Come to the 2012 5th Annual Odemin Giizis Festival happening June 20-24, 2012 in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough). We have a fantastic line up this year including three plays: Huff written and preformed by Cliff Cardinal, The (Post) Mistress written and composed by Tomson Highway and directed by Ruth Madoc-Jones and Weskeyjack, written by Paula Sherman and directed by Alanis King.

The festival opens Wednesday June 20th at the Art Gallery of Peterborough with Jiigbiing a visual art exhibition curated by William Kingfisher and including works by Vanessa Dion Fletcher and local Indigenous Knowledge holders (including poetry by Leanne Simpson). Melissa General is also showing her exhibition Long and Belonging at the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Gaabinjigabaa’aang by Rulan Tangen will be performed at the AGP opening night.

Following the opening, James Luna and Guillermo Gómez-Peña present Solid Gold, the last in The Shame-man… series. Launched in 2007, the project uses nostalgia as style, a form of resistance and reinvention, exploring the cultural, symbolic and iconographic dimensions of “nostalgia” both on the Native American “rez” and in the Chicano “barrio.” Since the early 1990s, conceptual artist James Luna and performance artist/writer Guillermo Gómez-Peña have worked on an ongoing project titled The Shame-man meets El Mexican’t, in which they challenge assumptions and lazy thinking about ethnicity and culture in our society with a strong dose of melancholic humor and sharpedged conceptualism. By using performance, writing, photography and video, the artists have remained flexiblend relevant to our shifting culture.

Musical guests include local singer-song writer Tara Williamson, Sarah Delcarlo, Cris Derksen and a Tribe Called Red.

Storytelling with local Mississauga Anishinaabeg storytellers in the performance Tipii Saturday afternoon!

Click here for the entire festival schedule.

See you in Nogojiwanong.

Huff is a new one-man show by Cliff Cardinal about the wondrous lives of Wind and his brothers, caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and struggling to cope with the death of their mother. Wind’s fantastic gas-induced dream-world bleeds into his haunting reality as he’s preyed on by the trickster through the hallways at school, the abandoned motel he loves more than home, and through his own fragile psyche. Wrought with dark humor, and vivid imagery Huff weaves a violent, spellbinding tale. Modern pace mixed with First Nation’s mythic meets biting stand-up routine. Video games and trickster collide and Huff conjures a theatrical storm.

Written and Performed by: Clifford Cardinal
Director: Karin Randoja
Dramaturge: Jiovanni Sy
Production Design/Stage Manager: Elizabeth Kantor

The (Post) Mistress a new one-woman musical written and composed by Tomson Highway, recounts the adventures of a small-town postmistress, Marie-Louise Faucon (performed by Patricia Cano) who divines the contents of sealed letters that pass through her hands. After having worked at the same post office for many years the postmistress has come to know the emotional lives of her clients. Through twelve songs (the letters) and text, she shares with us details and episodes of their lives.

Written and Composed by: Tomson Highway
Director: Ruth Madoc-Jones
Costume Design: Martha Cockshutt
Lighting and Set Design: Ted Roberts
Movement: Marie-Josée Chartier
Stage Manager: Elizabeth Kantor
Featuring Patricia Cano as the postmistress, Tomson Highway on piano and Marcus Ali on saxophone

Weskeyjack, original man, responsible for naming all life aka the trickster, returns home to the Kiji Sibi but his family, the Algonquin people, now only ignore him. Weskeyjack is bewildered by the change in his people and sets out on a journey through time and transformation challenging historical figure – Champlain. Time is running out and he must decide to stay or leave them all behind forever – to a land void of culture or language or original people. A magical play portrays the story of an old way of life all around the legends and clans including their relationship to natural law.

Written by: Paula Sherman
Director and Script Mentor: Alanis King
Co-Director and Dramaturge: Alejandro Ronceria Assistant Director: Karyn Recollet
Language and Cultural Consultant: Shirley Williams
Film and Sound Design: Sarah DeCarlo
Costume Design: Melanie McCall
Lighting Designer: Don White
Set Design: Jimson Bowler
Featuring: Cherish Violet Blood, Nimkii Osawamick, Karyn Recollet, Jeff Legacy, Sundance Crowe with Cris Derkson on cello and Joy Mullen on drums.

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Click above for my thoughts on Attawapiskat in Briarpatch Magazine.

briaripatch magazine’s writing from the margins creative writing contest winner, click on the graphic above to read the short story.

One success sometimes leads to another! Come out and hear readings from local authors Leanne Simpson, Kate Story and Ruth Clarke 7 pm, Wednesday, April 4, 2012.

“It was such a great evening in February,” says award-winning author and organizer Ursula Pflug. “Casey Beecroft (co-owner of the Cat Sass) was thrilled with how the event unfolded. What better way to spend an evening: good company and good writing, while enjoying a latte?”

Come out to the 11th Indigenous Women’s Symposium, March 23-25, 2012 in Peterborough, Ontario. Leanne Simpson will be performing Spoken Word to tracks by A Tribe Called Red and Cris Derksen at the Gala on Friday, March 23rd, see http://www.trentu.ca/academic/nativestudies/womenssymposium.htm for more information.