Artists

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A Tribe Called Red
Bursting forth from Canada’s capital, native DJ crew A Tribe Called Red is making an impact on the global electronic scene with a truly unique sound. Made up of three members – two-time Canadian DMC Champion DJ Shub, DJ NDN and Bear Witness – the group has created a signature style called Pow Wow Step, a mix of traditional Pow Wow vocals and drumming with cutting-edge electronic music. A Tribe Called Red is releasing their official début single, Northern Cree – Red Skin Girl (A Tribe Called Red Remix) on Masalacism Records July 5th 2011 worldwide thanks to Northern Cree and Canyon Records’s collaboration.

Marcus Ali
Marcus Ali is a Toronto-based saxophonist and a graduate of York University’s jazz program. Equally at home in a wide variety of genres he has performed, toured, and recorded with dozens of bands including the Jamaica to Toronto All Stars, The Composers Collective Big Band, Radio Nomad, Orquesta Fantasia, Grand Prix de Jazz award winner Nick Ali and Cruzao, and the Juno nominated groups Mr Something Something and Jason Wilson. Currently Marcus can be heard with Matt Dusk, Ricky Franco and the P-Crew, the Ali Bros, and DRUMHAND. He has toured across Canada numerous times as well as to the US, the Caribbean and Japan and is looking forward to touring the UK with Jason Wilson, Dave Swarbrick and Dick Gaughan in 2012.

Lori Blondeau
Lori Blondeau (b. 1964) is a Cree/Saulteaux/Metis artist originally based in Saskatoon, but now living in California. She holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, and has sat on the Advisory Panel for Visual Arts for the Canada Council for the Arts. She is also a co-founder and the current director of TRIBE, a Canadian aboriginal arts organization. Blondeau’s work, including her stage personas such as the now-famous Belle Sauvage, confronts and co-opts conventional stereotypes of First Nations women.

Cherish Blood
Cherish Violet Blood is a Blackfoot women from the Blood reserve located in southern Alberta. A Writer, Actress, Storyteller and Comedian, she started her career in performance at a young age doing plays written by her mother. Cherish is a graduate from the Centre for Indigenous Theatre’s full time program in Toronto. She also enjoys working and teaching youth theatre and other arts practices. She believes Traditional Storytelling and humor are the greatest tools for inspiring and learning about who you are and where you come from.

Jimson Bowler
Jimson creates one of a kind jewellry using recycled silver in the form of forks, spoons, knives; and cuts stones form his own unique collection acquired over the years. His sculptural work combines traditional mediums such as bone and turquoise with discarded modern materials. Jimson takes inspiration fom the traditional ways that respectfully uses all materials from mother earth and seeks to create objects that keep the stories alive, motivate us to learn the culture and realize that Aboriginal people are not relics of an ancient past. Jimson currently lives in Peterborough, ON. He has numerous art gallery exhibitions and set design credits.

Patricia Cano
Patricia Cano was born in Sudbury, where she began her career on stage as a young dancer, and later, as a community theatre player. After studies in Theater and Spanish Literature at the University of Toronto, she embraced the career of traveling artist, first with Tomson Highway, the Cree writer and composer, then with le Théâtre du Soleil. In August 2009, Patricia recorded “This is the New World”, her first album. There are twelve songs (and one poem) on the album, nine of which are original works composed in collaboration with Carlos Bernardo, in no less than four languages. Currently, Patricia is an actor with the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Company.

Clifford Cardinal
Clifford Cardinal’s first play, Stitch, won two awards at the 2011 SummerWorks Theatre Festival, including the Theatre Passe Muraille Emerging Artist Award. Favorite acting credits include: Tales Of An Urban Indian by Darrell Dennis with Green Thumb Theatre for which he was nominated for a Jessie Richardson Memorial Theatre Award in the category: ‘Outstanding Performance in a Play for Young Audiences.’ In Toronto he played Wandering Spirit in Video Cabaret’s production of The Saskatchewan Rebellion and in Edmonton he played Troy in Kenneth T. Williams’ Three Little Birds with Workshop West Theatre alongside his mother, Tantoo Cardinal.

