Celebrate Indigenous Brilliance’s two-year anniversary with events that showcase exceptional creative storytelling, from readings to drag numbers to sound performances. Indigenous Brilliance is a collective approach to realizing resurgence: coming together with the shared desire to raise the voices of Indigenous women, Two-Spirit, and Indigequeer storytellers.
Event Type: Special Event
Event Codes: BEA/SUN-3, BEA/SUN-4, BEA/SUN-5
Venue: Beaumont Studios
Date: Sunday, March 15, 1:00pm – 9:00pm
Cost: Pay What You Can (recommended: $12.50 per event or $30 for an all-day pass)
ASL Interpretation Available by Request Before February 15, 2020
Luminaries: The Way Forward, 1pm – 3pm (BEA/SUN-3)
Our legends are real. Our songs are alive. Recognizing the work of our Ancestors, we continue to reawaken sleeping stories and languages with new breath. These artists, Kim Senklip Harvey, Cassandra Blanchard, Helen Knott, and Francine Cunningham, are shining examples of the radiance of Indigenous Futurisms. Hosted by Emily Dundas Oke and Molly Cross-Blanchard.
This event will feature ASL-ENG interpretation.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (dir. Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn), 4pm – 6:30pm (BEA/SUN-4)
Two Indigenous women from vastly different backgrounds find their worlds colliding as one of them, Rosie, is fleeing a violent domestic attack. What begins as an urgent and terrifying escape, tentatively expands as the women weave a fragile bond in their short time together while navigating the complexities of motherhood and the ongoing legacy of colonialism.
This film will be followed by a discussion between Jade Baxter and Justin Ducharme, two Vancouver-based filmmakers who together with the audience will reflect in conversation on the presence of this film within our communities and cinematic history and practice. Note: This film is close-captioned.
Afterglow: Tongue & Cheek, 7:30pm – 9:30pm (BEA/SUN-5)
The body is a story, each rattle of the hip is a decolonial love song. The movement of sound and body is proof that Indigenous artistry is reaching toward the stars through contemporary song, dance, drag, and performance. To end the day of Indigenous Brilliance, Jody Mariko Okabe, Edzi’u, Délani Valin, Kalilah Rampanen, and Liz Howard show us the reaches of storytelling. Hosted by Sparkle Plenty.
Cassandra Blanchard was born in Whitehorse, Yukon and is a part of the Selkirk First Nation. Fresh Pack of Smokes is her first book. She currently lives on Vancouver Island.
Délani Valin is a Cree-Metis writer living on traditional Snuneymuxw territory on Vancouver Island. Her work has been awarded the Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize and subTerrain’s Lush Triumphant Literary Award. She is part of the Room Collective and is the editor at Culturally Modified.
Emily Dundas Oke is an emerging curator, interdisciplinary artist, and arts administrator. She is grateful to be the organizer and a co-curator of Indigenous Brilliance.
Edzi’u is a 2spirit Tahltan and Taku River Tlingit sound and text artist. Her work as a multi-medium storyteller centres resisting colonial narratives.
Francine Cunningham is an award-winning Indigenous writer, artist and educator. Her debut book of poetry is titled ON/Me. You can find more about her at francinecunningham.ca.
Helen Knott is a Dane Zaa, nehiyaw and mixed Euro woman who released her debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins in the fall of 2019.
Jade Baxter is Nlaka’pamux from Skuppah and an independent filmmaker/artist. Utilizing filmmaking for Salish stories and anti-colonialism while working to understand what ndn cinematic protocol can be.
Jody Mariko Okabe is a Queer, Tsimshian, Japanese, and French Canadian musician, born and raised in Northern B.C. She is currently working on her first album.
Justin Ducharme is a filmmaker, writer, dancer and curator from the small Métis community of St. Ambroise on Treaty 1 Territory. He currently lives and works on Unceded Coast Salish Territory.
Liz Howard’s debut collection Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize. She is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe heritage.S
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a Métis writer, Poetry Editor at PRISM, Assistant to the ED at BCYBP, and author of I Don’t Want to Tell You.
Sparkle Plenty is Vancouver’s glamedian, weirdlesquer and word-maker-upper who has been delivering beautifully bizarre burlesque acts for over ten years! This fiery goddess is Cree with mixed heritage and is a proud sister of the first-ever all-Indigenous burlesque group, Virago Nation.