ANISHNAABE-NAGAMON: DECOLONIZING HISTORICAL RUPTURES AND HEALING DISSONANT SOUNDS IN THE OPERA GIIWEDIN
SPY DENOMME-WELCH
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATION YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO. ONTARIO
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1*1 Canada ABSTRACT
This dissertation is an exploration of Indigenous opera creation and applies decolonizing and auto-ethnographic methodologies to examine the process of creating and development of the opera, Giiwedin. As the librettist and co-composer of
Giiwedin, I specifically reflect on my own artistic process while asking the following questions: How is Aboriginal storytelling affected by opera when it is transmitted through the practices of oral tradition? What opportunities or limitations do cross- musical genres and cross-cultural collaborations present to the development and telling of an Aboriginal story through opera?
I use decolonizing and auto-ethnographic strategies in the examination of
Giiwedin, asking if it is possible to decolonize opera and rectify distorted representations of Indigenous peoples from within this art form. I explore these questions by applying interdisciplinary perspectives and epistemologies, including:
The Seven Anishnaabe teachings, decolonizing methodologies and auto-ethnography.
By developing relevant research around my artistic process and collaborative methodologies, I hope to generate a deeper understanding of and perspective on the role of Aboriginal storytelling in the creation of new opera works.
Finally, this work uses a combination of traditional oral storytelling methods and Western research practices to explore notions of dissonance and contradiction as
iv a method for decolonization. As a result this work asks if and how decolonizing strategies can be achieved through forms of musical hybridity and dissonance (textual and musical), which are aesthetics that permeate the opera Giiwedin.
v DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to
Ni-shiime J. L. A. Welch
"Naeamo'inini"
I would like to also dedicate this work to
Ni-maamaa, nookum, ni-mishoomis idash nin-giiisimag
VI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Didi Khayatt, and committee members, Dr.
Chloe Brushwood-Rose and Dr. Rishma Dunlop for all the support, wisdom, patience and advice they provided me throughout my doctoral work. I would like to thank Dr.
Celia Haig-Brown for taking the time to read early drafts of my writing, and providing helpful feedback.
I would like to thank my mother for her support and faith in my work, and for offering wisdom and encouragement all through the years. Chi-meegwetch. I wish to thank Leslie Magowan for taking time to read early drafts of my work, and providing me with helpful feedback. I wish to thank Catherine Magowan, who is not only an amazing and gifted artist, but also a tremendous collaborator. I would like to thank my family, the Magowan family, Hepzebah, Jeremy, Robert Mizzi, Patricia Boutin, and the many wonderful artists and academics that I have been privileged to work with over the years.
I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the President Susan Mann Dissertation
Scholarship for generously funding this research. I wish to also thank the National
Aboriginal Achievement Foundation scholarship for generously supporting my studies.
vii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract iv Dedication vi Acknowledgements vii Table of Contents viii List of Illustrations x
CHAPTER 1 - Introduction 1 Turning the Tide 6 Central Research Questions 9 Brief Description of Giiwedin's Starting Point 16 Storytelling as a Form of Resistance 22 Theoretical Framework 28 Brief Chapter Summary 34
CHAPTER II - Performing Methodology and Living Theory 36 Theorizing the Musical Rupture 42 Decolonizing Performance and Practice 44 The Seven Teachings 46 Developing an Artistic Process 50 Chronology of Events that Informed the Methodological Process 58 Purpose and Benefits of the Workshops 64 Summary 67
CHAPTER III - Symphonic Contradictions Within Historical and Political Research, Music and Opera 69 Legislative Acts to "Vanquish" the Indian 91 Summary 107
CHAPTER IV - A Rupturing Dissonance in Northern Ontario's History 109 Summary 121
CHAPTER V - Four Directions: Mapping the Creation of Story Between and Beyond Four Spaces 123 Wawiyezi / La Pleine Lune 128 Aawechige/ Je Raconte Une Histoire / Auto-Ethnographic Narratives 134 Giiwedinong / Au Nord 13 5 Waabanong / A. V est 137
Vlll Zhaawanong / Au Sud 139 Ningabii'anong / A L'ouest 143 Gagige-bimahdiziwin / Une Vie Etemelle / The Land Remembers 144 Madwewetchigewin 154 Aadizookaanag 156
TeweiaaA&U n 160 CHAPTER VI - Whispers on the Shore: Experiencing Consonant and Dissonant Sounds 163 The Musical Punctum as a Decolonizing Affect 175 Bawahjige 181 Nookum Speaks 185 Conclusion 187
REFERENCES 191 APPENDIX A 211 APPENDIX B 213
IX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1. The Chieftain 's Daughter (1841) [Sheet music cover] 11 Figure 2. The Indian Hunter (1843) [Sheet music cover] 11 Figure 3. Indian Hunter Quick Step (1844) [Sheet music cover] 12 Figure 4. The Blue Juniata (1844) [Sheet music cover] 12 Figure 5. Miss Pocahontas (1906) [Sheet music cover] 13 Figure 6. Hiawatha's Ballet (1911) [Sheet music cover] 13 Figure 7. Pocahontas: A comic operetta (1916) [Sheet music cover] 14 Figure 8. The Sunset Trail: An operatic cantata (1925) [Sheet music cover] 14 Figure 9. 1881 New Atlas of the Dominion of Canada [Railway map] 20 Figure 10. 1944 and 1931 TNO railway timetables [Brochures] 21 Figure 11. 1913 Director of Colonization advertisement [Poster clipping] 31 Figure 12. Valse de Concert: Off to Paris (1900) [Sheet music cover] 77 Figure 13. HaskellMarch (1906) [Sheet music cover] 77 Figure 14. Anishinabe Enamiad (1899) [Journal cover] 78 Figure 15. Miller Brothers 101-Ranch Wild West Show (1910) [Song album and souvenir programme cover] 82 Figure 16. Golden Potlatch (1911) and BigPow Wow (1911) [Sheet music covers] 93 Figure 17. Spring Song of the Robin Woman (1918) [Sheet music cover] 100 Figure 18. The Gospel Set to Grand Opera and composer signed (n.d.) [Sheet music cover] 101 Figure 19. The Song of Hiawatha (1931) [Production souvenir programme] 102 Figure 20. The Song of Hiawatha (1936) [Production souvenir programme] 102 Figure 21. The Tand of my Prairie Dreams (1926) [Sheet music cover] 103 Figure 22. SonsofManitou (1925) [Sheet music cover] 103 Figure 23. Lushanya ("Tessie Mobley" - soprano) (approx. 1941) [Publicity photos] 104 Figure 24. Temiskaming heritage plaque [Photo] 118 Figure 25. Endaaian [Photo] 137 Figure 26. Lake Temiskaming [Photo] 139 Figure 27. Clear-cut forest and Uno Park railroad tracks [Photos] 142 Figure 28. Wabi Creek [Photo] 143 Figure 29. Memory space [Photo] 147 Figure 30. Giiwedin scene sketch 2007 [Sample of author's notes] 148 Figure 31. Giiwedin scene sketch 2008 [Sample of author's notes] 149 Figure 32. "Mahigan's Death" [Sheet music excerpt from Giiwedin] 167 Figure 33. "The Lobotomy" [Sheet music excerpt from Giiwedin] 170 Figure 34. "Mahigan's Death" [Sheet music excerpt from Giiwedin] 172 Figure 35. "The Murder" [Sheet music excerpt from Giiwedin] 173 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
I can honestly say that twenty-three years ago I had no idea this was where I would be today. In fact, when I was about 9 years old and a little greener behind the ears, I knew exactly what I was going to be when I grew up: I was going to be a rock star! I grew up loving everything from the blues, jazz, punk music, opera and classical music, and Woodstock. I mean, my world completely revolved around artists like Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Mozart, Beethoven, Huddie William Ledbetter
(a.k.a. Lead Belly), Nina Simone, Edith Piaf, Vivaldi, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, Buffy
Ste. Marie, Johnny Cash, Diamanda Galas, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, and the list goes on. I enjoyed listening to a wide range of music as I strolled the streets and dirt roads of my working class mining town, only to realize many years later that music was a tool that provided me with a form of cultural subsistence.
In order to speak to some of the choices I have made in this dissertation, such as why I chose to do this research and what I hope to contribute to the fields of education, performance and musical scholarship, I would like to acknowledge some of the paths that have led me here. To begin, I would like to acknowledge my mother's role in the formation of my early music education, as she was the first to provide me with a musical foundation that has shaped who I am today.
1 When I was a child my mother brought all kinds of music into the house, and my younger brother and I would spend hours upon hours listening to it all. On many occasions my mother would sit us down in the living room next to the tape cassette player and would play music like Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldiers" or Bob Dylan's
"Hurricane." When the music was done she would turn to us and ask what we thought the song was about. Inevitably this would lead us into deeper discussions about historical and contemporary social-political issues, and there we learned about local and global affairs such as the effects of the slave trade and racism or about class warfare and women's rights. It was not until recently I found myself reflecting on these moments and realizing that it was in fact my mother who taught me about the world through music during my formative years through a grassroots, historical approach.
Though I had learned about some of the theoretical applications of music and performance through this process, I badly wanted to get my hands on an instrument in order to create and play music myself. As a result, I pestered my mother until finally I received my first 6-string acoustic guitar on Christmas in 1988. However, like any kid wanting to be the next Eric Clapton, I actually had my heart set on an electric Fender
Strat. As if my mother could read my mind, she quickly told me that all of the greatest guitarists started out on an acoustic guitar. With that said she handed me a
2 little binder containing pages of guitar chords, and told me to learn my chords by practicing them over and over. She then explained how eventually I would be able to create a chord progression and as a result would be able to learn to play songs.
Truthfully, the whole idea of learning to play music on my own seemed like a daunting task, but this is how and where I got my start as a string player. Within no time at all I was playing popular songs like Oh, Pretty Woman (Orbison & Dees,
1964), Dust in the Wind (Livgren, 1977), and Every Breath You Take (Sting, 1983), as well as folk songs like Greensleeves and House of the Rising Sun. It seemed that the more I played on my little acoustic guitar the better I got, and eventually my mother bought me the Fender Strat I had always dreamt about having. As my instrument was upgraded so too did my technique as a musician improve, and before I knew it I was playing the music of artists and groups like Eric Clapton, The Doors,
Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Ani DiFranco, and Django Reinhardt.
Now, when I was about 13 or 14 years old my mother decided to buy me a violin/fiddle, which was a lovely old instrument, and I used the money I made carrying newspapers to pay for my private violin lessons. As I grew into my mid to late teenage years I began competing in battle of the bands and playing bar gigs on my guitar, while competing in Kiwanis music festivals on the violin. Naturally, it seemed as if my pathway into music was paved and that there was no turning back;
3 however, my musical path was about to branch out in unusual ways.
It was around this time when one of my high school teachers introduced me to the poetry of Robert Frost. I was not too sure at the time why my teacher was telling me about Robert Frost and his poetry, specifically the poem The Road Not Taken
(1920); however, today I have come to understand why. By introducing me to this poem and its metaphorical significance, it seemed as if my teacher was seeing into my future and simply wanted to prepare me for what was ahead, which actually turned out to be many winding, and even diverging roads in my life. Now that several years have passed I can think back on this moment with tremendous gratitude, as I have since walked a variety of different paths, often choosing the road less travelled or having it sometimes choose me, but ultimately it was these paths that have led me to where I am today, and "that has made all the difference" (Frost, 1920).
In various ways all of this has become a theme in my life and art - my life's work, my creations and collaborations, and even my research. Whether or not the results of my choices have turned out to be good or bad, I have often found some kind of teaching buried within them. At times this can seem like a challenge as well as a blessing. Regardless, it is an honour to acknowledge here what my mother and other teachers have taught me through music, poetry and other forms of lyricism, as these have all prepared me for the world I find myself living in. For this reason I hold
4 music, text and performance in the highest regard, and when working with all three I feel a particular closeness to the sacred. This concept of the sacred is especially relevant to my culture and background, as is the notion of memory, or as some of us say, blood memory.
Throughout much of my life music has been an aesthetic experience that has aroused deep and old memories, just as smell and aroma were for Marcel Proust in his multi-volume work The Remembrance of Things Past (French publications between
1913-1927; English publications between 1922-1931). Music is where the sacred fires burn, which is where the teachings of the sacred stones remain warm and alive, and breathes fire into my Anishnaabe spirit, granting me the courage to create new forms of storytelling. A fire such as this can help one to see where one is going, whether one is writing music, creating stories or pursuing research, as these are often solitary paths to walk.
Of particular note: in this dissertation I sometimes find myself working within, across and between two or more paths at the same time. For instance, the notion of past, present and future are condensed within the research narrative, and in this space I attempt to hybridize the worlds of oral tradition with those of Western research practices in order to explore the notion of dissonance and contradiction, which are focal points in this dissertation. This style of writing comes to the fore in
5 the last two chapters (chapters 5 and 6) where my approach to auto-ethnography uses
a form of oral tradition that contrasts with the more formal research practices (e.g.
historical overview and outline of methodologies) I apply in chapters one to four.
Finally, my method of writing from oral tradition is derived from my own
Indigenous background, including the traditional teachings that I have received from
my Elders, my relations, and the land from which I come, as these teachings have all
informed my worldview. I apply and adapt aspects of this knowledge to my research methodologies and framework, which I define and outline later in Chapter Two, and use in my research as guiding principles.
Turning the Tide:
In his book Imagining Native America in Music (2005), Michael V. Pisani
states: "Music historians have not given the portrayal of American Indians much
attention, probably because there appears to have been no music comparable to the
exotic works of, say, Mozart, Verdi, Saint-Saens, or Rimsky-Korsakov" (p. 10).
Despite the fact that "Native American modernity remains underrepresented"
(Diamond, 2008, p. xiv), various Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and scholars have been attempting to overturn this trend within formal classical and opera contexts. For example, in 2007 the Vancouver Opera collaborated with local West
6 Coast First Nations to re-envision Mozart's The Magic Flute by incorporating West
Coast Indigenous culture and symbolism, and made adaptations to the story to be more representative of Indigenous traditions In 2007, Anthony Davis and Yusef
Komunyakaa's opera Wakonda 's Dream premiered by Opera Omaha at the Orpheum
Theatre In 2008, librettist Tomson Highway (Cree) and composer Melissa Hui premiered Pimooteewm (The Journey) in Toronto, and the following year (2009) it toured across Northern Ontario The year 2010 marked the premieres of two new musical works, including a world premiere by the Regina Symphony Orchestra of the commissioned multi-media symphony, Oscana, by Cree composer Andrew Balfour
(2010), and the Dora-nominated1 opera Gimedin2 (Denomme-Welch & Magowan,
2010), which was staged at Theatre Passe Muraille's Mainspace in Toronto
This production featured First Nations mezzo-soprano Marion Newman in the lead role of Noodin-Kwe,3 and First Nations soprano Nicole Joy-Fraser as Mahigan, as well as Ryan Allen, Neema Bickersteth, Catharin Carew, Jesse Clark, Lawrence
Cotton, Jessica Lloyd and James McLennan It featured a chamber ensemble that included Sara-Anne Churchill on harpsichord, Lucas Harris on archlute, Mary-
The Dora Mavor Moore Awards (a k a the Doias) were founded in 1978, and are presented annually to theatre, dance and opeia productions in five major divisions General Theatre, Independent Theatre, Theatre for Young Audiences, Dance and Opera Guwedin was nominated m 2010 for both "Outstanding Musical Direction" and "Outstanding New Musical/Opera " 2 Guwedin translates to mean "Noith Wind " I produced two trailers for Guwedin, which are available on AIRR' s website (www anindiennghtsreseive com) and YouTube at www youtuhe com/ watch9v=nrB5Hd\tMtg and www youtube com/watch?v=oecm9CCTWQc Translation (English) Wind Woman / (French) La Femme du Vent
7 Katherine Finch on violoncello, and Edwin Huizinga on violin [see Appendix A for a
full list of production credits].
In addition to the attempts to create Aboriginal visibility and representation in
music genres such as opera, Toronto-based First Nations (Dakota-Anishnaabe)
musicologist, Brian Wright-McLeod, published The Encyclopedia of Native Music:
More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet (2005), which
documents important contributions of Aboriginal artists and producers in the music
industry. Wright-McLeod (2005) explains: "The need to compile and present some
sort of accounting of Native music recordings has been growing. [...] For the most part, much of the current documentation of Native music is generally made without
any critical analysis from within the Native community, combining an informed
knowledge of the music and culture, and there is even less analysis of contemporary music." (p. 3)
Bearing in mind the historical contexts and contemporary shifts that are
occurring in music involving Indigenous stories and voices, my goal with this research is to reflect and explore my own artistic practice during the creation and
development of Giiwedin. I wrote and co-composed Giiwedin with co-composer
Catherine Magowan, and together we co-produced it through our company An
8 Indie(n) Rights Reserve (AIRR)4 with Native Earth Performing Arts, Inc (NEPA) in
April 2010 Gim'edm underwent two years of musical development, and during this
process I documented observations I had made about my experience as a creator,
collaborator and co-producer Using a combination of auto-ethnographic and self-
reflexive strategies I explore my trajectory as a writer and composer and how I have
come to understand my role in creating and developing the libretto and score for
Girwedin, an Indigenous-themed opera
Central Research Questions:
My research centers on the following primary questions How is Aboriginal
storytelling affected by opera when it is transmitted through the practices of oral tradition? What opportunities or limitations do cross-musical genres and cross-
cultural collaborations present to the development and telling of an Aboriginal story through opera?
These questions are central to this dissertation and build on relevant inquiries
raised by scholars and musicologists in previous works For instance, Pisani (2005)
asks "What do the construction of this music ["Indianist" and/or music based on
AIRR was founded m 2006, and has been establishing itself on a national and international level for its opera production video and theatre works The company's mandate is to create work that deals w ith complex Canadian and global histories, and explore this subject matter through a contempoi ary lens while applying a collaborative process
9 Native American themes] and the circumstances of its composition and performance communicate to us about how native America was observed and interpreted?" (p. 13).
Pisani's question is a relevant one, especially in light of the fact that the majority of existing musicals, ballets and operas, which attempt to depict and/or mimic Indigenous culture(s), themes or stories, have largely been written and/or composed by non-Indigenous librettists and composers. Examples include: Ballet du
Temple de la Paix (1685) by Jean-Baptiste Lully with libretto by Philippe Quinault,
Les Indes Galantes (1735) by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier;
James Nelson Barker and John Bray's The Indian Princess, or La Belle Sauvage
(1808); Henry Russell and George P. Morris' The Chieftain's Daughter (1841);
Henry Russell and Eliza Cook's The Indian Hunter (1843); Allen Dodworth's arrangement of Henry Russell's Indian Hunter Quick Step (1844); M. D. Sullivan's
The Blue Juniata (1844); R. A. Barnet, R. M. Baker and D. J. Sullivan's Miss
Pocahontas: An Indian War-Whoop in Two Whoops (1906); Samuel Coleridge-
Taylor's ballet Hiawatha (1911); Fred Edmonds and Edward Johnston's Pocahontas:
A Comic Operetta (1916); Charles Wakefield Cadman and Gilbert Moyle's The
Sunset Trail: An Operatic Cantata (1925); and Charles Sanford Skilton's The Sun
Bride: A Pueblo Indian Opera (1928).
