Dancers of Damelahamid full-length work Raven Mom will hit Toronto’s Fleck Dance Theatre on November 29. The efficiency is a part of a cross nation tour supported by a lot of dance presenters.
Raven Mom celebrates the affect of robust matriarchs throughout the generations, and is carried out to stay authentic music and vocals. Particularly, it’s an homage to the late Elder Margaret Harris, who co-founded Dancers of Damelahamid in 1967.
She can be mom to the corporate’s Government & Creative Director Margaret Grenier. The performers embrace Margaret Grenier, and Harris’s grandchildren Nigel Baker-Grenier and Raven Grenier, in addition to Margaret’s niece Tobie Wick and daughter-in-law Rebecca Baker-Grenier.
We spoke with Margaret Grenier concerning the custom in addition to Raven Mom. First, somewhat obligatory background.
The Potlatch Ban
Many Canadians stay unaware of the extent of the means by which the Canadian authorities tried to erase Indigenous tradition.
Within the late nineteenth century, what was referred to as the anti-potlatch proclamation went into impact, changing into regulation on January 1, 1885. It outlawed the celebration of the potlatch ceremony, and particularly dance. For the Indigenous folks of North America’s Pacific Northwest coastal area, the potlatch ceremony was a cornerstone of not solely their tradition, however their society itself, expressed in ceremonial type.
The regulation was in power for greater than six many years, many Indigenous folks had been charged and imprisoned for the offence of performing conventional dance. The Potlatch Ban was in impact till 1951.
These cultural practices, nonetheless, continued and survived in secret inside Indigenous communities.
Elder Harris
Elder Harris (1931-2020) was a Cree Elder. Initially from Northern Manitoba, she would spend most of her life on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. She skilled along with her mother-in-law, Gitxsan Matriarch Irene Harris, and have become decided to revitalize and train Indigenous cultural observe, the place music, dance, storytelling and regalia making are an integral a part of heritage.
In co-founding Dancers of Damelahamid, and instructing future generations, she had a huge effect on the revitalization of Indigenous dance alongside the entire Northwest Coast. A part of the theme of Raven Mom is underscoring the pivotal function girls have performed by way of preserving cultural data, together with tune, dance, tales, and regalia making.
As we speak, due to the legacy of Harris and others, historically based mostly cultural practices are seeing a resurgence.
Government & Creative Director Margaret Grenier: The Interview
Dance kinds an integral a part of Gitksan tradition, and that of different West Coast First Nations.
“That’s one thing that encompasses much more for us in our observe. We’ve used dance to hold our oral historical past ahead all through time. Primarily, dance has informed the tales, going again to our origin tales, important occasions in our historical past,” explains Margaret Grenier.
“The best way I’d describe dance is that’s carries the ancestral data that we use to ascertain our values or the best way stay and carry ourselves in our world.”
It goes past the thought of making artwork or efficiency; it’s a necessary a part of identification. The Potlatch Ban turned cultural observe into an underground act of resistance.
“The Potlatch ban, for us, in our households, it lasted the vast majority of the lifetime of my grandmother,” she factors out, noting that her personal grandmother, who was born in Eighties, was already an elder when it was lastly rescinded within the Nineteen Fifties.
Her mom Margaret Harris would develop into an elder in her personal proper.
“She skilled folks, after which they carried it on to verify it could be revitalized, that we might have the flexibility to hold it ahead right this moment.”
The dance as it’s practiced right this moment retains the identical kinds because the custom, however has additionally developed. As a manner of preserving historical past, it now additionally tells the story of what occurred throughout the Potlatch Ban, and its results that stretch to right this moment.
“We add to that narrative with the voices of right this moment,” she says. As we speak’s story features a narrative of resurgence, and of building their very own area inside the colonial context. “That does develop into a part of our story as effectively.”
The pandemic added a give attention to the necessity for well being and wellness, and the isolation of younger folks particularly throughout the lockdowns. Dance, music, and storytelling join the neighborhood the place the function of matriarch is a vital one.
“It ties into what we’re saying about it being a observe,” Grenier explains, “the care that comes with it, as a result of it does come from girls, moms and grandmothers, they’re doing it for his or her kids too. It’s not a simple weight to hold.”
The generations who’ve taken on the duty of rebuilding have a vital activity. “It has been performed with such love, such imaginative and prescient, and hope for change.” That hope is for an impetus that strikes in the direction of one thing that’s much less fragile. “For previous generations, it actually was on the shoulders of people,” she notes. Reaching extra folks, and creating and increasing the attain of a vibrant and dwelling tradition is the purpose, the place a community and established establishments can take the weigh off the shoulders of people.
“It’s extra than simply the gentleness that we would affiliate with girls, it’s actually that deep power that’s wanted to do the work,” she says. “That’s one thing very particular that girls actually carry — the capability to persevere […] to carry on to the hope.”
Raven Mom
“Margaret Harris, she was very outstanding,” says Margaret Grenier. She describes a girl who not solely labored tirelessly for her circle of relatives, however who created a house that was all the time open for others. She remembers her fostering dozens of kids through the years, and dealing with troubled girls within the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. “She did a lot for others. Numerous it was by cultural teachings, instructing tune and dance.” Harris created neighborhood by these practices.
To commemorate her, it needed to be one thing particular. “We wished to do a piece that basically spoke to what she left us, not simply by way of artwork, however what she taught us by her generosity, her dedication to others.”
The teachings she realized from her mom had been many. “We’d like to have the ability to see as people, what we will do. What might appear like an excessive amount of, actually isn’t.”
Raven Mom unfolds in a collection of vignettes that inform a narrative, mixing motion, tune, music, regalia, masks, and sculptures of the Gitxsan folks. Historically, the Raven crest, which seems in numerous kinds all through the piece, denotes transformation, and it embodies the lineage of cultural teachings.
The manufacturing is about to authentic music and stay vocals by Raven Grenier, in collaboration with composer Ted Hamilton, and incorporates multimedia projections by Indigenous artist Andy Moro.
Northwest Coast artists David A. Boxley, David R. Boxley, Jim Charlie, Raven Grenier, Kandi McGilton, and Dylan Sanidad contributed their work to the manufacturing, together with a Raven transformation masks that opens to disclose a collection of smaller human faces, interconnected, inside. Every of the smaller masks represents a era of daughters who’ve been impressed by their matriarch. Designer Rebecca Baker-Grenier crafted a raven cloak fabricated from feathers. The work represents a standard Gitxsan piece that has not been utilized in dance efficiency for a lot of generations.
Making a multimedia piece got here naturally. “I feel that in itself is in some ways is reflective of our observe,” Grenier says. “With the intention to have dance, we want tune,” she says.
“That’s what our mom actually instilled in us, was, that so as to do the observe, you possibly can’t go away any of it behind.”
She says that the response has been overwhelmingly optimistic, in tune with the best way the work was conceived. “Work that’s created with that intention, can be felt by the individuals who see the work.”
- There can be two performances of Dancers of Damelahamid’s full-length multimedia work Raven Mom for its Toronto premiere on November 29 at Harbourfront Centre’s Fleck Dance Theatre. Discover extra particulars and tickets [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
