Dance Victoria 2024/25 Season - Dancers of Damelahamid

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Dancers of Damelahamid Raven Mother January 24, 2025 • 7:30 pm McPherson Playhouse Running time: 75 minutes (no intermission) The McPherson Playhouse is located on the traditional lands of the Lekwungen peoples, also known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. We extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live, create, and perform on this territory.

Dancers of Damelahamid in Ravel Mother. Photo: Chris Randle

Please, no video or audio recording of any kind. No photographs.

About Raven Mother Artistic Director and Choreographer: Margaret Grenier Set Designer and Artwork: Andrew Grenier Regalia Designer and Creator: Rebecca Baker-Grenier Song Composer and Vocalist: Raven Grenier Collaborating Composer: Ted Hamilton Lighting Designer: Jeff Harrison Projection Designer: Andy Moro Collaborating Director: Charles Koroneho Northwest Coast Artists: David A. Boxley, David R. Boxley, Jim Charlie, Raven Grenier, Kandi McGilton, Dylan Sanidad Composers of the song “Strong Woman”: Derrick Keeswood, Verrona Keeswood, Lawrence Trottier Elders: Betsy Lomax, Lawrence Trottier Production/Stage Manager: Andy Grenier Technical Director: Jeff Harrison Wardrobe Assistant: Stevie Hale-Jones Collaborating Producer and Agent: Eponymous World Premiere: October 9, 2024 The Cultch Theatre, Vancouver, Canada Raven Mother is a co-production of the CanDance Network Creation Fund, Dance Victoria, DanceWorks, National Arts Centre and Danse Danse.

Raven Mother is Dancers of Damelahamid’s newly choreographed dance work in honour of late Elder Margaret Harris (1931–2020). Raven Mother illustrates the vast impact

Elder Harris had on the revitalization of Indigenous dance along the Northwest Coast, and the integral role of women in holding cultural knowledge. It celebrates our mothers who created the stronghold of these artforms and influenced the next generation of women. Raven Mother illuminates the profound leadership of mothers, their essential contribution in this resurgence, and the force and transformation of this awakening.

Raven Mother is Dancers of Damelahamid’s most ambitious production and is the culmination of generations of artistic and cultural work. Movement, song, regalia, sculpture, and design are interwoven with the embodied narrative. The Raven crest, manifested in multiple forms, embodies transformation, the strengthening of culture, the unveiling of a new spirit, and breathing life into a promise made to the children of generations to come.

Raven Mother speaks to our current realities, drawing from a rich lineage of teachings and insights. Innovation is conditional upon revealing the truths of today to pursue cultural endurance and intergenerational sustenance. Raven Mother is a tangible remembrance of a woman’s spirit, marking the shift between generations that has sparked a new role for our daughters as the force to hold their grandmother’s vision.

Late Elder Margaret Harris was a respected Cree Elder from Northern Manitoba. She spent a large part of her life on the Northwest Coast of BC with her husband Chief Kenneth Harris (1928–2010) and trained under Gitxsan Matriarch Irene Harris (1888–1972). She dedicated her life to the revitalization and teaching of Indigenous cultural practices, including song, dance, stories, and regalia making. Together, Elder Margaret Harris and Chief Harris founded Dancers of Damelahamid in 1967.

Dancers of Damelahamid in Raven Mother. Photos: Michael Slobodian

Created and Produced by Dancers of Damelahamid

Statement from Margaret Grenier

Dancers of Damelahamid in Raven Mother. Photo: Michael Slobodian

Dancers of Damelahamid started in the 1960s under the leadership of our parents Chief Kenneth Harris and Margaret Harris. At that time the focus was on dance revitalization, following the lifting of the Potlatch Ban (1884–1951). I was born into this dance lineage and my role as a leader for the company has grown over the past 20 years. In 2010, our company began taking contemporary approaches to create newly choreographed works based on our ancestral form.

Through this we are establishing our cultural dance form and addressing decolonization within dance.

Raven Mother is a very personal piece for our family, and we have put all our efforts into realizing this work. It recognizes

the legacy left by the lifetime of work that my mother Margaret Harris gave to her family and the dance community, as a Cree woman who married into a Gitxsan dance lineage. It is a work that acknowledges the vital role that women have held in this intergenerational dance practice, as visionaries, as caregivers, and as catalysts that have ensured the survival of the practice itself. It is a piece that speaks to both the beauty and the hardships of this journey as women, the love we have for our children, and the hope they bring us.

Performers

Read the company’s full biographies by scanning this QR code with your smartphone’s camera.

Rebecca Baker-Grenier

Nigel Baker-Grenier

Renée Harris

Raven Grenier

Performer photos provided by Dancers of Damelahamid; Margaret Grenier in Raven Mother. Photos: Andrew Grenier.

Margaret Grenier

About Dancers of Damelahamid

Dancers of Damelahamid in Raven Mother. Photo: Michael Slobodian

Dancers of Damelahamid is an Indigenous dance company founded upon over five decades of extensive work of song and dance revitalization. For countless generations, Indigenous dance played an integral part in defining art and culture. The lifting of the Potlatch Ban (1884–1951) saw the resurfacing of dance and the awakening of an art form that was outlawed for almost 70 years. Dancers of Damelahamid emerged in the 1960s out of an urgency to ensure that these artistic practices were not lost.

Dancers of Damelahamid has since established itself as a leading professional Indigenous dance company. The company’s artistic approaches have contributed to its abilities to bridge creative practices and to work with innovative media,

while maintaining commitment to the integrity of its artistic legacy. It is through continual and diligent practice that this dance form endures as non-static and relevant to current innovation, influence, and insights.

Dancers of Damelahamid has produced several theatrebased productions and choreographed dance works. The company has produced the annual Coastal Dance Festival since 2008, presenting Indigenous dance from the Northwest Coast as well as hosting guest national and international Indigenous artists. Dance Victoria last presented Dancers of Damelahamid in 2018, when the company performed the innovative multimedia dance piece Flicker at the McPherson Playhouse.

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Additional support for Dance Victoria’s presentation of Dancers of Damelahamid and related outreach activities is generously provided by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.