Native Earth Performing Arts Announces 2012-2013 'Treason Season'

TREASON SEASON at Native Earth Performing Arts 2012/13 brings the anniversary of a colonial war that we hereby decline to euphemistically celebrate. With respect and gratitude to those colleagues who endeavour to include the First Nations presence in their commemorative projects, Native Earth will forego the glorification of selected, sustained, government sanctioned acts of violence in honour of the undeclared wars our people continue to fight.

As we enter our thirtieth year of professional contemporary Indigenous performing arts, at long last, we arrive at home. The power of space is known all too well to our people, and it is with thoughtful care that we cast roots into the earth of Regent Park. The neighbourhood’s moniker, and its recently displaced peoples set into sharp relief how great a responsibility it is, as original caretakers of this land, to be entrusted with a venue. It is with this understanding that we set forth into a season that proclaims the everyday victories of our people.

For those who educate others about true diversity by living an extraordinary life, against the odds, we offer you Gwaandak Theatre’s multiple award-winning Café Daughter, inspired by Cree and Chinese-Canadian senate member Dr. Lillian E. Quan Dyck.

For all of you who fortify our international community by bridging continents with TransIndigenous cross-pollination, we present Chocolate Woman Collective’s critically-acclaimed Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way.

For those who practice our indomitable right to tell our stories, the twenty-fifth Weesageechak Begins to Dance festival brings a wealth of Indigenous artists, converging at this gathering place to collaborate on new works.

For those who seek to realize justice in spite of detrimental systemic structures that purport to do the same, we close out our season with the world premiere of Kenneth T. Williams’ Deserters, a cataclysmic anti-war opus celebrating the strength of our survivor spirits, starring Tamara Podemski.

Native Earth will host a project inspired by Thomas King’s A Short History of Indians in Canada for Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche The Lights are On, launched by Dr. King himself. Artists-in-residence Archer Pechawis (New media, inter-disciplinary) and Keith Barker (playwright) will keep our space breathing with ongoing creations and community engagements. Our new portal Tutlesback, in partnership with Seneca College, sends us out into the world on a global scale.

Visit our virtual home at www.turtlesback.ca. Our family rounds out with a soon-to-be announced Elder-in-residence who will ground us in this important new chapter. Native Earth Performing Arts invites you to join them in celebrating all nations, with we First Nations, at the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre, here in Toronto, Turtle Island, on this Native earth.