaken our humanity and help us connect”. 

ShoShona leads the multi-award-winning band Digging Roots, with her husband, Raven Kanatakta. Their music breaches categorization, blending global and Indigenous sounds with roots, blues, and trip-hop. They openly explore topical issues, treating music as a call to action. ShoShona is the Chair and founder of the International Indigenous Music Summit, the Indigenous Music Alliance and the Indigenous Music Advisory Circle. She also sits on the Music Canada’s Advisory Council.  She will be releasing a new album with Digging Roots in the spring of 2022 on Ishkōdé Records, a label she recently founded with Amanda Rhéaume.

Jacob Boehme

Panelist

Jacob Boehme is a director, writer and choreographer of theatre, dance and festivals from the Narangga and Kaurna Nations, South Australia. An Australia Council for the Arts Fellow and Alumni of the Victorian College of the Arts Jacob is the Artistic Director of The Wild Dog Project – a multi-generational project reconnecting dingo songlines, and communities across Australia and Asia. Jacob is also Artistic Director of The Elders Lounge – a documentary and archival series collating and celebrating the stories of Indigenous cultural and arts Elders across Australia, Canada and the USA. Jacob is the founding Creative Director of Yirramboi Festival and sits on the Board of Directors for Dance House, Polyglot Theatre and the Ministry of Culture Taiwan South East Asia Advisory Panel. Jacob is currently the inaugural Director First Nations Programs for Carriageworks, one of Australia’s largest multi-arts centres located in Sydney.

Merindah Donnelly

Panelist

Merindah Donnelly is a descendant of Wiradjuri people, a proud Koori living in Meanjin, Queensland and is currently co-CEO and Executive Producer of BlakDance. Merindah has worked in Market Development at the Australia Council for the Arts and as a producer and curator nationally and internationally. In 2015 Merindah was a global International Society of Performing Arts fellow (ISPA) and worked with Margo Kane at the Talking Stick festival in Vancouver. In 2018 Merindah was awarded a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and in 2020 she completed her Masters in Cultural Leadership MFA at NIDA. Merindah is currently an Australia Council International Society of Performing Arts Fellow.

Hone Kouka

Panelist

Hone Kouka (Ngati Porou, Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Kahungunu, Kai Tahu) M.N.Z.M.  Hone is an acclaimed Maori director, producer and writer, youngest winner of the  Bruce Mason Playwrights Award and multiple award winner, he has had plays produced  in South Africa, Britain, Hawaii, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Caledonia, as well as  throughout New Zealand, with three plays being translated into French, Japanese and  Russian. Kouka, along with Miria George founded theatre and film production house  Tawata Productions, producing the works of Maori and Pacific artists and in 2015 he  became Artistic Director of Kia Mau Festival – a Maori, Pasifika and International  Indigenous multi arts platform based in Wellington. He became a member of the New  Zealand order of Merit for his services to Contemporary Maori Theatre in June 2009  and was awarded the New Zealand Writers Guild – Mentors Award 2013. He had two  films screened at the 2016 Berlin Film festival – Born to Dance (screenwriter) and  Mahana (Executive Producer) and in 2017 he was awarded the Arts Category for  Wellingtonian of the Year.

Denise Bolduc

Witness

Denise Bolduc is an established creator, creative director and producer who programs to transform perspectives and activate change.  Her career of three decades represents countless contributions and connections with numerous celebrated artists, creative thinkers and leading cultural institutions with an emphasis on elevating Indigenous voices. She has recently accepted the appointment as the inaugural Director, Indigenous Arts at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre.  Denise is Ojibwe-Anishinaabe (Lake Superior) and French, born and raised in the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, and is a member of the Batchewana First Nation with familial ties in Garden River First Nation.