Last Thursday night the long-awaited production of Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way, a play co-written by Renae Morrisear\, Rosemary Georgeson and Savannah Walling and directed by Morriseau opened at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre in East Vancouver/Coast Salish Territories to a circle bursting with friends and guests.
The play cum multi-media performances including storytelling, traditional and personal songs as well as drumming and games–one game in particular Slahal–features some of the finest actors from various parts of British Columbia and across the county.
Stephen Lytton, Sophie Merasty, Jonathan Fisher and Sam Bob join Delhia Nahanee, Latash Maurice Nahanee, Tai Amy Grauman, Tracey Nepinak Vern Bevis and Tania Carter in sharing life experiences and and the stories of how one Indigenous family’s healing process defines reconciliation.
Its not what some might expect if people are looking at the play to shed light on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s proposals about reconciling between First Nations and Canada. Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way (WROW)is deep and its personal. it is more about how one Indigenous family’s healing process defines reconciliation
Morisseau says this about reconciliation “As Indigenous people we have been ‘reconciling’ for a long time within our own communities and in our families. We are living with the impact that Canadian policy and legislation has had on us. It’s generational and continues today.”
And (WROW is funny. As with many communities, sometimes you just had to be part of it to get the humour but the uproar at various parts of the play hit the heart and the funny bone of every single person in the house.
And audiences in every performance since opening night have been raving.
Here are just a few early responses:
Amazing, amazing AMAZING. So SO powerful.
I felt lucky to be in the room.”
Excited to experience indigeneity in this way. Please keep up the amazing work. THIS IS CANADIAN HISTORY.”
Thank you so much for this beautiful, humorous, tragic, hopeful tapestry.
Watching the play, I believed that each story represented the lived experience of each actor. The sharing of the stories, intertwined with other stories, intertwined with past injustices, intertwined with other injustices, give light to the complexities of the process of reconciliation with Indigenous families.
Awesome play. Funny, sad – the actors are great!”
The show continues in Vancouver until May 26 with performances at 7:30 each of May 24 and 25 and one performance at 2:00 pm on May 26.
Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way travels to:
Penticton/Sylix Territory for a performance on Thursday May 31 at 7:00 pm and a Friday matinee at 12:30 pm at the En’owken Centre
Toronto/Treaty 13 on June 6-9 Wednesday through Friday 7:30 pm and Saturday manatee at 2:00 pm Aki Studio Theatre
Winnipeg/Treaty 1 and Metis Homelands June 13 -16 Wednesday through Friday 7:30 pm and Saturday matinee 2:00 pm Theatre Circle Molière
Don’t mss Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way!
Tomorrow i’ll post another piece on Les Filles du Roi (the King’s Daughters) an extraordinary musical/drama about the 800 women famously sent from France to “populate” the New World between 1663 and 1673. Staging, music and story extraordinaire.
louiseleclair 