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Joseph Boyden: fiction & fact

by on March 21, 2013 in Arts, General, Indigenous Arts, Leighton Artists' Colony, Literary Arts

Joseph Boyden soaking in Banff in front of his Leighton Artists' Colony studio. Photo: Kim Williams.

Joseph Boyden in the Leighton Artists’ Colony. Photo: Kim Williams.

Earlier this week, Joseph Boyden opened his public reading here by confiding to the audience that he wasn’t supposed to read from his new work, but he was going to anyway. Then he dropped us right into a graphically violent scene involving his three protagonists, a scene he describes as, “a car chase from the 1600s.” The Orenda, Boyden’s newest novel, is set in the 1600s at the intersection of First Nations and Canadian history. The book is expected to be out in September, and I know that everyone who was in that room with me will want to know what happens to the three characters we were briefly introduced to: a Haudenosaunee, a Huron-Wendat, and a Jesuit.  

Boyden won the Giller Prize for his second novel, Through Black Spruce, and he’s been in our Leighton Artists’ Colony this week on a Paul D. Fleck Fellowship through Indigenous Arts, editing his new novel. I met him the day after his reading. For one thing, I wanted to know what he felt standing in front of us and reading from The Orenda. “It was fun to read but it was a little nerve-wracking,” he tells me.  ”You feel like a brand new writer again. Despite any little success I might have had, it’s all new again.” He’s clear that The Orenda stands alone (it’s not the third book in the trilogy that includes Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce) though fans may find an interesting connection to his previous novels.

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Walter Scott: Cut / Paste / Collaborate

by on March 19, 2013 in Arts, General, Indigenous Arts, Visual Arts

When artist Walter Scott met with students from the Morley Community High School on the Stoney Reserve in late February, he wanted to do more than get them interested in studying art. He wanted to show them what it means to be a successful and professional Indigenous artist. 

Work produced by Morley Community School students during artist Walter Scott's workshop.

Work produced by Morley Community High School students during artist Walter Scott’s workshop.

The Walter Phillips Gallery has offered workshop programming with the school since 2004, bringing students to Banff for hands-on workshops, as well as sending resident artists into the school. During this recent workshop, students explored the Paul D. Fleck Library and Archives for source materials, which they used to create collages at their school the following day.  

While they were in the library, one of the Morley students was drawn to the work of German painter and printmaker A.R. Penck, which he used in his collage. Scott tracked down and emailed Penck’s name to the student the next day. “I know by experience how these little gestures can help a young person cultivate their interests, and make all the difference,” he said.

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“We are all Treaty people”

by on February 28, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Community connection, General, Indigenous Arts, Theatre

Making Treaty 7 artists Cowboy Smithx and Blake Brooker at The Banff Centre. Photo: Narcisse Blood

Making Treaty 7 artists Cowboy Smithx (left) and Blake Brooker (right) at The Banff Centre. Photo: Narcisse Blood.

“We ask for your grace and courage to tell our story in the most honest way possible.”

It is a golden winter afternoon at The Banff Centre. I am sitting in the Kinnear Centre dance studio listening to the words of a prayer, spoken first in Blackfoot and then in English. The prayer marks the opening of a workshop presentation of Making Treaty 7, a new theatrical work that examines the legacy of the 1877 treaty between the Crown and the Blackfoot First Nations.

As the setting sun paints the faces of those performing, I am by turns moved, shocked, informed, and, ultimately, inspired.

I am moved by the hardships faced by Alberta’s Indigenous people in the 1870s, and their hope that this Treaty would bring a brighter future for their children. I am shocked by the devastating impact smallpox had on Canada’s Indigenous people in the years before the Treaty signing. I am informed about the historical context of Treaty 7 — the promises made, and the promises broken. And I am inspired by the goal of this ambitious project — to create a renewed understanding of southern Alberta’s collective history and a shared vision for the future, because, in the words of Making Treaty 7,“we are all Treaty people.” Continue Reading →

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dOCUMENTA (13): A Banff Retreat

by on January 7, 2013 in Arts, Banff, General, Ideas, Indigenous Arts, Thematic Residency, Visual Arts, Walter Phillips Gallery

Still from Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater’s Modest Livelihood (2012), courtesy the artists

Still from Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater’s Modest Livelihood (2012), courtesy the artists

What does it mean to retreat?

