Exploring the wide world of Indigenous peoples

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This article was published 23/10/2023 (1051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The season-opening show from Théâtre Cercle Molière — On marronne? (Si ça te dit, viens) — is an international production in every sense of the word.

Written by Togolese playwright Gustave Akakpo, the show is a collaboration among theatre artists in Senegal, French Guiana, the Innu territory in Quebec and Manitoba, focused on the worldviews of Indigenous peoples who call each place home and on the concept of nationhood itself.

It’s already a well-travelled performance: even before premièring Friday night in St. Boniface, the show enjoyed runs earlier this fall at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre and in Limoges, France, for the Festival Les Zébrures.

Taking the show on the road was yet another way to commit to the season’s theme of dialogue, says TCM artistic director Geneviève Pelletier. It’s a type of exploration that can’t be achieved without venturing outside our rigid colonial borders.

“Something that’s been fascinating to me in this particular collaboration is trying to find the connective tissues between First Peoples living in a variety of different countries or territories,” says Pelletier, who is Métis. “To me, that gives the work a lot of meaning and sense — exploring how the things that are sometimes used to divide us can actually bring us together.”

In writing On marronne — the title loosely translates to We’re Rerooting (Come Along if You Feel Like It) — Akakpo, whom Pelletier commissioned three years ago, intended to travel to French Guiana, Senegal and Manitoba to communicate with Indigenous peoples in each territory.

“He was very intrigued by the notion of information gathering, doing research and finding common threads,” says Pelletier.

Akakpo made trips to each place except Manitoba, prevented from visiting here owing to a visa issue, but he was able to spend time in France with Manitoba playwright Tomson Highway, who served as a dramaturge and a cultural liaison.

The story Akakpo came up with is built around a woman named Adelaide, who leaves her community in Casamance, Senegal, roaming around and finding camaraderie in a South American locale with other wanderers, each eager to find commonality. (“Marronnage” is a term from the colonial era meaning the escape of a slave; it also means the use of dead wood from the forest by the surrounding community.)

“Vivre ensemble,” Pelletier says.

Living together has been a core thematic force in Pelletier’s stewardship of TCM, based in large part on the rapidly shifting demographics in Winnipeg’s French-speaking community, with an ongoing wave of newcomers arriving from francophone countries in Africa.

“I think it’s a microcosm of what’s happening on the whole in Winnipeg,” she says. “So we’ve been working hard to figure out how to bring in this new audience.”

“I think the conversation needs to happen around how we’re going to shift demographics within our arts organizations,” she says. “I think most are thinking that way, but as a thought process, this has been ongoing for over 10 years.”

On marronne isn’t the first international collaboration for TCM, with 2018’s L’Armoire and 2023’s Empreinte(s) growing from partnerships with artists in Morocco and France, respectively. But it is indeed one of the most ambitious creative events in the still-young 2023-24 theatrical season in Winnipeg.

“We have an international cast, and it’s an international production, financed by a variety of cultural institutions,” says co-director Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine, who is Innu. “But I’ve never seen a team so connected with regard to vision.”

Vision is an apt word to use when discussing On marronne, because Pelletier says a key element of the show will be sensory based, relying heavily on visual and sonic motifs to establish connections with audiences regardless of their preferred language.

“We try to touch on mediums that aren’t just text-based,” she says. “It’s not always about the text for me.”

That choice is grounded in the cosmogonies, and creation narratives, shared by On marronne’s cast of characters. For them, spirituality and religion is often based in oral tradition, not in the written word.

“We wanted to elevate oral tradition to be able to have a space and place within the context of how we see the world today,” says Pelletier.

“We really wanted to engage with audiences on subjects we feel we need to talk about right now,” she adds.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com