Byron Chief-Moon
Byron Chief-Moon acknowledges the protocols’ from his ‘living oral culture’ gained from his mother’s Fish Eaters Clan, tribal members of the Kainai/Blood; members of the Blackfoot Confederacy, and his father who his from the Samson Cree Nation. Byron is an actor, dancer, choreographer for the stage, film, and television industry. Byron with Stanley Alexander-Kae co-founded the Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association/CAPPA, in 1999. Through CAPPA Byron has created dance works and continues to assist dance artists in creating new dance fusion styles within the Aboriginal Plains Dance styles and techniques, and Contemporary Western Dance styles; incorporating new media, new audio and new theatre arts. Byron’s last dance performance and choreographic work was for the duet ‘Greed.’ Greed was part of the ‘10x10x10 Festival of Dance and Music’ held at the Scotia Bank Dance Centre in October 2011. In November, 2012 Byron revised the role of ‘Chief’ aka ‘Floyd Two Rivers’ on the ‘Health Nutz,’ television series which airs on APTN. When Byron is not in the studio creating, or performing or traveling for his artistic endeavors, he splits his time between family in Standoff, Alberta and building an organic farm in the interior of BC.

Martha Cockshutt
Martha Cockshutt (Costume Designer) is a Peterborough based theatre artist. Credits include costume design for Magic Circus Theatre (both in Canada and in Greece), nine seasons as resident designer with 4thLine Theatre (Millbrook), set and costume design for Mysterious Entity (Peterborough), and numerous independent dance, theatre and performance works. Recent credits include Canticles (Earle), Atlas Moves Watching (James), and How to Wrestle an Angel (Chartier) for Old Men Dancing, Othello (set and costume) for Mysterious Entity, Stria for Cartierdanse, and Performances May Be Permanent for Kate Story. She is currently collaborating on the development of Colour Field, a new work by performance artist David Bateman.

Sean Conway
Sean Conway is an Ojibwe singer-songwriter, entertainer and guitarist from Curve Lake First Nation, Ontario – currently based in the city of Peterborough. Playing a variety of styles ranging from rockabilly, Western swing, old time country and hillbilly music, he has earned his stripes as an accomplished lead guitar player in a number of roots groups (Washboard Hank, Petunia, Catfish Willie & The Buckle Busters and The Avenues). He’s now working on his own outfit, SEAN CONWAY and the SHINERS. As a supporting act he has played with countless musicians from around the world (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tanya Tagaq, Derek Miller). A debut CD is set for recording and release in the summer of 2012.

Sundance Crowe
Born on the plains of Saskatchewan and living his childhood on Saugeen First Nation, Sundance Crowe has otherwise spent most of his life in Toronto. A graduate of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, he apprenticed in voice training to become a vocal coach under the care of Imelda Villalon, He has worked with professional companies such as Shadowland Theatre where he originated the role of Chief Little Thunder (Ahnimikeence) in the processional play “Crude-mentry Tales.” He continuously works with Native Earth Performing Arts and he recently made his operatic debut in the 1920s Operetta “Rose Marie” in which he played Black Eagle. A new dad, currently lives in Denmark.

Sarah DeCarlo
Sarah DeCarlo is a Peterborough, ON based artist. She is a singer, songwriter, musician, composer and filmmaker. Sarah has Ojibwa roots in Rama First Nation and has been working in First Nations communities in Ontario, Quebec and across Canada for some years now. She maintains a special passion for working with youth in finding their voices through video and music. Sarah most recently composed and recorded the sound track for the latest Shelley Niro film, Robert’s Paintings, a documentary about Anishnaabe painter Robert Houle. She also was the producer and co-writer of two CD’s recorded and released in the Cree Nation of Wemindji, QC which have garnered substantial success and regional radio play. Sarah’s films have been presented at imagineNATIVE, REFRAME and at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Cris Derksen
Cris Derksen originally comes from Northern Alberta. There is a line of chiefs from North Tall Cree reserve on her Fathers side and a line of strong Mennonite homesteaders on her mother’s side. Cris obtained a Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance at UBC and shared the title of Principal Cellist of the UBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2011, her debut solo album “The Cusp” was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award, and won the 2011 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award for Instrumental Album of the Year. As a side player Cris has performed with hip hop star Kanye West, Veda Hille, Tanya Tagaq, Christa Couture, Kinnie Starr, Lightening Dust (Black Mountain), Rae Spoon, Leela Gilday, Ivan e Coyote and e.s.l.

