Episode 21 - Arts Everywhere - Honouring the Past and Cultivating Inclusivity in the Arts with Floyd Favel

 Floyd Favel, is a culture worker from the Poundmaker Cree Nation, whose expertise in the arts is as profound as the heritage he carries. Floyd takes us on a journey from the rich oral traditions of his childhood to his expansive work as an artist, and how these experiences shaped his mission to weave indigenous perspectives into the very fabric of the arts.

This episode is a profound exploration of respect, remembrance, and the enduring power of cultural legacies in shaping our world, and the indigenous voices being squelched by settler traditions in the arts.  Tawaw.

Links related to this episode:

https://www.saskartsalliance.ca/facts/floyd-favel-starr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Grotowski
https://indigenoustourism.ca/events/poundmaker-indigenous-performance-festival/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1911668649074195/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/pipe-bag-returns-to-community-1.6964869
https://www.saskculture.ca/events/1979

“Ashes to Embers”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQvlqBCmHs

Thank you to SaskCulture, SKArts, and Sask Lotteries for your generous support.

Visit our website: https://www.saskartsalliance.ca
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STARTING SEASON 2, THEME MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Patrick Moon Bird: https://linktr.ee/PatrickMoonBird
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickMoonBirdMusic/

Kevin Power: http://www.kevinpower.net/ The Saskscapes Podcast: https://saskscapes.buzzsprout.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Your collective voice for the arts across Saskatchewan. This is Arts Everywhere. The Saskatchewan Arts Alliance podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:26

So whether or not you believe in manifesting your dreams, it's up to you. But one thing I believe is true Opportunity steps up to meet you in the moment when you are ready. Whether you've seized that moment is entirely up to you. This episode's guest is Floyd Favel, and I dare say that, as each opportunity has presented itself in his life, he has embraced it. Floyd is from Poundmaker Cree Nation, near Cutknife, Saskatchewan. So how does Floyd find himself studying and eventually teaching in Toronto, in Denmark, in Italy, in Poland, in Sweden, in Colombia, and there's more to come. It's a long way from Poundmaker Cree Nation. Well, he did so because he met opportunity head on.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Now, floyd's artistic talents are numerous, but he humbly describes himself as a culture worker, and this is his story. It's the story of an artist and it's a story of inclusivity. And Floyd's words might make you feel uncomfortable at times, but the truth he speaks needs to be said and it needs to be heard. And they are all the more powerful because they come from Floyd's experience. Floyd speaks his truth, and his truth speaks of a desire for everyone in the arts to feel included. In Cree, floyd simply says Tawaw, come in, you are welcome here, there is room. So Tawaw. This is Floyd Fable's story.

Speaker 3: 2:30

Well, thanks for taking the time to chat today, floyd.

Speaker 4: 2:32

Oh, my pleasure.

Speaker 3: 2:33

Yeah, it's really nice, it's been a while.

Speaker 4: 2:37

Yes, yes, a year at least.

Speaker 3: 2:38

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's yeah, and I was thinking back the last time we were chatting and maybe I was going to be able to come out and do some work with you again. But it's been a while now that we've known each other, maybe three years or something like that, In the middle of the pandemic, I think it was.

Speaker 4: 2:53

Pandemic, when our festival on Poundmaker, when we went virtual. Yeah, yeah, that's when I reached out.

Speaker 3: 2:59

Yeah, it was great. So maybe just for to get going here, maybe if you just want to take a couple of minutes and introduce yourself and talk about who you are and what you do.

Speaker 4: 3:10

Okay, my name is Floyd Fable. I'm from the Poundmaker Indian Reserve here in Saskatchewan. I work in a theater, video writing researcher, playwright, professor and museum curator, but in short, I always just say a culture worker, yeah, and based in my community of Poundmaker and working from there, and so that's a bit about me.

Speaker 3: 3:51

Yeah, one of the things I was interested to ask you about is how did you, how did you get started in culture, in the arts, how did that? How did that start for you?

