Kickstart your summer and Indigenous History Month with the 22nd annual Talking Stick Festival. The one-of-a-kind event is a multidisciplinary showcase that celebrates Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer artists, and this year’s theme, Summer Reverb, brings together the idea of amplifying voices with textured sound.
Running from June 1 to July 2, the month-long celebration spans documentary, theatre, burlesque and immersive audio performance. The festival concludes with a series of roundtables, welcoming an open discussion on topics such as the evolving Canadian art landscape and social justice.
Headlining this year’s musical lineup is Indigenous Music Award winner and musician Logan Staats alongside is DJ Kookum, an open format DJ and multimedia maker from the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation and Cold Lake First Nations. Indigenous singer-songwriter, activist and storyteller Pura Fé will also perform.
Opening night offers the captivating tale of the First Métis Man of Odesa, an extraordinary narrative interweaving love, resilience and hope, and the following week, award-winning author Michelle Good presents an essay collection that asks non-Indigenous people to reconsider what they think they know about Indigeneity, and to confront the human cost of colonialism in Truth Telling: Seven Conversations About Indigenous Life in Canada.
Closing out the final week, The Seventh Fire offers an immersive audio performance drawing from Anishinaabe stories and ceremony, as artist Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen invokes the somatic link to ancestral realms in order to envision a better future.
As mainstream organizations seek reconciliation with Indigenous artists, Indigenous artists drive discourse and redefine the arts.
"Through the continued sharing and uplifting of our stories, we move towards an unequivocal truth — the future is Indigenous,” says Nathan Mudge from Indigenous arts collective and non-profit Full Circle.
Talking Stick Festival is the signature event of Canadian non-profit and Indigenous arts organization Full Circle, who provide a platform for Indigenous artists to create, work and train in the arts. Get tickets and learn more about Summer Reverb at the Talking Stick Festival website.
Read more: Indigenous, Music
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