LEPAGE AU SOLEIL

8th July 2021

Online

In 2018, the celebrated Canadian director Robert Lepage collaborated with the Théâtre du Soleil to produce KANATA: a work that imagined the meeting of Europeans with First Nations people of Canada over a period of two centuries. In an open letter published by Québec newspaper Le Devoir, a group of Indigenous actors, writers, activists and artists protested against the production's lack of Indigenous performers and authors, saying that they were fed up with “hearing other people tell our stories." The resulting debate led to the cancellation of all planned North American performances, although a version of the play was presented at the Cartoucherie in Paris, under the title KANATA, ÉPISODE 1: LA CONTROVERSE.

In July 2021, ORIGINS brought together Innu writer Maya Cousineau Mollen, one of the signatories to the letter of protest, with Soleil actors Vincent Mangado and Dominique Jambert, who played leading roles in KANATA, to reflect on the controversy surrounding the show. Attendees were encouraged to watch an online screening of the film LEPAGE AU SOLEIL before joining. The online talk, presented in collaboration with the CRE-ACTORS project, was attended by people across a wide range of countries both in Europe and the Americas, and explored relationships between Indigenous peoples and European cultures, and the working out of colonial legacies.

Click here for an edited transcript of the conversation pp.50-55.