10 •*s Hue
c-.«rrA.«. . '**
Mf\ny HI v ***/^
Figure 1 Cover of The Chieftain s Figure 2 Co\ ei of The Indian Hunter (1843) Daughter (1841) composed by Henry composed bv Henry Russell and text by Eliza Russell and text by George P Morris (New Cook (New York J A & L Hewitt & Co ) \ ork Firth & Hall) From the author s From the authoi's personal collection personal collection
11 ^s 2> £5, t. WISITE. Figure 3. Cover of Indian Hunter Quick Step Figure 4. Cover of The Blue Juniata (1844), text (1844), composed by Henry Russell and and music by Mrs. M. D. Sullivan and arranged arranged by Allen Dodworth (New York: Firth for piano by E. L. White (Washington: Oliver & Hall). From the author's personal collection. Ditson). From the author's personal collection. 12 H I Al'ATH \ 4>"', "A.2i/A>r Figure 5 Co\ er of Miss Pocahontas (1906) Figure 6 Cover of Hiawatha s Ballet (1911) bv composed by D J Sullivan and text by R A composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor (London Barnet and R M Baker (London White Smith Hawkes & Son) From the author s personal Publishing Co ) From the author s personal collection collection 13 Figure 7 Cover of Pocahontas A Comic Figure 8 Co\ er of The Sunset Trail An Operatic Operetta (1916) Music by Edward Johnston Cantata (192S) Music bv Charles Wakefield and book and text by Fred Edmunds (New Cadman and text by Gilbert Moyle (London Yoik J Fischer & Bro ) From the authoi s White Smith Music Publishing Co ) From the personal collection author s personal collection A number of practical and theoretical questions emerged during the development of Gnwedin, which I took into consideration when attempting to determine what meanings are being produced from Indigenous storytelling in opera Building on Pisani's inquiry, I ask the following set of secondary questions How is Native America perceived through opera when these works are written and produced by an Aboriginal artist(s)? Is it possible to decolonize opera and rectify distorted representations of Indigenous peoples from within this art form, and if so, what new meaning is created in developing an Indigenous opera9 Can decolonizing opera be accomplished through musical hybridity and the creation of dissonance (textual and musical), which are aesthetics that permeate the work of Gnwedirft Finally, what transpires in an opera in which Indigenous storytelling is written and performed in more than one language without any translation (i e, surtitles)7 I explore these questions by applying interdisciplinary perspectives and epistemologies, including The Seven Anishnaabe teachings, decolonizing methodologies and auto-ethnography, as outlined in the following chapter Performing Methodology and Living Theory By developing relevant research and theory concerning artistic process and collaborative methodologies, my goal is to generate a deeper understanding of and perspective on the role of Aboriginal storytelling in the creation of new opera works 15 Brief Description of Giiwedin's Starting Point: In a feature interview for The Wholenote magazine, opera columnist and critic Christopher Hoile (2010) raised the following questions about the genesis of Girwedin "How did Giiwedin come about? Where did the idea come from? How long have you been working on it?" I responded I had the idea to write an opera about five or six years ago [ ] All I knew was that I was going to write an opera and that Catherine [Magowan] would be my collaborator A couple of years later, we started working It became clearer to us what the scope of this project was going to be, especially as the depth of the story really unfolded The story is linked to the historical research that I had been doing about my family and Timiskaming (on the Ontario side) I grew up with oral knowledge about my ancestors and the Timiskaming region As an adult I began to piece together this history, and came upon historical documentation that confirmed a lot of the oral knowledge I grew up with I had also come upon some of my ancestral history through letters and government documents I found letters written by a great ancestor who was challenging the government at the turn [of] the century over the lands that were being seized without any form of fair treaty or compensation negotiated or exchanged The lands were simply being taken away, cleared and settled without regard for local Indigenous communities and families who were living in the area over thousands of years So I wanted to develop a story about Timiskaming and the surrounding areas [ ] (p 10) Giiwedin is a two-act, trilingual opera5 that combines Baroque and Indigenous 5 The hbietto is wntten in English Fiench and Amshnaabemowin 16 music, historical fiction, and diverse musical aesthetics. The word Giiwedin is an Algonquian word that translates to "North Wind/Northern Direction" in English, and in French it means: «Le Vent du Nord/Le Nord.» Set in the Temiskaming region of Northeastern Ontario from 1890 to the 1950s (with a parallel storyline set in an undefined, future memory space), Giiwedin is a fictionalized story that follows the life of Noodin-Kwe, a 150-year old woman of Anishnaabe descent. It explores the complex history of Northeastern Ontario and the tense relations that develop between the primary character (Noodin-Kwe) and settler society through colonial contact. Noodin-Kwe is determined to prevent, if not at least derail, a government minister's plans to colonize her traditional, ancestral territory and build a railroad through it to make way for a projected dam site situated off of the shores of James Bay and Hudson Bay. At this time in history both the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway were expanding northward and plans to build a railway on Indigenous lands were well underway by the mid to late 1880s [see images of railroad map in Figure 9]. The development of the railway would change the course of history in Northeastern Ontario and transform the country's environmental, economic and political landscape. Bonita Lawrence (1996) explains some of the impacts this had on the local Indigenous peoples: 17 These histories, however, have been documented as part of 'Canada's heritage'. What has been entirely ignored is the effect of these railways on the Native peoples living in the region. For example, the headquarters of the Temiscaming and Northern Ontario Railroad in Matheson were actually built on the site of the home of members of the Abitibi band (Kay, 1903: 110), whole construction camps for the railroads utilized every major water route used by the Ojibway and Cree peoples to travel to and from the fur trade posts at the eastern end of Lake Abitibi. [...] These economic 'opportunities' were by far offset by the diseases which the settlers brought. [...] Over fifty members of the 350-member Abitibi band died during the winter of 1906-1907 of measles (Morrison, 1992: 22), while another twenty-five members died during the winter of 1907-1908 of'unspecified causes', (p. 10) Although the story of Giiwedin is rooted firmly in the historical backdrop of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the opera itself is a work of historical fiction. It recounts the effects of industrialization and colonialism on Temiskaming, and foregrounds the rapid development of the railway system, which attracted many settlers, tourists, mining and logging companies, businesses and labourers to the area, while Indigenous peoples were gradually pushed off their traditional lands. Giiwedin also chronicles some of the significant events that took place between the years 1890 and 1950, such as pioneer settlement in Northern Ontario, which has had a profound impact on Indigenous ways of life. As Lawrence (1996) describes "the dominant society has spread northward as if these lands were empty for the taking" (p. 6). 18 Noodin-Kwe, who was raised by her Nookum,6 witnessed a series of historical events throughout her childhood, including the Seven Years war (i.e., "French-Indian wars" between 1754-1763) and the Royal Proclamation of 1763. These significant experiences provide Noodin-Kwe with a background knowledge of the historical Treaty agreements that had been made with the French and British colonists. As a result, she gains a deeper insight into the powerful political tactics used by the government to dissuade Indigenous peoples from defending their collective sovereignty and right to self-determination (e.g., introduction of the Indian Act and forced relocation to various reservations). Noodin-Kwe's destiny propels her on a life-long resistance against colonial and political oppression, aimed at preventing her ancestral Indigenous lands from falling into the hands of such coercive and political intrusion. 6 Translation: (English) Grandmother / (French) Grandmere. 19 * •*• • • A. ^ * 1 y-C'MlN'Ei^ Figure 9. Images from an 1881 New Atlas of the Dominion of Canada map outlining a projected railway route from Nippising District (North Bay, Ont.) to Temiskaming District, and beyond. This railroad would open up the north to settler society and economic opportunity. From the author's personal collection. 20 m ..u trtM ii •witf ..;• = .•>•!- ' T.--v>M ' --S3 •--•-•' ' \~V. SPtm> YOtitL, t**3H VALATtOV I MECCA of' IHF FISHEKMAN,'' HIE HUNTEfl- AMD THF TOURIST TV- i^h^-~- ,*^i ONTARIO GOVERNMENT PI A I UWAV F;gwre 70 (Top) 1944 TNO Railway timetable and ad\ertisement pamphlet and (Bottom) 1931 TNO Railway timetable and advertisement pamphlet used for promoting the Temagami and Temiskaming region and to attract settlers and tourists (North Bay ON Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railwav) From the authoi s personal collection 21 Storytelling as a Form of Resistance and a Process for Collaboration: For many American Indians art provided a means of affirming and remaining connected to traditional culture. The dislocations of reservation life and pressures toward assimilation made many aspects of traditional life impossible, but art provided continuity. Without raising hostility or suspicion among whites, Indian artists could work with forms and images that enabled their resistance to assimilation. - Anne Ruggles Gere (2004, p. 657) The process of writing, composing, and producing an opera is a complex endeavour. Nonetheless I chose to work with this medium, as it embraces the intersecting elements of music, text, performance and storytelling, and it enabled me to explore difficult aspects of Canadian and First Nations history. In an interview for The Music Scene, Joseph So (2010) also asks why I chose to use opera to tell a First Nations story. He questions: "You've chosen the genre of opera to tell a story of the First Nations culture. Are you convinced that opera is a relevant medium to the Native experience? Why opera? Why not a play?" I responded: For me it is not a huge leap. Music has always been at the core of our native culture. Within my Nations, there are some who can sing as much as 6,000 years of their history. On that level, this opera spanning 300 years is kind of miniscule! For a time, I had taken a departure from music - I was trained in violin and self- taught in guitar. I went into theatre at university. A couple of years ago, when I learned to make my own drum, [music] started to call me back. Coming back to it has strengthened my story telling, (p. 5) Giiwedin is an opera that examines political history by way of contemporary Indigenous storytelling, and is reflective of our larger, Canadian society. The choice to hybridize musical genres and storytelling aesthetics in GiiM'edin was done as a means to build and promote creative ways to examine Indigenous history through storytelling and performance in opera. This way the work could ultimately examine the relations between Canadian and First Nations identity, and promote experimental opportunities for transcending what Kay Kaufman Shelemay (1996) argues is the "hierarchy of status" (p. 15). For instance, as a co-composing team tackling our very first full-scale opera, Magowan and I began our collaboration by acknowledging our own cultural and artistic backgrounds and recognizing how this might or might not inform the basis of our practice. Here we discussed ways in which we could combine our differences and similarities, and how we might want to incorporate these into our work and musical expression. As musicians we recognized the fact that we each come from different musical practices and perspectives: I am a string player (guitar and violin), and Magowan is a wind player (bassoon). In terms of our cultural backgrounds, I am of Algonquin/Anishnaabe descent, and Magowan is "a first- generation Canadian of Hungarian-Jewish descent" (So, 2010, p. 5). 23 With respect to our approach to collaboration, Magowan and I have addressed this topic in various interviews. For example, Christopher Hoile from The Wholenoie (2010) asks: "You two are listed as 'co-composers.' How does that work?" and Magowan explains, At first we assigned sections based on what we perceived to be our musical strengths, but that went out the door pretty quickly. Our music was developed entirely as a team. In some cases, we divided sections for each to work on, but we also worked on passages together. This way we could give each other feedback, critique and support. It's an interesting process that requires a well-thought out methodology before tackling the creative components. It also helped us stay on track, set and meet deadlines, because we always had to stay aware of each other's progress, (pp. 11-13) Ultimately, Magowan and I proceeded with our collaborative work and the development of our opera by employing a variety of composing techniques that worked for us, while at the same time implementing appropriate methods for addressing differences of opinion when and where these should arise in our creative work. From our own perspectives, we made a point of describing this artistic process in The Wholenote (2010). For example, I explain: Sometimes we'd question each other's musical decisions or lend new ideas so as to find ways to enhance the musical lines or passages that we were writing. We simply accepted the fact that no matter how the work turned out, it would reflect on us both. This allowed us to concentrate on just telling the story in the best way possible, (p. 13) 24 Whereas, Magowan elaborates: This way all of our music was developed in a constant feedback loop, which helped to combine our musical voices, making it pretty much indistinguishable who wrote what, even to us. Because we were equally involved in our roles as composers we had a lot of influence on each other's process, which we know is unusual because traditionally librettists and composers work separately. So having multiple composers on a project like this is probably even more unusual. It has really helped us to tell a story as layered as Giiwedin, having more tools at our combined disposal, (p. 13) In his work Opera and Politics: From Monteverdi to Heme (1997) John Bokina argues: "In many contemporary musicological studies, opera has become a political text" (p. xi). While opera has arguably become a political text, my goal is to explore the ways in which it may be possible to interrupt the effects of colonialism and patriarchy through this medium, while examining the notion of hybridity and how it may create musical dissonance that reflects on Johannes Birringer's (2000) theory that "dissonance is transformative" (p. 160). This concept brings forth various political and transgressive forms of resistance through an imaginative process, which Elizabeth Gould (2007) states is "a space of rupture in which difference may be refigured beyond identities [...], traditional power relations, and discourses and in which the music profession - how we hear, create, and teach/learn music - may be re- envisioned [...]" (p. 18). 25 Hybridity has the potential for occupying the political, contentious spaces of art, as it both invites and challenges discourse while often leading into unknown, uncomfortable and even dangerous theoretical terrain. In Giiwedin the function and application of hybridity is multi-layered and executed through text and music: the libretto is written in three languages (Anishnaabemowin, French and English) while the music is written for early instruments (violin, violoncello, archlute and harpsichord) using Baroque, First Nations and popular musical practices and idioms. Magowan and I explain some of our musical choices in an interview with Hoile (The Wholenote, 2010), which I begin by stating: The primary aesthetics used in the opera come from Baroque and First Nations traditions, but as the work progressed we decided to bring other genres and styles into the piece. These choices were always deliberate and agreed upon after discussion and sometimes lively debate, (p. 13) Magowan also explains: As a result of this variety we feel that we have developed a work that bridges cultural aesthetics, and creates a work that is relevant to a whole new generation of music lovers. While we do use two older musical traditions, we incorporate modem idioms to support the underlying themes of industrialization, which is a driving force behind the story-line. (p. 13) 26 What is considerably challenging about the theory and practice of hybridity is the ways in which it confronts concepts of originality and purity For example, when more than one form is used in tandem, or a mixing occurs between elements, there is a capacity to create dissonance, which can possibly be an effective and strategic tool for decolonizing notions of "authenticity " By creating dissonance through forms of hybridity there is a possibility to subvert the status quo of art and politics Therefore, what occurs then when a new musical work uses both harmony and dissonant aesthetics, creating what I call a form of story-dissonance9 In my interview with Joseph So (2010) I was asked a question relating to this subject "There is some snobbery in classical music circles about music that is very accessible, for example, music with hummable melodies Since your score invokes many musical styles, are you worried that it might be considered derivative or lacking in originality9" I replied No, I'm not My biggest worry is that my work won't be memorable [ ] I love this question - 'is it derivative' - I'm still pondering it' I don't think what we've done will be perceived that way I'm thinking of other composers writing accessible work - for me, it's exciting work Historically there are all kinds of composers coming from different angles, critiquing each other We're very open to hearing what others are saying about the work in progress We're excited about what the response will be, as opposed to being apprehensive and fearful (p 5) 27 Working and crossing over the boundaries of these subtle lines takes considerable patience and attention to detail, including a respectful consideration of the traditional forms being used when committing them to the rigorous practice of art. As a result, I take into account the ways in which decolonizing theories and auto- ethnographic methodologies have informed my practice and process of writing and co-composing Giiwedin, which I further expand upon in Chapters Five and Six. Theoretical Framework: Toutes les femmes sont bilingues. Nous «possedons» forcement la langue dominante, de fabrication masculine, puisque c 'est la settle qui a une valeur reconnue. -Susanne De Lotbiniere-Harwood (1991, p. 13) In Art As Experience (1934/2005), John Dewey writes: "Under conditions of resistance and conflict, aspects and elements of the self and the world that are implicated in this interaction qualify experience with emotions and ideas so that conscious intent emerges" (p. 36). By examining forms of resistance and conflict through the creation of a new opera work using Indigenous epistemologies and decolonizing methodologies, I explore various ways in which my encounters with political discourse has been facilitated by my experiences with aesthetics, language, memory and storytelling, and how these have surfaced throughout the work of 28 Gnwedm As I reflect on these encounters, my key frameworks are informed by decolonizing methodologies, as well as The Seven Teachings and auto-ethnographic strategies, which I will explain further in the next chapter Telling stories and exploring how they are created is central to my practice and experience as an artist and researcher In her work Braiding Histories: Learning from Aboriginal Peoples' Experiences & Perspectives (2009) Susan Dion states "Engaging the work of Aboriginal artists provides a decolonizing practice - challenging the ahistorical memories of Canada's colonial past, it offers a way to challenge the hegemony of Western regimes of knowledge and representation" (p 182) In this dissertation I explore decolonizing practices through an integration of oral tradition and auto-ethnographic strategies, as a means of processing my pathway through story creation and storytelling I specifically incorporate this methodology into my reflection process, creating the basis for my reflexive analysis and arts-based praxis In their article entitled, Decolonizing Performance: Deconstructing the Global Postcolomal (2008), Beth Blue Swadener and Kagendo Mutua argue that such practices are "central and unique to decolonizing research and performances/praxis" Although the Seven Teachings are commonly known as the Seven Grandfather teachings m the Anishnaabe oral tradition I have opted not to associate the teachings with any particular gender or se\ I do tins to honour the matnhneal lines, as well as to attempt to deconstruct patriarchal/Western notions of "teaching " 29 (p. 33). Furthermore, Swadener and Mutua (2008) explain what could potentially be viewed as some of the challenges of working within decolonizing performance spaces: Traditionally, positivist research has prescribed a static and fixed subject that, according to Serres (1995), spawned static systems of knowing and histories of being, even though they claimed to describe a process of becoming. Viewed within this larger sociopolitical context, decolonizing performances that offer counterhegemonic accounts of the experiences of indigenous/colonized, racialized, and quite often non-Western groups that reflect and sustain indigenous epistemologies, in turn, have to fight for their own survival within and against the colonizing tendencies of this neopositivist impulse, (p.33) The question of how to sustain and practice Indigenous epistemologies highlights some of the ongoing challenges that exist within research. It might seem as if exploring the effects of historical colonialism through opera was a contradiction in terms, however it has also opened up opportunities for exploring difficult histories. In order to proceed with exploring these possibilities, I decided to look at ways of building the historical foundation to the story and plotline of Giiwedin. While I used various historical materials to develop the historical foundation to the storyline of Giiwedin I also took into account my own ancestral history. For instance, I looked at historical materials that were used and developed by the government in the early 1900s to attract European settlers to Northern Ontario [see image of advertisement in 30 Figure 11] in order to observe what NORTHERN ONTARIO OFFERS MANY ADVANTAGES TO THE SETTLER settler society might have been like during this time period in Northern Sa'< i Ontario Similarly, I drew inspiration from my own ancestral history and oral tradition to develop an IE10W ARE fi i/E« A FEW INTEHESTiNS FI3URE8 Indigenous, epistemological framework I could use and work from V- THE DIRECTOR GF COLONIZATION, Parliament Buildings, Tanwis, Ganada, Or Ths OnfcafSo Qaw«f»m«nt Otftoe 1 63 Stpand London England Figure 11 This ad was issued in 1913 by the Director of Colonization (Parliament Buildings Toronto Canada) to attract settlers to Northern Ontario Fiom the author's personal collection Though oral tradition is important to the survival of Indigenous culture, I was also interested in trying to understand what that concept of survival might look like when it became hybridized through a work of opera According to Nestor Garcia Canclini (2005) the application of modern forms of hybridity "require[s] different conceptual instruments" (p 206), and this helps with "raising consciousness" through collaboration, aesthetic expression, and the imagination The purpose of working 31 through complex spaces of the imagination is significant in the work of Giiwedin, as the imagination not only helps to examine the bifurcation that exists between historical representations and contemporary reflections of Native North America, and the juxtapositions that these create within opera. More importantly it addresses some of the challenging questions raised by C. Richard King (1998): How do 'we' effectively rearrange, reconnect, and recollect anthropological and historical technologies within the exhibitionary spaces of museums, monuments, and spectacles? How can 'we' deconstructively reconstruct the practices associated with exhibiting, narrating, and representing cultures and histories? How can 'we' reinvent exhibitionary spaces, revivifying their deadened/dead-ended objects? How can 'we' reposition Native Americans, EuroAmericans, their overlapping histories, and their often conflicting cultures within museums, monuments, and spectacles? (p.99) By working with self-reflexive, auto-ethnographic and decolonizing methodologies, I attempt to discern my own artistic trajectory during the development of Giiwedin. My goal is to examine the complexities resulting from my position both inside and outside the parameters of academe and performance spaces, as an Aboriginal, scholar and artist. In doing so I draw on the following research methodologies and writings used within anthropology and autobiography to help inform my auto-ethnographic framework: Paul Atkinson's (1990) work on ethnographic research methods; Judith Okley's (1992) approach to embodied knowledge through autobiographical research methods; Val Colic-Peisker's (2004) 32 ethnographic strategies for conducting research within one's own community, Sawa Kurotani's (2004) methods for negotiating research "in different ways to the dominant trope of anthropologist-other" (p 203), and Gerald Vizenor's (2008) notion of survivance, which he describes as follows The character of survivance creates a sense of native presence over absence, nihility, and victimry [ ] Survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, detractions, obtrusions, the unbearable sentiments of tragedy, and the legacy of victimry Survivance is the heritable right of succession or reversion of an estate and, in the course of international declaration of human rights, is a narrative estate of native survivance (pi) I employ these different research methods and theories in order to reflect on my own position as one being "in-between," which allows me to examine the effect that dissonance, harmony, contradiction and rupturing create in the work creation and telling of the story Guwedm through various Indigenous and classical motifs Building on this notion, Lois Parkinson Zamora and Monika Kaup (2010) explain "The capacity of the Baroque to overarch contradictions and include oppositions has made it particularly useful for theorizing cultural difference" (p 8), and I would further state it has also been useful for theorizing musical rupturing and aesthetic interventions 33 Brief Chapter Summary: This research describes various observations I have made concerning the praxis of art and theory within the opera Gihvedin. I intend to ground some of these observations and theories using intersecting methodologies, which are outlined in Chapter Two (Performing Methodology and Living Theory). In this chapter I will define terms, guidelines and processes I used throughout my work, as well as elaborate further on the methodologies I used for studying my own practice. In Chapter Three (Symphonic Contradictions Within Historical and Political Research, Music and Opera) I outline some of the historical research that has been done in the field of ethnomusicology, and also I cover some of the historical depictions of Indigenous peoples' culture through music and popular culture. In Chapter Four (A Rupturing Dissonance in Northern Ontario's History) I outline various research and literature written about Indigenous life in the Temiskaming / Northeastern Ontario region, as this history is what informs the political backdrop of Giiwedin. In Chapter Five (Four Directions. Mapping the Creation of Story Between and Beyond Four Spaces) and Chapter Six (Whispers on the Shore: Experiencing Consonant and Dissonant Sounds) I utilize different methodological strategies to explore and reflect on my work as an artist. More specifically, in Chapter Five I begin my reflections by describing the opera's storyline 34 with a synopsis, but then I move toward using forms of oral tradition to explore my work which hybridizes auto-ethnographic methods with Indigenous knowledge. Similarly, in Chapter Six I explore how musical and textual contradictions can also be used as a potential decolonizing strategy in which tool to blur, cross and/or transgress borderlines of traditional storytelling and opera. The borders that separate aesthetics and traditions are at times artistically divisive, and representative of institutional forms of colonialism, and much like a Brechtian fourth wall, it should be shattered. 35 CHAPTER II PERFORMING METHODOLOGY AND LIVING THEORY Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning. -Paulo Freire (1988, p. 31) In this chapter I intend to outline particular methodology and research practices that take into consideration diverse epistemologies, such as postcolonial and decolonizing methodologies, auto-ethnography, and theories of self-reflexive praxis that address various political and historical issues surrounding research and artistic production (e.g., misappropriation, misrepresentation, and exoticism). Marja Liisa Swantz (2008) explains that in doing such research "no one perspective can claim authority or authenticity," but rather "the researcher needs to be open to learn from others and to adopt a genuine learner's attitude even in situations in which apparent ignorance tempts her to become a teacher" (p.38). These concepts are significant to my self-reflexive, intersecting methods and have helped guide my analysis of Giiwedin. This has been a particularly complex process for me as a scholar working through self-reflexive, arts-based methods, and Joan Parker Webster and Theresa Arevgaq John (2010) highlight some of these challenges with cross-cultural collaborations: 36 Conducting research in Indigenous contexts has been an ongoing topic of discussions centering on a variety of ethical, epistemological and methodological issues. [...] Given the nature of ethnographic research, which depends on what the ethnographer observes as well as what she hears from the stories that participants are telling, mistrust of research by Indigenous communities and peoples could lead to limited sharing of knowledge and consequently a limited view of those peoples and communities in question, (pp. 175-6) Similarly, Leanne R. Simpson and Paul Driben (2000) state that "academics must be willing to allow themselves to be transformed from experts into acolytes, to divest themselves of the status and power they possess in their own cultural milieu, to rely on the cumulative cultural experience of a community other than their own, and to participate in and contribute what they can to the evolution of the process" (p. 8). This philosophy has informed the basis of my research, and is also rooted within a decolonizing methodology that reflects what Janette Habashi (2005) argues is a form of "[...] decolonizing research [that] challenges dominant methods of knowing and reinforces indigenous identity and discourse" (p. 771). This form of research raises a number of challenges and dilemmas, which Webster and John (2010) describe facing in their research: Thus, our deliberate and conscious efforts to utilise both Indigenous and western theoretical and methodological frameworks often prompted ethical concerns about power relationships that might serve to subordinate Indigenous/Yup'ik epistemology, methodology and representations of knowledge to the established western academic traditions, (p. 176) 37 Decolonizing methodologies and theories have only really emerged in recent decades, as a means of challenging dominant methods of research, knowing and discourse, most notably with the work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) who writes: "It is important to remember, however, that colonialism was not just about collection. It was also about re-arrangement, re-representation and re-distribution" (p. 62). Taiaiake Alfred also examines the topic of Indigenous self-determination and strategies towards decolonizing colonial history in his work, entitled Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto (1999/2009), which he argues: "We need to realize that ways of thinking that perpetuate European values can do nothing to ease the pain of colonization and return us to the harmony, balance, and peaceful coexistence that were - and are - the ideals envisioned in all traditional indigenous philosophies" (p. 65). Smith (1999) and Alfred's (1999/2009) work have helped in developing new pathways towards deeper, critical discourses, as well as a shift in epistemic consciousness, aimed at grounding research methodologies within an Indigenous perspective; thus being more diverse and reflective of Indigenous thought, theory and research practices. James Clifford, who wrote the groundbreaking work, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (1988), also presents a rather critical and contextualized assessment of historical ethnographic and anthropologic notions of authority. Looking particularly at the role of ethnography 38 within literature and art, Clifford (1988) offers various counterpoints to Western theoretical discourse, which inspire new considerations and approaches towards methodological research that are reflective of "diverse ways of thinking and writing about culture from a standpoint of participant observation" (p. 9). In addition, Frantz Fanon (1969) and Paulo Friere (1981) also cover important groundwork in their critical, theoretical works, which has significantly promoted the emergence of postcolonial theory and decolonizing methodologies For instance, in Fanon's work Toward the African Revolution (1969) he critiques the effects of French colonial oppression within Algeria, but more generally he argues: An authentic national liberation exists only to the precise degree to which the individual has irreversibly begun his [or her] own liberation. It is not possible to take one's distance with respect to colonialism without at the same time taking it with respect to the idea that the colonized holds of himself [or herself] through the filter of colonialist culture, (p. 103) Fanon's ideas surrounding the issue of individual liberation echo those of Friere (1981), who quite simply states: "It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors" (p. 42). Fanon (1969) also recognized, like Freire (1981) that in order for the oppressed to free themselves from oppression, they require specific strategies with which to accomplish this. Fanon (1969) writes: 39 It is the colonial peoples who must liberate themselves from colonialist domination. [...] Liberation is the total destruction of the colonial system, from the pre-eminence of the language of the oppressor and 'departmentalization,' to the customs union that in reality maintains the former colonized in the meshes of the culture, of the fashion, and of the images of the colonialist, (p. 105) The works of Fanon (1969), Freire (1981), Smith (1999) and Alfred (1999/2009) have been useful for rupturing, deconstructing and redressing the impacts of colonialism and cultural imperialism, while providing theories and methodologies that support strategies for decolonizing ethnography, anthropology, and ethno/musicology. These discourses of decolonization offer counter-hegemonic methods that contemporary musicologists can use to reexamine the role of colonialism on musical creation, interpretation and practice, offering scholars like Curtis M. Hinsley (1999), D. R. M. Irving (2010), Timothy D. Taylor (1997, 2007), Pisani (2005), and many others new perspectives and paradigms to analyze music and musicology through decolonizing frameworks. Irving (2010) writes: We should recognize that both colonialism and counterpoint are representative of hegemony, albeit in different forms. Colonialism in its broadest sense represents an overarching power structure that controls and governs the use of resources, while maintaining a relationship between parent state and colony. Correspondingly, counterpoint represents an overarching power structure that controls and governs the interactions of tones, while referring to the relationship between different musical voices, (p. 5) 40 In his work The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality (1990), Paul Atkinson argues that an ethnographer's work is by some definition a form of storytelling that represents "features of a quest - a sort of voyage of search, adventure and exploration" (106). Though ethnographic research figuratively symbolizes a quest, there are benefits to engaging with this methodology through a decolonizing process, as it presents ways in which it is possible to accommodate an analysis of Indigenous storytelling, performance and opera creation while taking into account Indigenous learning and teaching methods. I intend to incorporate decolonizing methodologies by employing modes of oral tradition and storytelling as the core of my auto-ethnographic method, which I use to analyze my artistic development/process in the creation of Giiwedin. 