ASAP 2022 presenting The Light in Us All in Durham, ON

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The Light in Us All
Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film – Durham, ON
July 23, 2022 @ 7 pm

The Light in Us All is a presentation of the 2022 Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program and our multi-year project, ALL MY R(el)ATIONS.  It is collaboratively created and performed by the Aanmitaagzi company artists and the program participants. It is an investigation and expression of an indigenous story shared by Monique Manatch. This is the way we heard it: A long time ago the light went out. Fear and distrust grew. Loved ones were lost. They all journeyed together to find the light. What fans your light? How do we protect the light? The Light in Us All shares and celebrates our stories and imaginings.

This is our 15th Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program. Our company and community have experienced great change. We are excited to look back at our repertoire and past participants: our elders, artists, and youth. We have been engaging with, dreaming of and developing our narrative sovereignty through art-making. We will re-imagine and re-envision our previous works in a new performance.

The Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program (ASAP) is a 6-week intensive in indigenous performing and visual arts. Now in its fifteenth year, the program faculty is led by award-winning and renowned professional indigenous artists and educators. Participants learn, share, express and create alongside our professional multi-arts team.

ALL MY R(el)ATIONS, our latest work-in-progress, explores our historic abundance in opposition to systemic oppression and poverty. How much of what we have now is a ration? A small shadow of what we once had. What are we entitled to? What dances, stories, songs and language are our birthright?

ALL MY R(el)ATIONS explores historically rooted ways in which we make a return to abundance by connecting to ourselves and all of Creation.

CREDITS:

2022 Aanmitagzi Summer Arts Program Participants – Dan Babin, Ouske Couchie-Bobb, Abby Hopkins, Brad McDonald, Angel McLeod, Georgia Mianskum,  and North Sutherland-Spence

Artist Leads / Facilitators

  • Penny Couchie – Choreography / Direction
  • Sid Bobb – Theatre / Direction
  • Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey – Dance / Choreography
  • Sherry Guppy – Visual Arts, Installation / Set
  • Michaela Washburn – Theatre, Story-telling
  • Tasheena Sarazin – Singing
  • Blair Beaucage – Anishinaabemowin

Photo Credit – Liz Lott Photography

Graphic Design – Daniel Couchie

The Miserere Project opens tonight in Toronto

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Still image from the short dance film Love Fights.

Still from Love Fights, a short film by Penny Couchie & Aanmitaagzi

May 18 – 21, 2022
8pm @ The Citadel
Livestream May 21, 2022

Commissioned as part of The Miserere Project to celebrate the 41st anniversary of David Earle’s dance masterpiece Miserere, Love fights is a conversation with an artist ensemble, a collaborative investigation through movement and words. Guided by Choreographer/Director, Penny Couchie, it is a community of voices coming forward. Through improvised, ensemble movement, and written work, the consideration of community is anchored in self, ebbing back and forth between creation, family, and nation.

This work looks at times in our lives, when we experience fracture within ourselves, our families and our communities. In times when we feel lost or alone, what are we connected to? What brings us back to ourselves? In our ceremonies, when we are in a place of hurt, we begin by looking at ourselves, family, community, nation and then all of creation. This ripple outwards, in turn, spirals back to self. It is a conversation about finding our way back from that which divides us from ourselves, each other and all of creation.

Sincere gratitude to Danielle Baskerville for this opportunity to honour David Earle’s work and legacy and respond to what has moved me so deeply. This piece is created in loving memory of Lee Maracle and Carol Guppy.

– Penny Couchie, Choreographer/Director

Love Fights and the other works commissioned for The Miserere Project will be on view at The Citadel from May 18 – 21, 2022. Tickets for in-person and Livestream viewing can be purchased on their website here.

Production Credits:

Choreographer/Director: Penny Couchie

Written and Performed by: Sid Bobb, Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey, Penny Couchie, Christine Friday, and Michaela Washburn

Co-produced by Aanmitaagzi in collaboration with RFPMEDIA.

