Two upcoming contemporary dance pieces in Toronto will explore Indigenous connections to land, body, and space. Native Earth Performing Arts will present the Niimi’iwe Dance Double Bill from February 5 to 8. It will feature Conversations: Hidden Stories by Toronto-based Vanguardia Dance Projects and North Bay-based Aanmitaagzi. In addition, the program will include Spine of the Mother by West Vancouver-based Raven Spirit Dance.
“Allow these works to transport you through time and place, and witness the power of these incredible artists as they share the Aki Studio stage,” Native Earth Performing Arts artistic director Joelle Peters said in a news release.
Colombian Canadian Olga Barrios is directing and choreographing Conversations: Hidden Stories. Also co-artistic director of Vanguard Dance Projects, Barrios co-created the work with co-artistic director Norma Araiza, Lilia León, Penny Couchie, and Animikiikwe Couchie.
Barrios, Araiza, León, and guest dancers Lucia Llano and Maria Riaño will perform the work.
“Looking at stories of displacement and erasure, Conversations is a journey through what has separated us from ourselves and each other,” Native Earth Performing Arts stated in the news release. “Through soil, fabric, land and water, the work reaffirms a sovereign right to ancestral memory, connection and future.”
Bodies likened to landscapes
Meanwhile, Raven Spirit Dance co-artistic director Starr Muranko is choreographing Spine of the Mother. It will be performed by Tasha-Faye Evans and Marisa Gold.
Muranko is a highly regarded dance artist with Omushkegowuk Cree (Moose Cree First Nation – Treaty 9), French, and German ancestry. She was mentored by the late Cree Elder Margaret Harris, who played a pivotal role in revitalizing Coastal dance.
Muranko is artist-in-residence at Ballet BC alongside Harris’s daughter, Margaret Grenier, executive and artistic director of Dancers of Damelahamid.
“The metaphor of the Spine of Mother Earth is a name given by Indigenous Elders in South America to the Andean mountain range that spans from the base in Argentina, through the Americas and ends at the tip of Alaska,” stated the Native Earth Performing Arts news release. “Our bodies become the landscape like the mountain ranges that connect the North and South (the Eagle and the Condor) and through this we find our kinetic connection to others that transmits impulse, breath and spirit.”
Native Earth Performing Arts will present Niimi’iwe Dance Double Bill at 7:30 p.m. from February 5 to 7 and 2 p.m. on February 8. The performances will take place at Aki Studio (585 Dundas Street East, #120). For tickets and more information, visit the Native Earth Performing Arts website. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
