Close your eyes and imagine you are on the banks of the mighty Klondike and Yukon rivers in Dawson City; you hear the rush of each body of water as it meets, each energy weaving together to create something new and numinous. The force of this energy is the inspiration behind Raven Spirit Dance’s production of Confluence, a contemporary dance piece that brings together traditional Indigenous ways of knowing with modern dance to create imagery that reflects each artist’s values and relationship to the land.
“It’s about us weaving in and around each other, it’s about moving forward,” says Raven Spirit Dance co-founder and co-artistic director Michelle Olson. “The piece tracks how we move forward in generations.”
The artists involved in the piece span an age range from those in their 20s to those in their 50s.
“It is about the process of sharing knowledge, passing knowledge, and then also being in relationship to each other in community,” says Olson, “and in specifically being a circle of women.”
For many Indigenous cultures, the role of women as leaders in their society is directly tied to the land, because the Earth’s cycles are imprinted in her body. This understanding stems from a worldview in which the land is pedagogy. The work that Raven Spirit Dance does to honour the land and ancestors, as well as the physical and mental space in which they create, is just as important as the finished product.
“I will smudge the space at the beginning, or have smudge available during rehearsal,” says Olson, who is a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation. “We have circle to make sure we are in relationship to each other, and we sing ourselves in and we sing ourselves out.”
This practice allows the artists to orient themselves into the work through song and leave the work in the room through song. Olson likens the creation process to that of the flight pattern of geese.
“There’s a leader and then then when the leader falls back, someone else takes the lead and we are all supporting the flight, the journey,” says Olson.
This collaboration process won Raven Spirit Dance an Isadora award in 2023, the first time a collective had taken the provincial dance award home. This speaks strongly to the matriarchal power of the group, who understand the generative power of a circle of women.
“I think in this very capitalist, regimented society that’s all angles and lines and roads that intersect, there is not the circles that we need,” says Olson. “I think that circle is important.”
Confluence has been in development for the better part of 10 years and has seen many people leave their mark on its evolution. Throughout the process the group has sought council from the land, venturing to the headwaters of Lynn Canyon to pay homage and seek wisdom from her waters. The group will feast and create a spirit plate for the ancestors as a way of honouring and acknowledging that they are always in the room as part of the creation process. Another part of that creation process is when arts organizations want to work with Indigenous artists, and Olson says that needs to be done with the right intent.
“Let the artist lead the conversation,” says Olson, “rather than being slotted in because you need an Indigenous person for the part, [or] because you need a certain number of diversity people involved.”
Confluence
7 pm Saturday, February 17
Pay what you can, starting at $5, UVic Farquhar Centre
uvic.ca/farquhar