Vanessa Dion Fletcher
Vanessa Dion Fletcher is an emerging artist working in Toronto. She graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Certificate in Indigenous Studies. Dion Fletcher is a multidisciplinary artist who often focuses on printmaking and performance. Dion Fletcher has participated in several residency programs including Don Blanch 2010 in Shelburne Ontario and Towards Language at the Banff Centre Alberta. In addition to her own art Vanessa works with the T.D.S.B Aboriginal Artist collective on community arts projects and curated the exhibition Ancestral Teachings: Contemporary Perspectives.

Melissa General
Melissa General is an Oneida from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory near Brantford, Ontario. Concepts involving her First Nations heritage, identity construction and self-exploration have been a focus in her practice. She studied photography at OCAD University and completed her MFA at York University.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña
“Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a performance artist, writer, activist and radical pedagogue and the director of the performance troupe La Pocha Nostra. He was born in Mexico City and came to the US in 1978. His performance work and 8 books have contributed to the debates on cultural diversity, border culture and US-Mexico relations. His art work has been presented at over seven hundred venues across the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Russia, south Africa and Australia. A MacArthur Fellow and American Book Award winner, he is a regular contributor to National Public Radio, a writer fornewspapers and magazines in the US, Mexico, and Europe and a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU-MIT).”

Francisco-Fernando Granados
Francisco-Fernando Granados is a Guatemalan-born, Toronto-based artist and writer working in performance, drawing, cultural criticism, and curatorial practice. His work has been presented in venues including the Hessel Museum of Art (NY), Ex Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City), Kulturhuset Stockholm, the University of Western Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the LIVE Biennial of Performance Art (Vancouver), the Images Festival (Toronto), and in other artist-run centres in Toronto and Vancouver. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University in Vancouver and a Master’s of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto. Recent and upcoming projects include a performance at the RAPID PULSE International Performance Festival in Chicago.

Grupo Granma
Grupo Granma was founded in 1976, and was popular early on within Cubas student movement. Its founders were agricultural workers, part of the Nueva Trova Movement that spoke directly to young people. Over the years Grupo Granma has travelled extensively. They have been to the USSR, France, Colombia, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, and Canad. At present the group performs either as an instrumental quartet, a traditional quintet, or a traditional septet. The septet includes percussion and a vocal group for popular dance music, which, with the addition of drumming, can sometimes add up to ten or eleven players.

Tomson Highway
Tomson Highway was born in a snow bank on the Manitoba/Nunavut border to a family of nomadic caribou hunters. He had the great privilege of growing up in two languages, neither of which was French or English; they were Cree, his mother tongue, and Dene, the language of the neighbouring “nation,” a people with whom they roamed and hunted. Today, he enjoys an international career as playwright, novelist, and pianist/songwriter. His best known works are the plays, “THE REZ SISTERS,” “DRY LIPS OUGHTA MOVE TO KAPUSKASING,” “ROSE,” “ERNESTINE SHUSWAP GETS HER TROUT,” and the best-selling novel, “KISS OF THE FUR QUEEN.” For many years, he ran Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts (based in Toronto), out of which has emerged an entire generation of professional Native playwrights, actors and, more indirectly, the many other Native theatre companies that now dot the country. He divides his year equally between a cottage in northern Ontario (near Sudbury, from whence comes his partner of 25 years) and a seaside apartment in the south of France, at both of which locales he is currently at work on his second novel.

