It’s only 6 weeks until Indigenous Contemporary Scene – when a group of Indigenous artists from across Canada will be welcomed to Edinburgh this August to present theatre, dance, music and literature across three of the city’s biggest festivals: Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Fringe and Edinburgh Book Festival.
Indigenous Contemporary Scene will amplify the voices of Indigenous artists and highlight the conversation around what it means to be Indigenous today. The programme also serves as an artist led response to the 2019 UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages and International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on the 9th August.
Edinburgh International Festival
Winner of the 2018 Dora Award for Outstanding New Play, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools is coming to The Studio for its European debut. Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and Toronto queer theatre-maker Evalyn Parry share the stage in a dramatic meeting between two extraordinary artists exploring the advancing threat of climate change. Running from the 2nd – 5th August at 7:30pm and 3rd & 5th August at 2pm.
Having recently premiered at Sydney Festival where the show received tremendous acclaim, with Time Out describing it as a “highlight”, Deer Woman is a one-woman play about a Blackfoot woman seeking vengeance for the murder of her younger sister and the thousands other Indigenous women recorded as missing or murdered in Canada in recent decades. The European premiere at CanadaHub from 31st July – 24th August at 2:30pm.
Songs in The Key of Cree is a compilation of tunes written over the past thirty years by Cree-Canadian playwright/ songwriter/pianist Tomson Highway, named by Canadian news magazine Maclean’s as ‘one of the 100 most important people in Canadian history’. Coming to CanadaHub from 31st July – 18th August at 7pm.
Ojii-Cree dancer and artist Lara Kramer is bringing three works to Summerhall, which run as a chronological progression, exploring the past, present and future; highlighting that to care for the next generation we must look at the past and the cyclical nature of everything being interconnected. Opening with Native Girl Syndrome, a dive into street culture which takes the audience on a dynamic journey of addiction, loss and alienation, from 2nd-4th and 7th-11th August at 4:20pm. This Time Will Be Different, co-created by Emilie Monnet, is a performance-based installation on the present that denounces the Canadian government’s discourse on Indigenous peoples and offers an inter-generational ceremony to celebrate beauty and survival, from 13th-18th August at 4pm. Miijin Ki, a word in the Anishnabemowin language which translates to ‘Eating Land’, is a new work in development where Kramer, along with her collaborators, create non-violent tensions of a future of living and being on the land. Running from 20th-24th August at 4pm.
ICS’s series will culminate in Kanata Cabaret Hour, ‘Kanata’ the Haudenosaunee word for Canada, a showcase of the many Indigenous artists in Edinburgh over August. The hour will offer up a radical mixture of dance, music and live art from Indigenous and Scottish perspectives, running at CanadaHub from the 21st – 24th August at 7pm.
Indigenous Contemporary Scene is bringing two performances of words and music under the umbrella ‘Songs from the Land’. Songs from the Land: Sometimes I Speak English is born out of indigenous experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Inuit poet and throat singer Taqralik Partridge performs alongside celebrated Cree cellist Cris Derksen. Scottish musician Inge Thomson, from Fair Isle, presents new works inspired by the landscape there. On the 15th August at 8pm.
In Songs from the Land: Calling Home, Inuit poet and throat singer Taqralik Partridge performs with celebrated Cree cellist Cris Derksen. Tara Beagan, one half of ARTICLE 11 and a Ntlakapamux author who has written about the Beothuk human remains at the National Museum of Scotland, and Shetlandic poet Roseanne Watt, read from their latest works. On the 16th August at 5:30pm.