The Road Forward, part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Friday, Feb. 6 and Saturday, Feb. 7 at 8 p.m. at the York Theatre, 639 Commercial Dr., Vancouver. Tonight's performance will include a post-performance talk. Tickets start at $19, visit tickets.thecultch.com. Info: pushfestival.ca.
A theatrical work premiering this weekend as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival is seeking to honour the enduring legacy of Aboriginal changemakers.
The Road Forward opened to a sold-out audience last night and is scheduled to continue its run tonight and tomorrow at Vancouver's York Theatre.
The multimedia Aboriginal blues and rock musical was inspired by the continued efforts of the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood of British Columbia, and its Native Voice newspaper.
"I think it's important to celebrate the victories and the investment to create change, to celebrate that because we don't often read about that, or we don't often get to hear about it," says The Road Forward's creator, Marie Clements, a Deep Cove resident. "I also think it's important to look at issues that we're still dealing with in a truthful way, a contemporary way."
The seeds were sown for the work when Clements, a Métis playwright who serves as co-artistic director of Red Diva Projects, first discovered the Native Voice. The publication was founded in Vancouver by First Nations activists back in the 1940s as a means of offering a platform for Aboriginal perspective, voice and stories from across the Americas, she says.
"It was just such a revelation to discover this newspaper. I had never known it existed. I was able to read articles from stories that hit on major events, Aboriginal history, Canadian history, American history," she says.
"I think I was just really overwhelmed by reading these newspaper articles.I felt kind of saddened that I really didn't know our heroes. I was really moved by that and also very inspired by them and the grace that they showed and the kind of patience and civilness that they gave us to witness and yet I didn't know we had these heroes in our midst," she adds.
In the leadup to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Clements was commissioned by the 2010 Cultural Olympiad to present the closing performance of the Aboriginal Pavilion. She turned to Connecticut-based singer and composer Jennifer Kreisberg, someone she's collaborated with a number of times over the years, including on the play The Unnatural and Accidental Women. "When I was given the commission she was someone I was very interested in working with because of how she creates and what she creates," says Clements.
Together, they developed a 10-minute piece in tribute to the Aboriginal women murdered or vanished on the Highway of Tears and in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. After presenting the work during the 2010 Olympics, the duo decided to develop a full-length theatrical piece, with their initial version serving as the title song.
They did a workshop production of The Road Forward at a previous year's PuSh festival and are excited for the work's official premiere this week. It's being presented by the festival, The Cultch and Touchstone Theatre, and is a production by Red Diva Projects in association with Visceral Visions. Clements is writer, director and producer, and Kreisberg is lead composer and musical director in addition to serving as a featured performer.
The work is unique in its format, best described as a "theatrical concert," says Clements.
"I like to think we're finding our own form and it's in between both those things. So in that way, we hope it's original and innovative and able to carry stories and messages," she says.
The Road Forward is showcasing an array of artists, Michelle St. John, Cheri Maracle, Wayne Lavallee, Murray Porter, Ostwelve and Valerie Sing Turner to name a few, encouraged to bring their respective sound and style to the stage.
The narrative is modelled on the experience of reading a newspaper: After opening a copy, one's eyes are attracted to a particular headline and story, and then another, and another.
"It's an open narrative that way, it is really giving the experience of going in on a story," says Clements. Each of the featured songs have a root in a true tale, in most cases something she read about in the Native Voice.
"That's what inspired the piece was looking at these stories and headlines and then creating what I'm calling story songs," she says.
"There's a piece called "Indian Man" and it basically takes a look at what it meant to be an Indian man back in the day and who the leaders were of the time and how they had to bolster themselves up to be able to fight for early treaty rights and early Aboriginal rights and human rights. There's another called "This Is How It Goes" and it looks at a story of a native woman coming to the city to build a better life for herself and for her kids. It mirrors the experience of a lot of native women who came from their reserves or from up north to go into the city to try to get an education or try to get a job," she adds.
By sharing these stories, Clements hopes to recognize the history of Aboriginal people and a long tradition of coming together and, through a collective voice, calling for positive change.
"Definitely we wanted to honour those who had come before and created change for the better but we also wanted to recognize major issues that haven't been resolved and of course this gets us into the murdered missing women, whether it's Highway of Tears or Downtown Eastside or whether it's just nationally, the kind of crisis that we're still in," says Clements.
It's important to realize that today's efforts by those calling for change are a continuation of those from the past, undertaken by those who endeavoured to fight the good fight.
"I'm hoping that people come away understanding that there were game changers before our ancestors and grandparents and parents and that this is an Aboriginal legacy," she says.
Clements is also scheduled to appear in a free dialogue event, In Conversation with Marie Clements and Emily Johnson, today at 10:30 a.m. at the York Theatre, as part of the PuSh festival, which wraps up Sunday.
