National Indigenous History Month
June 17, 2022
June is National Indigenous History Month – an opportunity to recognize and honour the history, heritage and diversity of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in Canada. The PuSh Festival is very fortunate to work alongside innovative Indigenous creators and performers in our community, and acknowledges that it operates on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. We are grateful to be gathered here and recognize our privileged place on these lands.
At our 2022 festival, we had the privilege of presenting Cliff Cardinal’s radical re-telling of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It to wide audience and critical acclaim. If you happened to miss our presentation at PuSh, Cardinal has continued to tour this production across Canada, and is scheduled to perform at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa January 2023 as well as a special return engagement in Toronto March 2023.
We also partnered with the Talking Stick Festival for a series of roundtable discussions at our Industry Series where panelists explored Indigenous artistic process, touring experiences, and modeling right relations. These roundtable discussions are all available on demand at Full Circle: First Nations Performance’s website.
“…When we think about artistic process…think about all the amazing gifts, the teachings, the languages that our body can bring with us into collaboration.”
Lindsay Lachance | Moderator, Indigenous Performing Arts Practices: Artistic Processes – What We Carry (With Us)
“Working as an indigenous artist…I’m less interested in what’s presented, but more and more how it connects to our communities, to each other, to our relations.”
Deneh’Cho Thompson | Witness, Indigenous Performing Arts Practices: Artistic Processes – What We Carry (With Us)
“When I think of right relations, I think of when we’re inviting voices outside of our own communities…[how] we can work together [to] right relations, because to me, it’s not an indigenous term.”
Reneltta Arluk | Panelist, Indigenous Performing Arts Protocols: Modeling Right Relations
Find more information about local Indigenous peoples and organizations to support below:
Full Circle First Nations Performance
First People’s Cultural Council