Speaker 4: 4:05

Through as a boy, listening to the oral stories of my parents, neighbors, family members, just through their daily conversations. They would mention history events and because I understood Kriya, I grew up speaking Kriya. It always intrigued me like different things that happened. So my imagination was already stirred back in the day just from listening, from just being around. I'd listened to what they said and you know, like oral history, when you learn oral history as a boy, they don't sit you down and teach you, you just pick it up. And that's what I did. I picked it up and so by the time I was a teenager, I had a good understanding of the basic understanding of family and community history. And that was the first, that was the beginning. And then thereafter, books, the love of reading, public libraries, school libraries. That's what brought me into the arts.

Speaker 3: 5:22

Yeah, yeah, it's, I think, and so it's something that you were kind of drawn to from the time you were a child.

Speaker 4: 5:33

Yes, already listening and fascinated.

Speaker 3: 5:36

Yeah. So what was your journey like then? Because I know a little bit about some of the things you've done, but I don't know the whole kind of story. It's my understanding that you spent some time studying in Europe. Is that correct?

Speaker 4: 5:52

Yes, it is. I went to somehow, through my interest in reading culture, art in general. I fell into a theater when I was about 18, 19 in Saskatoon, and this led me to the Native Theater School in Toronto in the summer of when I was 19. And from there it led me into Denmark, a school for Inuit and Sami people in based in Denmark, and the following year and a few years later it led me to work with a Polish theater master His name was Grotowski in Italy. So it was, I guess, by random and by coincidence. I ended up in hindsight like working with some of the greatest people in theater history, you could say, but at that time I didn't know. I was just going along with my interests and the flow.

Speaker 3: 7:19

It's a pretty amazing experience to be a part of and then look back and be able to think what a chance it was.

Speaker 4: 7:28

Yes, yes, yes, I think about it and I'm grateful for that. But after, while I was in it, I realized oh okay, I see who he is and what the situation is, and so I counted myself as very lucky.

Speaker 3: 7:46

Yeah, for sure, and so have you kind of just been active in theater throughout your life or kind of ebbed and flowed.

Speaker 4: 7:57

Yeah, I would say I have been very active in it because when I was going to school I had the idea of, because I was introduced to European performance methods, I had the idea of developing my own methods based on indigenous worldviews. So I would say everything I've done since then has led to my present condition, my present ideas and my writings. My writings reflect on the ideas and my fear. My theories have developed to the point where I'm spending the next two months in Europe teaching and talking and having workshops.

Speaker 3: 9:01

Oh, amazing. And where are you headed to?

Speaker 4: 9:04

I'm going to Malta in the Mediterranean, and then Poland and then Sweden.

Speaker 3: 9:12

Very cool.

Speaker 4: 9:13

Oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 9:16

So one of the things I was hoping to talk about is the cultural festival that you have every summer annually.

Speaker 4: 9:25

Yeah, every summer.

Speaker 3: 9:27

On Out at Poundmaker at the cultural site. That was kind of my first intro into some of the work you do and I've been out a couple of times now and it's wonderful and I was wondering maybe if you could talk a little bit about how that got going and just kind of what it is, because I think people definitely know about it, but it'd be nice to talk a little bit more about it and bring some awareness to it. It's a great event.

Speaker 4: 9:54

Okay, as theoretical ideas developed on indigenous performance, I came to the premise that indigenous performance is an artistic genre and not one defined or limited by colonial identities. I make a provocative statement when, deliberately, when I say indigenous identity as a colonial category in theater is obsolete, if not dead category, I'm not talking about in general, like politically, or any other artistic genre, like painting or music. Yeah, I'm talking specifically about performance. Okay, right so. So, based on that, I wanted to create a festival that took place on Indigenous lands within our own Indigenous structures, but that was multicultural, that invited all people and included all people through its method. An Indigenous performance method must include all people and its methods are derived from this Turtle Island. Its methods are derived from Indigenous source, bases, culture and rituals. That's where it's derived from, but it includes all people Other than the contemporary. The opposite is Canadian theatre in general, which doesn't include Indigenous people or BIPOC people. Unless you can pass, unless you look white and sound white, you can pass, but if not, then you are denied a career in this country. And there are so many people, talented people, black, brown, transgender, whomever does not fit the standard white male categories that art is still driven by. They do not fit that category, so they are denied a career opportunity, and so I wanted to create a festival that bypassed these limiting rules. So that's what I do, and it's based in my home, in my land, in structures I built that are derived from Indigenous worldview.

