POUNDMAKER FIRST NATION — The summer solstice marked the blessing and grand opening of Miyawata Culture's cultural lodge on Poundmaker First Nation, celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day with cultural teachings, and spoken word performances.
"Today is the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' Day ... I wanted to open it [the lodge] to prayer and ceremony, because our art, our writing, performances, and songs, I see them as prayers as well," Floyd Favel, director for the company and curator of the Chief Poundmaker Museum told the News-Optimist.
Favel's lodge, which has been built by hand, has been in the works for years. Without a blueprint, everything down to the 365 wooden poles harvested from the land, the four large beams at the heart of the lodge, or the cross-shaped skylight all hold a special significance.
The hour-long grand opening on June 21, preceded by a pipe ceremony, included the performances of Aerial Sunday-Cardinal from Whitefish Lake First Nation in northern Alberta, and Janelle Pewapsconias, or ecoaborijanelle, from Little Pine First Nation.
"I wanted to invite these two young ladies because I admire their work, they're going in a direction you don't see anywhere in Canada. It's sort of like a post-colonial performance. It goes beyond colonial definitions of Indigenous performance.
"We're an experiment, an Indigenous performance in an Indigenous community within an Indigenous structure," Favel said, explaining that ceremony and performance aren't two separate things, but instead complement each other in some contexts.
Aerial Sunday-Cardinal performed by making seven circles out of sand representing different generations before rising and singing the Grandmother Song, while Janelle Pewapsconias, or ecoaborijanelle, shared her spoken word poetry from the anthology, “When the Condor and the Eagle Meet,” published in 2022
Pewapsconias was inspired vy Khodi Dill who shared his work in 2012 at the Idle No More demonstration in Saskatoon.
"It just gave me goosebumps because of the way he performed and orated, and just the message of having solidarity from the black community felt so powerful and special," Pewapsconias said, describing her dream of being an artist.
"To be held by the community of poets I shared my words with gave me the confidence to know that my words could be shared beyond this and eventually the anger goes away."
"And so that's what I want to do with the world and my words ... I want my words and stories to be for the kids and the women and the people who need to feel powerful, and want to see themselves represented known that they're valid and loved and that there is always space [for them] in the circle."
The lodge will be the site of the 2023 Poundmaker Indigenous Performance Festival running from July 18 to 22.
