WEEK ONE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
1-3 pm CANOE JOURNEYS (Community Drop-in)
Aanmitaagzi presents, Canoe Journeys, an interactive multi-arts installation and performance, creating art in relation to the processes of building a birchbark canoe and the stories that travel alongside. Where do We Come From? Where Are We Going? What Carries Us? Community, audience and participants are invited to come and activate the space with movement, song, dance, poetry, or engage with the continuation of weaving roots, shaping bark, and mixing pitch.
Three days of making, September 11, 12, 13, will culminate in an interactive performative event on September 14, 2019.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
6-9 pm CANOE JOURNEYS (Community Drop-in Continued)
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
1-4 pm CANOE JOURNEYS (Community Drop-in Continued)
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
10 am-1 pm CANOE PROCESSION (National Arts Centre’s Indigenous Theatre Launch)
The official launch of Mòshkamo Indigenous Arts Festival takes place on Saturday, September 14th. Journeying from Patterson Creek, traveling under the Corktown Bridge, paddling past the NAC and docking at the Sappers Bridge docks, an Algonquin-led flotilla that includes members of the local Indigenous Arts community and representatives from the NAC’s new Indigenous Theatre department will take up paddles to usher in a new era at the NAC.
As part of this year’s 50th anniversary, the NAC is set to celebrate another new beginning: Indigenous Theatre’s first season. The first event of the season, Mòshkamo, centres the host Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation with a multi-National canoe voyage to 1 Elgin. Sixty Indigenous folks from across unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory will depart en masse down the historical waterway, claiming space for the NAC’s first all-Indigenous festival.
2-3 pm CANOE JOURNEYS (Interactive Performative Event)
8-9:30 pm LIGHT TIPI / YAHKÂSKWAN MÎKIWAHP / TIPI DE LUMIÈRE (Interactive Performance)
Facilitated by Artists Cheryl L’Hirondelle and Joseph Naytowhow, Light Tipi / Yahkâskwan Mîkiwahp / Tipi De Lumière is a community-based art activation that will bring light into the darkness of the night with storytelling, song, language and Indigenous teachings.
The Tipi “structure” is created by organizing the community to position and hold high-powered handheld lights that are illuminated by smouldering bundles of Prairie sage that are specially prepared for this performance. As Light Tipi becomes illuminated the circle sharing begins. The performing artists share storytelling, song, teachings and language to illuminate our minds and open our hearts, and connect us to the land and waters.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
9:30 am-3 pm MOTHER EARTH WATER WALK (Pipe & Water Ceremonies and Traditional Feast)
Join us to welcome the walkers who carried the sacred water for more than 800 km from Matane (Gaspésie) to Ottawa. This event includes a Pipe Ceremony, Water Ceremony, Traditional Offering Ceremony, Water Walker’s Sharing Circle, and Traditional Feast and performance installation by Zawa Niibi-Kwe | Olivia C. Davies (see below).
1-3 pm KICHISIPPI LOVE ~ AN HONORING
One woman celebrates the now-too-still waterway that once rushed with life by infusing the shoreline with small, solemn declarations of love and responding to the echoes of a blood-stained history buried deep in the riverbed
3-5 pm Sunday, September 22 LANDS, WATERS, AND STORIES (Walking Tour)
With Jaime Koebel of Indigenous Walks.
More info coming soon.
WEEK TWO
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
REFLECTIONS ON WATER (Community Drop-in Arts Workshop)
2-5 pm Reflections on Water is multidisciplinary drawing workshop to explore the physical, emotional and spiritual roles of water in our lives. Participants are welcome to drop in to create a unique artwork inspired by the molecular structure of water to bring home. Through intentional mark making, thought and time with the water, the workshop raises the question: can human consciousness affect the molecular structure of water? A soundscape will accompany the workshop session. Materials are provided. All levels welcome. Facilitated by artist Emily Rose Michaud.
6:30-9 pm FILMS ON NIBI (Film Screening)
For this special film screening Howard Adler, co-director of Asinabka Film and Media Festival, will curate a collection of films by Indigenous filmmakers that speak to the importance of nibi (water).
OCTOBER
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6
11am-1pm RECONCILIATION CANOE CEREMONY
Come and take part in a traditional Birchbark Canoe Honouring ceremony, hear stories and teachings related to the canoe and our waterways. There will be Canoe and Water songs, and we will share in a traditional community Feast.