41 Theorizing the Musical Rupture: In the making of contemporary opera, the notion of rupture (i.e. disrupting dominant hegemonies and status quo) is one that surfaces through the praxis of theory and creation. Rupturing, whether it is social, political or geographical, often creates dynamic forms of dissonance, which can broaden our capacity to be critical (Friere, 1988). The rupture itself becomes a form of colonial intervention, and presents an opportunity for de-centering dominant, hegemonic musical forms. Margaret Marshment (1993) states: "Representation is a political issue. Without the power to define our interests and to participate in the decisions that affect us, women - like any other group in society - will be subject to the definitions and decisions of others" (p. 123). For instance, political and cultural representations of "noble savages" and "Indian maidens" have proliferated since contact, in works such as Dryden's The Conquest of Granada (1672), right through the Baroque, Romantic, Vaudevillian and "Indianist" movements and eras. Gihvedin grew to be a response and a call to challenge these historical representations and a way to challenge political, cultural and historical misrepresentations of Indigenous people through forms of rupturing and dissonance. This form of critical theory and inquiry has a capacity to produce new forms of artistic and musical discourse, including methodologies for self-reflexive 42 evaluation, that can examine ways for de-centering music, which Kevin Korsyn (2003) argues has "[...] considerable potential to change the field by acknowledging that any subject who writes about music today is split, divided by itself by conflicting institutional desires" (p. 55). Korsyn (2003) further notes: "We cannot heal these divisions, since they represent social contradictions rather than mere errors, but we can diagnose their effects and learn to manage them better" (p. 55). Being mindful of these thoughts and by incorporating them into self-reflexive methods of evaluation, I intend to examine forms of self-critique/criticism, as a process of decolonizing knowledge. Beverley Diamond argues in Native American Music in Eastern North America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (2008): "Many indigenous teachers emphasize that experience is a way of knowing. Furthermore, they stress that knowledge and ways of knowing are impossible to distinguish. The process of transmission is part of the knowledge itself." (p. 9) Such processes of knowledge transmission, as Diamond explains, are critical to the interdisciplinarity of art and performance practices, as well as for examining the political dimensions that may or may not exist within musical scholarship and discourse. In his book Music, Politics and the Academy, Pieter C. Van Den Toorn (1995) argues: "No doubt the plea for a new approach to music scholarship, one that would place greater emphasis on the 43 personal and social aspects of music and its appreciation, has struck a sympathetic chord with a great many musicologists and theorists" (p 65) I take many of these arguments into consideration when framing my inquiries, as this provides a more conceptual approach towards accounting for, and acknowledging, the diversity of epistemology when contemplating new approaches towards music scholarship and practice The notion and process of knowledge transmission can lead theory and methodology toward a better understanding, practice and/or representation of Indigenous music in scholarship As Kay Kaufman Shelemay (1996) argues Only by crossing boundaries between the subdivisions of broader musical scholarship can we begin to forge approaches responsive to the materials themselves. [...] But as the shifting of boundaries withm musical traditions begins to alter our traditional units of studv, it mav be worthwhile to consider in what wavs these changes impinge upon the current subdivisions of musical scholarship and our places within it. (p. 19) Decolonizing Performance and Practice: Through the praxis of decolonizing performance, auto-ethnography and ethnomusicology, this methodology employs a self-reflexive process that examines collaboration and development through a theoretical analysis of Guwedm Val Colic- 44 Peisker (2004) posits: "Unless we approach fieldwork with an open mind and heart, ethnographic prose can result in an academic account that has little to do with reality" (p. 92). Accordingly, this methodology also takes into account Gaile S. Cannella and Kathryn D. Manuelito's (2008) larger question around "rethinking the consciousness and purposes of research" (p. 49), which they explain: These questions relate to the power inscribed through research as construct, whether traditionally designed or reconceptualized, and require the involvement of people in creating, conducting, owning, and judging research about themselves. Furthermore, Native and non-Native, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, must recognize that there is no singular voice, no prototype of Native or Indigenous peoples, (p. 49) Given that this research is multi-faceted and takes into account a cross- disciplinary methodology, it was necessary for me to apply the following two methods of research: A) To combine arts-based methods, decolonizing and auto-ethnographic strategies (Fine, Tuck & Zeller-Berkman, 2008; Spradley 1980; Stock, 2004; Swadener & Mutua, 2008) in order to observe and document some of its effects on the creative process during the writing (libretto), composing (score), workshops (development, dramaturgy and facilitation), rehearsing and public performance (production and audience response) of Giiwedin; and B) To apply self-reflexive methods (Cannella & Manuelito, 2008; Denzin & Lincoln, 2008) that take into account a 45 pedagogical/epistemological analysis of opera creation and development while reflecting on the following question: "What meaning(s) were taken from these interactions with the work?" Together these methods have allowed me to contemplate some of the effects, benefits and challenges that Indigenous oral tradition has on opera when incorporating various forms of aesthetic and cultural hybridity, such as multilingual storytelling and blending musical genres. As my goal has been to approach this research using a decolonizing framework, similar to what I attempt to do in my storytelling, I decided to root my methodology within The Seven Teachings, which are: Respect, Honour, Courage, Honesty, Wisdom, Strength and Love. These values were then paired into four sections so as to be reflective of elements such as the four directions, which are broken down as follows: 1) Respect and Honour; 2) Courage and Honesty; 3) Wisdom and Strength; and 4) Love. The Seven Teachings: Please note: There are specific teachings for each of the Seven Teachings within Indigenous knowledge. However, as I am applying these to my research methods, I am defining them independently from these traditional teachings so that they are more appropriate and relevant for guiding my research methodology and practice. 46 The following is an outline of The Seven Teachings that articulated the terms used in this research methodology, and summarizes the function they had in defining and directing this project's guiding principles. 1. Respect and Honour: Respect and Honour are principles that inform my artistic practice and approach to creation. Respect and Honour have helped with establishing a space in which the exchange of ideas are welcomed and valued, as well as the ways in which these can be interacted with through decolonizing performance practices, forms of reciprocity and renegotiation (Piquemal, 2006; Swadener & Mutua, 2008). These strategies also take into account the fact that some information and traditional/sacred knowledge may need to be treated in a considerate or confidential manner. Consequently, I may not always be able to explicitly describe some knowledge or information about Giiwedin in or through research for reasons that "Eurocentric education and political systems and their assimilation processes have severely eroded and damaged Indigenous knowledge" (Battiste, 2008, p. 497). Marie Battiste (2008) elaborates on this point: Indigenous people's epistemology is derived from the immediate ecology, from people's experiences, perceptions, thoughts, and memory, including experiences shared with others; and from the spiritual world discovered in dreams, visions, inspirations, and signs interpreted with the guidance of healers and elders. Most Indigenous peoples hold various forms of literacies in holistic 47 ideographic systems, which act as partial knowledge meant to interact with the oral traditions, (p. 499) Overall, Respect and Honour have helped with establishing an environment that values all cultures, music, art and aesthetics so that they may be interacted with and/or used in an honourable way during the development of the creative project and this dissertation. Finally, Respect and Honour are modeled around notions and practices of reciprocity, which supports theories of performance, critical pedagogy, and Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies (Battiste, 2008; Denzin & Lincoln 2008). Denzin and Lincoln (2008) explain that: The researcher-as-performer moves from a view of performance as imitation, or dramaturgical staging (Goffman, 1959), to an emphasis on performance as liminality, construction (McLaren, 1999), to a view of performance as embodied struggle, as an intervention, as breaking and remaking, and as kinesis, that is, a sociopolitical act (Conquergood, 1998, p. 32). (p. 7) 2. Courage and Honesty: Courage and Honesty are principles that guide my thinking, reflections and responses around the work I created, and that these need to be applied in an ethical and mindful manner. Courage and Honesty force me to be aware of the fact that I hold both insider and outsider knowledge as an Indigenous person, artist and academic. However, "the insider/outsider position does garner hybrid knowledge or 48 specialized knowledge that creates the space of different and new realities" (Madison, 2008, p. 398). Respectively, Courage and Honesty ground the reasons for how and why I apply this knowledge, as it supports a critical, pedagogical methodology that examines, challenges and subverts the historical and colonial representations of Indigenous subject matter through music and opera. 3. Wisdom and Strength: Wisdom and Strength both help in directing the ways in which I use and apply my experience, skills and knowledge, as I navigate through complex and sometimes difficult situations. Wisdom has taught me to be prepared to accept the unforeseeable challenges when or should they arise; and strength has provided me with the necessary patience to seek out creative ways to problem-solve. Both Wisdom and Strength enable me to recognize the ways in which oppression operates and how it can create barriers, including systemic, political and social, and the skills that are needed to challenge, decolonize and/or resolve such forms of oppression. 4. Love: Love is an especially valuable component to this research methodology, as it enables me to remain free and open with my creative and spiritual imagination. As a 49 guiding principle in this methodology, this concept has taught me to appreciate the opportunities I am offered and to nurture all the possibilities that collaboration is or can be, which Johannes Birringer (2000) states is "an unaccommodated act of love" (p. 160). Love is more than the aspiration to transcend boundaries, but is a tacit way of sharing creative visions and ethical knowledge through a collaborative effort. The principle of love is one that underscores compassion, trust and resilience. When and where challenges arise, love becomes a form of compassion that teaches the art of patience, and inspires the necessary trust and willingness to listen to one's own creative instincts. Love also presents a form of resilience that opens new capacities to problem-solve and dream in creative ways. Love is the very substance and element that selflessly binds and supports notions of wisdom and strength, courage and honesty, and respect and honour, all of which sustains an open heart and mind. Developing an Artistic Process: By restating the question: "What meaning(s) do we take from our interactions with a work of art? I quickly realized that in creating Giiwedin I could easily encounter many diverse and complex variables that would need to be taken into consideration in order to fully understand the final product (i.e., the production). The production of an opera is a collective experience for both artists and audiences alike, 50 and it takes a considerable amount of dedication to develop a methodological process that aims to nurture a spirit of cooperation and strategic consensus building. Concepts such as cooperation and consensus building have helped in informing the development of Giiwedin, particularly in the instance of co-composing. Engaging with art is not a solitary experience, and for this reason it was important to incorporate a rigorous, interdisciplinary methodology, including decolonizing and self-reflexive strategies, as a means of guiding my analysis of creative practice, including my own artistic trajectory and process. As stated previously, I intend to explore and reflect on my journey as librettist, co-composer and co-producer in the creation of Giiwedin; however, I also explore this artistic process by following three creative guidelines that informed my creative practice: 1) a suspension of disbelief; 2) a subversion of operatic archetypes; and 3) an exploration of the political constructs within creation and the staging of opera and music. 1. Suspension of Disbelief: Opera is an art form that opens a space in which almost anything that is perceived as virtually impossible or inconceivable becomes entirely imaginable. Scott Pratt (2009) elaborates: "Instead of 51 offering revelations about human nature or the world, opera can only offer revelations that speak to the world it creates" (p. 76). For example, when writing Giiwedin I chose to create a strong female protagonist, Noodin-Kwe, who lives for more than two hundred years while having a close friendship with a wolf named Mahigan. Though opera offers a platform to explore complex relationships, it also creates a space where one is able to manipulate concepts of time, and by doing so can manage to tell an entire back-story in a single aria, or otherwise tell a story that stretches over multiple centuries. Opera presents methods of storytelling complementary to those used in Aboriginal narratives, in which the storyteller will often create a new reality and universe where its own set of rules for the tale can exist. Such is the case for the opera Giiwedin, in which the notion of time was used as theatrically and effectively as possible, resulting in a complex, multilingual story that spans three centuries (1700s to 1900s), and is told within two hours. Subversion of Archetypes: Although opera is predominantly a Eurocentric art form, I examine the ways in which First Nations and Western/European artistic traditions intersect. In many instances the influence of European culture on those of the First Nations is either accepted or studied, whereas the influence of Indigenous music and culture on European culture is seldom considered. Also, with exoticism in musical compositions and forms of Orientalism occurring quite frequently in Baroque opera, most times the themes, subject matter and musical content carried little relevance to the cultures they were depicting, as is the case in the works of Lully (1685) and Rameau (1735). Finally, because opera has traditionally been rooted within a patriarchal ideology (Cusick 1998; McLary 2002), gender roles and constructs have often been depicted through prescriptive, heteronormative codes and rigid, binary categories. For example: the tenor is represented as the handsome hero and the soprano plays the part of his love interest; meanwhile, the alto is relegated to the role of the soprano's confidant, and the bass-baritone is characterized, and often racialized as the evil villain. However these traditional roles and binary constructs were deliberately reversed in Giiwedin. For example, Noodin-Kwe, the lead character in the opera, is a 150- year-old First Nations heroine written for mezzo-soprano. Marion Newman (Kwagiulth and Salish descent) performed the role of Noodin-Kwe, and in an interview with Joseph So of The Music Scene (2010) she articulates some thoughts about her character: "This character makes me think of my paternal grandmother. She lived through a lot of changes, and had to learn new ways in order to fit in with the white culture that took over. [...] I am not trying to play her as a 150-year-old, but rather just as a compassionate, smart, perceptive, practical human being" (p. 6). The act of creating leading First Nations characters in new opera works is both exciting and necessary in my opinion; however, it also presents different kinds of challenges with respect to cultural representation, even when a work is written by and for First Nations. For example, Newman is originally from the West Coast and was faced with the challenge of portraying an Anishnaabe woman in a Northern Ontario setting in Giiwedin. Newman states: "I feel responsibility to First Nations, to represent us well. I'm not Nishnawbe - I'm from the West Coast. I want to make sure I don't have gestures that don't fit, or mispronounce the words" (So, 2010, p. 6). Like Newman, I was also challenged as a librettist and storyteller to characterize Northern Ontario modes of speech (in of the three languages) with as much accuracy as possible, despite the fact I am originally from this area. However, later in another interview with L. H. Tiffany Hsieh (2010) for Opera Canada, Newman eventually expresses a level of comfort in portraying her character. "I was curious when I was first asked to sing this role" Newman says. "I thought, 'How would I feel as a Native? Would this have a more traditional or European feel to it?' [...] It's mostly European-sounding, almost Baroque, with alto range and some chest singing. [...] It's cool how they mixed it all together. I feel really comfortable in this role." (2010, p. 11) 3. Opera as a Political Statement: Opera has often been used as a platform from which to convey political ideas, and accordingly this serves as a reflection of its society from the time of its composition. There are various examples of modern Canadian operatic and musical works that make use of such tactics to convey political messages, including: Fig Trees (2009), by John Greyson and David Wall, a documentary-opera that examines social and political activism surrounding the issue of HIV/AIDS, and BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera (2007) by Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow, a work that examines homophobia and gay-bashing. Developing Giiwedin as an opera created interesting possibilities to explore issues of historical conflict between First Nations and settler society, while examining its impact on modern Canada. By telling the story of Giiwedin from an Indigenous woman's perspective this opera re-affirms the matrilineal lines that have been systemically eradicated from Indigenous culture through forms of historical and political gender oppression, and "serve[s] as a complex text that ultimately teaches its readers something valuable about meaning" (Pratt, 2009, p. 77). Finally, the importance of telling the story of Giiwedin through opera was to provide audiences with an entry point into understanding a worldview and perspective that is seldom told, while simultaneously creating and presenting imaginative ways of marrying two or more musical traditions at once. 57 Chronology of Events that Informed the Methodological Process: During the development of Guwedin (2006 to 2010) I documented my artistic process, making a number of observations about my practice, while using intersecting theories and methodologies on music and opera 9 I also incorporated Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies, drawing works such as Norman K Denzin, Yvonna S Lincoln and Linda Tuhiwai Smith (editors) Handbook of Critical Indigenous Methodologies (2008), to support the self-reflexive research methods I used in this research In 2006 I began planning, developing and preparing an outline describing the story/plotline of Guwedin Subsequently, Magowan and I began co-composing our music as I completed drafts of the libretto Given that we were in the early stages of development, Magowan and I decided to start our work by creating thematic musical materials to be used for developing and expanding on the opera's storyline Meanwhile, I also began conducting historical research, which I discuss in the next two chapters, in the following areas By applying intersecting theories and methodologies I drew from the following works Tara Browner's 'Introduction Studying First Nations and limit Music" in Music of the First Nations: Tradition and Innovation in Native North America (2009), Beverley Diamond, Dems Crowdy & Daniel Downes' Post-Colonial Distances: The Study of Popular Music in Canada and Australia (2008), Kevin Korsyn's Decentenng Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research (2003), Roger Sanjek's Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology (1990), James P Spradley's Participant Observation (1980), and Jonathan Stock's chapter, entitled "Documenting the Musical Event Observation, Participation, Representation" in Enc Clarke and Nicholas Cook's (Eds) Empirical Musicology: Aims, Methods, Prospects (2004) 58 A) Early ethnology and anthropology of music and an examination of historical musical/performance trends from the early music/Baroque era to the Romantic / "Indianist" movement that according to Tara Browner (1997) "lasted roughly from 1890 to 1925" (p. 265); and B) Research and literature written about Northeastern Ontario and Indigenous experience. Throughout the early stages of composing I engaged in discussions with my co-composer, Catherine Magowan, about the libretto in order to determine what musical styles and aesthetics we would use to support the opera's storyline. Such discussions also involved us working together to form strategies and frame ideas around ways of working collaboratively. This process also resulted in us being able outline various methods and guidelines for working through our artistic differences, including ways of respecting each other's differences of opinion. We explain some of this process in the production program: The music of Giiwedin was developed entirely as a team. Whether we composed side-by-side or at separate stations in the same room, all of our music was developed in a constant feedback loop that has synthesized our musical voices, making it virtually impossible to definitely say who wrote what. 59 We recognize that our process is unusual, as normally interactions between librettists and composers are minimal, but multiple composers working together on an opera is seldom heard of. However, we feel that we could not do justice to a story as layered as Giiwedin without using all the tools at our combined disposal. (Magowan & Denomme-Welch, program notes, 2010) Inevitably, we also approached the text in the same manner. For instance, although I was responsible for creating the story and writing the libretto, I welcomed any and all feedback from Magowan concerning text changes and/or edits, and consulted with her anytime I decided to rewrite or rearrange a particular scene. Since the story of Giiwedin was set within a historical context, we felt it was not only fitting to compose our music using a combination of Indigenous and Baroque aesthetics, but we also incorporated other musical influences. Magowan and I explain this in our program notes: Before we wrote a single note, we read, studied, and listened to everything from Gregorian chants to Medieval madrigals, through the Baroque and Classical periods, operas, operettas, jazz, blues, gospel, folk music, country, anthems, marches, hip-hop, slam poetry, and even Western movie soundtracks. We listened to old and modern recordings of First Nations music from a variety of nations, including those represented in Giiwedin, and studied how it was appropriated during the Vaudevillian era. Armed with this knowledge, we made deliberate choices in our use of genres, instruments and techniques to support the characters, scenes, and plot development in Giiwedin, and as a result of this variety we feel that we have developed a work that bridges cultural 60 aesthetics, and creates a work that is relevant to a whole new generation of music lovers. (Magowan & Denomme-Welch, program notes, 2010) These instruments (harpsichord, archlute, violoncello, and violin) are typical in Baroque instrumentation, however with the voices they created rich textures and colours, supported by various rhythms, interweaving melody lines and choral work. For example, the harpsichord created the effect of ice and snow, while the strings created percussive, wintry sounds that symbolized northern winds. While the music was arranged for four instruments and nine voices (three mezzo-sopranos, two sopranos, two bass-baritones, and two tenors), this enabled far more interaction between singers and instrumentalists. Again, Magowan and I would provide an explanation for these choices in our notes from the opera's production program: The typical modern opera orchestra can employ anywhere from thirty to one hundred musicians to accompany the action on stage. Although the size of this ensemble allows for a wide variety of sounds to be at the composer's disposal, the sheer size of the ensemble meant that the orchestra had to be banished to the 'pit' (a lowered area in front of, and often partially below the stage) so as not to overpower the singers' voices. Because of this separation, it is not unusual for an instrumentalist to play the entire run of an opera without being able to connect with what is happening on stage, resulting in a musical, sometimes creative divide between the cast and instrumentalists, who's only connection is the music director or conductor charged with the task of keeping them in control. For Giiwedin, we chose to challenge this tradition by using a chamber ensemble of only four instruments. Seated to the side of 61 the stage, this arrangement allows for the singers and instrumentalists to interact, and creates a feeling of intimacy with the audience that is normally only achieved in small productions and venues. (Magowan & Denomme-Welch, program notes, 2010) As the music and libretto were underway, and discussions and plans to produce Giiwedin began to materialize, we proceeded to develop the work through a series of workshops that took place in October 2007 and May and November 2009. In October 2007, a 15-minute excerpt from Giiwedin was presented before an audience at the Weesageechak Begins to Dance, a festival hosted by Native Earth Performing Arts Inc. (NEPA). Under the direction of Judith Thompson, this presentation took place at the Berkeley Street Theatre (Canadian Stage Company), following a weeklong workshop period, which focused largely on text development and dramaturgy. This dramaturgical process was particularly helpful, as it provided an opportunity to better flesh-out the characters and to develop a clearer vision and understanding of the story I was attempting to tell. Though presenting an excerpt of Giiwedin merely marked the beginning of the work, there was still much left to do in order to fully develop the opera, and when I began my playwright residency at NEPA (from August 2008 to May 2009), through the support of an Ontario Arts Council playwright grant, I was able to complete the full libretto. In February 2009, a reading of the libretto's first full draft took place with actors, directors and producers, followed by a discussion. This gave me an 62 opportunity to hear the work and decide what changes I wanted to make to the libretto when working on the second draft, which was completed in the fall of 2009, in tandem with the creation of the music. Having acquired sufficient grant funding, Magowan and I organized two weeklong musical workshops in May 2009 and November 2009, which were held in rented studio spaces at the Lower Ossington Theatre and the Ernest Balmer Studio in Toronto, Ontario. These intensive workshops consisted of rehearsals, followed by critical, in-depth discussions about the music-in-progress, where singers, musicians and guest consultants were invited to share feedback and critique of the work-in- progress. A private workshop presentation took place following each of these workshops for a small group of invited guests, including stakeholders, producers, and artistic colleagues. We were able to incorporate a great deal of feedback and notes we made throughout the workshop process, as well as try out several new musical ideas through experimentation. While preparing to run these weeklong workshops, Magowan and I shared some administrative responsibilities (e.g., grant writing, reporting, and communications); however, we also delegated and assumed specific artistic roles to each other for the sake of organizational effectiveness and time management. Magowan took the lead as workshop conductor, while I assumed the 63 role of stage director. Though we performed specific roles during the workshop we maintained and shared our as creators/co-composers; therefore, if or when any questions surfaced concerning the subject of the opera's musical content, both Magowan and I were consulted and together we made all of the final decisions about edits and/or revisions to the score. Although there are few examples or instances that demonstrate ways in which co-composers have worked together successfully, I realized early on in my process that it would be in the best interest of GiiM'edin to apply concepts of The Seven Teachings (outlined earlier in this chapter) in my artistic practice as well as in my methodological framework. With these guiding principles and methodology being established within my work, I could incorporate them into my self-reflexive praxis and gauge the work's growth and the potential effects it has had on the project as a whole. Or, as Pratt (2009) argues: "If aesthetic experiences are, among other things, experiences that leave something behind when the audience leaves the hall, then it is reasonable to try to understand that remainder" (p. 78). Purpose and Benefits of the Workshops: The main purpose of holding these workshops was to grant us (both Magowan and I) an opportunity to hear the music out loud, and to receive critical feedback from 64 consultants, instrumentalists and singers This process was particularly helpful to us as Gnwedm was our first full-length opera, and by holding these workshops we were able to tackle any dramaturgical or musical issues prior to the scheduled production To date there are few Aboriginal-Canadian opera works written, composed and/or directed by Indigenous artists, however, examples include Tomson Highway and Melissa Hui's Cree opera work Pimooteewm (2009), Bones: An Aboriginal Dance Opera (2001) by collaborators Sadie Buck (writer and composer) and Alejandro Ronceria (choreographer) and Tzmquaw (1950) by Frank Mornson, a music teacher in Duncan, and his student, Abel Joe. The circumstances and outcomes under which Tzinquaw exists is complicated, and although it "was performed to tremendous acclaim across B.C." (Crockford, 2009), and sold out during its premiere, Ross Crockford (2006) speculates that "it seems unlikely that anyone alive today will ever see Tzinquaw" (para 1) Crockford (2006) explains James Hoffman, a theatre professor at Thomspson Rivers University in Kamloops, says Tzmquaw remains one of the most important works in B C history - it's the operatic equivalent of a Cowichan sweater, combining the best of Native and Anglo talents [ ] 'The situation's very political,' says Hoffman the Quw'utsun people claim rights to the songs, Morrison's relatives on Salt Spring own the script, and neither seem willing to sign a treaty allowing it to be produced (para 3) For a more extensive list of Aboriginal themed works, see Mary Ingraham' s (2007) "Something to Sing About A Preliminary List of Canadian Staged Dramatic Music Since 1867 " In Intel sections 28 l.pp 14-77 65 In all probability Giiwedin may be the first original, full-length Anishnaabe opera to be written and co-composed by an Aboriginal artist in three languages (English, French and Anishnaabemowin) that combines Baroque musical practices with contemporary Indigenous aesthetics. Now, some of the political debate(s) that surrounds Tzinquaw concerning its ownership is significant given that it highlights several of the complex issues raised around authorship and cultural ownership. In the case of Giiwedin, the work is the product of an artistic collaboration, and my partnership with a composer of a non-Indigenous background has resulted in a unique synthesis of musical and aesthetic voices. Despite the fact that I wrote the story independently, Magowan and I equally shared our musical voices and visions as composers, right through to the final product. Throughout this process, we have had to continuously negotiate and renegotiate respectful artistic and intellectual boundaries not only one another but also with others outside the parameters of our collaboration, often having to assert that our work be recognized as one written by two composers. In developing a methodology that could support both the artistic practice and the actual study I pursue by using self-reflexive methods, I realized that there is not a large or extensive body of research that has been developed specifically around Aboriginal opera and collaboration from which to draw sources or to make strong, comparative analysis of with respect to Giiwedin. Regardless, the purpose of having 66 created and produced Giiwedin was not so much to draw comparisons next to the works of others, but rather to expand upon Indigenous storytelling methods while incorporating an analysis of complex, multi-cultural aesthetic practices and spaces, thus supporting what Chad M. Gasta (2007) describes as being "the hopes of promoting new avenues of research into this understudied area" (p. 85). Summary: In this chapter I outlined various theory and methodology practices I utilize in this research, such as postcolonial and decolonizing methodologies, auto- ethnography, and self-reflexive praxis. Furthermore, this chapter has outlined a range of Indigenous epistemologies I work with in my research, and are methods and tools I specifically employ in chapters five and six, which I apply a storytelling and self- reflexive approach (i.e., storytelling as a method of research). Building on the concept of promoting new avenues of research (Gasta, 2007), I will address various kinds of issues concerning historical and political research in the following chapter, specifically addressing this through the topic of Indigenous representations in opera/music. I strive to explore various political and cultural forms of representation, as these have helped shape the self-reflexive methods and analysis I 67 use for reflecting on themes and subject matter depicted in my creative work and artistic process. 