Breaking Text 2017
Festival Schedule
Performances and Presentations will be taking place at Aanmitaagzi‘s Big Medicine Studio located at 161 Couchie Memorial Dr.
Thursday, January 26th – 7:30pm
Meet and Greet, Opening Reception
Performance by Peter Morin
Peter Morin is a Tahltan Nation performance artist, curator and writer. Morin has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions including Team Diversity Bannock and the World’s Largest Bannock attempt (2005); 12 Making Objects AKA First Nations DADA (12 Indigenous Interventions) (2009); Peter Morin’s Museum (2011); Peter Morin’s Ceremony Experiments 1 through 8 Circle (2013). In addition to his art making and performance-based practice, Morin has curated exhibitions at the Museum of Anthropology, Western Front, Bill Reid Gallery, and Yukon Art Centre. In both his artistic practice and his curatorial work Morin investigates the impact between indigenous cultural-based practices and western settler colonialism. This work, defined by Tahltan Nation epistemological production, often takes on the form of performance interventions. Morin received the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award for mid-career artist in 2016. Morin joined the Visual and Aboriginal Arts Faculty at Brandon University in 2014.
Special Performance by Elaine Kicknosway and Threland Kicknosway
Socialize, Discuss & Develop
All participants are encouraged to stay and participate in a casual conversation about art, identity and our collective futures. Light refreshments and good conversations lead to better art making and a healthier community.
Friday, January 27th – 7:30pm
Performance by charles c. smith with Aria Evans & Jesse Dell
Everything is Everything – Spirit of 5
Charles is currently a Lecturer in cultural pluralism in the arts at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Project Lead for Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario and Artistic Director of the wind in the leaves collective. His new book, Pluralism in the Arts in Canada: A Change is Gonna Come, was released in June 2012. This book contains essays and articles by: award-winning poet George Elliot Clarke, dancers and choreographers Charmaine Headley (Collective of Black Artists), Kevin A. Ormsby (Kashedance), Amanda Paixao (doctoral candidate in dance at York University and Natasha Bakht who also teaches human rights law at the University of Ottawa; theatre and movement artists Amanda Paixao and Shahin Sayadi. This book also features toolkits on community engaged arts prepared by the Neighbourhood Arts Network, the Independent Media Arts Alliance and National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition, and, the Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario.
Charles poetry has appeared in Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, Descant, Dandelion, Amethyst Review, By-Words, Canadian Forum, Quille and Quire, Fiery Spirits (Harper Collins), Poetry Toronto, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Acta Victoriana, Revival Journal (Ireland), Prairie Fire, Anti-Racism in Education: Missing in Action and will be forthcoming in the Great Black North (edited by Valerie Mason John and Kevan Anthony Cameron, Frontenac House) and Men In the Company of Women (Lenore Publishing House, San Francisco) . He has edited three collections of poetry – Teeth of the Whirlwind (Black Perspectives), Bantu (Black Perspectives), and, Sad Dances in a Field of White (Is Five Press) which includes the works of Dionne Brand, Marlene Nourbese Phillips, Claire Harris, Cyril Dabydeen, Lillian Allen, George Elliot Clarke, Clifton Joseph. charles was the founder of the Black Perspectives Cultural Program in Regent Park and recently received a grant from the Ontario Arts Councils Writers Reserve Grants Program and the Toronto Arts Council Writers Grants Program. He is currently working on a collection of poetry entitled travelogue of the bereaved.
Presentations & Performances – ALL WELCOME
Bring music, poetry, spoken word and performances, as this evening will let everyone have a voice. Come prepared to share and engage with artists, friends and peers to share new works and see some good art. Light refreshments are provided and all are welcome.
Saturday, January 28th – 2pm
WORKSHOPS: Professional Development and collaborative creation workshops will take place all day and into the evening starting with Grant Writing 101. We expect additional Spoken Word documentation, Collaborative Planning Sessions and additional performances will all take place.