Camera Operators: Bernardo d’Ávila, Kevin Love, and Richard Fortin

Video Editor: Kevin Love

Video Production: RFPMEDIA INC.

Production Coordinator: Richard Fortin

Audio Recording and Post Production: Suite 16 Studio, North Bay, Ontario

Music: “Miserere” by Gregoria Allegri performed by Ars Nova Copenhagen

Approximate run time: 12 min 15 sec

Memorial for Carol Guppy Baa

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The image is a photograph of Carol Guppy.Almost a year ago to the day we lost our dear friend, mentor, and founding member Carol Guppy. In memory of Carol’s kindness, wisdom, laughter, and spirit, Aanmitaagzi and members of Carol’s family will be hosting a memorial at Big Medicine Studio (161 Couchie Memorial Dr.) on Sunday, May 15, 2022.

The memorial will begin at 6 am with a sunrise ceremony, followed by a feast and ceremony at 12 pm.

For more information, please contact Sid Bobb or Penny Couchie at (705) 474-2227 or email aanmitaagzi@gmail.com.

Aanmitaagzi participating in the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus

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Installation photo of NGAPA YAAN / NIIBI AANMITAAGZI from Pier 2/3 at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct in Dawes Point, Australia.

NGAPA YAAN / NIIBI AANMITAAGZI

(WATER SPEAKS)

12 March – 13 June 2022
Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
13 Hickson Road, Dawes Point, NSW 2000

As part of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus, taking place from March 12 – June 13, 2022, Aanmitaagzi collaborated with Moogahlin Performing Arts to create Ngapa Yaan / Niibi Aanmitaagzi, a short video work on display at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. The work is  one stage of an ongoing artistic and knowledge exchange between the two companies, and features creation stories told in Murrawarri and Northern Cree language as well as footage of their respective lands and waterways.

As stated on Moogahlin’s website:

This project is a durational investigation of two cultural stories, Serpent People from Nipissing First Nation (Turtle Island) and Mundagudda from Murrawarri Country in Far West NSW, Australia.

Through a discursive practice of storytelling, and story-weaving connected by a common theme – WATER – we are engaging with historical references to water from across different nations and countries that celebrate and highlight our relational identities and connection to country. The stories come from juxtaposed locations, one a frozen inland lake, the other in an often-dry land. We ask, what knowledge about water is contained and transferred through each story? How do these stories define a relationship to water?

In articulating our relationship to water, we are in a process of communicating our identity, blood ties, and clan affiliations.

Aanmitaagzi would like to thank our artistic team Perry Mcleod-Shabogeesic (Storyteller / Knowledge Keeper), Penny Couchie (Creative Lead / Script / Narration), Megan Lozicki Paulin (Creative Lead), Sid Bobb (Creative Lead / Script), Cecile Hookimaw (Northern Cree Translator / Narration), Bradley Trudeau (Camera), Sherry Guppy (Production Support), Michaela Washburn (Production Support), and Merilee Helmer (Production Support) for their amazing work, as well as Richard Fortin (Camera Assistant) & Bernardo D’Avila (Camera and Drone Operator) from RFPMEDIA for helping us to produce our portion of the video.

We also want to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their continued support, and Moogahlin Performing Arts and the Biennale of Sydney for inviting us to participate in this project.

Misdemeanor Dream opens March 10th in NYC

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Misdemeanor Dream at the Abrons Arts Centre, February 2020. Photo by Sherry Guppy.

After months of hard work, Aanmitaagzi and Spiderwoman Theater are proud to present Misdemeanor Dream at La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theater in New York City. A multi-generational theatre project that brings together performers, designers, and cultural practitioners from across Turtle Island, Misdemeanor Dream uses storyweaving, text, movement, sound, video, and installation to explore current and traditional stories. languages, and identities through characters both of this world and of other worlds.

The show opens March 10, 2022 and runs through March 27, 2022. For more information, or to purchase tickets, please visit La Mama’s website.