Many Stories, Many Voices: Alberta Aboriginal Arts

Rubaboo [Roo'-bǝ-boo]: A Métis stew consisting of anything you can get your hands on.

Alberta Aboriginal Arts co-founders/co-directors Ryan Cunningham and Christine Sokaymoh Frederick welcome the audience to the second annual Rubaboo Arts Festival in June 2010.
Photo by Frieda Gladue

Christine Sokaymoh Frederick emceeing the second Annual Rubaboo Arts festival in June 2010.
Photo by Marc Chalifoux

When describing the 2nd Annual Rubaboo Arts Festival, Christine Sokaymoh Frederick doesn't dwell on the broad range of Aboriginal theatre, music, and dance artists whose diverse contributions justify the event's name. Instead, her recollections focus on the audience. "It was downtown [Edmonton], and we had people coming in off the street," says Frederick. "To have Aboriginal people see something Aboriginal-themed on their own block was exciting." One particular woman came all four nights, and finally approached Frederick to ask, "What is this all about?" When Frederick began to explain Alberta Aboriginal Arts's role in organizing the festival, the patron interrupted: "What do you mean, you're an Aboriginal theatre company?" (qtd. in Frederick).

When they founded Alberta Aboriginal Arts (AAA) in summer 2009, Frederick and co-founder Ryan Cunningham were seeking the answers to similar questions. What can an Aboriginal-themed theatre company contribute to the cultural landscape? What audience(s) does it serve? And—perhaps most importantly—is there even such a thing as Aboriginal theatre? In the same year that AAA was founded, Floyd Favel wrote, in the pages of Canadian Theatre Review, that "there exists no Indigenous Canadian theatre" (32)—a declaration that seems to contradict, or undermine, Drew Hayden Taylor's optimism a decade earlier, when he wrote, "Native theatre is strong, popular and practically everywhere in terms of the Canadian theatrical community" (61). As AAA attempts to reconcile this paradox of Aboriginal Canadian theatre—a hearty, complex stew of narratives and disciplines that somehow still remains invisible—it has supplied its own, unique definition: a community-focused, multi-disciplinary arts organization devoted to presenting a wide range of Aboriginal stories.

The apparent scarcity of Native theatre is egregious in Alberta; the province has an Aboriginal population density of 6%, and its two largest cities (Edmonton and Calgary, respectively) have the second and third highest Aboriginal populations of all Canadian cities ("Edmonton"; "Calgary"). Yet Ryan Cunningham recalls "growing up in theatre, going to theatre school, and working in theatre in Edmonton" without ever seeing an Aboriginal play produced. "It wasn't until I moved to Toronto that I was actually aware of Aboriginal theatre" (Cunningham).

Christine Sokaymoh Frederick and Donald Morin in a reading of Arvus in Excelsus by Gordon A. Fox for the second annual Rubaboo Arts Festival in June 2010.
Photo by Marc Chalifoux

And one province's scarcity may well reflect a broader dearth. Obtaining a clear impression of the Aboriginal Canadian theatrical landscape is difficult because, according to Frederick, many companies are "alive on paper, but there's no pulse" (Frederick). No companies with specifically Aboriginal mandates appear to be in operation in Quebec or Atlantic Canada, and between Ontario (e.g. Native Earth, Debajehmujig, Red Sky, Chocolate Woman Collective, and Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble) and Vancouver (e.g. Full Circle) there lies an unlikely cultural desert, punctuated only rarely by oases like Saskatchewan Native Theatre. Cunningham says he owes much of his artistic success to many of these companies, established in the 1980s and 1990s; but he feels that "no one in our generation seems to be stepping up" to maintain a nationwide network of Aboriginal companies (Cunningham).

In fact, while Cunningham was working as an actor "out east" with companies like Native Earth, two Aboriginal theatre initiatives arose in Alberta. In Edmonton, Old Earth Theatre arose when a group of actors, having met in 2005 in Walterdale Playhouse's production of The Rez Sisters, resolved to keep working together on original projects (Heather). In Calgary, Crazy Horse Theatre produced professional plays and festivals in Calgary from 2000 to...