Laughter connects hearts and minds at Openings: A Cultural Sharing
The Firehall presents the wide-ranging series as part of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival
Rosemary Georgeson. Photo by David Cooper
The Firehall Arts Centre in partnership with Vancouver Moving Theatre presents Openings: A Cultural Sharing as Part of the 2021 Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival November 3 to 6 at 7:30 pm nightly at the Firehall Arts Centre.
WHEN ROSEMARY GEORGESON, a storyteller, filmmaker, and performer of Coast Salish Dené descent, and Firehall Arts Centre artistic producer Donna Spencer hosted In the Beginning: A Cultural Sharing at the 2020 Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, they didn’t know what to expect. Over several days, Indigenous elders, knowledge keepers, story-tellers, artists, and activists from the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories and beyond gathered, virtually, for unscripted conversations. The goal was to help fill in the many blanks related to the recorded history of present-day Vancouver. What arose were moving, candid, and powerful personal memories and experiences.
In the Beginning was indeed just the beginning.
Building on last year’s event, a similar program is taking place at the 2021 Heart of the City Festival. It’s called Openings: A Cultural Sharing. The topics that will be explored throughout the multi-day event by members of several different First Nations are wildly diverse—from canoe culture to what it’s like for queer Indigenous people to work in the arts—and yet there is a thematic through line, Georgeson says: humour.
“One of my favourite memories as a kid was going with my dad up to Mill Bay to the canoe races up there,” Georgeson tells Stir in a phone interview. “I remember my dad just standing there smiling watching people playing slahal—bone games—sitting on two logs across from each other on the beach, and that kept going through my mind as we were talking about canoe power, it was the humour that we share and the resilience that we find in our humour that keeps us moving forward.
“The theme of the festival this year is ‘stories we need to hear’, and as an Indigenous person, it has been a rough year, never mind COVID but with so many other things going on in our world. We all need to laugh. Humour gets us through a lot of things. Lots of people don’t even realize we have a crazy, quirky sense of humour,” she says—laughing. “It always existed in our home growing up.
“Every time I’m somewhere and slahal is being played, everybody is always smiling and laughing,” Georgeson adds. “You hear the drumming back and forth and the banter. I love that connection of laughter. I’m looking forward to every one of these events because each one is going to be different from the other, but I know everybody who’s on the panels, and they have the most incredible sense of humour.”
Keith “Bubbas” Nahanee.
Openings: A Cultural Sharing launches on November 3 at 7:30 pm with Women Standing Their Ground in the Arts. Metis filmmaker Loretta Todd (Monkey Beach) and multidisciplinary Cree/Saulteaux artist Renae Morriseau (M’Girl) will connect with other ground-breaking female artists for a conversation about the challenges and successes of women in the creative sector. “These are strong women; they’re all amazing, incredible artists,” Georgeson says. “I don’t think you can get any more powerful than that.”
On November 4 at 7:30 pm, the presentation is Openings: Queer Indigenous Stories in the Arts, featuring Billy Merasty, an actor, playwright, Cree translator, and language keeper; and Bernie Williams (Gul-Giit-Jaad; Golden Spruce Woman) an advocate, activist, and master carver of St’langng Jaanas/Laanas clan in Haida Gwaii.
Openings: Canoe Power takes place on November 5. Squamish elder Bob Baker, one of the leaders in bringing canoe culture back to the West Coast, will join other advocates to discuss the impact of the resurgence of the canoe in First Nations’ lives.
“You can’t have canoe stories without having humour,” Georgeson says, adding with a laugh: “Maybe we’ll delve into a little bone games.”
Finally, the series wraps up on November 6 with Openings: Is That Really Funny? with Squamish comic Keith “Bubbas” Nahanee, actor Curtis Ahenakew, and stand-up comic and playwright Brenda Prince.
“I hope that people hear or witness things that resonate for them,” Georgeson says of Openings. “It’s such a wide range of topics, but when you’re witnessing, hearing and seeing with every part of you, you have a responsibly when you leave; you’re carrying the stories of what you saw that night and have to be truthful and honest about them.
“I think about what we need more of, and we need to hear these stories; maybe that’s helping us in our healing,” she adds. “Laughter is always healing. It definitely has a healing component to it.”
For more information, see Firehall Arts Centre and Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival.
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