The IkKaumajammik Project: Adult Drama Groups in Nunatsiavut - Tim Borlase & Martha MacDonald

Track:
Health
What:
Talk
Part of:
Health 7
When:
9:30 AM, Sunday 6 Oct 2019 (30 minutes)
Where:
Sherbrooke Pavilion (SH) - SH-3720
How:
In 2014, President Johannes Lampe of the Nunatsiavut Government returned from the filming of Abraham’s Diary in which he participated as a presenter. The experience prompted him to suggest that the formation of drama groups for adults in Nunatsiavut could be a vehicle for the promotion of mental wellness in northern Labrador communities. Because of the long tradition of original playwriting and performance in all regions of Labrador through the Labrador Creative Arts Festival, now in its 44th year, theatre is a known form of knowledge transmission in the region, and the idea of a Tradition and Transition project to create and perform plays in each Nunatsiavut community was supported.

This presentation will discuss the plays created in the communities of Nain, Makkovik, Rigolet, and Hopedale during 2017 and 2018 and will show how the familiar format and intergenerational participation in the creative process allowed each community to address its current concerns through writing and performance. Plays presented issues as diverse as violence, climate change, gambling addiction and shift in traditional lifestyles, while using music, comedy, dance and poetry to reinforce the intended message.

The presentation will include selected readings from the completed scripts and excerpts from recorded interviews with Inuit participants and will highlight the diversity of creative processes and products from the region, showing that while individual community concerns diverge, this method of expressing them continues to function due to familiarity with playwriting and performance over three generations in Labrador.

Session detail
Allows attendees to send short textual feedback to the organizer for a session. This is only sent to the organizer and not the speakers.
To respect data privacy rules, this option only displays profiles of attendees who have chosen to share their profile information publicly.

Changes here will affect all session detail pages