Open Rehearsal : Tanya Tagaq - Split Tooth: Saputjiji

From Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and author. A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, Tagaq is an original disruptor, a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change.

Tagaq's bestselling, award winning debut novel “Split Tooth” has been translated into multiple languages and sold around the world, she released her first children’s book “It Bears Repeating” in 2024, this title was recently included in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program and nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award. Her second children’s book “I’d Give You My Tail” came out in April 2025. A second novel, her fourth book, will come out in 2027. A full-length feature documentary on Tanya’s life, career and art called Ever Deadly debuted at TIFF in 2022. She has also acted in and composed for HBO’s True Detective: Night Country and Netflix series North of North, and her vocals are featured in Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.

Kaneza Schaal (New York, NY) works in theater, opera and film. Her work has shown in divergent contexts from NYC galleries, to courtyards in Vietnam, to East African amphitheaters, to European opera houses, to USA public housing, to rural auditoriums in the UAE. By creating art that speaks many formal, cultural, historical, aesthetic, and experiential languages she seeks expansive audiences. Schaal received a 2025 Doris Duke Artist Award, 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, United States Artists Fellowship, SOROS Art Migration and Public Space Fellowship, Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness Award, and she directed the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar. Schaal is an Arts-in-Education advocate, most recently she taught a course on theater and social practice at Harvard University and served as the Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University. In her commitment to artist centered institutions, Schaal co-founded Gahinga Institute for Contemporary Art in Kigali Rwanda; served on the board of PS122/PSNY; Leadership Council for Creatives Rebuilt New York artists employment and guaranteed income initiative; Artistic Leadership Committee for New Victory Theater; and she is currently a co-Director of Under The Radar Festival, NYC.