The Honour Songs project
Edmonton has the second-largest Aboriginal population in Canada – a diverse group that includes many talented artists exploring the arts in different ways. The indigenous women who helped build this city have come from a variety of starting points – ethnically, culturally, religiously, economically and socially.
Honour Songs celebrates the contributions of these Aboriginal women, past and present. The poetry of Honour Songs crosses boundaries of language and of form – song, monologue, chant – to reveal aspects of the lives of real women with a larger, richer reality than the distorted image often captured by media and mainstream history.
The coordinators have invited poetry submissions from the Aboriginal community of Edmonton, which are being incorporated into a visual art installation and a performance. The installation uses the motif of shawls, evoking of women’s work, grace, warmth and comfort. The performance draws on traditional and modern styles of vocal and movement work. Through the power of voice and body, a group of women will bring the words off the page and weave them together into a new, distinctive garment of breath and energy.
The installation will be on view at City Hall September 15 – 19th and at Muttart Hall (MacEwan Alberta College) from September 20 – 23rd, in conjunction with the Word Symposium there. This performance will be seen:
- As a version for high school students at Victoria School for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, September 19 at 1 p.m.
- In part at CBC Centre Stage (Edmonton Centre) on Tuesday, September 18 at noon.
- In its entirety as part of the Gala finale for the Poetry Festival and Word Symposium, on Saturday, September 22nd, at Muttart Hall.
Honour Songs is coordinated by Marilyn Dumont, Anna Marie Sewell and Tanya Lukin-Linklater
We offer this multi-faceted work as an attempt to lift up an Honour
Song that begins to reflect the multi-faceted beauty and strength of
Aboriginal women of this city.
Anna Marie Sewell