Imbayakunas
The Imbayakunas is a Native Andean folkloric music group from Ecuador, South America. The group uses a wide variety of musical instruments such as pan flutes, guitar, violin, and drums. Each musician is from Ecuador and shares a love of performing. Their sound continues to evolve and can be described as a World Music fusion between traditional Native Andean sounds and contemporary Latin rhythms. The music and dance is a representation of important elements to their Native Andean culture. They give thanks to the sun and the natural world. The Imbayakunas have experienced great success with their music all over the world, presenting at festivals like “The International Jazz Festival” in Toronto, Canada and events like the Pan Am Games in Mexico. The Imbayakunas have recorded and released 15 CD’s to date.

Elizabeth Kantor
Elizabeth has worked previously as a Stage Manager with Imago Theatre (Montreal), 4th Line Theatre, Dramamuse, The Canadian Museum of Civilization’s resident theatre company; and, for the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama. Elizabeth holds a B.A. from the University of Ottawa, and is entering her final year in the Production Program at the National Theatre School of Canada. While at NTS Elizabeth has worked as a designer, a production manager, and as a technical director. She feels honored to call Huff her professional design debut.

Alanis King
Alanis King is an Odawa playwright and director currently residing in Ottawa. Her playwriting credits include Born Buffalo, Good Medicine, Treaty Daze, Bye Bye Beneshe, Song of Hiawatha: An Anishnaabec Adaption, Order of Good Cheer, Gegwah, Lovechild, Artshow, Heartdwellers, Manitoulin Incident, Tommy Prince Story, If Jesus Met Nanabush, Storyteller, and Step by Step. Alanis is current Artistic Director of Mazinaw Rocks Productions and a Past Artistic Director of Askiy Productions, Saskatchewan Native Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts and Debajehmujig Theatre Group. Selected stage directing credits include Born Buffalo, What’s a Teacher Do?!, Gabriel’s Crossing, Elder Brother, Chasing Honey, The Velvet Devil (national tour), B Dawg, Wawatay, 20th Century Indian Boy, and Lupi the Great White Wolf. Alanis is the first Aboriginal woman to graduate from the National Theatre School of Canada.

William Kingfisher
William Kingfisher is a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation at Rama, Ontario. He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Indigenous Studies Department at Trent University and currently the artistic associate producer at Indigenous Performance Initiatives (IPI). Kingfisher is also an independent curator whose brings together art, the landscape, traditional knowledge, language, youth and Elders. In 2009 Kingfisher curated, nogajiiwanong: land stories community: ten native artists from the Peterborough region, that exhibited over 25 works at the Art Gallery of Peterborough and in five venues in the heart of downtown Peterborough. In 2010 he curated an exhibition titled ayaandagon: outdoor installations in an anishinaabe garden and in 2011, he curated an exhibition titled Bimaadiziwin and the Inner Child: New Art Works by Paul Shilling.

Jeff Legacy
Jeff Legacy is a Mushkegowuk Cree/Ojibway from Attawapiskat First Nation and is fluent in Swampy Cree, ‘n’ dialect. A graduate of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre three year program. Jeff is also a qualified Native Abuse Counsellor, specializing in Solvent/Substance abuse. Recently, he was the student mentor for the CIT summer program. Some credits include: A Series of Savage Events – Muriel Miguel, Gegwah – Alanis King, The Fort At York – Tara Beagan, Stories From Coyote – Barbara Croall, The Red Moon – Dawn Dumont, Great Voices – Sid Bruyn, Lost And Found – Muriel Miguel.

Jerry Longboat
Jerry Longboat is Mohawk-Cayuga of the Iroquois Confederacy; he is Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River in Southern Ontario. Jerry has a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Michigan and the Ontario College of Art and Design. He has extensive professional training and formal practice in Traditional and Contemporary forms of visual art, dance, theatre, and storytelling. In 2002, after a 15 year artistic career, Jerry began work as a Program Officer at the Canada Council for the Arts working with Aboriginal Dancers and Dance organizations across Canada. In 2010, Jerry joined the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health as Cultural Coordinator to deepen and expand his work with community.

