Sâkêwêwak Annual Storytellers Festival 2023: Sâkitawâhk - Where The Rivers Meet / Movement, Sound & Storytelling Night

Sâkêwêwak Annual Storytellers Festival 2023 - Sâkitawâhk: Where The Rivers Meet runs from February 17th-19th, 2023. We're kicking things off on Friday the 17th with Movement, Sound & Storytelling Night!

Please be advised that this event is subject to our current COVID-19 policies, which are available at www.artesianon13th.ca/pages/covid-safety. The policies on that page are our most up-to-date policies and are in effect regardless of provincial restrictions.

The Artesian is wheelchair accessible, all-ages, and a proud supporter of positive spaces initiatives with a zero-tolerance policy towards hate, harassment, and/or discrimination. We reserve the right to remove any patron creating an unsafe environment. The accessible entrance is available via a lift, Please ask staff for help if necessary.

Show Details:
Movement, Sound & Storytelling Night
Date: Friday, February 17, 2023
Doors: 6:00PM
Show: 7:00PM

Tickets:

Friday and Saturday Shows:

Members............................$20

Non-Members..................$25

Member Passes...............$35*

Non-Member Passes.....$40*

*Free tote bag with the first 15 festival passes purchased

Sunday Workshop is free or by donation

The Sâkêwêwak Annual Storytellers Festival is a community based, multidisciplinary arts showcase featuring Indigenous artists. During this annual event, a number of artists are invited to participate as an opportunity to share their diverse artistic practices with the Regina community. This year’s festival involves Indigenous storytelling told through a variety of contemporary art forms including dance, theatre, music, and performance.

Our theme this year is, sâkitawâhk, a Cree word meaning, “where the rivers meet.” With a special focus on gender and 2Spirit identities, sâkitawâhk celebrates the true spirit of the festival as a point of gathering and kinship through collaboration, interconnectivity, and community.

Join our sparkling host Dayna Danger, in sharing and celebration, as we kick off the 2023 Storytellers Festival! Experience an evening of storytelling magic told through the art of dance, music, sound, and theatre. Featuring uplifting collaborations by artists Dayna Danger, Violet Naytowhow, Jeanette Kotowich, and Kathleen Nisbet along with a powerful closing unplugged excerpt performance of Omaagomaan by Waawaate Fobister.

About the artists:

Dayna Danger (they/them) is a Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, Métis-Saulteaux-Polish, visual artist, hide tanner, drummer, and beadworker. Danger’s art practice is an act of reclaiming space and power over society's projections of sexualities and representation. This transpires in Danger’s art by their intentionally large-scale images that place importance on women-identified, Two-Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people. Their art uses symbolic references to kink communities to critically interrogate visibility and rejection. Danger centers Kin and practicing consent to build artworks that create a suspension of reality wherein complex dynamics of sexuality, gender, and power are exchanged.

 Violet Naytowhow - Violet Naytowhow, aka Purple, will have you laughing and thinking in the Cree way. With acoustic guitar and drum in hand, she weaves a strong connection to her First Nations culture seamlessly blending country, folk and roots. An accomplished singer/songwriter, she is considered a role model in many Aboriginal communities throughout northern Saskatchewan. 

Jeanette Kotowich - Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, Jeanette Kotowich creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of Indigenous performance, Indigenous futurism and contemporary dance. Her creations have been presented at theatres and festivals across Turtle Island. In the summer of 2020, she conducted land-based research in her home province of Saskatchewan, fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, de-colonial practices and embodied research towards the creation and premiere of Kisiskâciwan which fall 2022 Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. She resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ/, and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territories, colonially known as Vancouver. movementhealing.ca

Kathleen Nisbet - Kathleen Nisbet is a fiddle player, singer and songwriter from Vancouver, BC. Classically trained early on, she has since returned to her Métis roots, pursuing more traditional fiddle music. She is a regular collaborator with V'ni Dansi Métis traditional dance and Acuhko Simowuk Collective. She is a member of Vancouver's thriving bluegrass and folk scene, performing and touring with her band Viper Central.

Waawaate Fobister - is an actor, dancer, playwright, choreographer, instructor, and a producer, currently residing in Shoal Lake. A proud Anishnaabe from Grassy Narrows First Nation. A recipient of two Dora awards for outstanding actor and play for Agokwe, Humber College outstanding actor, Mark S. Bonham Centre award from University of Toronto for their advocacy and public knowledge in sexual diversity. Waawaate also has many nominations, including Ontario Premiers' Award, K.M Hunter Award and Sterling Award - Edmonton. Waawaate trained and studied Theatre Arts – Performance at Humber College, Indigenous Dance at Banff Centre for the Arts, Summer School Intensives at Toronto Dance Theatre, Intensives at Centre for Indigenous Theatre and Kahawi Dance Theatre.Waawaate has performed in many major theatre companies across Canada and their work and research has taken them to many places as an artist, including Japan, UK, US, and many coasts across Turtle Island. Waawaate has had numerous residencies as playwright and choreographer, including Banff Centre for the Arts, Native Earth Performing Arts, Playwrights’ Theatre Centre, Playwrights Workshop Montreal and Magnus Theatre. Other work: Waawaate coordinated Canada’s first ever 2SLGBTQ+ Council for an Indigenous governing body at Grand Council Treaty #3. Waawaate served for three seasons as a curator for Indigenous Programming at Kick & Push Festival in Kingston. Most Recent: Waawaate choreographed BentBoy by Herbie Barnes at Young Peoples’ Theatre. Performed Omaagomaan in Munich, Germany & Peterborough, Ontario.