Speaker 4: 12:58

Indigenous architecture is a reflection of an Indigenous worldview and brain and outlook, so that was its starting point. I know it sounds heavy, but so we did things like adaptation of Ankovania by Chakoff Euripides. We did adaptation of the Chosen Women, one of his better known dramas. The reason was because we are bridging the European theater into Indigenous worldview, so that's why I took these European classics and plant them into our worldview. That's its premise. This is why I did adaptations, and these performances were multicultural. They were not just Indigenous performers. I included everybody, and I believe that is the way the theater in this country must go, and I think that will only benefit the theater in general. So that's a bit about it.

Speaker 3: 14:15

I can't help but think, just as we're talking and you're talking about kind of the premise of the adaptations of the pieces it immediately made me think of. I had the chance in Calgary one time at the Glenbow to see the large scale Kent Monkman paintings and that's just really when you were talking about the work that you're doing. That kind of brought those images to mind in maybe a visual format where he's taking the kind of European hyper realistic portraiture style paintings and bringing an Indigenous worldview into those paintings. So I don't know if anybody, if you've made that comparison or anybody has, but that's immediately kind of what came into my mind a little bit. It's yeah.

Speaker 4: 15:09

Well, Kent is a good friend of mine. Okay, and a good supporter of mine and I've contributed to his recent books as a Cree translator, and we did talk well, when we were younger, we did talk a lot about this.

Speaker 4: 15:24

Yeah, and so that's kind of cool this premise, and so I've seen his work evolve over the decades, yeah, so where it is now and it keeps evolving, and I keep in contact with him and we're friends. He's taken part in my festival online and I guess that was his premise as well. I'm not saying we have the same premise. Yeah, I can understand what he's doing and I. It's just like in European. The good thing about European classicism paintings is, I always noticed. For me, I knew Kent was a good artist. When I seen how he painted hands, yeah, or drew hands, yeah, I thought, oh, anatomy, okay, notice, he studied the anatomy, just like Da Vinci.

Speaker 3: 16:17

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 4: 16:17

Yeah, and so I was immediately interested because I could see he was a classicist in the European sense. Yeah, in the same way, in the theater, I learned European classicism as well, like the European theater methods, techniques, text, performances Because I believe you're going to work in the theater, regardless who you are, what you are. You should learn your profession as well as you can, even from its source basis, like European, the Greek, because the Greek dramas, the Roman spectacles, from there, the Japanese, no theater, chinese theater, indonesian. You should learn all those, have an understanding of all those methods and techniques in order to help you develop your own if it's indigenous.

Speaker 3: 17:22

Right.

Speaker 4: 17:23

Same with painting yeah, Learn all those styles as you develop your own style. Yeah, it's impossible to come out to create change or innovation without that broad understanding and broad knowledge. Yeah, I feel now, looking back over the years, I think I'm glad I did that because I wanted to know everything. Yeah, Same with Kent when I seen his painting, I seen his studying.

Speaker 3: 17:56

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 17:58

Like, unlike other artists, like I used to see him study and paint Friday nights, Saturday nights. Yeah, yeah, you know, people think sometimes there's a false impression. Artists don't really work. Yeah. But I see them put in the work. Yeah, same way I put in the work.

Speaker 3: 18:14

Yeah, yeah, I often thought, and I thought this since, having done art school and at the U of R, there was a really strong art history component, Mm-hmm and while I was in it I just kind of was like, oh, another art history class which I always ended up really enjoying them and they were really usually quite specific in different things. But after you know, kind of again looking back type thing as I've gone through, I really thought, oh, I'm really glad I learned that Mm-hmm, yes, yeah, and you kind of see different things pop up here and there in pop culture if I'm watching a documentary or different and I'm like, oh, I learned about that. Yeah, it's really interesting.

Speaker 4: 18:56

I think, as you make your own way, it's good to have studied. Yeah, as you'll find and make your own way.

Speaker 3: 19:04

Yeah. So, A bit of a shift in topic, but I you recently traveled to Columbia. Yes, yeah, I wanted to ask you about your that trip and what you were working on there.

