Luminato Festival 2021 - First the Truth...With Cotee Harper

Watch the Built on Genocide Virtual Tour here -- https://luminatofestival.neme.tv/watch/375-luminatofestival-built-on-genocide-walkthrough

First, the Truth...

This interview series delves into deep-seated and important Indigenous issues in the land known as Turtle Island, or Canada. They are presented in relation to Built on Genocide, commissioned as part of the Luminato Festival 2021.

For more information on the project, please go here and read below.
https://luminatofestival.com/event/built-on-genocide/

Born and raised in Toronto, Cotee's roots stem from the Cree Shawnee Potawatomi Nation and she is also a member of the Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan. As the youngest daughter of the late urban elder Vern Harper, she merges her heritage as an Indigenous dance artist with a contemporary dance style. For 25 years, she studied classical ballet and contemporary dance at Anna McCowan Johnson’s Interplay School of Dance. Harper is also a traditional dancer of fancy shawl and jingle dress and has performed for dignitaries, in schools, and festivals throughout Ontario, as well as in the music video of tenor and composer Jeremy Dutcher. She was featured in the opening performance of the 2017 Indspire Awards as well as in the Canada 150 “Our Home on Native Land” celebrations at Toronto’s Harbourfront with the ensemble Meegwetch. She has also been featured on FabCollab's Women in Song series, and is a resident dancer at Toronto Dance Theatre.

Built on Genocide is a reckoning, a call to action, and an unflinching look at the colonial foundations of Canada that remain intact today. Created by Indigenous artist Jay Soule | CHIPPEWAR from the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation (Deshkaan Ziibing Anishinaabeg), Built on Genocide is a powerful visual record of the 19th-century buffalo genocide that accompanied John A. MacDonald’s colonial expansion west with the railroad. In the mid-19th century, an estimated 30 to 60 million buffalo roamed the prairies, by the late 1880s, fewer than 300 remained. As the buffalo were slaughtered and the prairie ecosystem decimated, Indigenous peoples were robbed of their foods, lands, and cultures. The buffalo genocide became a genocide of the people.

Working from archival records, Soule combines installation and paintings to connect the past with the present, demanding the uncomfortable acknowledgement that Canada is a nation built on genocide.

For more information on the project go here:
https://luminatofestival.com/event/built-on-genocide/

Видео Luminato Festival 2021 - First the Truth...With Cotee Harper канала Luminato Festival