68 CHAPTER III: SYMPHONIC CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL RESEARCH, MUSIC AND OPERA So many mistakes, half-truths, and Western anxieties work themselves out in the rhetoric concerning Western forays into 'indigenous' musics. -Renee T. Coulombe (2002, p. 178) During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, research concerning traditional Indigenous music gradually emerged within the fields of ethnology and anthropology, with research being published by Theodore Baker (1882), Alice C. Fletcher and Francis LaFlesche (1893), among others. Meanwhile, the commercialization of Indigenous-themed musical works was growing on a national and global scale at the same time, but was majorly largely written by non-Indigenous composers and librettists. Incidentally, the majority of early ethnologists and anthropologists would mostly concentrate their attention and energy on the idea of capturing and/or interpreting some aspect of "primitive" music through their research for fear that it would all but "vanish"11 (Baker 1882; Burton 1909; Densmore 1910, 1913, 1926, 1929; Fletcher 1893), while non-Indigenous composers and librettists would attempt to represent Indigenous people in music through a predominantly European filter. Krystyn R. Moon (2010) deconstructs this historical, ethnomusicological practice and its influence on musical understanding, stating: 111 place an emphasis on words such as "primitive," "vanish/vanishing race," and "savage," etc., by highlighting them within quotations, as this an act of engaging and disengaging the historical connotations and meanings that are often attached to such words. 69 Melody and rhythm, the other elements of music that scholars used to categorize what they heard, were perceived to be less 'advanced.' Starting in the late eighteenth century, music experts had begun to racialize these three categories (harmony, melody, and rhythm), associating harmony with European art music and melody and rhythm with non-European traditions. Despite seeing non-European traditions as inferior to European ones, these scholars still believed that the study of non-European music had its merits and helped to preserve what they thought might hold the key to mapping the evolution of musical expression among humanity, (p. 192) Researchers who wrote about Indigenous music at the turn of the 20th century seldom incorporated, or even excluded, notions of Indigenous thought within their methodology and/or their approach towards gathering and collecting data on Indigenous music and cultural "artifacts" (e.g., Baker 1882; Burton; 1909; Densmore; 1910, 1913). Anne Ruggles Gere (2004) explains: Anthropologists, both amateur and professionally trained, had been collecting Indian artifacts for some time, but collecting soared during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, fueled in part by the emergence of museums like the Smithsonian (1846) and New York's American Museum of Natural History (1869). The objects deposited in these collections were not viewed in aesthetic terms. Rather, they were collected as remnants of an exotic and, presumably, vanishing culture, (p. 654) As discourses in postcolonial theories, feminist and critical cultural studies had not yet emerged in the late 19th century, and Eurocentric attitudes of superiority were still rampant, the bourgeoning fields of musicology, ethnology and anthropology virtually excluded any and all perspectives that did not fit into their own worldview. 70 For instance, because neither postcolonial nor decolonizing theories and methodologies existed at the time these would not be integrated into their research practices. It would not be until many years later, when such discourses would finally surface within academic circles and institutions, that postcolonial and decolonizing methods would be used and serve as way to reflect back on these historical works within a much more critical and comprehensive epistemological framework. In recent decades there has been an emerging and growing body of contemporary research that is examining the ways in which music has travelled across the globe in a number of ways, including colonialism and cultural imperialism. Such research has also attempted to look at how the practice of exporting European music and opera to other countries occurred simultaneously with the importation of Indigenous music, which began as early as the 16th century at the height of New World discovery, conquest and cultural imperialism (Bloechl 2008; Gasta 2003, 2007; Irving 2005, 2010; Koegel, 2001; Savage, 1983; Taylor 1997, 2007). For example, in Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila (2010), D. R. M. Irving states: Musical transactions and intercultural exchanges were arguably the most important part of contrapuntal interplay within the colonial milieu. [...] The sudden arrival of European music in the early modern Philippines (and certain neighboring regions) established a colonial music culture, triggered intercultural dialogue between opposing 71 musical systems, and initiated a period of accelerating musical change and development [...]. (p. 45) Timothy D. Taylor (1997) also argues: "The rise of opera at the very end of the sixteenth century coincided with the increasing intercourse of peoples and the travel of musical sounds and styles (see Bianconi; Rosand; Taruskin)" (p. 56). While Irving and Taylor raise important questions in their research about the effects and outcomes of intercultural musical exchanges, Olivia A. Bloechl (2008) argues that "it remains an underexamined historical reality that while European colonization forcibly influenced colonized peoples and cultures, the colonies also irrevocably altered Europe and its cultural production" (p. xv). Bloechl (2008) attempts to explore these intercultural exchanges through music and the subsequent effects these have had on the colonization of Indigenous people: Though the most intensive Atlantic inter-cultural encounters occurred in the colonies, indigenous American and African diasporic ideas, materials, and practices of music also migrated eastward to Europe. In some cases this stemmed from the voluntary or involuntary migration of colonized individuals themselves, but it was also the product of European travel, writing, and trade in material goods, (p. xiii) Early musical transactions and intercultural exchanges occurred through forms of colonial contact, which often resulted in Indigenous aesthetics and music being exported to Europe wherein these "exotic" and "foreign" Indigenous sounds were misappropriated through art forms like French ballets and a variety of Baroque operas 72 (Bloechl, 2008; Meglin, 2000; Pisani, 2005; Taylor, 1997, 2007; Savage, 1983). Various early music composers and librettists, like Jean-Baptiste Lully and Phillipe Quinault {Le Temple de la Paix, 1685) and Jean-Phillipe Rameau and Louis Fuzelier (Les bides Galantes, 1735), wrote music and libretto that they claimed was inspired by or based on Indigenous cultures and "entertained the royal family and courtiers with the spectacle of singing and dancing 'sauvages'" (Bloechl 2008, p. 142). Joellen A. Meglin (2000) examines the semiotics of sauvagerie and chronicles the evolution of Native American misrepresentations through ballet and opera: Representations of Native Americans appeared in the French ballet as early as the seventeenth-century ballet de cour. [...] Later on in the seventeenth century, with the hunter symbolism turned inward and against him, the sanvage became part beast himself, with animal heads and skins as adornment. In the eighteenth century the plume and bronze motif went baroque with sun-rays of gold lame and tassled ornaments in representations of Incas {Les Incas de Per on, 1735), who were generally depicted as an elite race. Here were suggestions of a siecle d'or - a Golden Age, like the era of the Sun King, Louis XIV, just passed in France. Whether nostalgic for a lost past or futuristic in their yearnings, the eighteenth- century Parisian public - both readers and audiences - constructed Native Americans in ways that filled in the insufficiencies of their own society. [...] By the time Native American characters appeared in the Romantic ballet, however, they had become 'redskins' {peaux rouges), grotesque and caricatured, as sauvagerie shifted its emphasis from cultural to racial difference and became increasingly unrefined, (pp. 87-8) Meglin (2000) describes a progressive shift and transformation from representations of the romantic, "noble savage" towards "redskins," "squaws," and 73 cannibals Many of these representations began propagating various mythologies and stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, which inevitably fueled propagandist and racist sentiments towards Indigenous peoples, cultures and religions Furthermore, grotesque depictions of Native Americans as "savages" gave excuse and rationale for missionaries and government bureaucrats to embark on a form of political and religious witch-hunt, bent on "saving the Indians" from their "evil" and "savage" ways This has been devastating to Indigenous peoples, as at the massacre of Lakota Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee in 1890 However, both before and since the Massacre at Wounded Knee, Indigenous peoples like the Lakota often incorporated music in their approach to resistance and revitalization against oppressive policies that attempted to extinguish Indigenous culture Troutman (2009) explains [ ] following the massacre of Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee in 1890, missionaries and local Indian agents, concerned about their dances and economic practices, placed the Lakotas under extraordinary surveillance [ ] Like many other American Indian peoples, the Lakotas combined the subterfuge of 'hidden' acts of resistance with blatant and effective challenges to federal Indian policy through a most unexpected yet highly political medium musical performance (p 20) Inasmuch as the presence of Jesuits, missionaries and military forces grew through the colonization of the New World, so did the rapidly growing effects of acculturation between European and Indigenous societies, which had an influence on one another's music traditions, as well as shaping the development of opera, music 74 and performance on a larger scale (Bloechl 2008; Gasta 2007; Irving 2010; Lacombe & Glidden 1999; Pisani 2005; Taylor 1997, 2007; Troutman 2009). In his article Opera and Spanish Jesuit Evangelization in the New World (2007), Chad M. Gasta writes: "Recent investigation has found that the Jesuit missionaries in the New World took their musical teaching of the Indians very seriously and archival discoveries indicate that music and performance was an intricate part of the missionary experience" (p. 85). John Koegel (2001) further argues that music "was a most important part of the evangelization process, and involved music similar to that performed in other mission areas in New Spain and elsewhere in Latin America" (p. 1). The function of European music and opera in contact with the New World served various purposes, including: 1) an extension of the Christian agenda, as propagated by the Jesuit priests, and later through residential schools, music was used to indoctrinate and assimilate Indigenous peoples in a quest to Christianize, colonize and "civilize" (Gasta 2007; Irving 2005, 2009, 2010; Koegel, 2001); and 2) a tool to represent codes of difference thereby symbolizing the racialized (and feminized) Other (Lacombe & Glidden 1999; Meglin 2000; Taylor 1997, 2007). According to Koegel (2001), missionaries were sent "to impart European cultural values and Roman Catholic beliefs and musical practices to North American Indian groups" (p. 2). Koegel (2001) elaborates: 75 In their writings throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jesuits (and their counterparts, the Recollects), gave detailed information about local liturgical practices, the performance and reception of European music, and the indigenous musical and dance practices of the many Indian tribes they sought to convert. [...] Archival and musical records show that European musical life in New France and Louisiana began with the arrival of the first settlers and missionaries and that it was based on sacred and secular French models. This music was performed in mission and parish churches in New France and Louisiana and in the cathedrals in Quebec, Montreal and New Orleans. In New France, singing and instrumental music were regularly practiced (especially music for the organ, violin, viol and flute) in French towns and in some Indian villages, (pp. 44-45) Though this is predominantly an understudied area of music, contemporary research is beginning to examine the role and impact of music in the development of early European-Indigenous relations, using an assortment of epistemological frameworks and theoretical intersections, including: ethno/musicology, postcolonial and decolonizing methodologies, and critical auto-ethnographic methods. For instance, Olivia Bloechl (2008) incorporates a postcolonial analysis in her examination of the historical representations and treatment of Indigenous people within opera and music; and authors such as Chad Gasta (2007), D. R. M. Irving (2005, 2009, 2010), John Koegel (2001), Timothy Taylor (1997, 2007) and John Troutman (2009) present contemporary analyses of historical research on Indigenous music, opera and performance, and look at various misrepresentations and appropriations that have occurred through the Western exoticization of Indigenous 76 culture Their research also looks at the contnbutions and influences that Indigenous peoples' music and culture has had on opera and performance throughout history Figure 12 Cover of Valse de Concert Off to Figure 13 Cover of Haskell March (1906) by Paris (1900) by C M Senseman This sheet Stella Robbins (Lawrence Kans Bell Brothers music commemorates the "Indian band" from Piano Co ) This piece of music was dedicated the Carlisle Indian Residential School to the Haskell Institute (Kansas) which (Mechamcsburg PA Free Music Club) operated as a government residential school From the author's personal collection From the author's personal collection 77 T<) TSE J\-TI'KT»T* VOX,. IV. BO. 9. Ejiwebak Gijjgong. Moderate. ^|^-r=-4 Jsift - go - In - yfm - si * dog. ,. R& - $fet Xsh - pi - mlng . ^e - «x • l«m!..,.,. Ml 8*. go . . win o i----r - ai - to t&7;*> „ '-J±gs=$=3: l"-^-=ff:^£ 3 II^^^^^it^rrBN .<•* £1 - J;* - an Wi tod , a* • ttin t (2) if.) Wentlli-ishkwivtidpmlwnngla W«nnl>iki«idjijta(l<'l(: Ajiifnl.l itni!llilt«>l(?; Mi (#fiwa jonlia; Mamino *v-i}ii})intli\$M^j Wwwlji wonKisllchigndflk Sagna&aa win tJtsus. MAmisti iu0«vvsd, 13) J«.«f> wiu ml itr>» Kixlwi Minn mlBSwIwtm flits Wcwlji jrwniMttoh £ijig*b: KAWIH gi> 6\dla ttkintf Awi KO «"i Manitw: Mino wiwinioaM K<'i?<*k Mi ^mtototljit? imst. UmiUi ».'»U«mtit!jlri. «) (?) K» fMtn »MB(f>k low; 0 mtlwronwiin M»»Km>. K« (,'i'is" skramln; Kjl nnijiwhltHilj Kn KI.Ktn nnimkiwiti Figure 14 Cover of Amshinabe Enamiad (1899, Vol 9), a journal that was published by the Franciscan brotheis, and was written in the Chippewa language (Harbor Springs, Mich Holy Childhood Indian School) From the author's personal collection Musical representations of Otherness continue to resonate within contemporary Canadian, American and international consciousness, and still has an impact on Indigenous peoples' culture through music (Lacombe & Glidden 1999; Pisani 2005; Meglin 2000; Taylor, 2007; Troutman 2009). In his work entitled Brebeuf {1961), R. Murray Schafer describes the martyrdom of St. Jean de Brebeuf, the first missionary among the Hurons who arrived in Canada in 1625. In the notes from the scorebook, Schafer explains: "In constructing the libretto I drew on Brebeuf s own account of his voyage up the St. Lawrence to establish his second Huron mission (1643), as described in Volume 8 of The Jesuit Relations - the official report sent annually by the North American Jesuits to Europe" (Schafer, 1981). Schafer's piece presents glimpses of early life for North American missionaries, told from the perspective of Brebeuf, which unfortunately depicts "Indians" in a stereotypical way, illustrated in the following excerpts from the section of the score entitled Part II: The Journey: These savages smell terribly; dried out, withered, the stench of the red body before one in the canoe, day in day out. How can I disguise my discomfort9 I have been told a word or a dream is enough to cause the Indians to ill-treat one, even to kill one. My guide is strong; he could easily overpower me. And his eyes, mistrustful [...]. (pp. 21-25; bars 122-143) 79 A lifetime among these Indians, how strange it is to think of! Will they ever come to trust me? I have heard that some are cannibals! And if they kill me? (p. 45; bars 257-260) Historical misperceptions and misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples and music continue to filter into various modern and contemporary interpretations of Indigenous life through creation and performance. In an effort to understand the ways in which Indigenous North Americans were and are often still observed and interpreted through music, Taylor (1997) explains: "Western European music since the beginning has been concerned with representations and appropriations, as, to some degree, are all musics; no music is pure" (p. 56). Perhaps music is not pure, particularly when it contains a colonial history that has roots in cultural imperialism, intercultural pilfering, and conquest. Or, as Philip Bohlman (2007) notes, "Historically erasure has occurred when the West appropriates a music of an 'Other' and transforms it to serve as a music of the 'Self" (p. 7). Though music and opera can carry multiple political meanings, it is through musical discourse and practice that they expose some of the contested spaces and borders that exist within performance and culture, which can offer profound ways to resist oppression. By revealing and reflecting upon notions of power and privilege through music, many questions tend to surface: Who has any right to claim that music can only be music when it exists as notes on a piece of sheet music9 Who is to say that one type of music is more scientific, theoretical, superior and/or sophisticated than, say, music that is learned 80 and/or memorized by ear, or when a musical instrument is learned and played by rote? The effects of colonialist and racist attitudes have had a deep impact on how Indigenous people are represented through music, and subsequently, the misappropriation of Indigenous cultures (Lacombe & Glidden, 1999). Examples of this can be found in numerous "Indianist" musical works by composers and librettists, including: J. E. Dempsey and R. P. Lilly (Geronimo, 1904), Frederic W. Hager (My Ramapoo, 1910), C. P. McDonald and Walter Coleman Parker (While the Tom-Tom Plays, 1904), and Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne (Tippecanoe: A Comic Indian Song, 1904) [see Appendix B for further examples]. Works such as these have played a role in shaping and twisting the colonial imagination, and in perpetuating grotesque images of Indigenous peoples as the "exotic Other,"12 which Lacombe and Glidden (1999) describe as being "anything that is not part of Occidental civilization. [...] This exoticism penetrated the collective imagination and represents an 'elsewhere' more dreamed than real" (p. 136). Similarly, Tara Browner (1997) explains that this "had a direct impact upon how composers perceived and utilized Native melodies" (p. 266). S. Elizabeth Bird (2001) argues: For further reading on exoticism and music, see Timothy Taylor's Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World (Refiguring American Music) (2007). 81 The work of early anthropologists among Native American peoples was crucial in codifying the idea of the Indian as Other Their ethnographic descriptions became the core of museum exhibits, world fairs, Wild West shows, and early silent films, ultimately leading to current popular depictions The anthropological convention of the timeless 'ethnographic present' effectively placed Native cultures into a kind of time warp, from which in the white consciousness, they have not emerged (p 63) Figure IS Cover of Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Shows A Special Song Album and Souvenir (19] 0) containing "Indiamst" sheet music (Chicago Will Rossiter) From the author's peisonal collection Bird (2001), Bloechl (2008), Browner (1997), Pisani (2005), and Taylor (1997, 2007), among others, have presented many strong arguments, theories and methods for deconstructing the misrepresentations and appropriations made about Indigenous people that grew from various Western music forms, including "Indianist" music, ballets and operas, and touring "wild west" shows. Gradually, these important issues concerning are beginning to integrate into wider musical study and practice. As Bloechl (2008) argues: The present of musicology is still one in which the discipline's genealogical relation to colonialism is nearly unthinkable (at least within the discipline). Due to a florescence of work from the 1990s onward on exoticism in western music, it is now widely acknowledged that at least some European or Euro-diasporic music was influenced by colonialist and racist ideologies, (p. 25) Similarly, Pauline Turtle (2001) criticizes: "Scholarship on American Indian dance and music has been slow to move beyond descriptive modes and bring us closer to an understanding of both 'sacred space' and 'intersubjective time,' which are integral to much American Indian dance, music and ceremony" (p. 100). Critique of the misrepresentations and misassumptions made about Indigenous culture through music, libretto and visual spectacle, by contemporary music scholars like Bloechl (2008), Pisani (2005), Irving (2010), Turtle (2001), and Lacombe and Glidden (1999) has grown out of a necessity to deconstruct the pathologizing attitudes often held 83 towards or used against Indigenous peoples through musical practices. Carolyn M. Shields, Russell Bishop and Andre Elias Mazawi (2005) explain that the idea of pathologizing, which arguably manifests itself through forms of social and political guilt, is a by-product of historical colonialism. Shields, Bishop and Mazawi (2005) argue: "Pathologizing the lived experiences of people often has deep roots in colonial and imperial history. Representing the Indigenous - the culturally, ethnically, and socially different - as a pathologized Other is endemic to the colonial discourse" (p. 2). Representations of Indigenous people as the pathologized, exotic Other are abundant in the hundreds of Indianist compositions that have been written throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. There are also several examples of operatic and orchestral works written by or from non-Indigenous perspectives about Indigenous peoples,13 including: the historic portrayal of Metis peoples in the opera Louis Riel (1967), composed by Harry Somers and written by Mavor Moore and Jacques Languirand, Paul Mclntyre's symphony Jean de Brebeuf'(1961), R. Murray Schafer's Brebeuf: A Cantata for Baritone and Orchestra (1961), Gregory Levin and Mavor Moore's Ghost Dance (1985), Jean-Baptiste Lully and Phillippe Quinault's ballet Le Temple de la Paix (1685), and Jean-Phillipe Rameau's opera Les Indes Galantes (1735), For more examples, please refer to Mary Ingraham's (2007) article "Something to Sing About: A Preliminary List of Canadian Staged Dramatic Music Since 1867". In Intersections 28:1. 84 which was recently revived by Les Arts Florissants in 1999 under the musical direction of William Christie, the stage direction of Andrei Serban, with choreography by Blanca Li A recording of this production was made in 2003 and later released on DVD in 2005, and, unfortunately, it captures the ways in which contemporary racialist representations of Indigenous people are still thriving today 14 In short, while this production has some redeeming qualities, such as a strong interpretation of Rameau's musical composition by William Christie and orchestra, the problem largely remains in the presentation of the piece For example, during the fourth and final scene of the opera, Les Sauvages, various non-Indigenous performers don "red-face," or rather painted-on tans and war paint, and move about the stage with corn pipes, fake buckskin and headdresses in what arguably resembles some form of Orientalist choreography, pulling references from pop videos like The Bangles' (1986) "Walk like an Egyptian" The final result is a production that misrepresents and misappropriates North American Indigenous peoples, and various non-European groups, thus highlighting Bohlman's (2007) argument that "the very notions of difference in music upon which modernist musical thought is predicated arise from the racialised displacement of presumed otherness" (p 7) Short excerpts from this production are posted on YouTube To see some of the video from the fouith movement, Les Sauvages, go to http //www youtube com/watch9v=3zegtH- acXE&playnext= 1 &hst=PLAE238FDE 15 4B2D92 85 The notion of presumed otherness also began to inform and filter into early anthropology and music ethnology. Though a lot of work has been written on this subject in the last couple of decades, I intend to give a quick overview of some of this research in order to present some historical contextuahzation around this field of research. For instance, one of the earliest music ethnologists known for his research on the music of North American Indigenous peoples, German scholar Theodore Baker (1851-1934) is credited for having published one of the first major works on this subject entitled, Ueber die Musik der Nordamerikcmischen Wilden (1882). Baker's research mostly centered around the Seneca Nation, with whom he spent the summer of 1880 gathering music, but he also included some research that he conducted during a visit at Carlisle Institute, as well as music he collected from other nations, chiefly the Plains nations. "The study is marred by evolutionist thinking," writes Richard Keeling, "and a general presumption that Native American musical styles were fairly uniform in character" (1997, p. 3). Ann Buckley would later translate Baker's work under the title On the Music of the North American Indians, which was published in Source Materials and Studies in Ethnomusicology (1976). However, in a review concerning this translated edition, Barbara Seitz (1978) raises some critical counterpoints about this publication, arguing that it lacked a scholarly introduction and index. Above all, Seitz critiques Buckley's translation, stating: "Buckley's translation of the title, On the Music of North 86 American Indians, raises an academic and philosophical issue may a translator ever alter an original wording to avoid unethical, racist, or profane language7" (p 515) More specifically, Seitz questions why Buckley would translate the word widen, meaning "savage," which was originally used in the title of Baker's (1882) publication, to the word "Indian " Seitz' concerns are primarily roused by the translator's choice to omit or else alter some of the words, and whether it was deliberate or not these alterations/omissions modified some of the original meanings, as were used by Baker in his 1882 publication Seitz (1978) addresses this matter with the following statement The last word of Baker's original title, Wilden, translates as 'savages ' Throughout the monograph Baker uses the terms Wilden and Indianer ('Indian') Baker's choice of Wilden in his title reflects his evolutionist stance and that of his historical period Buckley's substitution of terms misrepresents Baker's intent and his era, hence my bewilderment at Harrison's [the editor] remark in the Foreward 'It has been the aim of the translator to transmit intact Baker's ways of thinking, as far as this is possible, without attempting to update either his presuppositions or his vocabulary ' (p vi) Notably, in all other cases of its occurrence, Buckley does translate Wilden as 'savages ' (p 515-6) Despite raising a number of critiques about the work, Seitz (1978) does credit the publication "[ ] for combining within one cover the original German and English translation" (p 516), as this has made it more readily accessible to a broader 87 audience. Ultimately, Baker's work demonstrates some of the ways in which contentious issues continue to dwell within and around theories of early music ethnology, anthropology and ethnomusicology, raising a number of difficult and ethical questions. For instance, questions such as how ethnologists and anthropologists gathered and used information about Indigenous culture, music and customs, both then and now, remains an on-going issue. In fact, many early ethnologists and anthropologists would describe the music of Indigenous peoples in simple or romantic terms, or would equate Indigenous culture to being childlike, sweet, primitive and "savage" or that of a "vanishing race." In his introduction to Folklife and the Federal Government: A Guide to Activities, Resources, Funds and Services (1977), Archie Green explains: "Well before conditions for United States citizenship were established in the Constitution, the dominant colonists had already denominated native people as 'savages'" (p. 2). Although Indigenous peoples, cultures and customs were perceived as "savage," and attempts were being made to assimilate and "civilize" Indigenous peoples through a number of means (e.g., residential schools, religious conversion), there was some speculation that Indigenous music would eventually perish, if not acculturated. As a result, a movement of ethnologists and anthropologists rushed into the field to collect these songs and preserve them, while others attempted to document the effects of acculturation on traditional Indigenous music. According to Keeling 88 (1997): "During the 1930s and 1940s, anthropologists had become increasingly interested in acculturation, typically defined as 'the effect on cultures of contact with other cultures' (Kroeber 1948:426)" (p. xxvi). Inevitably, the act of collecting and preserving sacred and ceremonial objects, songs, and customs of so-called "vanishing races" or "primitive civilizations" became a widely practiced phenomenon among scholars in anthropology and ethnology at the turn of the 20th century. Unfortunately, a number of these scholars approached their research with a Eurocentric bias, and an example of this is reflected in Frederick R. Burton's work American Primitive Music (1909). In this particular work, Burton explains his reasons for collecting and studying the songs of First Nations, specifically Ojibway music from the northern region of Lakes Huron and Superior: I felt that I could do this with some degree of confidence owing to my unusual opportunities for studying Indian music and the several years during which I have given the best of my time and thought to the work. Moreover, the general subject has begun to arouse widespread interest, and, as infinitely more remains to be done than has yet been done, it has seemed to me that a survey of the whole field, coupled with a record of my individual research, might be stimulative to a comprehensive organization of effort for the preservation of our primitive music while it yet lingers in the memory of Indian singers. (1909, p. 1-2) Burton describes having developed "some degree of confidence" in his study of Indigenous music, claiming this was for the purpose of collecting the songs of 89 Indigenous peoples, and consequently preserving a "primitive," "savage," and "vanishing race." Burton (1909) states: Let the opinions go; the salient fact remains that there is on this continent a wonderful fund of primitive music that is rapidly disappearing with the Indians' advance toward civilization. [...] There ought to be organized effort for the preservation and understanding of this music if for no other purpose than to make it an enduring monument to a vanishing race. (p. 198-99) Whether it was socially or politically motivated, or else inspired by a humanistic desire to understand "primitive civilizations," these compulsions to "save" a perceived-to-be "disappearing" Indigenous race emerged at a time when James C. McNutt (1984) argues, "a number of ethnologists began to consider Indian music seriously" (p. 61). In his introduction to Frances Densmore's Chippewa Music, Thomas Vennum Jr. (1973) sums up the reason for this phenomenon: Music was one of the last facets of American Indian culture to be investigated in any depth by ethnographers (cultural anthropologists). One reason Indian music was so neglected prior to 1900 was that most ethnographers had found it unappealing. What little attention they did devote to the subject was limited to subjective reactions - mostly negative, (p. i) 90 Legislative Acts to "Vanquish" the Indian: "We are not losing our language " is a statement of fact. "We are not losing our language" is a battle cry. "We are not losing our language " is a promise to all who care about the Ojibwe language, a promise that it will not die. -Anton Treuer (2001, p. 5) Carl Stumpf (1848-1936) published a work on First Nations music in British Columbia, entitled Lieder der Bellakula Indianer (1886), which was "a musicological study that combined nine transcriptions of songs performed by a group of Bella Coola Indians who visited Germany in 1885" (Carl Stumpf, New World Encyclopedia 2008). Incidentally, Stumpf s research was published a year after Canada banned the practice of potlatch, powwow, and Aboriginal ceremonies. The Canadian Federal Government had outlawed Indigenous ceremonial practices by stating the following under the Indian Act: Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the "Potlatch" or the Indian dance known as the "Tamanawas" is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not more than six nor less than two months in a jail or other place of confinement; and, any Indian or other person who encourages, either directly or indirectly an Indian or Indians to get up such a festival or dance, or to celebrate the same, or who shall assist in the celebration of same is guilty of a like offence, and shall be liable to the same punishment.15 15 An Act further to amend "The Indian Act, 1880," S.C. 1884 (47 Vict), c. 27, s 3 91 Tracy J. Andrews and Jon Olney (2007) argue that Canada and the United States made very special attempts to control the Indigenous populations by suppressing their musical and cultural practices, including powwows and potlatches, as part of a broader, political assimilation agenda. They state: "Moving bodies, especially in non-Western cultures, often have been considered 'simply' emotionally inspired and perhaps dangerously close to being out of control - certainly a concern for Canadian and US government and missionary interests as they sought to constrain and assimilate indigenous peoples" (2007, p. 63). In brief, though Indigenous people faced legal consequences for practicing their cultural ceremonies and songs during this ban, non-Indigenous scholars, composers and librettists who developed research and music with Indigenous themes were not held accountable by these restrictions. Rather, composers and librettists continued to create work based on Indigenous themes and culture without repercussion, such as Zellah Sanders Elwell (Golden PotJatch, 1911), Florence M. Pearce (Big Pow Wow, 1911), Charles Wakefield Cadman (Four American Indian Songs, 1909),16 and Thurlow Lieurance (Indian Songs, 1913). Meanwhile, anthropologists and ethnologists continued to collect and record Indigenous songs, stories, ceremonial customs, musical objects, and sacred "artifacts." However, Cadman dedicated his work, Four American Indian Songs (1909), to Alice Cunningham Fletcher, and also notes in his music that these compositions were based on Omaha and Iroquois tribal melodies that she had collected. 