Finale comes down from the ages

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This article was published 22/04/2024 (536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Royal Winnipeg Ballet choreographer-in-residence Cameron Fraser-Monroe set upon creating a bold new work to serve as the finale for the ballet’s 2024/25 season, he decided to tell a story that has been passed down for generations.

T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods — which makes its world première at the Centennial Concert Hall Thursday to Sunday alongside Carmina Burana — is an evening-length ballet based on the oral history of elder Elsie Paul, a knowledge keeper of the Tla’amin First Nation on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast.

Fraser-Monroe is also a member of the Tla’amin First Nation, so he grew up hearing about the wild man in the woods who kidnaps children from the village, never to be seen again, until one young woman bravely decides to save her sister.

“Not only was this story entertaining and used for generations, it also, like many of our stories, serves a purpose and that was to help us raise our children to help them not wander off after dark,” Fraser-Monroe says.

The story will be told in movement that blends the classical and the contemporary, but audiences will actually be able to hear Paul’s voice. She will provide audio narration in Ayajuthem, the language of the Tla’amin Nation, as well as in English.

The inclusion of language felt necessary, Fraser-Monroe says, to bridge the gap for audience members who didn’t grow up hearing this narrative.

“I think that we take for granted the canon of stories that we’re able to use in ballet,” says the RWB School alumnus. “Oftentimes, you’re telling European fairy tales, and there’s very little explanation needed; people can just walk in and you know the story of Sleeping Beauty or the story of Cinderella.”

But the inclusion of Ayajuthem was of particular importance to Fraser-Monroe. Paul, who is a residential school survivor, is one of the few living fluent speakers of the language.

“I thought, why not go to the source? Why not go to the person that has worked so incredibly hard to keep this story alive? And why not take it a step further with the inclusion of Ayajuthem, which is the language this story originated in, has been maintained in and ultimately was illegal in,” he says.

“It’s honouring the integrity of that story. It’s honouring the legacy and the history that has really preserved it. And I can’t emphasize enough how grateful I am to Elsie Paul, that she was able to maintain this story against all odds.”–Cameron Fraser-Monroe

“That’s why it was important for me to use Ayajuthem. It’s honouring the integrity of that story. It’s honouring the legacy and the history that has really preserved it. And I can’t emphasize enough how grateful I am to Elsie Paul, that she was able to maintain this story against all odds.”

Joining Fraser-Monroe and Paul on the creative team are Juno-nominated two-spirit cellist and composer Cris Derksen, who provided the score, and New York-based Navajo designer Asa Benally, who designed the costumes.

“That’s something I’m so excited about on this production, and what is so special about it, is that I’m able to bring on Indigenous collaborators to tell our story in our own way,” Fraser-Monroe says.

Derksen, who creates kinetic, electronic-meets-classical soundscapes with cello and looping pedals, will be joining the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra live in the pit.

She’s performed with orchestras before, but performing a live ballet score is a new challenge.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little stressed,” she says with a laugh. “Ballet is so precise. Same with classical music. So I’m just trying to make sure that my loops are perfect right off the bat so I don’t have to redo them, because there’s no time for that. It’s just perfecting what’s already there.”

Derksen is honoured to be part of T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods and to be part of a truly Indigenous-led creation.

“I think Cameron’s doing something really cool,” she says. “I work a lot within the classical world, which is also the same colonial white construct that thinks there’s only one way to tell a story, and I think Indigenous folks have another way to tell a story … we can tell them through this classical lens now and I think that’s really important.”

This is one of the largest-scale projects Fraser-Monroe has ever worked on, and he’s excited to see it onstage.

“I can already picture the moment, I can already see sitting in the audience with the symphony and Cris’s music, and Elsie’s voice coming through the speakers and the full RWB company on the stage and it just almost makes me well up,” he says.

“That moment is going to be so significant and so powerful for not only myself, but for Indigenous narrative sovereignty.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com