It’s never just about dance.
For Margaret Grenier, executive and artistic director of the Coastal Dance Festival, the five-day celebration of Indigenous dance has always been very much deeper than simply a chance to publicly perform new work. Grenier, who is of Gitxsan and Cree ancestry, knows how deeply the art of dance is intertwined with all other aspects of Indigenous culture, and she knows how crucial it is to never forget how close some of that culture has come to vanishing.
That message is inherent in all the work she does with her company, Dancers of Damelahamid – and it’s shared with all the other Indigenous performers, from across Canada and elsewhere in the world, who take to the stage for the festival.
“People respond to all of the artists who are doing the work they’re doing, because most of us know these practices within our generation, the previous generation, have been close to being lost. It’s something that we care for, and we know how easily it could happen again,” she says. “The audience can feel that. They can feel how important that is to the artists.”
This year marks the 12th annual festival for Dancers of Damelahamid, a company that was started by Grenier’s parents, Ken and Margaret Harris, in the 1960s.
“When I was a young girl, I grew up in Prince Rupert and along the Skeena River area, and my parents led a festival there for about two decades,” Grenier recalls. “At that time for me, it was a huge part of what I experienced and what connected me to the dance practice I grew up in, so I really saw the value in that.”
The current festival, formerly known as the Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, began in Vancouver in 2008. At the time, Grenier says, her festival was pretty much the only opportunity to present traditional Indigenous dance; that’s changed greatly in the last three to four years as interest in traditional practice has blossomed.
“There’s a strong mandate in the dance community to not only be inclusive of diverse communities in dance, but to bridge understanding,” Grenier says.
Today, the festival sits in the context of the broader societal conversation around reconciliation and what that means for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
“For me, there are many ways we can engage in that conversation,” Grenier says. “In sharing through the arts, it’s something that resonates at a level that comes from the heart. That’s why, for me, it’s so important.”
Each year, the festival makes an effort to draw performers from a variety of locations, not just from B.C. but beyond. Past years have seen performers from such far-flung locations as New Zealand, Ecuador, Peru, Australia and Hawaii.
This year, Grenier is excited to have on board a number of Montreal-based artists, including singers Émilie Monnet and Nahka Bertrand, and dancer-choreographer Barbara Diabo and daughter Emily Diabo, who will share a tribute to Mohawk ironworkers.
Also featured will be the Wagana Aboriginal Dancers from Australia’s Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney, led by Jo Clancy.
“Jo’s work is really unique and beautiful in that she works specifically with young Indigenous girls who would not otherwise have had an opportunity to practise within their own culture,” Grenier says.
Grenier also works hard to ensure that her festival builds a community of performers who return year over year. Squamish-based company Spakwus Slolem will return this year, as will the Flying Gwitch’in Fiddler, Boyd Benjamin, and singer-songwriter Kevin Barr, a popular duo from Yukon. The Git Hayetsk Dancers are also set to make a return.
The inclusion of singers and musicians is a natural extension of the Indigenous dance culture, Grenier notes.
“Our dance, our music, our regalia, everything is very much interconnected,” she says.
Her own company, too, will take centre stage to perform an excerpt, in full regalia, from their new work, Mînowin – a commission by the National Arts Centre, the Cultch and other theatres that will lead to a national tour this coming year.
This year’s festival has a strong focus on female performance, Grenier notes.
“It seemed like this year there was a really strong presence of women at the festival, which is something that just worked out. I think that’s going to be a really beautiful part of this year’s festival,” she said.
But Grenier adds that’s not surprising, considering the strong female influences in the local Indigenous dance community – not just with Damelahamid, but with Raven Spirit Dance and Métis dance company V’ni Dansi as well.
“They all have women dancers and women directors as part of that community that we have here,” she says.
Grenier is looking forward to introducing all the performers to a new audience this year, in this first-ever appearance in New Westminster. Previous events have taken place at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, but, with seismic upgrades underway at the museum’s Great Hall, the company needed to find a new home this year.
Grenier is thrilled to have made a connection with the Anvil Centre, which she calls an “amazing facility.” She says the theatre is the perfect venue for their ticketed evening events, while the conference centre space is ideal for the weekend afternoon events. Moreover, she noted, the New Westminster location will allow them to reach new audiences in outlying areas of the region, for whom the UBC location would have been too far.
She’s hoping that people from all walks of life and of all ages will turn out to take in some of the performances, noting that there’s something on offer for all ages – the performers range from children to elders, and she’s hoping the audience will too. Besides the public shows in the evenings and the drop-in, pay-what-you-can performances on weekend afternoons, there are also school-focused performances during the weekdays.
For Grenier, the experience of staging the festival is at once a public effort and a uniquely personal one; as an artist, she says, it’s impossible to separate her artistic practice from her identity as an Indigenous person.
“That identity, for me, is very much founded in this practice, which has connected me to land, which has connected me to language, which has connected me back to various communities’ oral histories,” she says. “There’s something within the practice, it’s so much more than choreography and song composition. What’s being carried in the work that’s being done is the telling of stories, of history, of where these communities are coming from.”
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Signature Evening Performances
Tickets: $30 adults, $25 students/seniors/MOA members (taxes included)
Advance tickets: www.anvilcentre.com (service charges will apply)
Friday February 22, 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Welcome to Territory
Spakwus Slolem, Squamish
Dancers of Damelahamid
Émilie Monnet, Anishnaabe/French & Nahka Bertrand, Dene/Quebecer
Git Hayetsk, Nisga'a/Tsimshian
Saturday February 23, 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Welcome to Territory
Boyd Benjamin & Kevin Barr, Gwitch'in & Anishinaabe
Dancers of Damelahamid
Barbara & Emily Diabo, Kanienkehaka
Git Hoan, Tsimshian
Festival Stage Saturday February 23 - 1-4 p.m.
Entrance (Pay what you can)
Émilie Monnet, Anishnaabe/French & Nahka Bertrand, Dene/Quebecer
Dakhká Khwáan Dancers, Inland Tlingit
Kwhlii Gibaykw, Nisga'a
Barbara & Emily Diabo, Kanienkehaka
Le La La Dancers, Kwakwaka'wakw
Git Hoan, Tsimshian
Festival Stage Sunday February 24 - 1-4 p.m.
Entrance (Pay what you can)
Náakw Dancers, Tlingit
Dakhká Khwáan Dancers, Inland Tlingit
V'ni Dansi, Métis
Kwhlii Gibaykw, Nisga'a
Git Hayetsk, Tsimshian/Nisga'a
Chinook Song Catchers, Nisga'a/Squamish
Information: www.damelahamid.ca