92 Andrews and Olney (2007) explain that the political constrictions that were placed on Indigenous peoples at that time (i e , the banning of traditional Indigenous music and cultural practices) would have limited the extent of what they could share with researchers Arguably, such suppressive conditions, as placed on Indigenous peoples, certainly affected the outcomes of these studies and analyses made about Indigenous music and cultures 17 fi« -** ;. TWO-STEP „ JmMsmnmwm |BfcY*i Figure 16 (Left) Cover of Golden Potlatch (1911) Music by Zellah Sanders Elwell (Published by Elwell, 1911) (Right) Cover of Big Row Wow (1911) by Florence M Pearce (New \ ork, NY Shapiro Music Pub , 1911) Both fiom the authoi's personal collection To read more about this issue, see John Troutman' s Indian Blues (2009) 93 Eventually the ban on Indigenous ceremonial practices and customs in Canada would be unofficially overturned in the 1950s, and Andrews and Olney (2007) note: "Although the ban was never formally rescinded, it no longer appeared in the Canadian constitution after 1951, and potlatches soon began occurring in public again" (p. 68). While this ban had suppressed Indigenous culture for a time, it did not seem to deter the growing movement of anthropologists and ethnologists from finding ways of collecting Indigenous songs, customs and traditions. In fact the Bureau of American Ethnology - an internal department of the Smithsonian Institute that was established in 1879 and operated under the direction of John Wesley Powell - went on to publish large quantities of research and data about Indigenous culture, language, ceremonies, and music, which was collected by ethnologists and anthropologists, including: Frances Densmore, Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis LaFlesche (a member of the Omaha Nation and student/later associate of anthropologist Alice Cunningham Flether), Jesse Walter Fewkes, and Franz Boas among others. For instance, Frances Densmore (1867-1957), born in Red Deer, Minnesota, spent most her adult life collecting and documenting the musical and cultural customs of the First Nations, most notably the Chippewa Nation. She transcribed, catalogued and published the majority of her work through the Smithsonian Institute, and was deeply influenced by the work of Alice Cunningham Fletcher and John Comfort Fillmore (Archabal, 1977). In her publication The American Indians and Their Music, 94 Densmore (1926) who credited Fletcher's influence on her work claims: "The book which marked the beginning of a popular interest in Indian music was written by Miss Alice Fletcher and published in 1893" (p. 118). Densmore published a particularly extensive work, entitled Chippewa Music (1910/1973), which she modeled after Fletcher's A Study of Omaha Music. Densmore (1910/1973) states that the songs she documented in this work "[...] were obtained during 1907, 1908, and 1909, from Chippewa Indians on the White Earth, Leech Lake, and Red Lake reservations in Minnesota, [with] a few songs being also secured from a Chippewa living on the Bois Fort reservation in Minnesota" (p. 1). Her research on the music of the Chippewa Nation included studies of theM/t/e' songs, sacred songs, songs to insure success and cure sickness, dream songs, war songs, love songs, moccasin-game songs, and various unclassified songs (Densmore, 1910/1973). "Chippewa songs are not petrified specimens," argues Densmore (1910/1973), "they are alive with the warm red blood of human nature" (p. 1). If this were the case - that the songs are as alive as the Chippewa (or Indigenous) people and Nations who sing them - then the question still lingers: What was it that compelled Densmore and others to want to "preserve" Indigenous songs and culture? While the idea of recording, transcribing and publishing First Nations music, songs and culture was becoming a common practice amongst ethnographers and 95 anthropologists, Indigenous peoples, families and communities were known to pass down their songs from one generation to the next through oral tradition Densmore's notion that the songs, culture and customs of Indigenous peoples are not petrified specimens was to some extent an accurate or rather a reasonable statement to make, given that the custom of intergenerational musical and ceremonial inheritance was commonly acquired by way of oral tradition However, the actions of ethnologists, like Densmore herself, who were bent on "preserving" Indigenous life and songs through forms of static media, would almost seem to contradict her perception that they are "alive " Rather, ethnologists and anthropologists held the belief that without collecting such data through scientific research methods, Indigenous music and "primitive culture" would altogether disappear However, S Elizabeth Bird (2001) notes "Many American Indians have complained that they do not recognize themselves in these ethnographic descriptions This sense of misrepresentation is at the core of the distrust of anthropology that is so pervasive among contemporary Native Americans" (p 63) Densmore's attempt to "preserve" a "vanishing race" has resulted in what now exists as thousands of transcriptions and recordings of traditional songs, which some of her informants' descendants are beginning to reclaim/repatriate 1S Even though Densmore's body of IS Dale Weasel discusses Densmore's work in an audio interview, which is available at http news minnesota pubhcradio org,features'199702/01_smiths_densmore/docs/index_contents shtinl 96 work is now available to a new generation of Indigenous peoples, this all came at a great cost to Indigenous families and communities, which David R. M. Beck (2010) explains in one scenario: Frances Densmore, an ethnomusicologist who became renowned for her studies of American Indian music in its cultural role, interviewed this elder's grandmother in 1925 to collect songs for a book she would publish in 1932, Menominee Music. When Densmore left she borrowed a family photograph, a portion of which she published in her book. Densmore knew the photo had been lent to her, not given. [...] Instead of returning the original, which now sits in the museum [Smithsonian] files, the museum sent to the family a cheap print, which fell apart with age. That was the only picture the family owned of one of the family members depicted, and when Densmore published the picture, that individual was cropped out. (pp. 157-58) Though Densmore's work on Indigenous music was imbued with Eurocentric biases and unethical practices, in which she took liberties to "borrow" and not return family materials and objects, such conduct was common among several ethnologists and anthropologists. As Beck (2010) reports: "From the late nineteenth century through to the early 1930s a succession of collectors, ethnologists, and other scholars scoured the Menominee Reservation [and others] for data and items of material culture, which they carted off to present to the American [and Canadian] public through both publication and display" (p. 158). 97 Historically, music and cultural research was not solely the foray of non- Aboriginal ethnologists and anthropologists, as various Aboriginal musicians and scholars were also contributing to this field as early as the late 19l century. For instance, Francis LaFlesche (1856-1932), a Native American and member of the Omaha Nation, worked closely with ethnologist Alice C. Fletcher with whom he had developed an adopted mother-son relationship. Their collaboration began sometime between 1882-83, and LaFlesche is credited for having assisted Fletcher in her efforts to collect and document the music of his own Nation, often acting as her translator and interpreter.1 Together, Fletcher and LaFlesche published A Study of Omaha Indian Music (1893) and The Omaha Tribe in 1911. In an analysis of LaFlesche's life and work, Sherry Smith (2001) writes: LaFlesche's life as a mixed-blood making his way in the world carried its share of frustrations and pain. [...] For many years, his crucial work as interpreter and informant provided LaFlesche with recognition, although usually cast in Fletcher's shadow. [...] True, without his alliance with Fletcher, LaFlesche would never have found his life's work. On the other hand, without LaFlesche, Fletcher would never have penetrated Omaha culture and made her mark on the anthropological world, (p. 585) LaFlesche made important contributions to the field of music and ethnology, where he focused on preserving, analyzing and publishing work about Indigenous 19 Further information about LaFlesche's and Fletcher's personal and professional relationship can be found in Joy Elizabeth Rohde's Register to the Papers of Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis LaFlesche (April 2000), published online through the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institute at http://www.nmnh si.edu/naa/fa/fletcher_la_flesche htm#4 98 music, language and cultural practices. As a pioneer in this field of study, which was largely dominated by non-Indigenous writers and scholars, LaFlesche's work has helped to build important historical research and scholarship on this topic. Independently, LaFlesche researched and documented the cultural practices and music of the Osage Nation, and spent years studying the sacred medicine bundles of this Nation. Throughout his prolific career, LaFlesche published many works including The Middle Five (1900), an autobiographical sketch about his years as a student at the Omaha Indian mission school, and The Osage Tribe (Part One) (1921). He eventually published parts two and three of this research in 1925 and 1928 respectively. In 1918, the Missouri Historical Society commissioned LaFlesche to develop a dictionary of the Osage language, which was posthumously published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1932. War Ceremony and Peace Ceremony of the Osage Indians (1939) was the last of his works to be published. As an Indigenous music researcher, LaFlesche was by no means a complete anomaly in his field. A variety of other Indigenous people also contributed to the music profession by carving out notable careers as composers, musicians and performers alike, including: tenor and composer Teyet Ramar Sitting Bull, also known as "Chief White Feather, who was a descendant of the infamous Chief Sitting Bull; tenor and composer Kiutus Tecumseh, a descendant of Chief Tecumseh, who 99 was famous for his musical work The Land of My Prairie Dreams (1926), Tsianina Blackstone, pianist and singer and long-time collaborator of composer Charles Wakefield Cadman, who is credited with providing him the story that inspired his opera Shanewis (1918), Os-ke-non-ton, a First Nations baritone opera singer from Caughnawaga (now Kahnawake, Quebec) who sang the role of "The Medicine Man" in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's The Song of Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England in 1931, and also made an appearance in Cadman's opera Shanewis in 1926; E. Aldrich Dobson, a composer of Cherokee descent who wrote and composed Sons ofMamtou: American Indian Song Cycle (1925), Lushanya (Tessie Mobley), a celebrated soprano who was the first Native American to perform at La Scala SPRING SONG TA OF THE" in Milan, Italy, and, violinist and composer i ROSIN WOiN ¥ RECt IA1 IVb AND SONG Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938), known as Gertrude A Ftom the American Op?ra V "SHANEWIS* Simmons Bonnin, who co-composed The Sun At [ ri»' Robtn W otiian j NPU.F RICHMOND EBERHART Dance Opera (1913), for which she also CHARLES WAKEFIR.D CADMAN wrote the libretto Figure 17. Cover of Spring Song of the Robin Woman from Shanewis (1918) Music by Charles Wakefield Cadman and text b\ Nelle Richmond Eberhart (London White-Smith Music Publishing Co ) From the author's personal collection 100 i TCYETR\MAR Ct/ Vi fe B r™J \ - W. -K tf '• * A- Figure 18 (Left Right) Cover of The Gospel set to Grand Opera (no date) written and perfoimed by Chief White Feather Teyet Ramar Sitting Bull (no publisher indicated) Copy signed b\ composer From the author's personal collection 101 Figure 19 Cover of a 1931 production program of Figure 20 Cover of al936 production program of The Song of Hiawatha (by composer Samuel The Song of Hiawatha program (bv composer Coleridge Taylor) which was performed at the Samuel Coleiidge Tavlor) which was performed at Royal Albert Hall in London England (London the Royal Albert Hall in London England (London Roval Choial Society) From the author s personal Roval Choral Society) From the author's personal collection collection 102 siilPMiiiii - •• t -V- • -.' rr W' Wjf)s IICUMSE^ Figure 21. Cover of The Land of My Prairie Figure 22. Cover of Sons of Manitou: Dreams (1926). Music by Kiutus Tecumseh American Indian Song Cycle sheet music (pictured above). (Chicago: Yarner, Dalheim & (1925). Music and text by E. Aldrich Dobson Co. Music Printers). From the author's personal (Boston: The Arthur P. Schmidt Co.). From the collection. author's personal collection. 103 ''* ?t •* / 1 fcWVlB Figure 23 (Left lo Right) Oiiginal publicity photographs of Lushanya (Tessie Moble>) The image on the left was taken approximately 1941 (Carlo Opera Co ) The centre image was also taken in approximately 1941 and used in newspaper press (see news clipping at far right) From the author's personal collection 104 Zitkala-Sa is particularly remembered in the literary world for her work American Indian Stories (1921), a publication that contained autobiographical essays including: "Impressions of an Indian Childhood," "The School Days of an Indian Girl," and "An Indian Teacher Among Indians," which were originally printed in issues of the Atlantic Monthly in 1900 (Hafen, Ed., Dreams, 2001). Zitkala-Sa lived a remarkable life, having lived in-between the Indigenous and White worlds where she "played a major part in articulating the role of Native Americans in an era of westward expansion, settlement, and conquest" (Davidson and Norris, Eds., Zitkala- Sa, 2001, p. xi). As a musician, Zitkala-Sa trained in violin at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music from 1899 to 1901 (Spack, 2008). In 1913 she premiered The Sun Dance Opera with William F. Hanson (co-composer), based on the Plains Sun Dance and featuring an Aboriginal cast in its premiere production at the Salt Lake City Theatre, where it received critical acclaim (Hafen, Ed., Dreams, 2001). In one 1914 review, entitled "Real Indian Braves in Aboriginal Opera," Zitkala-Sa and Hanson's work was described as being "an interesting representation of America's aboriginal life" {Real Indian Braves, 1914). In another review, entitled '"Braves' Aid in Indian Opera at Utah Presentation," it states: Before the rise of the curtain on the first performance there had been skepticism as to the success of this attempt to weld the various customs of Indian life into an opera, but the enthusiasm became so general that on the following evenings the audience was augmented by 105 persons from various reservation towns, some of whom had to travel over 40 miles. {'Braves'Aid, 1914) In a recent compilation of Zitkala-Sa's work, entitled Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and The Sun Dance Opera, which for the first time includes a copy of The Sun Dance Opera's libretto, editor P. Jane Hafen (2001) writes: "Hanson and Bonnin [Zitkala-Sa] decided to collaborate on the composition of an opera with a local topic. They settled on the topic of the Sun Dance set against an appropriately romantic love triangle between Sioux maid Winona, Sioux hero Ohiya, and the evil Shoshone Sweet Singer. According to Hanson, Bonnin would play Sioux melodies on the violin and he would transcribe them. Then they would add harmonies and lyrics" (p. 126). Though the opera is based on various Indigenous cultural signifiers and melodies, Zitkala-Sa also excluded "particular prayers and rituals" (Dreams, p. 125). Hafen's edition of Dreams and Thunder (2001) combines an important cross- section of Zitkala-Sa's writings, which in Margo Lukens (2002) view helps in "[...] bringing to wide readership works that until now only have been visible in archives" (p. 266). Zitkala-Sa's lifetime contribution to music and literature was extensive and difficult to overstate, as even today her works continue to provoke discourse around postcolonial and gender theory, ethno/musicology and autobiographical literature.20 20 For examples, see Ryan Burt's "Death beneath this semblance of civilization": Reading Zitkala-Sa and the imperial imagination of the romantic revival (2010); Cari M Carpenter's Detecting Indianness: Gertrude Bonnin 's investigation of Native American identity (2005), Ron Carpenter's 106 However, Indigenous artists, writers and musicians, like Zitkala-Sa and others mentioned earlier in this section, were profoundly important in creating a more diverse and representative reflection and record of Indigenous peoples and their identities. The works of Indigenous musicians, composers and librettists were, and remain, historically relevant, as they have contributed to ensuring the survival of Indigenous cultural, while offering valuable insight and understanding into the music, culture and customs of Indigenous peoples that challenge us to see beyond the two- dimensional caricature sketches of "lazy Indians," "wild redmen," "destitute squaws," and "powerless chiefs with tomahawks and peace pipes." Each of these Indigenous artists, musicians and scholars have left behind a rather poignant, historical legacy of Indigenous survival, and such forms of survival are ultimately a tribute to their resistance against Western misappropriation and commercialization of Indigenous music and culture. Summary: In this chapter I have highlighted various musical and historical works within the fields of ethno-musicology, ethnology and anthropology that remain significant to contemporary musical analysis. Similarly, in the following chapter I will discuss Zitkala-Sa and bicultural subjectivity (2004); Mark Rifkin's Romancing Kinship: A queer reading of Indian education and Zitkala-Sa's American Indian stories (2006); and Ruth Spack's Zitkala-Sa, the song of Hiawatha, and the Carlisle Indian school band (2008) 107 various research and literature that has been written about the history of Northeastern Ontario, as this informs some of the political backdrop of the story of Giiwedin. Meanwhile, I take into account notions of musical and historical rupturing, and consider ways in which it can be used a decolonizing strategy to generate different modes of dissonance and rupturing. I consider this not only through analysis of the historical-political storytelling in Giiwedin, but also in the actual act writing of this research, which is especially prominent in chapters five and six, where the act of writing auto-ethnography becomes a decolonizing strategy. 108 CHAPTER IV A RUPTURING DISSONANCE IN NORTHERN ONTARIO'S HISTORY For some time now I have focused my research and artistic practice on the subject and history of Temiskaming in Northeastern Ontario, while centering this around arts-based practices. This subject is a focal point in my research and builds on various themes I use to ground my creative approach and self-reflexive methods for developing Giiwedin. In this chapter I draw attention to different research and literature that has been written about Northeastern Ontario, some of which examines the issue of land cessation and land proprietorship, which has had a deep impact on the lives of Indigenous people from the Temiskaming region. In previous research I have noted that there is very little written about the history of First Nations in Temiskaming (Denomme-Welch, 2008), which is largely still the case. However, I will review some areas of research within the fields of ethnography and anthropology, as well as works written by local historians that have helped me to trace aspects of the historical and political contexts that center around my creative practice and scholarship. Ethnographic and historical works written about the Temiskaming region are especially important to this dissertation and analysis, given that I have used much of this history to inform the back-story and content of Giiwedin. I drew on these sources 109 in order to conjure up fictional representations of Northern Ontario, as well as to create an imaginary, yet also a realistic, reflection of the political climate in this region. In doing this research I became captivated by an obscure land claim in Temiskaming. The basis for this land claim emerged around the 1910s when one of my distant ancestors protested against the cessation of Temiskaming Algonquin lands, going so far as to challenge the provincial and federal governments single- handedly (Hessel, 1993; Denomme-Welch, 2008). I was profoundly inspired by this case, and despite the historical outcomes concerning this land claim I discovered a sense of pride and connection to my familial and ancestral past. As a result of this I was motivated to explore the topic of this land claim more closely and incorporate aspects of this issue into the fictional story of Giiwedin, which would become the basis of my approach towards political-historical storytelling in opera. In his work, Family Hunting Territories and Social Life of Various Algonkian Bands of the Ottawa Valley (1915), Frank G. Speck attempted to record and interpret the social structures of the Algonquin and Ojibwa people living along the Ottawa Valley corridor. During his visit to the north, in the summer of 1913, Speck spent merely a few weeks with the Algonquin people who resided at the head of Lake Temiskaming. In his research report, Speck (1915) writes: "The chief object of my 110 visit to this band was the investigation of the hunting territorial divisions which I have found to be so characteristic of all the northern tribes of the Algonkian stock so far visited" (p. 2). In the short time he spent with the Algonquin band, Speck developed a rather generalized perspective of Algonquin ways of life, and determined that the Timiskaming Algonquin were far too influenced by having contact with Europeans. He therefore decided to include a section "devoted to the Timagami band" (1915, p. 2). Without explicitly describing the methods he used to inform the outcomes and conclusions he made about the Temiskaming Algonquin families and territories, Speck (1915) determined that the Algonquian people who lived on Lake Temiskaming shared similar characteristics as the Ojibwa from neighbouring communities. Moreover, he used this to justify his choice to pursue a dual- comparison study between the Algonquin of Temiskaming and the Ojibwa of the Timagami region. Speck (1915) writes: "I subsequently discovered that the Timiskaming Indians did not present so fruitful a field for these researches as the Timagami band of Ojibwa, where the family hunting territorial divisions and totemic clans exist side by side in the same group" (p. 2). Speck (1915) proceeds to make some rather generalized conclusions, and even assumptions, about Algonquin ways of life, social structures, land and territorial divisions. Perhaps the reasoning for this 111 could be attributed to Speck's paternalistic perspective and approach towards research, which influenced the outcome of his data and writing. In an analysis of Speck's historical anthropological texts about land proprietorship and Algonquian hunting and family territories, Harvey A. Feit (1991) argues: "The ownership of land has been a major point of conflict in colonial contexts around the world, and a subject of recurrent debate in anthropology" (p. 109). Looking specifically at Speck's (1915) work on the Algonquian family hunting territories, Feit (1991) questions: "why did Speck construct his accounts of Algonquian hunting territories as if they conformed to notions of private property9" (p. 110). In trying to answer this question, Feit (1991) argues that Speck might have been "ideologically motivated, that he [Speck] 'tried to do by fiat what the Jesuits had tried and failed to do in the seventeenth century: transform the Montagnais from a people who honoured collective rights to lands into individualized property-holding families'" (p. 110). Despite the fact that Speck's research contained data that was "decidedly sketchy, general, and characterized more by ideal norms than by specific instances and their variations," (Feit, 1991, p. 127) it is arguably the first ethnographic work to make a serious attempt at documenting the social life and structure of various Temiskaming Algonquin families, names and places, including those of my ancestors. 112 In an 1886 survey trip to Lake Temiskaming, A. H. (Alexander Herkes) Tefler, a Scottish emigrant, joined a small surveying team (led by Alexander Niven) on an assignment to establish specific township boundaries along the west shore of Lake Temiskaming. His assignment began on July 19l 1886, where he departed from Toronto and headed for the north by way of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and ended on October 18l1 1886 when he returned after the project was completed. During his three-month venture into the north's interior, Tefler kept a journal describing his experiences of the expedition. These writings would not be published for more than a hundred years until his great-granddaughter, Lorene DiCorpo, decided to assemble his collection of writing and publish it in 2004 in a work entitled, Worth Travelling Miles to See: Diary of a Survey Trip to Lake Temiskaming, 1886. Though Tefler's writings do meaningfully capture the experiences of life in the north, from a surveyor or settler's point of view, they are largely devoid of an Indigenous presence. However, to DiCorpo's (2004) credit she carefully includes supplementary historical research about the Algonquin First Nation peoples, which accompanies Tefler's journals in the notes to this publication, and draws on research done by Bruce Taylor about the Wabie21 land claim concerning the cessation of the Temiskaming lands. Tefler's writings, in addition to DiCorpo's historical notes and overview, are 21 The actual name is Wabigijik, but historically it was shortened to Wabie with a variety of spellings, including: Wabi, Wahbi, Wahbe. In this dissertation the variations between these spellings are used. 113 important to this review, as they carry a perspective and an analysis of Temiskaming's history that is reflective of early pioneer life at the turn of the 19u century. Moreover, while reading about DiCorpo's personal journey in rediscovering her Scottish great-grandfather's legacy and writings, I related closely to her articulations of this experience, as I too had found myself uncovering the legacy of my people/ancestors through the writings and photographs they also left behind. DiCorpo (2004) writes: My grandfather's shed always fascinated me. It was a treasure trove of vintage clothing, bush camping accessories and family mementos and, in particular, an old Victorian school desk whose contents were reverently referred to as 'the old books from Scotland.' The antiquity of some of these volumes left me in awe - more so than the collection of pocket-sized diaries, written in faded pencil by my Scottish great-grandfather over 100 years ago as he recounted his adventures as part of a Northern Ontario survey crew. [...] It was my mother who, on a quest for genealogical information, drew my attention to the narrative contained in these little diaries [...], she was convinced that this story too was worth sharing! (p. 3) I agree with the sentiments expressed here by DiCorpo and her mother, which describe the need to preserve and share stories, as they are important to our heritage. I draw attention to these connections as a way to build meaningful and compassionate paths towards storytelling. The question that remains, however, is what stories are being told and who are the people telling them, and do they need to be shrouded with notions of resistance for the purposes of healing? Or, as Thomas King (2003) asks: 114 "Do the stories we tell reflect the world as it truly is, or did we simply start off with the wrong story?" (p. 26). Over the past twenty to thirty years, various local historians and a few scholars have published work on the history and development of Temiskaming and surrounding areas. With exception to a few writers and scholars, for example Ralph Gibbins (2008), Peter Hessel (1993), Bonita Lawrence (1996, 2002) Bruce W. Taylor (2003), and Madelaine Katt Theriault (1992/2006), the majority of these works tend to focus on pioneer life and settlement, without giving sufficient consideration to Indigenous life and history when describing the history of the Temiskaming area. Bonita Lawrence (2002) notes: For many Aboriginal scholars from Eastern Canada who seek information about the past, exploring the 'seminal' works of contemporary non-Native 'experts' is an exercise in alienation. It is impossible for Native people to see themselves in the unknown and unknowable shadowy figures portrayed o the peripheries of the white settlements of colonial Nova Scotia, New France, and Upper Canada, whose lives are deduced solely through archeological evidence or the journals of those who sought to conquer, convert, defraud, or in any other way prosper off them. (p. 24) In many instances, as Lawrence (2002) argues, Indigenous histories have been overlooked or else kept in the background and separate from the epic settler story. For instance, if and when any kind of reference is made about Indigenous peoples' history in the Temiskaming area, they have usually been written into the background of the 115 epic pioneer story, as if they are fading into the annals of the past like the nameless faces in old photographs. An example of this can be found in Louis S. Kurowski (1991) work: Not much is known about the Indian family who lived at the mouth of the river when William Murray [the first settler] first arrived. The name of the Chief was Angus Wabi. The river and the bay were named after him. [...] The coming of the white man to this land did not cause any unusual concern among the Indians. Chief Wabi and his band never did object to the clearing of the land by settlers, (p. 21) Bruce W. Taylor (2003) also writes about the local Indigenous peoples' history in and around Temiskaming, and very conscientiously explores the Algonquin land claim in his research. In his work, Taylor (2003) uncovers a fascinating newspaper article, published in the New Liskeard Speaker in 1922, entitled "Honest Indian," which he quotes: It is hard for any of us who now look upon Lake Temiskaming and visit the town of New Liskeard on the banks of Wabi River to realize that these same regions a few years ago were a dense forest and the hunting grounds of a race now almost gone. [...] The last of the race to occupy these regions was that of a tribe named Wabi, an Indian noted for his great strength and honesty. [...] This giant scion of a noble race, the Algonquins, is gone [...]