Speaker 4: 19:20

I went. I was at the invitation of the Algonquin actress and director, emily Monet, whom I've collaborated with in the past on through a podcast and just as a, also as a friend and colleague and and dialogues and discussions, and so she invited me to join her theater process in the Amazon.

Speaker 3: 19:52

Wow.

Speaker 4: 19:53

So I went there as she met with the Inga people of the Amazon in the Putamaio area, which is like a remote Amazonian area of Columbia, just on the edge of the greater Amazon jungle, okay and and so that process was how you could say I guess we're all at the same place in in life, in life history for our tribes, which is we're trying to retain, recover, make known disappearing tribal histories and culture through the medium of performance and art. So that's, that was the common base, that's so, that's what I appreciated. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:50

No, what? Yeah, what was it? What was it like? I'm just I don't know, even know if this will make it into the podcast, but I'm just kind of curious from a personal perspective. What was it like to be traveling there?

Speaker 4: 21:03

and oh yes, well, as I entered the Amazon, first of all it's it's not as modern as we are here. The roads are very rough, there is, highways, of course, narrow. We went by four by four Toyota trucks, kind of like these Explorer type vehicles with our luggage, and boats okay, amazonian boats with power motors to go up the Amazon and different parts in our explorations on the performance. And the people live many times off grid, if on grid, very self-sufficient, with food right with their gardens, herbs, animals very self-sufficient, and people riding horseback on roads, walking motorbikes.

Speaker 4: 22:03

Everybody has a motorbike, so in that way I guess I got to see the glimpse of well, when I went to school in Italy it was like that people walked bicycle, caught trains. It's actually in the short 20s, in the last 20, 30 years in this country, canada, that it's become so modern. It's always a vehicle or there's no trains here. Yeah so, but I grew I personally grew up on the reserve in a pre-technological era with stows and for a time there are no electricity, horses, water from the creek we still drank from the creek. So going back, going to the Amazon and seeing that lifestyle was, it was beautiful to see reconnect with that part myself again, and that's what I try to recreate in my community. I live off-grid, my festival is off-grid, it's in nature, and because I feel that's the direction to go, yeah, within our own structures, our own cultures and land-based, rather than there's a trend nowadays with indigenous people.

Speaker 4: 23:34

Artists to feel equal, they must overtake a colonial institution and sit in a big studio, a big office, a hotel like in Banff or the Nash Art Center, to feel equal. They feel they must do that. But if you read colonization experts like Franz Fanot. That's a classic symptom of a colonized person In order to feel equal, occupy the chair of the colonizer. So I feel that's a direction we're going to. We're going. I guess we haven't read Fanot enough to understand we are following the classic example of colonized people wanting to be their own masters by sitting in the master's chair. That's what we're doing in the Nash Art Center and at the Banff Center to feel equal.

Speaker 4: 24:29

And I myself, I can create in a public space. Yeah. That everybody goes to there's. They're like walk and try, you know. So that's a public space. Yeah, I don't know, really don't know how you can go feel creative, to go to some place like that.

Speaker 3: 24:49

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 24:50

I think you are creative in your own workspace, your own studio. Performance people like cultural people, like a traditional culturalist, you must have your own studio, in the same way that if you're a traditional practitioner, you have your own ceremonial space, your own sweat lodge, your own hogan for ceremonies and gatherings and storytelling.

Speaker 3: 25:17

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 25:18

You have your own studios. So in the same with, I think, in the theater arts, you should have your own studio in your own space. You don't have to go to a white man's space.

Speaker 3: 25:33

Yeah, I've been thinking about studios a little bit. My studio right now, the permaking studio that I use, is all packed up because we're in the transition of moving and, even though I hadn't maybe used the space as much as I had wanted to over the last you know little, while now that it's packed up and inaccessible, I find I'm longing for it more so hopefully yeah, there's something to be said for, I think, having a dedicated space there for artists of any type.

Speaker 4: 26:10

Yeah, yeah, that's a reflection of yourself, and theater is a public art. You must include all people, just like ceremonies, you must include all people, so you must create a big enough spaces to include people.

