Aboriginal Arts Home

What’s Happening in Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre

• Aboriginal Arts and Digital Film & Media Production will host the Namesakes Summit: Hi-Rez Storytelling from March 11-14, 2010 at The Banff Centre. This Summit will draw together innovators from the world of documentary and narrative filmmaking alongside Aboriginal women leaders and Indigenous filmmakers from around the world. The goal of the Summit is to provide an opportunity for creators and collaborators to develop a new Indigenous documentary filmmaking and screenwriting program at The Banff Centre, a program that will support and strengthen the evolution of Indigenous storytelling into exciting digital and film media forms.The Summit will feature keynote speakers, film screenings, and a series of panel discussions. If you are interested in participating at this Summit, you can register to attend for a fee of $500. This fee includes three nights’ accommodation and meals at The Banff Centre. Space is limited; the deadline for registration is February 1, 2010.
• Aboriginal Arts is pleased to share performances by artists Pura Fé, George Leach, Leela Gilday, Lucie Idlout, Altai Kanghai, and Kendra Tagoona and Becky Kilabuk on iTunesU. iTunesU is a new initiative to disseminate creative work performed in Banff; it allows anyone with access to the Internet to download selected work created or performed at The Banff Centre for free. Check out itunes.banffcentre.ca
• The Banff Centre offers Self-directed residencies for Aboriginal artists, enabling the time and space for focused work and providing the freedom to conceptualize, create, research, or complete any project. Writers, composers, singer-songwriters, dancers, choreographers, film makers, visual artists, new media artists, screenwriters, playwrights, curators, and others are invited to apply.

Recent Aboriginal Arts Events and Programming

• An Aboriginal Editors Initiative took place at The Banff Centre from October 7- 8, 2009. The focus of the two-day summit was to explore multi-phase training and professional development initiatives for Aboriginal editors in Canada. The working group included Aboriginal publishers, editors, arts directors, and authors as well as project consultants and officers from national and provincial arts and cultural agencies. The goal of the summit was to develop editorial training and development for Aboriginal publishers, editors and writers as a key component of supporting Indigenous literary arts in Canada.
• On August 28 and 29, 2009 Aboriginal Arts presented the public concert series Diverse As This Land. This marked the second year of an innovative seven-year vision for music programming in The Banff Centre’s Aboriginal Arts. It celebrated how land shapes vocal and cultural expression and this year showcased the vast character of mountain songs from a diversity of Indigenous nations. This showcase of mountain songs ranged from traditional to blues to contemporary electronic with performances by George Leach, Altai Khangai and Pura Fé.
• In August 2009 Aboriginal Arts hosted a group of Aboriginal singers from across Canada in a week-long voice intensive residency at The Banff Centre. Led by Pura Fé and Lyz Jaakola, participants explored singing as physical experience, breath control capacity and resonance, understanding the vocal apparatus, care of the voice, and solo and group composition.
• From September 13-27, 2009 Aboriginal Arts hosted the Aboriginal Emerging Writers program in partnership with the En'owkin Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts. The program explored the complex and interdependent relationship of Aboriginal storytelling, culture, and original languages.
• In September, Aboriginal Arts presented Readings from Aboriginal Writers featuring Lee Maracle, Marilyn Dumont, and Daniel David alongside writers and storytellers in residence at The Banff Centre.
• Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre held the inaugural Indigenous Choreographers Dance Residency from June 7-23 and the first international Indigenous Choreographers Summit from June 11-14. The Indigenous Choreographers dance residency brought 13 dancers from across Canada together with invited choreographers from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada in an unprecedented opportunity to share, stimulate, and strengthen existing choreographic knowledge and capacity.
• On June 21, 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre hosted DiggingRoots at a music concert in celebration of National Aboriginal Day. Fresh, vibrant, and funky. DiggingRoots is a Juno award-winning group who combine traditional Native influences, hip-hop, folk, blues, and roots.
• On June 20 and June 21, 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre presented the Indigenous Dance Excerpts in the Margaret Greenham Theatre. This was a unique opportunity for audiences to enjoy excerpts of choreographic work by Neil Ieremia (New Zealand), Frances Rings (Australia), Gaetan Gingras (Quebec), and Santee Smith (Ontario).
• On June 13, 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre presented a film screening of Water Flowing Together, a compelling and intimate portrait of one of the most recognized and influential modern ballet dancers, Jock Soto. Soto was in attendance at the screening and participated in the Indigenous Choreographers Summit from June 11 to 14. Of Navajo and Puerto Rican heritage, Soto was just 16 when George Balanchine selected him to join the New York Ballet company, where he became an unexpected force. This film is a candid portrait of an artist and a man who defies stereotypes in the same way that his dancing transcends the expected.
• On June 12, 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre presented a keynote address from world-renowned Indigenous choreographers Neil Ieremia, from New Zealand, and Frances Rings, from Australia.
• In April 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre hosted a group of Aboriginal dancers from Alberta and Ontario in a week-long dance residency at The Banff Centre.
• In March 2009, a second research forum was held through Aboriginal Leadership and Management at The Banff Centre. It brought together key invited Aboriginal community and business leaders and Aboriginal arts administrators. Key themes included building an appreciation for leadership and the arts, and ways in which to link these areas within Aboriginal communities.
• In February 2009, Aboriginal Arts at The Banff Centre presented The Double Entendre of Re-Enactment at The Banff Centre. Acclaimed curator and writer Dr. Gerald McMaster (Cree) offered fresh insights in a subversive and humorous look at Native participation in historical re-enactment from its roots in 19th century Wild West shows and early 20th century film, to the work of today’s Native media artists currently reinterpreting re-enactment as a means of artistic defiance.
• In January and February 2009, visual artist Greg Staats led Archive Restored,  a thematic residency that brought together First Nations artists, curators, art historians, archivists, and critics who explored the sources of strength inherent in the model of the archive. Staats has first-hand experience of the loss of Mohawk language and the networks defined by that culture. Residencies are open to individuals, companies, and groups of artists.