. (p. 29) Being a descendant of the Algonquin people, who for thousands of years have populated this region, and continue to do so, I found it ironic to read such statements published in Kurowski's work and the local newspaper. For many years Aboriginal 116 people have been bombarded and plagued by this repugnant trope of an epic settler society story, as if convincing itself and its audiences that the "Indians" just "disappeared," and that is the end of the story Now, as bleak as this might seem, I find myself being reminded of the ironic words once spoken by Chief Dan George to Dustin Hoffman in the motion picture Little Big Man (1970), where he waits atop a hill to die When does not, he finally asks "Am I still in this world9" Yes, Grandfather. Yes, we are still here1 Contrary to these metanarratives, Madeleine Katt Theriault, also known as Ka Kita Wa Pa No Kwe (Wise Day Woman), captures the spirit of Indigenous resilience in her autobiographical work From Moose to Moccasins (1992/2006) Born in a tent on September 8th, 1908, at Bear Island (Timagami, Ontario), Theriault (1992/2006) reflects on her life and experiences as an Indigenous woman who lived between "both cultures, Indian and white-man's way of life" (p 12) Her work is particularly meaningful to me for a number of reasons firstly, she describes a life where she inhabits two cultures (like a hybrid life), which I can relate to, and secondly, I discovered that we both share a mutual familial heritage, which is that we are both descendants of the Wabigijik family Theriault (1992/2006) writes Anyway, my great-grandmother's parents, Mr and Mrs Wabie, were the first people to live in the area that became New Liskeard They were the first ones to make a clearing at the river now called 'Wabie River ' The river was named after them The Wabie's lived 117 there until the white man came to New Liskeard and pushed them off this land They lost their homes and moved to North Temiskaming to an Indian village there, but they never got a thing for their land Not one cent (pp 26-7) Theriault's memoirs are particularly moving to me, as she succinctly captures some of the impacts of settler society on the Indigenous lands of Temiskaming, which today is merely marked by a historical heritage plaque that is located at the mouth of Wabi River in New Liskeard, Ontario Figure 24 This heritage plaque is located at the mouth of Wabi River in New Liskeard, Ontano The plaque states "Founding of New Liskeard The Little Clay Belt the rich agricultural belt extending noith from New Liskeard was originally inhabited by the Algonquin First Nations including Joachim "Cleai Sky" Wabigi|ik and Angela Lapointe who lived by the mouth of the Wabi River In 1891 William Murray and Irvin Heard settled here and two years latei Crown Lands Agent John Armstrong arrived to supervise development The abundance of good inexpensive farmland attracted people from southern to 'new' Ontano and the town quickly grew It was incorporated as New Liskeard in 1903 and Armstrong became its first mayor The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway arrived two years later [ ] Photo taken by author in summer 2010 118 In an article entitled, From Expert to Acolyte: Learning to Understand the Environment from an Anishinaabe Point of View (2000), Leanne R. Simpson and Paul Driben write: "Whereas some [Indigenous peoples] succumbed to the superior military power of the newcomers and others relinquished their territory in treaty negotiations, still others have seen their homelands diminished in favor of large-scale industrial developments, typically without their assent" (p. 1). Simpson and Driben's latter point resonates profoundly with the experiences of colonization in Temiskaming, and the Algonquin First Nation peoples' experience of seeing "their homelands diminished." However, this did not happen completely without a fight, as it has been documented (Hessel 1987/1993; Taylor 2003; DiCorpo 2004) that at least one descendant of the Wabie (Wabigijik) family, Nancy Wabie, made very deliberate attempts to fight for compensation, arguing that the family "did not surrender their traditional hunting lands, and particularly the land at the mouth of the Wabi River on which the family lived" (DiCorpo, 2004, p. 136). Nancy Wabie was the youngest of Joachim Wabigijik and Angela Lapointe's daughters, and was born and raised on the banks of Wabi River. Again, Taylor (2003) provides some background information about Wabie's land claim: The rationale for her case for compensation was that her family were not members of the North Temiskaming Band, and consequently did not surrender their traditional hunting lands, and particularly the land at the mouth of the Wabi River on which the family lived, and on which, according to her, her father Joachim 119 Wabigijic lived for fifty years. Also, she claims that her father was promised a payment of fifteen thousand dollars for the land by the Indian Agent, a Mr. Harry Woods, (p. 25) Taylor also included a number of letters that had been written by Wabie, which are also available in the National Archives. For instance, in a letter addressed to The Secretary of the Department of Indian Affairs, dated July 6, 1917, Wabie writes: I would like to know if I am going to get anything for our land that was sold in New Ontario in the property of New Liskeard which is a town now. [...] All this was my father's hunting ground and now those white people are making all kinds of money in timber and mines. When they first come up, we use them the best we could. We are working for them the best we can and they don't pay us enough that why we never got anything ahead. We are getting poorer all the time. I cannot forget that you sold my land and I want you to understand me. [...] (Taylor, 2003, p. 26) Needless to say, after seventeen years demanding compensation or the return of the family lands, the Department of Indian Affairs informed Wabie in 1934 via Indian Agent Mr. Z. Caza that it had made its final decision about her claim: "The Department has gone very fully into this matter, and finds that she has no valid claim either to the land or arrears of annuity" (Taylor, 2003, p. 30 and DiCorpo, 2004, p. 143). 120 Peter Hessel, author of The Algonkin Nation (1987/1993), published a summary on the topic of this land claim case in the Temiskaming Speaker in 1989, which was reprinted in Bruce W. Taylor's (2003) work: In spite of much legitimate evidence presented by Nancy Wabi over a period of 17 years, all levels of government refused to acknowledge her compensation claim for her ancestral property and hunting grounds. Notable is the absence of any suggestion by the authorities that Miss Wabi might wish to take her case to a court of law or an impartial board of inquiry. Clearly, her civil rights were violated. This case illustrates how native people were treated by government agencies during the first half of the 20th century, (p. 30) Summary: Though Wabie's case did not see any proper resolution, her strength and spirit is what profoundly inspired the role of Noodin-Kwe in the opera work Giiwedin. This history is incredibly significant to this research as it provides a fuller historical context of this northern region, and prefaces the impacts of colonialism on the Indigenous peoples from this area. By uncovering the contentious spaces of Northern Ontario's history of colonialism, this research presents a sequence of historical events that is too often ignored, denied and/or silenced. The notion of rupturing and dissonance is produced not only through decolonizing colonial history, but also in how it articulates a counter-hegemonic discourse that resists various dominant 121 pioneer settler-society stories that are more familiar to Canadian society than those about conquest and colonialism. In the next chapter I analyze my own artistic process during the planning and creation of Giiwedin, using intersecting decolonization and auto-ethnographic methodologies. I explore this through the integration of history (discussed in this chapter) and Indigenous knowledge, and reflect on its role in the development and creation ofGiiwedin. 122 CHAPTER V FOUR DIRECTIONS22 MAPPING THE CREATION OF STORY BETWEEN AND BEYOND FOUR SPACES We must cherish our inheritance. We must preserve our nationality for the youth of our future. The story should be written down to pass on. - Louis Riel Not so long ago, A story waited to be told. About a woman nearly forgotten, Amongst memories that have now grown old. -Excerpt of "Mahigan's Prelude" from Giiwedin (Text by Spy Denomme-Welch, Music co-composed by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch) In this section of my research I examine various developmental phases of my artistic process, which draw on the field notes and journal writing I kept dunng the development of Giiwedin. In contrast to the previous chapters of this dissertation, I aim to convey my artistic pathway and trajectory through a shifting paradigm that functions through a storytelling and narrative approach. Therefore, before I delve into 22 There are a number of teachings taught around the four directions While the more specific details of the four directions may vary from Nation to Nation, the teachings I use in this work pertain to and reflect the c>cle of life I employ this aspect of the teachings as a way to reflect on and process my artistic work, beginning from its conception thiough to its maturation, which is a methodolog) that supports my auto-cthnographic and self-reflexive observation strategies 123 this narratne, I will first include a synopsis of Giiwedin, followed by a breakdown of the scenes, in order to provide a frame of reference that supports this reflection: Act One - A pregnant Noodin-Kwe is on display in a medical institution as Doctor Carlton sings the praises of modern medicine (The Institution, 1950s). After undergoing a caesanan section, Noodin-Kwe enters into a dream space, singing about her Nookum's prophesies of future battles and plagues (Memory Space). She wails for her newborn son, John, and sings of their hereditary legacy (Noodin-Kwe & John). The scene shifts to Noodin-Kwe's camp (set in 1890); Mahigan returns from her far-off travels with the Timber Wolves and warns Noodin-Kwe of development happening in southern Ontario that is quickly moving north towards her ancestral lands (Noodin-Kwe's Camp, Mahigan's Message). Mahigan leaves, and Indian Agent Jean arrives at Noodin-Kwe's camp to survey her land. (Jean, We're Building a Railroad). Frustrated with Noodin-Kwe's apparent stubbornness and reluctance to relocate to one of the nearby reservations, Jean continues his route to Hudson Bay, but is confused by his compass and maps. Although Noodin-Kwe offers him directions, he is convinced that she is trying to tnck him and takes the wrong way to Hudson Bay (This Way to Baie d'Hudson). As the night falls, Jean stumbles through the Weeping Forest (Jean lost in the Weeping Forest). He attempts to build a fire, waking Mahkwa from hibernation. Mahkwa threatens to kill him, but Jean insists that Noodin-Kwe had sent him (Mahkwa). Unconvinced, Mahkwa violently drags Jean towards Noodin-Kwe's camp (Mahkwa's Ballet). Back at her camp, Noodin-Kwe senses an impending storm. Mahkwa arrives, dragging Jean with Mahigan and the Timber Wolves following close behind (Back at Noodin-Kwe's Camp). Noodin-Kwe saves Jean and offers Mahkwa some deer meat as recompense. Noodin-Kwe sends Mahigan and the Timber Wolves 124 off to set her traps, and offer Jean food and warmth by her fire (Love Song). She demands to know Jean's intentions, and he explains that he is following orders from The Minister, who has sent him to survey the land so that development can bring prosperity (The Minister's Plans). Noodin-Kvve proclaims that she has everything that she needs, but Jean tries to woo her with ideas of luxury. The two flirt before retiring to Noodm-Kwe's camp (Sleeping with the Enemy). Noodin-Kvve emerges from her cabin early the next morning to go on a hunt, and sings to her newly conceived child about the history of the Ro\al Proclamation and of a long-lost relation (Mewinzha). Prelude Overture Scene One The Institution, 1950s Memory Space Noodin-Kwe & John Scene Two Noodin-Kwe's Camp, 1890 Mahigan's Message Jean We're Building a Railroad This Way to Baie d'Hudson Scene Three Jean lost in the Weeping Forest Mahkwa Mahkwa' s Ballet Scene Four Back at Noodin-Kwe's Camp Love Song The Minister's Plans Sleeping with the Enemy Mewinzha Act Two - Mahigan and the Timber Wolves wake Jean and taunt him until Mahigan reminds them that Noodin-Kwe gave them orders to take him to Hudson Bay (The Morning After). Jean, 125 annoyed at his rude awakening, refuses to go with the Timber Wolves until they point out that there are mam dangers along the way, including bear traps {Bear Trap Aria). Jean e\entually agrees to go with them, but before leaving Mahigan gives him a pair of moccasins from Noodin-Kwe. The scene shifts to Hudson Bay; The Minister is meeting with his Indian Agents, who are marveling at his greatness (The Minister's Post at Hudson Bay). As the Minister outlines his plans for Empire Ontario and what to do with the Indigenous population (The Documents), Jean arrives late and sheepishly apologetic. After reviewing Jean's documents and journals he is angered that key information has been omitted (Riddle, Riddle). Upon finding Noodin-Kwe's name in Jean's journals, The Minister suspects that he is covering up for her. Jean is airested and sent to jail as The Minister rounds up his posse to go on a hunt for Noodin-Kwe. Meanwhile, having delivered Jean safely to Hudson Bay, the Timber Wolves enjoy some rest and relaxation (The Timber Wolves). Mahigan finds the Timber Wolves lazing around, and is annoyed that they have left her to collect pelts from Noodin-Kwe's traps alone. As the Timber Wolves salivate over meat, The Minister and his Indian Agent posse ambush and capture them (The Ambush). Mahkwa come to the rescue, but is killed along with one of the Timber Wohes in the ensuing melee. The remaining Timber Wolf is wounded by a gunshot, but escapes to go warn Noodin-Kwe. The Minister begins to torture Mahigan, and Noodin-Kwe can hear her howls of pain through the Weeping Forest. The last surviving Timber Wolf reaches Noodin-Kwe, injured and unable to speak, and Mahigan begs Noodin-Kwe to sing to her to ease her passage into the spirit world (Mahigan's Death). The Minister and the Indian Agent posse continue on towards Noodin-Kwe's camp (The Minister Continues) when one of the men steps into a bear trap. Unwilling to slow his pace, The Minister executes him, and continues onward with his last Indian Agent. The Weeping Forest tnes to spook The Minister, who uses the last of his ammunition shooting wildly at the trees (Giiwedin). When The Minister and Indian Agent arrive at Noodin-Kwe's camp, they set it ablaze to draw her out of hiding. The Timber Wolf attacks the Indian Agent, but The Minister kills him by setting him on fire. The Indian Agent deserts, leaving Noodin-Kwe and The Minister alone (The Confrontation). The Minister taunts Noodin-Kwe, and after a heated exchange she kills him (The Murder). Noodin-Kwe evades the authorities for decades as we are taken through significant events in Canadian history (Extra! Extra!). After fifty years on the run, a tired and pregnant Noodin-Kwe allows herself to be captured and is sent away to a psychiatric hospital. The scene shifts back to the institution, where Doctor Carlton is lecturing his Medical Students on the history of psychosurgeries (The Institution, Reprise). Doctor Carlton prepares to demonstrate one experimental form of surgery on Noodin-Kwe while she sings the last of her story and legacy to John. Doctor Carlton completes his medical experiment and declares that history will be written "as it should be" (The Lobotomy). Entr'Acte Scene One The Morning After Bear Trap Ana Scene Two The Minister's Post at Hudson Bay The Documents Riddle, Riddle Scene Three The Timber Wolves The Ambush Scene Four Mahigan's Death The Minister Continues Giiwedin 127 The Confrontation (Noodin-Kwe's camp) The Murder Scene Fn e Extra! Extra! 1890 - 1950 Scene Six The Institution, 1950s (Reprise) The Lobotomy •y-i Wawiyezi / La Pleine Lune: The year 1890 carries enormous significance in the story of Giiwedin, but my decision to set the opera within this time period came rather subconsciously to me. In the spnng of 2007 I participated in a Young Voices workshop, led by Native Earth Performing Arts, and found myself sitting at a table in the Dancemakers studio24 with a group of young artists reading and discussing each other's work. At that time I had not given too much thought as to the year in which Giiwedin would take place, mainh because I was leaving mj options open so not to stifle my creativity; nor did I w ant to commit myself to a particular time period so early on in my writing process. Ironically, however, a fellow artist asked me during our group discussion what time period I imagined Giiwedin taking place, and without any hesitation I answered: "1890!" I then proceeded to rationalize this decision: "I imagine that the story will also go well until the 1950s. So Noodin-Kwe will already be 150-years old in 1890 21 Translation Full moon (phonetics wah-we-yeh-zeh) NOTE: Some of the Anishnaabe words that I use in tins chapter are not always translated The leason I chose not to translate every word is because I tend to repeat these words and statements almost immediately afterwards in either English or French languages 24 Located in the Distillery District, Toronto Ontario 128 and by the time the story hits the 1950s she will be well over 200 years of age. I think this is because she symbolizes seven generations of knowledge." I then made a point of writing these years down in my notebook, but it was not until later that I realized what important historical events actually occurred in and around those years, including: • In 1885, Louis Riel was tried for treason, and sentenced to death. • In 1890, Sitting Bull was murdered in a confrontation at the Standing Rock Reservation. Soon after, Federal troops massacred Lakota Chief Big Foot, and killed an estimated 350 Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Although the story of Giiwedin is primarily set in the year 1890, the narrative also follows Noodin-Kwe's life right through to the 1950s, as time becomes more and more compressed. We witness this passage of time through a sequence of historical events that are represented in the scene "Extra! Extra!" from Act Two, which a chorus of news criers, radio and television announcers publicize a string of events that took place between the years 1890 to 1950s. This five-minute scene takes unusual twists and turns, breaking away from its operatic form by adopting the motif and aesthetics of musical theatre. This was 129 purposefully done in order to reflect the popular interests in musical theatre forms from this era, which we would recognize in the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. For some critics this scene had certainly left an impression on them, as they descnbe various interpretations. For example, Paula Citron (2010) describes in Opera Canada: "One of the most memorable extended passages is 'Extra! Extra!' in which the cast outlines the key historical events that happened between 1890 and 1950" (p. 42). Meanwhile, Colin Eatock (2010) describes this scene in the Globe and Mail as one that "takes strange turns a silly radio-show scene" (Eatock, 2010) However, from a creative standpoint, the style of music and genre of storytelling used in this scene served to represent the passage of time (i.e., sixty years), which Noodm-Kwe spends ainning from the law after killing The Minister. As the scene goes through a sequence of time and events, there are fewer and fewer headlines about Indigenous issues that make the news, thus serving as a metaphor for the gradual erasure of Indigenous peoples from the public's consciousness. As the story reaches into the 1950s era, man)' Western political and scientific events have already occurred or were soon to be put into practice (e.g., two world wars, stock market crash, atomic bomb production, lobotomies, electroshock therapy, hallucinogens, and sleep rooms). Being cognizant of this history gave me the opportunity to imagine, create and explore a reality that Noodm-Kwe would have had to face while on the run. First, she is mythologized as a wild wolf woman, which is 130 symbolic of Western fears of the "savage," particularly against women. Second, upon her surrender (at the end of Scene Five of Act Two), she is tried and sentenced to life in a prison psychiatric institution23 and she becomes the subject of Dr. Carlton's horrific medical experimentations. As I developed the libretto I spent much of my time reading personal narratives and research about psychosurgeries and psychological experiments, which often resulted in unethical medical practices (Collins, 1988; Dully, 2007; El-Hai, 2004). For example, a number of dangerously expenmental psychological tests were practiced on prisoners, women, Indigenous people, as well as those who lived with mental illness throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. More specifically, these experiments were often conducted on people without their consent, or with little to no information provided to them that outlined potential side effects or risks. In order to grasp some of the grave elfects of institutionalization and oppression of Indigenous peoples, I looked at various medical practices and histories, including the federally funded psychiatric institution known as the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians of Canton in South Dakota (operated from 1899 to 1933), which patients were cruelly treated, neglected and abused. In an article published online, •^ The prison ps> chiatnc scenes take place in the opening scene of 4ct One and the final scene of Act Two 131 entitled Wild Indians: Native Perspectives on the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians,16 Pemma Yellow Bird explains that even reservation agents were given the power to simply "declare one [Native person] insane and have one shipped off" (p. 4), and that the asylum was operated "more like a prison than as a place where Native people received medical treatment" (p. 5). My research in this area also led me to other scientific figures, including Dr. Ewen Cameron and Dr. Walter Freeman,27 who are both scrutinized for practicing unethical forms of psychiatry on patients in the 20th century. Nonetheless, this research helped inform and give shape to the character Doctor Carlton as well as the chorus of medical students that appear in Giiwedin. In addition to the scientific and psychological subject matter contained within the opera, there are a number of other underlying themes that also support the story, which were incorporated into the libretto. For example: residential schools, adoption and the infamous 60s scoop, religion, fur trade and animal rights issues. Many of these themes are explored and represented through a range of characters and the choruses, and their symbolism is described below: Pemma Yellow Bird's article (no date) is available online in PDF format at the following IT^L address http //www power2u org/downloads NativePerspectivesPemmaYellowBird pdf 27 Dr Cameron was involved in mind-control experiments, which was part of a CIA human research program operated by the Office of Scientific Intelligence Dr Freeman was a physician well known for conducting controversial lobotomies during the mid 20th century 132 Characters: Noodin-Kwe The heroine. She is an Anishnaabe woman, who lives for two Mezzo-soprano hundred years, and symbolizes seven generations of knowledge, history, and matriarchal resistance. She carries the history and knowledge of Temiskaming, which she will pass on to her son, John. Mahigan She is an alpha wolf, and is Noodin-Kwe's life-long friend. She Soprano is a warrior and messenger. She was given as a gift to Noodin- Kwe by Nookum during her childhood in the early 1700s, and they have remained loyal friends ever since. Mahigan's name means wolf. Timber Wolves Two younger wolves who are part of Mahigan's pack. They are Soprano and also loyal friends of Noodin-Kwe. Mezzo-soprano Mahkwa Mahkwa is a non-gender/race specific character, and is the Mezzo-Soprano protector of the borderlands, as well as a life-long friend of Noodin-Kwe. Mahkwa was also given to Noodin-Kwe as a gift from Nookum. Mahkwa's name means bear. John Noodin-Kwe and Jean's son, and represents the stolen child of Tenor the future. Doctor Carlton gives John his name once he is born in the institution, declaring that "like the apostle, he shall bear withness" to a series experiments he will conduct on Noodin- Kwe. The Minister A high-ranking government official, who is also Noodin-Kwe's Tenor half-brother. He is the opera's antagonist, who is determined to colonize her lands. 133 Indian Agents The Minister's loyal servants. Tenor and Bass-baritone Jean French Indian Agent; Noodin-Kwe's lover and father of John. Baritone Doctor Carlton An ambitious doctor and scientist. He sees himself as a god in Bass-baritone his field. Choruses: Timbers Wolves Mahigan's pack. Weeping Forest/Spirits Bearer of all secrets. Medical Students Doctor Carlton's captive audience. Indian Agent Posse The Minister's loyal servants. News Criers Announcers of current events. Aawechige.2 8 / Je Raconte Une Histoire / Auto-ethnographic Narratives: It is April 8,h, 2010: Opening night. I am in the company of my mother ni- maamaa and grandmother nookum. It is a very special moment to have them here with me, in my home, waiting to attend the premiere of Giiwedin. I realize this is a private moment, so I take time to remember the ones who walked before me, who in the flesh were careful to leave footprints behind for me to find, prompting me to listen Translation: To teach by telling a story. 134 carefully and to simply follow their rhythm: the spirit manidoo of the ones who echo m\ even footstep, leading me to walk into the forest. Chekakwaham.29 They guide me through four directions. Giiwedinong30 / Au Nord: It is spring: Rebirth. My mind drifts back to our ancestors' land: the tall pines zhingwaak, young birch trees wiigwaasaatig and elder oaks mitigomizh. Suddenh, the stillness is broken by a dissonant cacophony of ra\en songs that fill the crisp air amidst this familiar forest, which is then clipped by the wings of Eagle Migiziw who carries with it a symphonic memory of the past, present and future. This is a memory I knew was yet to be written down. With the committed weight of words among strings of delicate harmonies. Through a sequence of notes, chords and scales, these voices craved to find permanent rest within the pages of libretto and scorebook. " Translation To walk into the forest (phonetics che-kah-kwa-hara) 10 Translation To the north 135 This is a memory that will not fade. The lines that exist on these pages are like lines that diude lands and mark borders, which are ever-present. They are deeply synchronized with the universe, the stars, sun, rocks, and water. This is where the fire comes alive with a breath that gives voice, just as \ibration gives sound to strings. This is home: it is in-between. Endaiaan. Nm wanaki. C'est ici queje suis enpaix. Where the music embodies mashhh, dash hkendassoM'in32 So I lay tobacco down on my balcony, And watch Hawk fly by Kami1 ike.33 V Tianslation Home This is where I live at peace (phonetics nin-wah-nah-key) 32 Translation Medicine, and knowledge (phonetics mash-key-ke\ dash key-ken-das-so-win) 33 Translation To remember (phonetics kan-wee-keh) 136 Figure 25 Photo taken by author in summer 2010 at Gull Lake symbolizing the spirit of endaaian Waabanong34 / A L'est: The sound of brisk waters exhaled through the mouth of the river from the lungs of Temiskaming, swiftly reminding us of just how bnef our time is in this place. Quickly, the eastward door opened to greet the sun while it caressed the surface of the water with glowing splinters of light. In the speed of light I heard a whisper: M Translation To the east 137 "Andi wendjiban?" To this, I knew the answer: Temiskaming nindondjiba! Then the sun asked: "Do you know who \ou are?" I responded: Giiniw ni-dijinikaz. Mahigan niin ndoodem. Just then the sun's primordial rays stretched down and began digging through mud and soil, dislodging streams of blood that has been buried for centuries beneath the earth, which began to seep through rocks, soil and roots. Miskwi!35 The sun kept digging. Miskwi! The deeper it went, the more blood flowed: rising up and up until finally reaching my feet. The liquid was warm with life, yet it pulsed with memories, secrets, terrors and dreams. Kamvike! I thought to myself: "Something about this feels old, yet alive with expectation." Unexpectedh, from out of the earth's gaping wounds emerged a synthesis of polyphonic allegories. The earth speaks to me, singing "Nin-madwechigei" The words then stirred in my mind, repeating / am making music. Madwebagasin .36 These are the sounds that would come to form the story of Giiwedin. ^ Translation Blood Translation The wind whispers in the leaves (of a tree) 138 /".'/"''' >» •"•":"»*;• •• - ' -J i- - ».'.. i- "•• .. ^ " '.'.** C' »» •*!