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 quite a lot of dance presenters.
Raven Mom celebrates the influence of robust matriarchs throughout the generations, and is carried out to reside 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 also be mom to the corporate’s Government & Creative Director Margaret Grenier. The performers embody 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 needed 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 known as the anti-potlatch proclamation went into impact, changing into legislation on January 1, 1885. It outlawed the celebration of the potlatch ceremony, and particularly dance. For the Indigenous individuals 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 kind.
The legislation was in pressure for greater than six many years, many Indigenous individuals had been charged and imprisoned for the offence of performing conventional dance. The Potlatch Ban was in impact till 1951.
These cultural practices, nevertheless, 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 educated together with her mother-in-law, Gitxsan Matriarch Irene Harris, and have become decided to revitalize and train Indigenous cultural follow, 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 information, together with music, dance, tales, and regalia making.
As we speak, due to the legacy of Harris and others, historically primarily based 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 follow. We’ve used dance to hold our oral historical past ahead all through time. Basically, dance has advised 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 information that we use to determine our values or the way in which reside and carry ourselves in our world.”
It goes past the concept of making artwork or efficiency; it’s a vital a part of id. The Potlatch Ban turned cultural follow into an underground act of resistance.
“The Potlatch ban, for us, in our households, it lasted nearly all of the lifetime of my grandmother,” she factors out, noting that her personal grandmother, who was born in Eighteen 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 educated individuals, after which they carried it on to ensure it might be revitalized, that we’d have the flexibility to hold it ahead in the present day.”
The dance as it’s practiced in the present day retains the identical kinds because the custom, however has additionally developed. As a means of preserving historical past, it now additionally tells the story of what occurred throughout the Potlatch Ban, and its results that reach to in the present day.
“We add to that narrative with the voices of in the present day,” she says. As we speak’s story features a narrative of resurgence, and of building their very own house inside the colonial context. “That does develop into a part of our story as properly.”
The pandemic added a deal with the necessity for well being and wellness, and the isolation of younger individuals specifically throughout the lockdowns. Dance, music, and storytelling join the group the place the function of matriarch is a vital one.
“It ties into what we’re saying about it being a follow,” 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 job. “It has been executed 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 individuals, and creating and increasing the attain of a vibrant and residing tradition is the aim, 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 exceptional,” says Margaret Grenier. She describes a lady who not solely labored tirelessly for her family, however who created a house that was at all times open for others. She recollects 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. Quite a lot of it was by way of cultural teachings, instructing music and dance.” Harris created group by way of 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 way of her generosity, her dedication to others.”
The teachings she realized from her mom had been many. “We want to have the ability to see as people, what we are able to do. What might seem like an excessive amount of, actually isn’t.”
Raven Mom unfolds in a sequence of vignettes that inform a narrative, mixing motion, music, music, regalia, masks, and sculptures of the Gitxsan individuals. Historically, the Raven crest, which seems in varied kinds all through the piece, denotes transformation, and it embodies the lineage of cultural teachings.
The manufacturing is about to authentic music and reside 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 sequence of smaller human faces, interconnected, inside. Every of the smaller masks represents a technology of daughters who’ve been impressed by their matriarch. Designer Rebecca Baker-Grenier crafted a raven cloak made 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 believe that in itself is in some ways is reflective of our follow,” Grenier says. “With a purpose to have dance, we’d like music,” she says.
“That’s what our mom actually instilled in us, was, that with a purpose to do the follow, you possibly can’t go away any of it behind.”
She says that the response has been overwhelmingly constructive, in tune with the way in which the work was conceived. “Work that’s created with that intention, can also be felt by the individuals who see the work.”
- There will likely 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.