Speaker 3: 26:28

You have created some really interesting and complex structures, and I know you kind of talked a little bit about it in the beginning. But I was wondering maybe, if you could talk a little bit more about, kind of, some of the buildings and structures that you've created on your site.

Speaker 4: 26:48

Well, there's a few main ones. The most complicated one is it's a 38 foot by 38 foot circular type structure, 12 sides, and it's based on Mandan or Hidatsa earth lodge. So, but without the earth, I just use canvas and a shingles roof. And the 12 poles represent, because within Kree architecture, all the numbers. They have to make sense You've got to be able to tell a story about the numbers you're using.

Speaker 4: 27:33

So my 12 poles represent our Kree worldview, the four center poles that hold up everything that the weight is balanced is how the weight bearers, those four are also, within our Kree worldview, the four powers of the universe and that sit in the center of the sky, then the earth, then the roof, and the roof have a cross that represents the morning star, and so it's a big public space. It can hold many people, maybe 50 people, comfortably, and it's based on the land there, by a sacred lake, so the land there. So after performances we can share by a fire, have tea or ceremony after performances, other than because I attended indigenous performance events in the cities and I thought, well, we're in first of all, we're in a white man's space. After performances everybody goes out to dance or drink.

Speaker 4: 28:59

And I thought how different are we from the colonizer if we're imitating them? So I wanted to do a complete opposite, and so that's what I do. So first space, and then the second space is an extended teepee Inu, people call it sabutha wan. Same in Kree, we call it sabutha wan, which is two teepees joined together by a center pole. So it creates a big space up to like 36 feet long, 20 wide, and it can fit lots of people. But I use that as a stage. I open up one side that faces the audience and that's the. They perform from within, that sabutha wan, and the audience is sitting outside and it's on a wooden floor. And then the third space is a teepee with a clay floor and that one is the size of a regular teepee, 28 feet across, and that one is more for smaller, intimate performances. And then at the museum on Palmacre I have a steel teepee that's 34 feet across and with a red clay concrete, red concrete. And that one is also a storytelling cultural space and it's faced south. A ceremony can take place there, a Kree ceremony because of its words faced. And so all of my spaces, performance can take place, but also a ceremony can take place and that's how, because I conceive of the festival as an experiment in performance ceremony and culture. And then also we use.

Speaker 4: 30:52

We've been reviving the lost language, the Plains Indian Sign Language. It's been lost all but almost lost in this province, maybe this country, and so I bring up a sign language expert from Montana. He's a Crow Indian, lanny, real Bird, and so we've been having for the past four years sign language workshops and we teach, we're reviving sign language. That's the best method to teach spoken Kree as well. Sign is indigenous language. It's the same signs for any indigenous language. So like good in Kree, same sign washtey in Lakota, washtey no Nakoda. And so same sign nizoh in Dene, and so it's the same sign.

Speaker 4: 31:46

It's the best way to learn your language because in our workshops you can learn up to 40 to 100 words and signs within four days. So can you imagine if you took part in five you'll learn 200. And that's enough to converse, because actually we don't use a lot of words when we converse in general people. So a language may have 30,000 words but we only use about 100 to 200 words daily. So that's how much you need in Plains Indian Sign Language and you can actually you learn it. I had a class in University of Carlton last year. All the students did their final presentations and sign.

Speaker 3: 32:30

Wow.

Speaker 4: 32:32

So and we watched and we all understood and they all did sign. So I told the students you guys did your presentation in an indigenous language completely.

Speaker 3: 32:42

Wow.

Speaker 4: 32:42

So that's what I think is a good method, so that's one of the things we do within those spaces.

Speaker 3: 32:48

Yeah, that's, yeah, really, really interesting and I've been kind of curious to come. I'd like to. Maybe, if it comes up this summer, I'd definitely like to come and I know Carmen would like to come out as well, because we know a little bit of sign language, because, like ASL, not you know, but it's still a sign language and I think it would be really interesting, especially if you're saying if it makes it, if you're able to learn an indigenous language, kind of, while you're learning sign, you're learning an indigenous language.

Speaker 4: 33:28

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:29

Yeah, we'll definitely keep on the.