• ."' s < "•- •>' >r• i ' J* ,., > ** 1 *V* J»M - \ 1"'- v - ,' 1 . £** *' * if.. Jr*--, - t A. -,,^.',^5, - ,, > • -7- * " ;*. ft Figure 26 Photo taken by authoi in summer 2010 at Lake Temiskaming s\ mboli7ing the spirit from which this stor\ flow s Zhaawanong37 / Au Sud: Time consequential Location expansive Purpose Mamanzhinam38 I followed the earth on my quest for sound, feeling each and ever)' vibration as it resonated within this memory space Soon I was led through tentacles of blood towards the mouth of the nver and there I was taken beneath the water There I heard Translation To the south Translation I have or see a vision 139 springs of life forming in my mind's imagination, animating the faces of all the characters I have held so close to my heart, including: Noodin-Kwe, Mahigan, Mahkwa, and a pack of Timber Wolves. They were old, and each of them carried a sacred knowledge and ageless purpose: Noodin-Kwe was destined to be the guardian of the lands; Mahigan and her Timber Wolves were born to be warriors and messengers; and Mahkwa was to be designated the protector of the borderlands. I learned quickly that they had been waiting in this place for quite some time, waiting in quiet patience, anticipating the day when their lives would be written down on the page, where their hearts would be heard through pitched notes on a staff: living on five horizontal lines, between and beyond four spaces. Thej' were not alone here though, as the sounds of choruses washed over me, and with a single wave I heard the wailings of Weeping Forests and Spirits, juxtaposed against the sounds of machinery and railroad systems. Mawindamowin.39 The sounds of metal and tireless labour clashed on, as iron tracks were laid down onto the earth's back, cutting their way through the forest, and scarring the landscape: Translation Bewailing or a lamentation 140 south to north, east to west. An ominous sensation came over me, revealing the image of an antagonist: The Minister, long-lost half brother of Noodm-Kwe. His purpose: he has a hunger for expansion that burns inside of him like a windigo desire. The Weeping Forest and Spirits felt this profoundly and knew this day was coming, for they sang: Cutting! Falling! Burning! Weeping!40 Their words echoed through the billowing fumes ot the railroad that appeared over the honzon, and the rhythms of chug-ah-chug-ah-chug soon muffled their desperate pleas of alarm. The Weeping Forest chorus repeated these words thioughout Guviedin 141 •4 t Figure 27 (Abo\ e) A location in the Teraiskaming region where forest clear cutting has occurred (Below) Railroad tracks at Uno Park where some of the first settlers arm ed and dwelled in Temiskannng Photos taken by author in summer 2010 142 Ningaabii'anong41 /A L'ouest: Autumn The Present Quiet abstraction Now that the story has been told, I am left to reflect A story that purges many hidden, unspoken secrets About a past, As if emerging into a rather certain future Reflections upon which to prepare A new cycle that will begin Figure 28 Wabi Creek a stream where water flows into Wabi River and Lake Temiskaming Photo taken by author in summer 2010 Translation To the west Gagige-bimahdiziwin42 / Une Vie Eternelle / The Land Remembers: Gigiizhinazhauag igiu gaanigugue iniu Johnan, ogitibadotan dush au John iu tebwewin.43 -John 5:33 (New Testament) The history of religions colonialism, including the genocide perpetuated by the Catholic Church (particularly in Latin America), is a wound from which Native communities have not yet healed. -Winona LaDuke (2005, p. 12) We work towards a pedagogy of the land where teachings are never merely didactic, but most often expressed in a relation. -Celia Haig-Brown (2005, p. 92) When I return to endaaian, my sacred dwelling place, I find a long history of memory and song. Here, a number of new and old memories surface, reminding me that our Anishnaabe blood continues to flow through the earth and into the rivers and lakes niping, circulating through Lake Temiskaming to the Montreal River and well into the Ottawa and beyond. Soon the words roll off my tongue and quickly become text. Prelude. An excerpt: Not so long ago A story waited to be told About a woman nearly forgotten Amongst memories that have now grown old.44 42Translation: Eternal life, (phonetics- kaw-geh-gee-pee-mah-deh-zeh-win) Translation: Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. (Quoted from the American Bible Society translation). Excerpt from "Prelude," Gmvedin Text by Spy Denomme-Welch and music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch 144 In both my waking and sleeping dreams I speak with the memory of this land and the woman who dwells at the bottom of the deep lake: the wind woman who breathes life into everything. I remember telling myself: "I must walk in the water nin bimadagasi and there I will bravely find the way to recover this memory for it is mashkiki. I will then inscnbe this medicine through words and music, and the right ones will heal from it." From there, I proceeded to create story and music as I welcomed it to live within me, for it is an old story that had awakened through my imaginings. To understand and cultivate the mashkiki that inhabits storytelling and music I needed to begin with Noodin-Kwe's naming story, and by reflecting on this it came to me, which I wrote down in my journals. Although there is no specific scene in the opera that explains Noodin-Kwe's name or naming ceremony, aside from merely alluding to it, this information was important for me as a storyteller. It was necessary for me to know the origin of her name so that I could comprehend her strength, will and destiny, but more specifically I wanted to be sure I could translate these characteristics through her character. The following passage is an excerpt from m\ notes in 2008 (written in the 1st and 3rd person), which describe the images of her ceremony as they came to me: Noodin-Kwe's name story: 145 This is the hfeblood of your people (ancestors) Born from the earth The smallest of creatures Your animal brothers and sisters. This is to teach )ou Because you'll know your name And learn to stand alone. [...] Off I went to sleep. Dreams began to chase me. Fire spirits engulfed the air around me. Great waters filled the back of my eyes Like burning acid. White spirits came - filling my head like flashing bursts of light - sharp like pins and blades pressing into my vision. Slicing / Slicing Until I could see nothing but Nookum Fading into the sky above, Becoming nothing more than tiny stars Flickering in my eyes. Upon waking Something was different inside. Sound of tides lapped inside my ears Taking me by surprise... Where am I? My eyes opened like tiny starflowers Only to find myself at the bottom Of a lake... Gazed upon by a row of water spints... Beautiful shining creatures Blue, red, yellow and some brown. [...] then the red one spoke "ohhh... she's Noodin-Kwe - the woman of the deep, deep lake. The air woman whose breath Keeps us all alive and moving... The current moving - forward - moving - Foiward - mo\ ing - forward - Nc\ er repeating the same - But forward " [ ] I asked "why am I beneath this water If I'm air'?" Because the water cools your dreams Dnes vour tears and calms \our mind [ ] (Denomme-Welch, Journal notes, 2007-2009) Figure 29 Reflections of a memory space Photo taken bv author in fall 2010 In the initial stages of writing I began to tell the story of Giiwedin from the perspective of John, who in the first draft of the libretto was portrayed as a Canadian civil servant investigating a land claim. However, I eventually realized that the ston actually needed to be told from Noodin-Kwe's perspective and not that of John's, as the opera chronicles the colonization of her land and her own institutionalization. Needless to say, an idea must begin from somewhere, and though I decided to re write the libretto in 2008 dunng my playwright residency, I was pleased that none of the matenal from my first draft went to waste, as from the initial draft I had already developed a rather strong sense of who all the characters were and what their purposes and roles were in the story. GIIWEDIN Scene Sketch This opera is about a 2-century year old Anishnaabe woman fighting for her land from the colonization of Northern Ontario. Act 1, Scene 1 *John's introduction / Filing documents in land claims unit. *lt's the mundane, everyday routine / except he comes upon a surprising set of old files, labelled "Ruth St. Cyr" that are dated as far back as 1890. * He starts reading one of the letters, and scene shifts to the past: 1890. *Noodin-Kwe's introduction. *She's working the land, singing about the changing season (i.e., Fall and coming Winter) *Winter reminds her that there will be more death among Native people (I.e., starvation, illness, freezing) Figure 30 This figuie is taken from a portion of an original scene sketch I developed in 2007 for Giiwedin in which John's charactei was initially wntten as the opera's piotagonist Image courtesy of the author 2010 148 Forest Spirits Weeping Weeping Spirits Winter - freezing "Freezing" (Natives) Weave these stories together Noodin-Kwe Land claim/letters John meeting point Figure 31. This image (reproduced from my original journals) captures a portion of a scene sketch'plotline I re-developed for Giiwedin in 2008. Near the centre I wrote: "weave these stories together," which meant I would weave together Noodin-Kwe and John's story by way of the land claim issue and Noodin-Kwe's letters that are left behind for John as an adult. Image courtesy of the author 2010 As is shown in the scene sketches/plothnes I developed in 2007 and later in 2008 [figures 30 and 31], I decided to re-wnte John's part and represent him as the stolen child of the future. Instead, through his journey of healing John unravels the effects of Indigenous cultural amnesia and reco\ers the memory that is hidden within the land that remembers, which is the place where traces of his mother's footprints could still be found. As a result, John's role in the opera took on a more symbolic meaning for the diasporic Abonginal experience45 that examines the effects of institutional and religious colonialism, which he must overcome in order to recover his blood-memory and heritage. John's role became more of a metaphorical symbol for the generations of Indigenous people who ha\e been spiritually, physically, intellectual 1) and emotionally scarred as a result colonialism and systemic oppression, including residential schools and 60s scoop. Now unlike the traditional naming ceremonv that Noodin-Kwe receives through her own rite of passage, which I outlined earlier, John is born into a colonial system where he experiences a much more violent and traumatic rite of passage. This trauma occurs at the moment of his birth within the institution when Doctor Carlton and his medical students, using biblical references, name him John, by declaring: By "diasporic Abonginal experience" I mean the experience of being culturally, spiritually emotionally and intellectually removed and displaced and forcibly detached from one's own cultural loots and/or traditional Indigenous territory 150 As for this half-breed, we shall name him John. Like the apostle, he shall bear witness. Bring him forth to see what he'll never remember.46 Although John inherits Noodin-Kwe's legacy through the circulation of blood-memory, his life's trajectory is wrought by the struggles he faces while searching for truth, which is revealed through the land. By making the long pilgrimage back to his mother's ancestral lands, he cries out to her, as if seeing her for a fleeting moment, and recovers his spiritual connection: Away in a dream world I sometimes see you! Not as a child, but as the man I will become f1 Away in the dream world... Away! Meanwhile, in a far off dream space Noodin-Kwe learns about her future, just as Nookum predicted it, and inevitably she lives to experience it, which she recounts in the opening scene of the opera: When I was a little girl Nookum would speak of our relations! "Nooshis, bizindaam! Learn for future generations." She taught me 'bout the caribou. How to work the hides of animals! Spoke of changing things Like dams being built 46 Excerpt from 'The Institution, 1950's (Reprise)," (Act Two) Guwechn. Text by Spy Denomme - Welch; Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch. 47 Excerpt from 'The Institution, 1950's (Reprise)," (Act Two) Guwedin. Text by Spy Denomme - Welch; Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch. 151 Where the water still falls. Noodin-Kwe inherited the story of her heritage through Nookum, who also passed on the traditional hereditary teachings and the memories that dwell in the land that remembers. Inevitably, Noodm-Kwe lives to witness all of the Msions that Nookum predicted, which were re\ealed thiough a ceremony while peeling away the skin from a caribou's leg. Not until it is really too late does Noodin-Kwe actually realize that this ceremony was in fact a warning about the coming windigo: the hungry, expansive giant who will stop at nothing to consume all of the earth, flesh and living spirits. This terrible spirit was something that Noodin-Kwe would have to face alone, before passing the story on to her son, John. In Giiwedin the windigo takes on multiple shapes, but is often represented in the living form. It eventually manifests as The Minister, Noodin-Kwe's half-brother. We gain some insight mto the psychology of the w indigo in a vision that Noodin- Kwe receives, which she describes at the end of her ana Mewinzha in the final scene of Act One: For a snake is coming Eating all in its path, Stopping at nothing To appease this aching wrath. E\ceq)t from "Memory Space," (Act One) Giiwedin Text by Spy Denomme-Welch, Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch 152 Mewinzha, way oh ya,49 Gwiwizens gii ayaa.50 Misko-gwiiwiizens*1 Ginebi-gowf2 Dash windigoowi.53 Dash windigoowi.. r* The w indigo is a rather dangerous element, and because of this I needed to explore it very carefully in my art. In "The Orders of the Dreamed": George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823 (1988), Nelson states that "they [windigo(s)] are much afraid of, because the) are both highly malignant spirits: there is no joking or jesting with them. Those who at any future period are to become cannibals thus dream of them" (p. 90). When writing about this subject matter, I chose to set the story of Giiwedin in the season when the snow begins to fall (winter), and explore this theme in a number of physical and non-physical forms. As such, the image of the cannibalistic snake takes on the more literal symbolic form of the railroad, eating its wa\ through the forest and consuming the Weeping Forest and Spirits, while the sounds and images of industrial development, greed and colonial expansion (e.g., economies, logging, mining, surveying and institutions) became Translation Long ago Translation There was a boy Tins roughly translates to mean "red boy 52 Translation Becomes a snake Translation And becomes a windigo Excerpt from "Mewinzha," (Act One) Guwedin Text by Spy Denomme-Welch, Music by Catherine Magowan and Sp} Denomme-Welch 153 more metaphorical representations of the windigo, whereby the sounds of two ver\ old worlds clash. Madwe wetchigewin:5s The idea of bridging the sounds of two worlds through Baroque and Indigenous music aesthetics and incorporating them into the medium of opera served as the foundation for multi-layered storytelling. It also provided me with an opportunity to examine the interweaving effects of colonialism as well as recreate some of the historical disruptions that have been caused by European-Indigenous contact. In other words, music helped evoke the sounds of contact while facilitating these interactions, including the underlying subtext that exists between characters and their environments, which supports the images being depicted through text. Many other musical idioms were adopted and used in Giiwedin, including the integration of march/anthem themes and popular fur trader songs, all of which added colourful tones to the musical synthesis within the opera's score. The critical responses to the music were varied, just as I had anticipated, and the following remarks are some of the sound bytes that reflect these responses: In an online blog review, Christopher Moore (2010) writes that Giiwedin was "a theatrical moment I 55 Translation To produce sounds, music (phonetics mad-dwe-wetch-ee-geh-win) 154 would not have expected to see [ ] Fine operatic singing and presentation, brilliant music too"56 Christopher Hoile (2010), from EYE Weekly, writes "Giiwedin is a hugely imaginative and ambitious first project by co-composers Spy Denomme- Welch and Catherine Magowan [ ] the music created by the co-composers is so witty, so endlessly inventive and so well performed, the show is worth seeing its sake alone"57 Jon Kaplan (2010) states in NOW magazine "The music, played by a continuo quartet led by Gregory Oh, is atmospheric, approachable and occasionally ironic"38 Also, Paula Citron (2010) more extensively writes in her review of Girwedm for Opera Canada They did, however, cunningly mix together rhythms from both traditional First Nations and popular European music, which gives Guwedm its unique sensibility [ ] The result is a score that is both modern and traditional at the same time - tuneful yet dissonant, melodic yet rhythmic [ ] Throughout are beautiful instrumental interludes that are evocative tone poems on their own (p 42) Ultimately, Magowan and I wanted to create music that would be approachable and accessible, ironic and subversive, modern and traditional, melodic and dissonant. The fact that what we intended to communicate through our music was generally very well interpreted and received by critics and audiences is, in my view, a Christopher Moore's History News review "Giiwedin A First Nations Opera" (April 19, 2010) http ichnstophermoorehistory blogspot com/2010/04/gnwedin-first-nations-opera html Christopher Hoile's review (April 12, 2010) Retrieved fiom http '/www eyeweekly com/ arts/theatre/article/88013—giiwedin 58 Jon Kaplan's NOW magazine review "Guwedm" (April 14-21,2010) Retrieved from http //www nowtoronto com'daily'story cfm7content= 174485 155 success in and of itself, as the challenge of communicating meanmg(s) through musical form can be a delicate line to walk and balance. This delicate line that I speak about is one that knows mashkiki,59 which I used to support the musical narrative for Giiwedin. To follow this path I simply and unequivocally had to trust this process in order to reach into the sacred narratives aadizookaanag and begin telling this story. Certainly, many forms of sacred music and stones have been written that have been explored and studied through the filters of many cultures, which remains an important topic. In the case of Giiwedin I knew I had to express this story in careful wa)S when working with the sacred, whether or not it was through the shape of the music or in the form of words. In the following sub-section (Aadizookaanag), I share an example of this process. Aadizookaanag:60 Time: Summer 2007.1 write: I received the words for Mahigan' s message. They carry a terrible message, but she must deliver this to Noodin-Kwe. I can't imagine how she must feel being the one to give this news. At this point Mahigan's been south with her pack and while she was down there she saw what was coming: railroads and towns are being built up along the way, and they're heading north, right towards Noodin- Kwe' s homeland. It's part of the prophecy. 59 Translation Medicine 60 Translation Sacred narratives 156 I now need the music, the melody, and colours that will define the spirit of this piece. I place tobacco in the soil of a planter on my balcony, and wait. I am facing the east direction, overlooking the water, which glimmers with a remarkable hue of blue. This angle [direction] is quite familiar to me, and I will sit here for as long as it takes, so patience is necessary. It feels as though hours have passed. I didn't look at the time before sitting here quietly in this moment of reflection, but I'm sure it's been at least 2 hours I've been waiting. Catherine's been working on other sections of the music while I've been out here on the balcony. Strange to say this, but it feels as if the sounds of city have all disappeared. I am feeling the pulse of something coming alive. I am hearing vocables. That's it! The vocables are the heartbeat to this song. This is what connects Mahigan and Noodin- Kwe... I hear way-ah way-ah way-oh. The music is here! It has come. It is all connected now. I rush to the computer and begin transcribing the music. Time: Fall 2007.1 write: It's the week of workshop/rehearsal, leading up to the presentation of 15-minute excerpt from Giiwedin. I am asked about the piece "Mahigan's Message," and what kind of spirit I intended behind / wanted s\mbohzed through this song. I try to answer that it represents a war-like feel. It should be energizing to the spmt, as if it builds on a sense of urgency - urgency to stand guard and protect. It's a kind of resolution before there is even anything is yet to be resolved. For this excerpt presentation we'll try using the drum. Time: Post-Weesageechak Begins to Dance Presentation (October 2007). I write: I am so moved by the response people had to Giiwedin. This feels special, and I get the sense that others felt this too. Many remarked the excitement they felt about this piece, even though it was just an excerpt, and already are expressing to me that they can't wait to see the full work. I think there is something profound coming out of the music and story. When I narrated the piece [dunng the presentation] I really felt the energy come off of the audience, even though I couldn't see them past the stage lights. Well, back to work it is, then. Time: Fall 2008. I write: Have been giving it more thought, this idea about incorporating the drum into our orchestration for "Mahigan's Message." I ha\ e some concerns about it. I am thinking about what it could s\mbohze to a broader audience, and also about how it might be used in any future productions. I want to be as responsible as I can about this, as there is certain permanence in the stories you create and what you put out there for consumption. After thinking this through some more we decided it is best to go with the cello on this one. The cello can evoke the sound of the drum in this piece. We' 11 for sure work on this piece in the next workshop. Time: May 2009. I write: Worked with singers, musicians, and guest consultant, and have found ways for the cello to emulate the sound of the drum much more effectively by having experimented with various possible techniques. I feel quite good about how this will work out now. I realize that music is always open to interpretation, and so for future productions, if ever that might happen, we [co-composers] discussed providing some contextual notes to accompany the scorebook explaining how the sound can be created on the cello. (Denomme-Welch, Journal notes, 2007-2009) The issue of presentation was clearly an important facet to the work of Giiwedin, which I took into account dunng my artistic process and reflections. This is 158 evident from the notes I kept on the development of the piece "Mahigan's Message." My primary concern here was that, as in any form of art, there is always the possibility for misrepresentation to occur, and because of this reality, I wanted to be as careful as possible to not perpetuate further misrepresentations of Indigenous culture. For instance, I have seen many works of art (e.g., plays, film and video and gallery exhibits) where artists hav e used the drum, and while it often appears that is has been incorporated with utmost respect, I have also witnessed instances when it has been used purely for the sake of prop, as a symbol that represents an "authentic" Indigenous culture. I realize that the evocation of sound can be enough to signifv this effect, and not necessarily the material object itself. My thoughts on this matter resonate strongly with a passage from Michael Angel's Preserving the Sacred: Historical Perspectives on the Ojibwa Midewiwin (2002): Many folklonsts and ethnologists have spent a considerable amount of time searching for 'authentic, traditional' narratives, 'uncorrupted' by Euro-American influences, so that they can uncover a 'pure' Anishnaabe worldview. However, I would argue that all narratives told by elders are authentic, for the world view expressed by the narratives results from an oral tradition whose texts are not locked in time in the same wa\ as are those belonging to religions 'of the book.' (p. 19) Suffice it to say, though "Mahigan's Message" is rhythmically supported by a Baroque violoncello and violin, it is still an "authentic" representation of oral tradition, narrative and song. In the end, I found it was unnecessary to use or 159 incorporate the drum, and seeing that it was not written anywhere in the score this might lead to a rather critical question: was it only used for show in this scene? In the production, no drum was used, and from m\ perspective this did not affect the spirit of the story in any way. Teweigan:61 I was an adult when I learned how to make my first drum. I was in my mid- twenties and by then I had been living in the city of Toronto, years away from the land of endaiaan62 M) first, and currently only, drum was made from raw deer hide, synthetic sinew, and cedar wood. I chose not to paint the face of my drum, but perhaps I will someday when or if my drum ever chooses to settle on a particular identity. I learned how to make a drum in a rather unconventional way, which is I learned from a non-Indigenous man who had himself learned from Elders. I have to admit that he did know a lot and was very kind to share what knowledge he had with me. In my experience I have learned to accept the fact that occasionally certain teachings and gifts just come in rather unusual and unpredictable ways. More 61 Translation Drum (phonetics dah-way-gan) Translation My home 160 importantly, what matters is the intention behind the action. After all, by now I still might not have learned how to make the drum if it were not for this individual taking the time to show me. With all that said, I can say that I am rather proud of what I made. My drum certainly makes a beautiful sound. Sometime over the six to twelve months after I had made my dram, an Elder told me that a drum birthing ceremony was going to take place, and invited me to bnng my drum so it could be birthed by an Elder at a Two-Spirits event. This Elder was \ery generous to share important, traditional teachings with me about the drum, and most of all she taught me how to respect and care for it. It takes considerable amounts of compassion, self-respect and patience to learn from the places that you least expected would teach you, and I believe these were some of the reasons why I learned to make the drum before creating my first opera. In his work Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World (Refiguring American Music), Timothy Taylor (2007) articulates: "It has become fashionable in some theoretical camps in the last couple of decades to deconstruct binary oppositions, but people still live by them, still construct discourses and practices around them" (p. 9). It is arguably much more complex, if not completely impossible to avoid all the binaries that exist within our world than it has been to simply deconstruct them, as notions of difference are likely to always crop up. In other 161 words, where one binary is deconstructed another one is bound to surface. Taylor (2007) explains: To address these and other issues of difference, selfhood, and music, it is essential to move beyond the usual musicological rubric of 'exoticism,' [...] it is pointless to talk about 'exoticism' as a kind of singular practice - there are, now, exoticisms. The term 'exoticism' in its standard musicological usage tends to cover up, gloss over, the varieties of treatments of otherness in the last few hundred years, (p.9) Notwithstanding the fact these kinds of binaries impose all kinds of challenges with respect to music and self-representation, I have found that between the raw and synthetic materials and the Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds, the drum was preparing me to bridge the spaces that comfortably define polar opposites, dichotomies, binaries, knowledge and power. Teweigan was giving me important knowledge. Now I tell this story about teweigan because it helped me find m\ voice in opera, which has given me the courage to sing for seven generations, in tandem with the words of Louis Riel: "We must cherish our inheritance. We must preserve our nationality for the youth of our future. The story should be written down to pass on." 162 CHAPTER VI WHISPERS ON THE SHORE: EXPERIENCING CONSONANT AND DISSONANT SOUNDS How shall those committed to musical scholarship continue their work, when the objects of the discipline seem so uncertain, when its traditional mission and goals no longer seem persuasive? What is our responsibility to music now? How can we do justice to music, to ourselves, and to others? -Kevin Korsyn (2003, p. 176) If music affects snakes, it is not on account of the spiritual notions it offers them, but because snakes are long and coil their length upon the earth, because their bodies touch the earth at almost every point; and because the musical vibrations which are communicated to the earth affect them like a very subtle, a very long message; and I propose to treat the spectators like the snake charmer's subjects and conduct them by means of their organisms to an apprehension of the subtlest notions. -Antonin Artaud (1958, p. 81) Consonance and dissonance each have their place in music, and whether they co-exist or diverge from one another, each invite possible ways to disrupt political and historical discourse in storytelling. Ajay Heble (2000) writes that "these dissonant histories - histories that are 'out of tune' with orthodox habits of coherence and judgement - occasion a purposeful disturbance to naturalized orders of knowledge production in Canada" (p. 27). 163 Following the production of Giiwedin, various spectators commented or asked about some of the musical choices Magowan and I had made. For example, some viewers expressed how happy they were to see and hear a contemporary opera using tonal sounds. In one instance, an audience member who attended opening night admitted to me that thev were initially nervous about seeing the opera as they did not know what to expect, but in the end they were pleased with how the story was told and that they could understand it because "it was actualh tonal." Several audience members noted how surprised they were by the fact that they could understand what was happening in the story of Giiwedin, despite it being written in three languages or that it was presented without surtitles. In fact, a number of people said they felt it might have been too distracting to have surtitles in this production, given that the production was already staged within an intimate environment, which many felt it already pro\ ided them a closeness to discern and/or relate to the work. I believe some of the reason as to why the work was more easily understood had to do with the style of writing: for example, when statements were made in French or Amshnaabe by one character, another character would respond in English, thus allowing the audience a chance to piece together the conversation. Finally, some of the Aboriginal audience members explicitly noted how pleasant it was to listen to an opera in their language. While it was exciting to hear and receive a wide response to the work, Magowan and I were also intrigued by the comments of first-time opera-goers who 164 informed us that Giiwedin was the first opera the\ could afford to attend and that the\ felt it was relevant and musicalh accessible to them. As co-composers this was all \er) exciting feedback for us to recene, especially given the fact that we wanted our work to transgress a number of binaries and borders, including class, linguistic and cultural divisions. All in all the public responses to our work were generally positive and quite varied; however, some members of the audience did make specific comments/questions such as asking why there seemed to be little dissonance within the music, noting that at times the music felt so beautiful it seemed contran to the violence being portrayed on the stage. Magowan and I made a point to listen carefully and thoughtfully to statements and questions such as these, but then we would respond by explaining that this was in and of itself a form of dissonance - that the image, words and music were all producing different, and even contradictory meanings - and though each of these aesthetics supported one another, they were creating a different kind of dissonance than what we might expect to hear from music alone. I draw attention to an example from the work, looking particularly at the scene from "Mahigan' s Death," which Magowan and I had consciously decided to compose by using tonal and melodic music. In terms of text and stor} (i.e., libretto) this scene is extremely aggressive, as it portrays the issue of violence against women and violence against animals. Because of the brutal subject matter being portrayed in this 165 scene, it was important for us as composers to direct the viewer/listener through this horrible, yet highly stylized ntual of violence while being aware we did not want this to alienate the viewer from the aesthetic experience. Van Den Toorn (1995) states: Moments of aesthetic rapport, of self-forgetting at-oneness with music, are immediate. The mind, losing itself in contemplation, becomes immersed in the musical object, becomes one with that object. And the experience defines a bonding that would seem to transcend separation, the subject-object, inner-outer polarities, the rift separating consciousness from the world in which consciousness finds itself, (p. 12) Adding to this, Taylor (2007) writes: Tonality as a musical language creates centers and margins, effecting a kind of spatiahzing musical system in which Others can be managed at a distance. Opera was a powerful new dramatic representational form that was also used to manage Others, (p. 10) In a number of ways, Magowan and I worked with and beyond the binaries of tonaht) and dissonance, expressively by integrating textual, musical and visual disruptions. For instance, when composing for this scene (Mahigan's Death) Magowan and I wanted to build on sacred music traditions, using tonal harmonies, as a way to contrast the severe violence. We drew inspiration from a range of musical works by composers such as Hildegard von Bingen, Mozart, Verdi and Beethoven, as 166 well as studied Gregorian chants, First Nations songs, requiems and oratorios. These all helped to inform and develop a basis for the musical structure we applied to our own musical composition. G1IWEDIN Act Two .-, Full Score U>1 IjfiJ^gilgiPe FourTMahigati's Death j Figure 32 Excerpt from "Mahigan's Death," m Act Two, Scene Foui Libretto by Spy Denomme-Welch / Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch Copyiight Spy Denomme-Welch and Catherine Magowan For Nicole Joy-Fraser, the singer/actor who portrayed Mahigan, this role and scene were quite challenging to perform. In an interview with Laura Grande (2010) for the journal Roots and Shoots: Stories from the Original Canadian Culture, Joy- Fraser states: "It stretched me in so many ways" (p. 14). She adds: "I'd never played an animal before and I don't think I'll ever forget that, being on all fours" (p. 14). Grande (2010) expands on this point: "The sacredness of the opera and the horror of 167 her character being skinned alive every night instilled in Fraser a sense of the importance of telling these First Nations stones, no matter how small the niche" (p. 14). Though it was challenging for Joy-Fraser to portray her character given the gravity of the story, it was quite difficult for me to write the scene depicting Mahigan's torture and death. It took a lot of courage to tell this story, but I used the visualization of Mahigan's skinning (and her subsequent death) to reflect the image of stripping bare Indigenous lands and cultures. Some viewers commented that this scene, in addition to the medical scenes, were a painful reminder of the missing/murdered Aboriginal women. Even though Giiwedin is set within a historical context, it clearly evokes and resonates with a number of contemporary Aboriginal issues. Several forms of dissonance and consonance were produced in Giiwedin, but this was not created through music alone. Rather, the text and staging, combined with form and content, also created this affect, which helped heighten the scientific, mythological and oral traditions used for storytelling. The idea to merge science, mythology, and oral tradition represents the complexities of cultural, scientific, and religious knowledge, and the various forms of oppression and genocide that result from historical colonialism, patriarchy and cultural imperialism. 168 The integration of these ideologies developed into a form of dissonance, both musically and textually, which is most prevalent in the musical passage from "The Lobotomy" when Doctor Carlton inserts an ice-pick into Noodin-Kwe's eye and proceeds to lobotomize her, stating: Through eye sockets and thin layer of bone. I'll cut ev'ry last nerve fiber! Turn savages to stone. Simple and clean, remove the ice-pick Then on to the next eye. My job will be done. Effects cannot be undone!63 63 Excerpt from 'The Lobotomy," (Act Two) Gnwedw. Text by Spy Denomme-Welch; Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch 169 OIIWEDIN Ad Two 2J6 Full Score 1453 "flurmgii oe **Kk • ctt anJ IJIW lay-er of bone J'il cut ev'-ry last rtctve Jl - ht«* iP^fe?-* PUrf pr^ff^J^IXJ ^^f^rtf^ Pf-^J 1458 Crt«|f8lllfc; gyg^ir^pi^.^^^ '^v1' ^-gr^KHgyy^ £~*c&M«'v{X Figure 33 Excerpt from "The Lobotomy" scene Libretto by Spy Denomme-Welch / Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch Copyright Spy Denomme-Welch and Catheiine Magowan There are a number of moments in the opera when the hybridization of form and content evoke musical and textual dissonance, such as in "The Murder" scene between Noodin-Kwe and The Minister. Here, the music from the original version of "Mahigan's Message" is transformed and appropriated as the message and words become warped through The Minister's delivery. Among these separate scenes we urtually hear the same words being sung; however, m "The Murder" scene the orchestration is expanded from two voices to include the harpsichord playing tonal clusters in a minor key [see musical compansons in figures 34 and 35]. This produces a much more chaotic and frenzied affect, and the mechanical sounds of colonization and industrial development that are reproduced through the harpsichord contrasts with the melody and tone that was originally produced in "Mahigan's Message," which was written in a major key. 171 aim mg tor new di men sions in its \t sion of "Em pire On ta n - o" They're log ging ail die for est?, ah - way ah way oh, Way - ah way ah - way ho ah' Wa> ah way-ah way oh, Way [fe^-fr-^jii:. 