James Luna
James Luna (Puyukitchum/Luiseno) resides on the La Jolla IndianReservation in North County San Diego, California. Luna’s exhibition and performance experience spans 30 years. His installations have been described as transforming gallery spaces into battlefields, where the audience is confronted with the nature of cultural identity, the tensions generated by cultural isolation, and the dangers of cultural misinterpretations, all from an Indigenous perspective.

Ruth Madoc-Jones
Ruth Madoc-Jones is an award-winning director of theatre, dance and new opera. Selected credits include Free As Injuns (Native Earth Performing Arts), The Trolley Car (Solo Collective), STRIA (Chartierdanse/Public Energy), SPIN (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre/Outspoke productions), Beauty dissolves in a brief hour (Queen of Puddings Music Theatre), Shudder (Humsoundart/La Chapelle/Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), Madness of the Square (Cahoots Theatre Projects/Factory Theatre), Stitch â€“ an a cappella opera (Urban Vessel/Free Fall Festival/Theatre Centre), a nanking winter (Nightwood Theatre/Cahoots Theatre Projects), The Drawer Boy (Theatre Passe Muraille), The Gladstone Variations – Requiem for a Hotel (Convergence Theatre) and Dreary and Izzy (Native Earth Performing Arts). Ruth was a recipient of the 1998 K.M. Hunter Award and the 2008 John Hirsch Directorâ€™s Award. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.

Diveena Marcus
Diveena Marcus is a Trent University PhD Indigenous Studies scholar and is grateful to apply her practicum with Rulan Tangen during the Ode’min Giizis Festival. She will be contributing to the collective group work that is dedicated to clean water for the opening at the Art Gallery of Peterborough. She will also be performing as a supporting vocalist to Rulan Tangen’s projects. Diveena is a member of the Coast Miwok Indigenous community in Northern California and her research is involved with Indigenous women’s performance and its influence on Aboriginal sovereignty.

Glenna Matoush
A professional artist for over twenty-five years, Glenna Matoush has become well known within the Cree communities as well as across Canada, the United States and in Europe. Glenna lived for many years in Mistissini and tells how her research on traditional native ceremonies and art helped her to gain a view of their role in the cultural reinforcement and on native identity. Her work has been from Russia, the Canadian Canadian Embassy in Guatemala and Italy to France and many places closer to home. Glenna has won a Quebec Cultural Affairs Honour and has had her work included in several publications.

Melanie McCall
Melanie McCall is an artist, performer and costume designer in the Peterborough area. Her career spans 10 years, working with theatre companies, performers, dance troupes and performance artists. Her Work is influenced by the multi-disciplinary education at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where she received her B.F.A. in Textiles in 2004. Her recent work includes Mabel, a collaboration performance at Market Hall in April. This is her fourth year with Ode Min Giizas Festival and she is honoured by the opportunity.

Joy Mullen
Joy Mullen, a.k.a. Joy On Drums, spent her formative years in the Okanogan BC studying dance, music and theatre, and she started playing drums at age 11. She attended the Contemporary Music and Technology Program at Selkirk College in Nelson BC and received a diploma majoring in drum performance. Based in Vancouver, Joy has performed at Dawson City Music Fest, Vancouver Island Music Festival, Harrison Music Festival, Arts Wells Music Festival, Calgary Folk Festival, Regina Folk Festival, Salmon Arms Roots and Blues, and Trout Festival. She has also been featured on Much Music’s Going Coastal and is one of the founding organizers for Girls Rock Camp Vancouver, a non-profit organization aimed at building self-esteem in young girls.