Speaker 4: 33:31

Well, you're welcome to come July 9th to 11th Okay, three days this week this year. Okay, at the lake, and then afterwards afternoons and evenings as performances, yeah, and then we'll back to class the next morning. So, yes, everybody's welcome. I open it to everybody.

Speaker 3: 33:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know we'll be able to put some links to a few different things in the notes and stuff. But yeah, people who are interested in what you're doing. You touched on the museum and. I'm kind of interested to hear for the people listening to hear a little bit about the museum, because I think you're doing something pretty unique there as well.

Speaker 4: 34:17

Well, we started, the museum had been abandoned on Pornmaker and then one of the counts then counselors, milton Titusus. He asked me I was just a band member if I would be able to revive it and if I thought the structure, the museum itself, was salvageable. So we went there and we thought, yeah, we could save the structure. It had a big hole in the roof, doors were open and the malls in and out.

Speaker 3: 34:48

Well, I didn't know that part of it.

Speaker 4: 34:50

So whatever objects, paint photos were there were scattered on the ground, so it had been abandoned. So within a few months, by spring and spring time it was also there was a brush all around the battle site, so we chopped it all by hand with axes and then we cleaned up the place. Counselor Brandon Favell came in, fixed the roof by the spring of 2017, we're up and running and I applied for a grant to SAS culture and so we got 5,000. Since then, they've been a big supporter of SAS culture. So we began the process of telling our people's history and culture and we've expanded to include the Creep people in the area not just our community, but Creep people within our area, into the province, into our national Creep history, and we've been, for example, repatriation I myself I don't go out repatriating objects because a lot of the objects that come from our community, especially those from Chief Palmacre, he gave them to people.

Speaker 4: 36:21

You can't repatriate objects that were given. I noticed people repatriating things and I thought, well, you got to research its history if they were given by that chief, because people gave away things as just your friendship and so, or later, when that person was gone, sold them. You could say, sold them under duress, those ones you can repatriate. So there's an ethics to repatriation that has to be considered. So I myself I don't go out repatriating because most of the objects of Chief Palmacre he freely gave them, but some were sold by his descendants under duress you could repatriate them. So rather than repatriating I get donated objects. So for us there this is much better than we're not in an adversarial position.

Speaker 4: 37:45

The reputation of our museum makes it a safe place to donate back Objects in people's hands for two generations. Those are the kind of objects we've been getting. Chief Palmacre's pipe bag was given to me by people who had it that he had given. His tomahawk he made while he was imprisoned. He gave it to a jail guard. The great grandson of the jail guard gave it to me in Toronto a couple years ago the pipe bag same thing.

Speaker 4: 38:24

Palmacre gave it to a chaplain and a chaplain great grand nephew gave it back. So I house them at the museum. Another objects they get given we have Henry Bodgery paintings. Those are given. I have an Eagle staff made in 1860s. Last shown in a photo in 1935, celebrating the 50 year battle of Cut and I Hell 1885. You can see that staff there. This was donated back. I have them there at the museum. Unfortunately we have a good security force too on Palmacre so there's regular patrols and the security uses it as one of their bases. So we have good security there and good band support chief and council. We have a good building and we're one of the very few land indigenous museums located in the community in this country maybe.

Speaker 4: 39:38

I was wondering, I was actually gonna ask you that I don't know of any except Six Nations has Pauline Johnson Museum. That's all I know. I'm sure there's many others, but as far as I know in this province, so are the only ones.

Speaker 3: 39:58

Is it open regularly or is it by appointment kind of thing?

Speaker 4: 40:02

There's always somebody there and I think, by virtue of us having a museum that shows that the community is fully behind, leaving behind our oral history, pushing it forward. A lot of the history we tell at our museum is not written about in books. It's been told to me, told to us, and I share that when I, when people come to the museum, you can never get it in a book. What we're gonna tell you and what we're gonna share with you. That's where we do our sign language workshops, okay, yeah, and then that's where the steel teepee is Right. And there's camping. There's RV camping facilities there.

Speaker 3: 40:54

Okay, One other thing I wanted. The last thing I wanted to make sure I touched on with you is some of the work you're doing right now and the film you've made, Ashes to Embers.