The densely valenced theme of “retreat” was explored by the 33 participants and six faculty who as artists, academics, and cultural practitioners gathered at The Banff Centre for the August 2012 Visual Arts residency The Retreat: A Position of dOCUMENTA (13).

The call for participants proposed “To enter or enact a retreat is to draw together, in refuge, seclusion, separation, and sharing – not in order to abandon active life with others, but to consider ourselves, with others.” Through seminars, public talks, ceramics workshops, participant presentations, social gatherings, and hikes, The Retreat offered an interdisciplinary space for critical and creative inquiry and reflection. Organized by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13), Kitty Scott, then director of Visual Arts at The Banff Centre and a core agent for dOCUMENTA (13), and Imre Szeman, a Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies and professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, it was also the second Banff Research in Culture (BRiC) residency. Continue Reading →

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Jock Soto’s “full circle” dance career brings his brilliant mentorship to Banff

by on December 3, 2012 in Arts, Banff, Banff Summer Arts Festival, Dance, Festivals, General, Indigenous Arts, Indigenous Dance, Podcasts, Theatre, Visiting Artists

Ballet dancer Jock Soto leads a rehearsal during the 2012 Indigenous Dance Residency. Photo: Donald Lee.

A New York Times article about the 2005 retirement of ballet dancer, Jock Soto  sums up just a few of the reasons why he has had such a warm welcome by emerging dancers at  The Banff Centre:  ”At 40, he can look back to a special place as one of ballet’s most creative personalities. While choreographers are essential to the art, dancers like Mr. Soto – and they are few – also define and redefine choreography with bold individuality and implicit collaboration.”

Jock Soto enjoyed an amazing career that includes the distinction of being the most choreographed dancer in the history of the New York City Ballet. A celebrity in his own right, he was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World”, and Andy Warhol made a graphite drawing of him in 1986. But as he neared the end of his 24-year career with the New York City Ballet, he began to realize he had lost a connection to his Navajo heritage.

In 2007, Soto was chronicled in the award-winning documentary Water Flowing Together, where he began to reflect on his roots and past in Arizona. This project also first brought him to The Banff Centre. At a screening of the film at the ImagiNative film festival in Toronto, Soto met Sandra Laronde, director of the Centre’s Indigenous Arts program. Since 2009, Soto has come to Banff each summer as faculty for the Indigenous Dance Residency. This summer, the group performed Spirit with dancers from all over the world.

In the audio interview below, hear more about Soto’s amazing journey.

Music: Rubies to the music of Igor Stravinsky
City sounds from Freesound.org: acutescream, bulbastre, eric5335, cognate perceptu
The final song, A Tribe Called Red – Electric Powwow, was used in the Indigenous Dance performance of Spirit
Produced by Camara Miller. Mastered by Magdalena Kasperek.

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The buoyant meanings of Matt Walker’s Drifting Island sculpture

by on October 23, 2012 in Arts, Banff, Banff Artist in Residence, General, Indigenous Arts, Visual Arts

Artist Matt Walker (left) prepares to fire his sculpture, Drifting Island, at The Banff Centre, with Mimmo Maiolo (centre) and Ed Bamiling (right) ready to help guide the piece into the retrofitted kiln.

Drifting Island, the sculpture by Banff Centre Visual Arts participant Matt Walker, was fired earlier this month in a kiln requiring some temporary reconstruction to fit the large-scale piece inside. The sculpture, a 3-foot by 5-foot ceramic form resembling a turtle shell, will float eventually near the shore of the Hamilton Harbour in Ontario as a temporary intervention on the landscape. The sculpture alludes to the notion of Turtle Island, a traditional narrative within some North American Indigenous cultures about the origin of the continent. The term took on political connotations when activists began using it to refer to North America as a way of recalling its original inhabitants, and to promote a more holistic relationship between humanity and nature.

Walker tells me that by situating the sculpture in the Harbour, a historic site of colonial immigration, he means to inscribe the landscape with a reminder of Turtle Island and its meanings. Designed to support the anchoring of boats and reposing swimmers, this shapely shell is as charming as it is evocative.

It was once more popular for critics to renounce the use of art for political aims, arguing that art is essentially about emotional expression and aesthetic play, and that pursuing the serious, intellectual concerns of politics in an artwork is to belie art’s very nature.

In response to the critics of political art, I say why can’t you have your serious sculpture and float it too?

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