Wanda Nanibush
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishnawbe-kwe curator, writer, and artist. She has a Masters of Visual Studies, University of Toronto and is the Executive Director of the Association for Native Development in the Performing & Visual Arts. As a curator, her work has largely concentrated on re-contextualizing Indigenous time-based media and performance art to examine the underlying philosophical complexity of the work, as well as rethinking how culture and identity are framed by contemporary artistic discourses. Nanibush has published in FUSE magazine, Literary Review of Canada and in the book: This is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades. Her work has been exhibited at WARC in Toronto as part of Images Festival and University of Waterloo Art Gallery as well as many film festivals.

Nimkii Osawamick
Nimkii nini Osawamick – Nimkii is a odawa from Wikwemikong First Nations unceded reverve, Manitoulin Island. From the wolf clan he is a Singer and Dancer, Nimkii has practices many of the pow wow styles and has had the opportunity to work with Trent University to study theatre arts. Nimkii is Currently developing his own business known as DNA STAGE to spread First Nations Awareness world wide through the arts of media, workshops, artistic skills and performances. DNA is a new up and coming native business designed to educate peoples of the communities bringing awareness through Cultural Development, Life skills, wellness, Youth Engagement, Leadership Development and Community Engagement.

Karin Randoja
Karin Randoja is a director, actor, singer/composer and teacher and has been creating devised theatre for over 20 years. Karin was a founding member of Primus Theatre and is a member of The Independent Aunties. She has performed and/or directed at Cleveland Public Theatre, La Mama Etc. (New York),The Caravan Farm Theatre, and The National Arts Centre (to name a few). She has twice been nominated for a Dora Award for acting. She teaches and directs at Humber College, and numerous other schools and theatres, including many years at The National Theatre School of Canada. Karin has worked across Canada, the U.S., Europe, Japan and Mozambique. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.

Karyn Recollet
Karyn has roots in Sturgeon Lake First Nation, Saskatchewan and was raised in urban Ontario. Karyn graduated with her Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, and is the 2010 winner of Trent’s Presidents’ medal for Social Sciences. Karyn is a co-founder of the Weaverbird Collective Women’s Theatre Group, Peterborough, Ontario. Karyn has also been a workshop instructor for ‘Play Well Together,’ an exercise for Collective Creation presented by Native Earth Performing Arts, whom she served as an Artistic Associate in 2010. A Board Member of Centre for Indigenous Theatre since 2009, Karyn is both a graduate of CIT’s Summer Programs and has supported this theatre organization through various positions in assisting theatre students.

Alejandro Ronceria
Alejandro Ronceria is an award-winning choreographer/director/producer, internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in Aboriginal Dance. In 1996, Ronceria was the co-founder and director of the First Aboriginal Dance Program in North America at The Banff Center for the Arts. From 1996-2001, as Artistic Director, his productions include: Bones: The first Aboriginal Dance Opera (2001), Dances for a new Century (1999), Dances around the Fire (1998), Light and Shadows (1997), and Chinook Winds (1996). He also directed A Hunter Called Memory, a dance film which premiered at The Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance. Most recently, Ronceria was involved in numerous Winter Olympic 2010 productions. Past Co-Director of Earth in Motion, Ronceria is the first in Canada to hold an MFA (York University) in Dance Dramaturgy.

Paula Sherman
Paula Sherman is Omamiwinini originally from the Algonquin Nation in Ontario. She is a scholar and cultural historian and has created her first play called Elder Brother that was born out of the narrative of her PhD dissertation. Other published works include: Picking up the Wampum Belt as an Act of Protest, Disease vs Genocide: The Debate over Population, The Importance of Traditional Practices for Contemporary Interactions in the Valley of the Kiji Sibi, and Players vs Pawns: Aboriginal People and the Fur Trade. She is the Family Head Council for Ka-PishKawandimen, Ardoch Algonquin First Nation. She enjoys making dance outfits for her family and friends and is a traditional dancer and loves to attend powwow gatherings reconnecting to the spirit of her people.