Speaker 4: 41:07

Yes, we made a film three years ago based on the fire of the Delmas residential school of 1948, where many of our parents went, including my late father. He was present that night and so we wanted to tell that story back then and it's still relevant today. We still show it regularly. In fact we had a gathering on Saturday, the last survivors of that school fire. They came to a screening at the Kutney Theater. You know they came by wheelchair, by walker, by cane and a couple of them by foot, you know, like able to stand, and they're all in late 80s. They came and that was an honor to see that and I was fortunate in life, I would say, to have witnessed that and something I will carry with me forever.

Speaker 4: 42:08

And then our next film is more in-depth on. We're talking to survivors or descendants of survivors who heard stories or witnessed burials of missing children, unmarked graves, so very topic-specific. And this is very different from anomalies, gpr anomalies. Anomaly could be anything. It could be a can. That's an anomaly that the GPR ground penetrating radar detects. And so we're going by oral histories of possible locations and in one of our ground searches with dogs we came upon positive confirmations of an area with the remains and I can say it now because we did issue a press release about that, so I can share that. It's not confidential and so that's what the next film is about. It's called the Good Fathers and there is a lot of. It is the oral testimony of people whose family member went to school there and never returned.

Speaker 4: 43:36

And no record of whatever happened. They didn't know, and still don't know, what happened to this person, their eldest sister and these are elders we're talking to or the grandchildren that their grandpa talked about, an older sister who never returned and never knew what happened to her. So we're talking to people like that, and these are just a handful of stories, but there are many. So because of our research, I would say you got to investigate every name that's listed in these school files to confirm their record, the written record that we find complete the opposite to the oral record. They never seen this person again.

Speaker 4: 44:28

But according to the written record they were discharged on such and such a date. So how does that work? So lies, you know we could also call this film the lies of the church, we could call it that. So that's, and you know, snc level. And they did a GPR search, volunteered three years ago. Two years ago I wasn't here, but it makes you question what their motivations were. I wonder if it was this for publicity, because they never. Their work was shoddy. Very unprofessional.

Speaker 4: 45:11

I wonder if it's because we're indigenous people, like it was shockingly bad their work and delayed and all that. So that's SNC level. I don't mind saying that People should be aware that, especially people involved in ground searches, they need to be done in a very ethical, professional manner, these ground searches.

Speaker 3: 45:34

It's important to be doing this kind of work, especially with elders and people who are getting older. I've thought about that quite a bit this last couple years with my own grandparents and not having, maybe, the level of understanding of my own history and not having, you know, not having had those important conversations with the elders and senior people in our lives. So to be able to do this work now and have some of those stories for younger people to hear and to learn from, it's important to document.

Speaker 4: 46:11

Yes, yes, document, that's any artist, indigenous or non-indigenous. The base of your art is your family and your community. That's what made you, that's the base of your art, and so it's good to connect with it. Everybody has an oral history, everybody in the world, and one of the features of any artist is they tend to have an interest in their genealogy and history. Yeah, that's true All across the board I thought well, it says something your interest.

Speaker 3: 46:54

Yeah, for sure, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to talk about, or anything you'd like to add? I think those were. You know I've yeah.

Speaker 4: 47:06

No, I think we touched on the main points. I just wanted to like just to keep it focused, keep it positive with the current things I'm working on and I'm going to Europe to present a lot of these ideas, theories, performance theories. I'll spend two months there and you know as much as Canada made obstacles to Indigenous people and to myself. Like to learn and study those obstacles were actually a plus, because then you learned how to circumvent them and to try to create an alternative colonial reality, an alternative to what was being, what was hard to overcome. And it was hard to overcome in my early years my accent, visible, indigenous appearance.

Speaker 4: 48:14

I was told by many theatre people when I was young oh, you're not going to find work in this country. When there's an Indigenous play, when there's a native play, it will let you know, basically closing the door to my face and saying only native plays will consider you. These were the Canadian theatre directors, artistic directors in this country. So I really have no relationship or interest in the Canadian theatre system because of the way they not only treated me but still treat anybody different from them. So I'm glad to be able to go work in Europe in freedom, away from this racist country.

Speaker 3: 49:03

Yeah, good you get to.

Speaker 4: 49:07

Yeah, I just want to say that I've got to be realistic.