1- Jr-^z:li : 1. J T fr—f^'Tlli .?T) ~JL. tear ing them down one hy one to thin it down and tame the wild they'll car and cur 'til it' all gone' Way ah way ah way oh, Way ah way ah wav oh, Way ah wav ah way hu aii' I © powitp«oacccl- ET=T P r=»=-r P rF^=?—g_r p r ah wav all mmmway all way ah Way oh way oh way oh way oh Wav all way ah way ah way ah Way must de< troy this t ron ri-ver and tike down that wrewit ed snake who so e ver dares to cross me Copyright 2009 An Indiefn) Rights Reserve www art in dicnnghtsce serve com Figure 34. Excerpt from "Mahigan's Message," which apphes a more traditional sound Libretto by Spy Denomme-Welch / Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch Copyright Spy Denomme-Welch and Catherine Magowan GtmbDm 194 Act Two FuB Score >Act Two, Scene FounThe Murder] Fr«K£f*»S-« Wte ^SHS * «t&. we*re m - p& ~ «&8g1 ^«'recom mg wfes &VT >tss 5*%^!^ :&%i ™™IS f^^^g^^^J^1 l\ ^r# |# ^if~ff~Jtk0'f„ jLjii^^ 1003 By teg gtag aii fcr |j|*r£r#L^_, * ^ ^uf-.^-g^ * *• J. f£_^ "^IllfClZ^ "X •^'^^Ty::^^~^-j^"-~~'" ^ :^"^."^3a^„K:::::^s^ 3:?? 1 fc^J^f TT^I * J ( rffWfW^R. M^^m^^f *~)L3$Jk i^J'TP^"'pSf^ Figure 35. Excerpt from "The Murder" scene, which creates a more frenzied, industrialized affect Libretto by Spy Denomme-Welch / Music by Catherine Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch Copyright Spy Denomme-Welch and Catherine Magowan The text and the music between these scenes produce different meanings when inserted into a new context, and it is this kind of interconnection that supports and strengthens the stor}' as the prophecy behind "Mahigan's Message" proceeds to unfold before us. Where in Act One Mahigan states: "They're building their vision of 173 Empire Ontano," the text later shifts from 3,d to 1st person, from the "their" to "we" to "I" when The Minister declares: "I'm building m) vision of Ontario!" In this scene, the harpsichord helps facilitate the subtext b\ pushing the plot forward while creating sounds that represent colonial contact, and suddenly the notion of power and conflict takes on new a shape and form. While initially the vocables were employed in the onginal version and signified its cultural context, it becomes subverted into a more mechanical sound by using the metal stnngs of the harpsichord to evoke sounds of industnalization. This contextual transference of music and text are suddenly connected through space and time, thus connecting the plothne and characters. We witness the manifestation of "Mahigan's Message," which presents the contentious points of colonialism through music. Luc\ Green (2005) writes: "The mental acts involved in processing music backwards and forwards in time, and attending to the quality of the moment or processual flow, involve the making of meaningful connections between parts of the music being heard" (p. 79). Textually the shift from "Their vision of Empire Ontano" to "I'm building my vision of Ontario," which is supported through music, bnngs new light to the historical forms of lmpenahsm that has occurred in Ontano, which Bomta Lawrence (2002) outlines: In 1871, Ontano expanded its borders to seize control of a huge northern territory rich in natural resources. 'Empire Ontano,' as then premier Oliver Mowat termed it, stretched as far north as Hudson's Bay (although it took a senes of legal battles with the federal government to accomplish it), and spurred a rivalry with 174 the neighbouring pnving of Quebec when it expanded north along the east side of Hudson's Bay. In the late 1890s, the Liberal regime of Oliver Mowat, dominated b\ timber 'barons' whose immense profits had been made through logging central Ontario and the Temagami region, was succeeded by the Conservative regime of James Whitney. [...] Three northern railways were constructed to access timber, develop mineral resources, and access potential hydroelectric sites to power the resource industr). [...] As a rule, if the presence of Cree and Ojibway people hindered development, the newly created Department of Indian Affairs relocated them away from the area, (p. 44) A listener or \ lewer does not need to be of Aboriginal background to recognize or understand all the historical events that have shaped Ontario or this country. But in retelling this history, from an Indigenous perspective, opera allows for "the capacity of music to carry across times and places, allowing people from one culture to respond with enjoyment [or cntical perspectives] to music from other very different cultures" (Green, 2005, p. 81). The Musical Punctum as a Decolonizing Affect: In Camera Lucida (1980), Roland Barthes examines the punctum through photograph}, stating that it "is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)" (p. 27). In the context of music and composition, the concept of the punctum also has the capacity to create such pricking, which can affect one's memory 175 and experience of the world. Ivan Hewett (2003), author of Music: Healing the Rift, states: Music is a strangeh paradoxical thing. [...] Music subverts our categories; it stirs up passions, rouses long-dormant memories. It can change its meaning, spill over its own categories of genre and style, leap across cultural boundaries, mingle itself with the very thing that, a moment ago, it asserted its difference from. (p. 1) Music certainly is a paradoxical art form, which has the capacity to be simultaneously revealing and concealing of knowledge, memory and cultural boundanes. Like other forms of language (e.g., speech, text, visual, physical and emotional languages), music can impact our capacity to understand and express meaning about the world we come to understand. Therefore, to be self-reflexive and critical of one's own work, while at the same time being capable of listening to the critical views of others, is also revealing of a form of punctum through the music itself. However, the question remains: Is this pricking the result of an accident? I am not so sure that this is an accidental pricking, as much as it is perhaps an uncomfortable or unexpected one, which in my view may be more memorable and hkeh to leave a lasting impression on one's memory. It is quite interesting that even several months since the production, I continue to encounter people who saw the opera Giiwedin that arc willing to share with me 176 what lasting impressions and affects the work has had on them. When I ask what impressions these might be, I am frequently told that it is the portrayal of human relationships, including the bond between human and animal, that remains in their memon. When I inquire about what aspects of these relationships have left this impression, I am told it is inexpressible (i.e., some viewer say they cannot find the exact words that can adequately define their experience). This is especially poignant to me, as it reveals a demarcation from language, which is what typically characterizes music and stoiytelhng. Hewitt (2003) explains: "It's an aim as much mystical as musical, and it could be said that the banishing of the inherited vocabulary of music is a way of 'mortifying the flesh', a kind of stripping bare, very similar to the sort mystics have to go through" (p. 146). Conceivably, there are moments when the aesthetic experience of music and storytelling is stripped bare, and that there are no vocabularies to express the feelings we encounter. Suffice it to say, I am comfortable with this, as it reveals a tiansformative and decolonizing affect that music and storytelling can have on viewers/listeners. In many cases language and words are used as a way to intellectualize and interpret meaning from one's encounter and experience with music and storytelling; however, it is no less intellectual when one is unable to put this meaning into words. Rather, the inability to precisely express expenence(s) and/or feehng(s) through language can present several different interpretations about understanding, as well as 177 be used as a strategy or a tool for decolonizing dominant practices of storytelling, music-making, composing, and research. Instead, while such "silence" is commonly perceived as a form of submission (i.e., the effects of being colonized), it can also be perceived as disrupting our intellectual dependency on acqumng meaning through words or statistical information, which is often used as a means to validate what we think we have about the work's final product. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) notes: Although always ethnocentric and patriarchal, travellers' accounts remain interesting because of the details and sometimes perceptive (and on occasions reflective) comments made by some writers of the events they were recording. There was a consciousness expressed in some accounts of the 'need' to record what was seen in the interests of expanding knowledge and of the need to write things down before too many changes occurred to the peoples being observed, (pp. 78-9) As a scholar applying self-reflexi\e, auto-ethnographic observation methods, I did not seek to follow the tradition of writing things down "before too many changes occurred." Rather, I recognize that music is not a universal language, and it would have been presumptuous of me to record what I thought was being expressed b) others' reactions to the opera. Thinking or assuming that music is universal could lead to prescribing incorrect meamng(s) to the work itself, which anyone might be tempted to do as a wa\ to measure, if not validate its merits. Instead, I simply allowed the opera work to live on its own terms, by letting it be read, heard and interpreted 178 through various filters, and I recognize that this can change over time from viewer to viewer. Over the course of the opera's production, I attended each performance and watched how different audiences responded to the work. Some of the audience responses were consistent, while others I did not expect. For example, in the love scene (end of Act One) between Noodin-Kwe and Jean, audiences consistently laughed at the line "it's been some time since I've had a simple screw." On the other hand, it was only on opening night that the audience laughed at Doctor Carlton's lines during the first scene of Act One, which I did not expect at all. Although I did not interview or attempt to randomly survey the audiences who came out to see the opera, I do not believe this would have remotely captured the aesthetic experience that occurred within each of the performances. Albeit I can recount the moments in the opera when audiences laughed or cried, this does not quantify or qualify the experience either, as laughter and tears carry multiple meanings. I can make assumptions or draw conclusions from these observations, but ultimately I wonder what purpose this would serve within the larger scope of understanding and knowledge expansion? Of course it is interesting to note when precisely there were tears, laughter or gasps during each performance of Giiwedin, but what was most interesting to me was when these expressions of experience and feeling occurred at moments that I least expected. This was the musical punctum I had come to 179 experience, and like other social forms of dissonance this offers a strategy to decolonize research and the inherent assumptions we might be inclined to draw through the conclusions we make around the pedagogical impacts of experience and knowledge. Surely anyone could argue that there are several ways to draw conclusive data or results based on the audiences' responses to the opera, but then I question the purpose and intention behind the need to acquire this knowledge and the reasons for wanting to measure it. As a creator and co-collaborator of Giiwedin, this was not my artistic objective, but instead it was my goal to share a story through music, and to raise consciousness or conscious intent; and as a scholar it was my intention to observe the transformational effects this can have on performance, creation and cross- cultural collaboration, and the epistemological shifts I myself had expenenced throughout this process. 180 Bawahjige: Time: Circular. Location: Turtle Island. Biboonini. Bezhig-sh igo wiigiwaam, Anishinaabeg iwidi bimdigeyaa- wanidiwaad.6* They wanted to hear a story. So the story goes.66 Mewinzha. Mewinzha. There was a time when Anishnaabe was the first to walk on Turtle Island. Kitchi Manito67 had put Anishnaabe on Turtle Island in order to name all the h\ing things, such as plants, trees, and animals. While naming these things, Anishnaabe noticed that everything came in pairs: two oaks, two bears, two beavers, two ra\ens, and so forth. This made Anishnaabe feel rather lonely, having to walk and name living things all alone, and so Kitchi Manito sent Mahigan68 to accompany Anishnaabe on this journey. Together, Anishnaabe and Mahigan walked the entire earth aki, going about naming all living things. Kitchi Manito told them that over time they would develop a strong friendshippinzibiiwin. Indeed, the two of them became \ ery close, comme la famille, and the further they traveled the deeper the\ bonded, for they walked miles and miles together. Translation I dream 63 Translation It was wintertime There was a wigwam and the \nishnaabe all went in The following story is inspired by oral knowledge that teaches the importance of the relationship between humans and animals I draw on this story about Anishnaabe and Mahigan to illustrate the meaning of collaboration Translation Great Spirit Translation Wolf 181 One day, after walking the entire world, Anishnaabe and Mahigan were finished naming all the living things. They went to Kitchi Manito and were told they would be separated from this point on. They were told: "Now you two will go your separate ways. But no matter what, whatever happens to one of you is bound to happen to the other." Ever since going their separate ways, Anishnaabe and Mahigan have both experienced very similar e\ents, such as the loss of lands, oppression, violence and misunderstanding. But in spite of this, we have both survived through strength and courage and our ability to care for family and communitj. These are characteristics that both the Anishnaabe and Mahigan share, and this is what is important about this traditional story, as it teaches spiritual, physical and cultural sun tval. Mahigan n'doodem, and for me this traditional story carries vital teachings that are important to my own artistic process, which has helped me create and produce Giiwedin. Through musical collaboration I was able to articulate complex ideas with my collaborator, using oral tradition and musical theory, and at the same time listen to my collaborator's ideas and perspectives while walking along the path of storytelling. It is the close bond and subsequent separation between Anishnaabe and Mahigan that illustrates the critical ways in which we can remain independent - or true to our own voice(s) - all the while continuing to share and learn from one 182 another in respectful and canng wajs. This is what becomes of a health}' form of reciprocity and artistic growth. More importantly, through our opera, Giiwedin, we were able to share this experience with a larger community. Ivan Hewett (2003) states: "When a musical practice becomes this various, it becomes harder to discern or invent a narrative that makes sense of it all. 30 years ago new music was commonly described through the old 'great men' paradigm. Musical development was driven by a small number of seminal masteipieces, made, naturally enough, by men" (p. 152). The proximity of creation, which I have experienced through musical collaboration and composition has been profound and meaningful, and to share this experience with another composer is humbling. The place in which our collaborative, artistic voices have merged is not only symbolic of a decolonizing process, but is also one that represents a paradigm shift in music, where the borders between the sacred and secular are both ven much present, yet at the same time potentialh blurry. Because I am rather familiar with what it means to live among and between these dystopic borders, as is my collaborator, we both have had to walk through and beyond these boundaries in creating Giiwedin. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) explains: While disciplines are implicated in each other, particularly in their shared philosophical foundations, they are also insulated from each other through the maintenance of what are known as disciplinary boundaries. [...] Insularity protects a discipline from the 'outside', 183 enabling communities of scholars to distance themselves from others and, in the more extreme forms, to absolve themselves of the responsibility of what occurs in other branches of the discipline, in the academy and in the world, (p. 67) It was necessary to break down these walls and borders, and challenge notions of status and hierarchy in order to reflect the real message and meaning that was being conveyed through art, music and opera. Monique Mojica (2006) asserts: "It took generations to colonize us; some of it was very successful, and so it will take generations of us to De-colonize ourselves" (p. 35). Should this be the case, then inevitably we must learn to walk in the company of others, whether the} be Indigenous or non-Indigenous, in order to get through this colonial labyrinth. Or, as Paulo Fnere (1970/1981) states: "This lesson and this apprenticeship must come, however, from the oppressed themselves and from those who are truly solidary with them" (p. 29). If ever we were able to free ourselves from experiences of oppression by encountering a "postcolonial" space, would there still be a need for Indigenous resilience? Would remembrance and healing then become a new form of Indigenous resilience? Although we have not encountered such a thing as a "post," nor do I think we ever will in the Upical ways we would hope or expect, I believe we are in the process of recovering and creating new ways to tell stories. Using a variety of musical interventions, aesthetics and forms of artistic collaborations, we may begin to break down notions of "us" and "them" by rupturing, crossing and even transcending the rigid borderlines that divide and alienate people. 184 Nookum Speaks: Michael Angel (2002) explains that our traditions were "passed on orally from generation to generation precisely in order that the Ojibwa would always know who they were, where they had come from, how the\ fitted into the world around them, and how the)' needed to behave in order to ensure a long life" (p. 3). Miish akeyaa gaa izhi-bimaadiziwaad69 However, while this has been the way we preserved our knowledge, traditions and stones, we cannot ignore what affects historical colonialism has had on this practice. As we have been displaced, replaced, and remo\ ed through a sequence of colonial policies and tactics, which were ideologically motivated by the idea to "kill the Indian, save the man," the larger question for me is what about the women Anishnaabe-ikwel Growing up I would listen bizindan to nookum and m-maamaa, as the\ told me stones. Much like the way the ston of Giiwedin is told using three languages and underscored with music, I had to learn to listen bizindan carefull), and did I ever listen with excitement minotawan. But the stories were often accompanied by doing some sort of work, like the dishes or making preserves from the berries I had just picked on a walk in the bush with my grandfather. These were the places and spaces I 69 Translation That's how they lived 185 came to recognize as being Indigenous, matriarchal resistance, and where the stories of our people come through the heartbeat of the land. In listening to them there was a certain timbre to the voice when the) spoke, followed by the percussive rhythm of labour and concentration. Alternately the textures of their stones would change, all depending on if I was sitting alone with them listening like a captive audience or whether others were nearby who would interject with their own comments or version of the ston. At any rate, their stories were like arpeggios, as if each chord had captured a meaningful progression of thought, or that lessons were somehow buried within every note I heard. Though I did not know it then, I now realize that this was how I learned theory. In learning it, I was closer to mashkiki, and the closer I was to it, the closer I was to remembrance and healing. When I hear nookum and ni-maamaa say: "That river... you know that one that runs through Temiskaming? That was named after our ancestors..." I am reminded of the power of story and music. We may be able to name and claim spaces, or wipe away, erase and re-name places for the sake of conquest, but the fact is a river cannot be changed. The river has been our home. Its pulse keeps going, carrying with it the harmonies of our ancestors, which are connected through the land since time immemorial. So when the water flows through, making its way into the Great Deep Lake Kitchi-sibi, our peoples' songs can be heard in the drumming of each wave. And 186 before we know it, it returns back into the cycle of life and memory, leaving behind all but a whisper on the shore. Mii i 'iw!10 Conclusion: In my introduction, I raised the following questions How is Aboriginal storytelling changed through opera when it is transmitted through the practices of oral tradition? What opportunities and/or limitations do collaborations present to the development and telling of an Aboriginal story through opera? Additionally, I asked the following secondary questions Is it possible to decolonize opera and rectify distorted representations of Indigenous peoples from and within this art form, and if so what new meaning is created in developing an Indigenous opera? Can decolonizing opera be accomplished through musical hybridity and the creation of dissonance (textual and musical), which are aesthetics that permeate the work of GitwedirP Finally, what transpires in an opera in which Indigenous storytelling is written and performed in more than one language without any translation (i e, surtitles)? I addressed these questions in a number of ways, specifically through the various auto-ethnographic and self-reflexive observations I made, which were enhanced through the use of storytelling methods as a form of research methodology Translation That's it 187 I have also responded to each of these questions by incorporating observations I made and wrote about in my journals, and where possible I incorporated the voices of my collaborator and some of the singers who discussed their experiences (either in creating or performing the opera) in other forums such as media interviews and journal articles. By drawing on some these different creative perspectives and responses to the work, as well as reflecting on my own auto-ethnographic and self-reflexive observations around artistic practice, I was able to illustrate ways in which to incorporate other points of view and how to generate different meaning of musical choices. For example, I illustrated some of the initial challenges that Magowan and I were faced with when trying to develop methods for co-composing and how we managed to work through these issues so as to develop a more reciprocal and sustainable creative practice. Nevertheless we continued to discover new means of incorporating our voices while still teaching, learning and building upon each other's skills and knowledge. Apart from this, the most difficult yet perhaps most salient point of this work has been the one that has observed disruptions between different forms of knowledge, which includes trying to integrate Indigenous, academic and artistic practices at once. This research has chiefly grappled with this issue by exploring some of the 188 contentions between conflicting institutional desires, which has often positioned me both within and outside uncertain spaces. For example, as an Aboriginal scholar it is important to me to respect the traditional knowledge I possess, but from the institutional academic perspective it is also important that I cite this oral knowledge. However, this can be a rather precarious and difficult place to find oneself in, as it can be difficult to cite forms of blood memory, ancestral knowledge, and knowledge acquired from the land through lived experience. Similarly, through this work I managed to also explore some of the inherent challenges in creating artistic work from a position of traditional knowledge while simultaneously using contemporary, cross-musical genres and motifs. Such forms of hybridity point to the fact that it is possible to create different kinds of musical dissonance, which can be used to disrupt a range of cultural and musical binaries, such as how dissonance and tonality are defined. Finally, I aimed to integrate auto-ethnographic and self-reflexive observations using storytelling and Indigenous methods, which allowed me to put theory into practice. Instead of merely writing and/or discussing such strategies as an aside point or as being something that exists only on the peripheries of research, I chose to incorporate this practice directly into my research through oral traditional knowledge and Indigenous storytelling methods. Ultimately, telling stories and exploring how 189 they are created is central to my practice, and this work has helped illustrate ways in which other forms of research can be accomplished, using decolonizing methodologies and Indigenous knowledge. In the end, the various questions that have been raised and discussed concerning what meaning(s) and interpretation(s) are created through Indigenous opera, including the disrupting effects and influence of hybridity and dissonance, have all performed a significant role in broadening some of categories of opera creation and performance that hopefully move beyond the portrayals of "Indians" that we have seen in grand/epic settler narratives. 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London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. Taylor, B. W. (1993). The age of steam on lake Temiskaming. Cobalt, ON: Highway Book Shop. . (2003). New Liskeard: The pioneer years. Cobalt, ON' Highway Book Shop. Taylor, T. D. (1997). Peopling the stage: Opera, otherness, and new world representations in the eighteenth century. Cultural Critique, 36, 55-88. . (2007). Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World (Refiguring American Music). Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books. Tecumseh, K. (Composer). (1926). The land of my prairie dreams [Sheet music]. Chicago, IL: Rayner, Dalheim & Co. Music Printers. Telfer, A. H. (2004). Worth travelling miles to see: Diary of a survey trip to lake Temiskaming, 1886 L. DiCorpo, (Ed). Toronto: Natural Heritage Books. Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. (1931). Spend Your Vacation in Temagami: The Mecca of the Fisherman, the Hunter and the Tourist. [Brochure]. North Bay, ON: Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. . (1944). Serving the Industrial Northland of Ontario. [Brochure]. North Bay, ON: Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. The Bangles. (1986/2011). Walk like an Egyptian [Music video]. Retrieved from http://www.thebangles. com/news/news. asp?item=l 14520 The gospel set to grand opera, (n.d.) [Scorebook written by Teyet Ramar "Chief White Feather," publisher unidentified]. Copy in possession of the author. Theriault, M. K. (1992/2006). Moose to moccasins: The story ofKa Kita Wa Pa No Kwe (2nd ed). Toronto, ON: Natural Heritage Books. Todd, L. (1993). Imagination at the borders. In R. Baert (ed), Territories of Difference (pp. 20-29). Walter Phillips Gallery: The Banff Centre for the Arts. 208 Totten, G (2005) Zitkala-Sa and the problem of regionalism Nations, narratives, and critical traditions The American Indian Quarterly, 29 (1&2), pp 84-123 University of Nebraska Press Treuer, A (Ed) (2001) Living our language: Ojibwe tales & oral histories. 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Vennum, T (1989) The changing role of women in Ojibway In R Keeling (ed ), Women in North American Indian Music: Six Essays (pp 13-21) Bloomington, IN The Society for Ethnomusicology Vizenor, G (2008) Aesthetics of survivance Literary theory and practice In G Vizenor (Ed ), Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence (pp 1-24) Lincoln, NE University of Nebraska Press Webster, J P & John, T A (2010) Preserving a space for cross-cultural collaborations An Account of Insider/Outsider Issues Ethnography and Education, 5 (2), 175-191 Wengcr, H. W. (Composer & Librettist). (1925). The pride of the Sioux [Sheet music]. Sioux City, IA: C. M. Warfield. Williams, W. R. (Composer), Genaro, W. S. (Librettist). (1906). Napanee, or my 209 pretty little Indian Napanee [Sheet music]. Chicago, IL: Will Rossiter Publisher. Wright-McLeod, B. (2005). The encyclopedia of Native music: More than a century of recordings from wax cylinder to the internet. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. 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New York, NY: Penguin Books. 210 APPENDIX A Table 1 List of Production Credits for Giiwedin Gnwedin A Nativ e Earth Perionning Arts and An Indie(n) Rights Reserve Co-Production Librettist Spy Denomme-Wrelch Composers Cathenne Magowan and Spy Denomme-Welch Director Maria Lamont Musical Director and Conductor Gregory Oh Featuring (singers) Rjan Allen (John, Medical Student, Indian Agent, Weeping Forest) Neema Bickersteth (Timber Wolf, Medical Student, Weeping Forest) Cathann Caievv (Mahkwa, Medical Student, Weeping Forest) Jesse Clark (Jean, Medical Student, Weeping Forest) Lawrence Cotton (Doctor Carlton, Indian Agent, Weeping Forest) Nicole Joy-Fraser (Mahigan, Medical Student, Weeping Forest) Jessica Lloyd (Timber Wolf, Medical Student, Weeping Forest) James McLennan (The Minister, Medical Student, Weeping Foiest) and Marion Newman as Noodin-Kwe Music Ensemble Sara-Anne Churchill (Harpsichord) Maiy-Kathenne Finch (Violoncello) Lucas Harris (Archlute) Edwin Huizinga (Violin) Lighting Designer Michelle Ramsay Head of Props Lokki Ma Set Designer Camellia Koo Assistant Production Managei Cole J Alvis Costume Designer Jackie Chau Production Assistant Rebecca Vandevelde Choreographer Michelle Olson Production Assistant Suzie Balogh Costume Seamstress Jenny So Set Carpenteis Ian Chappell, Craig Smith Stage Manager Sarah O'Brien Head Carpenter Joey Monn Assistant Stage Manager Isidra Cruz Head Rigger Ben Chaisson Production Manager Beth Kates Head Technician Peter Eaton Assistant Director Ulla Laidlaw Scenic Painter Anna Treusch Assistant Technical Director Suzan Balogh Lighting Assistant Susie Jaroszewska Rehearsal Conductor Dallas Bergen Rehearsal Pianists Steph Chua, Yan Li, Sarah-Anne Churchill For Theatie Passe Muraille Production Manager (Ryan McDougall), Mamspace Technician (Peter Eaton), Front of House'Box Office Managei (Liz M Janzen) 211 Table 2 List of Award Nominations for Giiwedin Gnwedin was nominated for two Dora Awards in the following categories: 1. Outstanding New Musical / Opera (Spy Denomrae-Welch & Catherine Magowan) 2. Outstanding Musical Direction (Gregory Oh) The awards ceremony took place June 28, 2010 in Toronto, ON. 212 APPENDIX B Note: The following sheet music covers are from the author's personal collection. For more information, see references. •••n»-w-^i- TiL' •* \ J * r » ! • alt* »i • v. - 4 ' ' ' i 1c' -.*•' _(•---'. -• < 111 «* 1 •v-r\£>y* -v. i * . t A * ' * + * * ~" - - * " - . r i t -Si'J "• * # - — * . A , 213 Coier of While the Tom Tom Plays sheet music Co\ er of Tippecanoe A Comic Indian Sons' sheet Music by C P McDonald & Walter Coleman music Music bv Egbert Van AlsUne and text b\ Harry Parkei (New York NY 1904) From author's Williams (New "V ork NY Shapiro Remick and personal collection Companv 1904) From author s peisonal collection 214 >*1 1 r - / r 4 1 •* l .") >' ,*:. i* •:» 4« I* rs i wi f"* . f,V- >* v I' •» 'til . J.' •'.*»• I1** **»• v • Covei of Napanee, or My Pretty Little Indian Cover of Cloud-Chief sheet music Music by J Napanee sheet music Text by Will S Genaro Ernest Phihe (Boston MA Walter Jacobs, 19W) and music by W R Williams (Chicago, 1L From author's personal collection Will Rossiter Publisher 1906) From author's personal collection Cover of The Lost Phase sheet music. Music by Cover of My TomToni Man sheet music. Text by Gus Harry J. Lincoln (Williamsport, PA: Vandersloot Kahn and music by Egbert Van Alstyne (New York, Music Pub. Co. 1907). From author's personal NY: Shapiro, Remick and Company, 1915). From collection. author's personal collection. 216 Cover of My Tammany: A paleface pow-wow Cover of Rain in the Face: Comic song sheet sheet music. Text by Vincent Bryan and music music. Text and music by Benjamin Hapgoocl by Cms Edwards (New York, NY: M. Witmark Burt (New Y'ork, NY: Jerome H. Remick & & Sons, 1905). From author's personal Co., 1907). From author's personal collection, collection. 217 Cover of I'm Going on the Warpath sheet Cover of Injun Gal sheet music. Text by P. music. Text by Felix F. Feist and music by C. Mason and music by Ellis R. Ephraim Joel P. Corin (New York, NY: Leo Feist, (New York, NY: M. Witmark & Sons, 1907). From author's personal collection. 1905). From author's personal collection. Co\ er of Big Chief Battle A\e sheet music Text Co\ er of That Tomahank Rag sheet music Text and music bv Thos S Allen (Boston MA bv Earl Dow rang and music bv Allen Spurr Waltei Tacobs 1907) From author s personal (Marion IN The Allen Spurr Music Publishing collection Co 1912) From author s personal collection 219 Cover of Arrah Wanna sheet music Text b\ Jack Cover of Montauk waltzes sheet music Music by Duslane and music by Theodore Morse (New "V ork, William H Fry (Brooklyn NY The Sterling NT\ F B Haviland Publishing Company, 1906) Piano Co ,1904) From author's personal From author's personal collection collection 220 Co\ er of Feathers intermezzo sheet music Music bv Cover of \i\ Wild Deer sheet music Text b\ Karl Lenox (Boston MA Eckerson Music Pub Co Alfied Bryan and music bv Ted Snvder (New 190S) From author s personal collection \ ork N\ Ted Snvder Co Music Publishers 1908) From author s personal collection 221