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Justice Sinclair gives blessing at acclaimed play

By: Adam Wazny

Posted: 03/12/2010 7:01 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

THE moment was not lost on Murray Sinclair.

Sinclair, the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice, who serves as the chairman of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission, had the honour of giving the traditional blessing before the critically acclaimed play Where the Blood Mixes at Prairie Theatre Exchange Thursday night.

The play tells the story of two aboriginal men fighting the demons of their experiences in the residential school system while managing the emotion of their current, everyday situations.

"It's a very important evening for everyone here," Sinclair said prior to delivering the blessing. "Because of the nature of the work we're doing (with the commission), the whole issue of how this story becomes revealed within families becomes doubly important."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a five-year investigation designed to document the history and examine the impact the residential school system had on aboriginal people in Canada.

The schools, institutions operated by the church on behalf of the federal government designed to integrate aboriginal children into mainstream culture, were first opened up in the late 1800s. Manitoba was home to 15 residential schools, the last of which shut its doors in 1980.

Sinclair, who called Thursday night's blessing his "first performance piece," said the play is a excellent example of what aboriginal families have to deal with in a postresidential world. Not only are the survivors angry at how their childhood was taken from them, those individuals are seeing an anger in their own children, who have no history to draw upon.

"The nature of that anger has never really been talked about," Sinclair said. "We always talk about the impact on the individual survivor of the school. We never talk about the children of the survivors and the anger they feel."

Standing alongside actress Margo Kane, who plays Jane in the play, and PTE artistic director Robert Metcalfe, Sinclair relayed that same message to the over 300 people in attendance.

Metcalfe saw Where the Blood

Mixes a couple years ago in Vancouver -- on the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper's formal apology to the aboriginal community for past assimilation attempts. Since that day, Metcalfe knew he had to bring the production to Winnipeg.

"It seems that both the play and our understanding of what happened in the residential schools has followed this wave, a wave of positive impact," he said. "Having Justice Sinclair here is a special honour for us. I don't think it's sunk in yet." Where the Blood Mixes runs at the PTE until March 20, before heading off to Toronto.

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