Speaker 3: 49:10

No, for sure. I think it's important to say the truth, yeah so that's the way it has been.

Speaker 4: 49:18

I'm glad there's funding structures that can support alternative theories. I appreciate the funding from the different arts agencies. It's not their fault that people they fund have a rigid worldview. It's not their fault the funders. I'm glad the funders support alternative ideas and theories and I hope they keep doing that for especially not only Indigenous people but minority groups, any minority group.

Speaker 3: 49:53

Yeah, I have to say, in my work with the Arts Alliance and a lot of what I do and what we do, is being that kind of interagency connector, so I'm meeting with the funders all the time. I'm talking to artists, I'm talking to organizations. I will say, and I'll always take the opportunity to say, that we do have very good funders here in our province.

Speaker 4: 50:19

Yes, we do.

Speaker 3: 50:21

And that they are willing to look at things differently and to make changes. And Sasqart Sasqulture, creative Saskatchewan, I think we're in the lottery system. I think credit where credit is due. They are doing a good job.

Speaker 4: 50:37

Yes, I give them credit. Like I said, it's not their fault. Some of the people they fund hold on to outmoded world views and you know there's a lot of people, recent immigrants. They come from countries like Africa or Middle East and South America, any place, ukraine. They are artists and they have a.

Speaker 4: 51:05

I think there's. I hope they find space within our provinces, within our countries, Any disadvantaged artist who comes here, whether it's their sexual orientation or their color, their language, that there can be space for them. Tawau in Korea we say Tawau, there is space there is room and that was the basis of the treaties.

Speaker 4: 51:32

When the indigenous nations signed treaties, it was to welcome the visitors and give them space. That was the whole purpose of the treaties and I think that still exists, our mentality. So that's just. I just thought I'd mention that. Tawau, tawau to everybody. There is space, there is room.

Speaker 3: 51:57

We're in the initial discussion stage right now and planning stage between the Arts Alliance and Carfax ask to start a partnership to do some work around. It's going to be focused just on visual arts for the beginning, just to see how it goes, with the intention to widen it, broaden it out to other mediums and art forms eventually, but to talk about how we can make better connections in the art world for newcomer artists.

Speaker 4: 52:28

Yes, newcomer artists, and we have to not use the word settler In Korea, anybody in that we call. At that time there was just white people here. We call them kizuomnwok, our cousins. We didn't call them settlers. So this I always correct people. When I do workshops and teach Some people, they introduce themselves as a settler and I said wait a minute. I said for me, we don't have that word in our Kree language. We call them kizuomnwok, our relatives, kewakumagannwok, our relatives. So that's how I like to consider, that's how I want to call you guys.

Speaker 3: 53:09

I've definitely said I'm settler person.

Speaker 4: 53:14

But I always discourage people when they're involved in my workshops. We don't use that word in Kree, so I want to call your friends and relatives.

Speaker 3: 53:26

One last question, just kind of on that topic what's your opinion of land acknowledgments?

Speaker 4: 53:36

I think. Well, traditionally, when you go into any people's community or band or group, you always acknowledge the leaders of that community and where they are, who they are. You always say thank you for inviting me here or allowing me to come here. It's the same way when you travel across this country. You go to a different geographical area. You acknowledge the trees and the mountains, you give them a little offering, say thank you for allowing me to travel through this country, this land. I'm not from here. So same thing with land acknowledgments, same thing. This is the indigenous nations of this land. It's good to do that, it doesn't hurt. But at the same time you must remember treaties allowed people to be here. They're allowed to be here. So that was the basis of the treaty sharing. So in many ways, the land acknowledgments, they shouldn't be oppressive, but rather it's done in friendship and not to use the word secular. So I try dialogue with my indigenous peers and colleagues. I say you know what, if you speak Kree, we don't use that word. So that's my opinion on that.

Speaker 3: 55:01

I'm going to think on that. Thanks, floyd, really nice to talk with you, alright, thank?

Speaker 4: 55:06

you for allowing me to be on this program.

Speaker 3: 55:10

It's been great.

Speaker 4: 55:10

Alright, thank you.

Speaker 1: 55:40

I'm going to take out the show notes for links to Patrick's music. Thank you,