Jovanni Sy
Jovanni Sy is a Toronto-based director, dramaturg, actor, and playwright. For six seasons he was the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Projects. Under his tenure, Cahoots produced new works by Anosh Irani, Ahmed Ghazali, Marjorie Chan, Guillermo Verdecchia, Marcus Youssef, and Camyar Chai. Jovanni was the 2009/2010 Playwright-in-Residence at the Shaw Festival. In July 2010, Jovanni performed his one-man performance piece A Taste of Empire which was nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play. In April 2011, Jovanni directed the Asia Pacific premiere of Yasmina Reza’s The God of Carnage for Theatre du Pif in Hong Kong. In August 2011, he directed Clifford Cardinal’s Stitch for SummerWorks.

Rulan Tangen
Rulan Tangen, Founding Director of DANCING EARTH Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations, comes to the Ode’min Giizis Festival from Santa Fe, New Mexico, with professional international dance experience as a performer, instructor, lecturer and choreographer. She is honoured to make a rare solo appearance as an offering to the Festival.  Tangen has been invited for the summer by Indigenous Performance Initiatives in association with the Department of Indigenous Studies at Trent University. Tangen will direct and choreograph selected community site specific performances with national and regional professional Indigenous performers that will also include youth.

Daina Warren
Daina Warren of the Montana Cree Nation in Hobbema, AB, has worked extensively in the Aboriginal Arts community. In 2000, she was awarded Canada Council’s Assistance to Aboriginal Curators for Residencies in the Visual Arts program to work with grunt gallery in Vancouver. This opportunity led to a permanent position with the artist-run centre as an associate curator and administrator until 2009. Warren completed the Canada Council’s Aboriginal Curatorial Residency at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON) where she curated the group exhibition Don’t Stop Me Now, which was on display until November 2011. She has received her Bachelor’s degree in 2003, graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Warren is currently a MA candidate, completing a Masters of Arts in Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia, and Director of Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Winnipeg, MB.

Don White

Coming soon..

Shirley Williams
Shirley Williams is member of Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, Manitoulin Island. She has been teaching language and culture at Trent University for 18 years and still has continued teaching on part time basis after her retirement. She is an elder in the PHD Program at Trent and also in the Indigenous dept. She has taught courses on Ojibway/Odawa from Introduction, Intermediate and a 4th year courses including Identity course, Special Topic course on land and Environment, Understanding Residential School and Immersion language courses. Shirley has taught for 18 summers at Lakehead University for the Native Language Instructors Program on Orthography, Methods including Child Development and Ojibway Literature courses. Shirley has received an award for Excellence in the Indigenous Education for First Nations Communities by Wikwemikong Board of Education in 2009. Shirley retired in 2004 from Trent University and received her full Professorship in 2003, on Indigenous knowledge.

Tara Williamson
Tara Williamson is a singer-songwriter and a recent transplant to the area of Nogojiwanong. Born in Winnipeg, raised in Gaabishikigaamag (Swan Lake, Manitoba) with more roots buried and exposed in Opaskwayak and Beardy’s-Okemasis, she has come to know herself as a wayfaring Anishinaabekwe/Nehayowak (Ojibwe/Cree woman). She is trained classically in voice and piano and is a published writer. Tara is a member of the O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Arts Collective in Peterborough, has composed and performed for Public Energy’s Emergency #19 project with Melanie McCall, and plays keys for Them Blades, a local, awesome band. Her music crosses the genres of folk, jazz, and blues and her most recent recording project “Rough Around the Edges” can be accessed on CBC Music.

Unity
Unity is the collective talents of Barb Rivett, Brenda Maracle O’Toole, Heather Shpuniarsky, and Joeann Argue. We are an a cappella women’s group who perform our own works as well as traditional Aboriginal music. The group has performed at numerous venues: from education conferences to music festivals – both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. We work in local public schools, offering Aboriginal awareness workshops for elementary students and their teachers. In these workshops we teach about the songs and their meaning, and we often bring Elders as storytellers and Indigenous knowledge holders. At Trent University, where we all have ties to the Indigenous Studies Department through work or study, we are known as the “Trent University House Band”.