The show will take you on a journey from place to place across campus. As you travel, you will hear interviews with land defenders from 1492 Land Back Lane, and at each stop you will experience a performance devised by students that focuses attention on a different aspect of colonialism on this land.

A lot of learning and unlearning is needed to imagine a show about Indigenous sovereignty and colonialism on this land. Each of us came to the work from our own location and brought knowledges and perspectives from our personal histories and social contexts. The process started from core questions that have led us to where we are today: where have your people been from? What have your ancestors done to make it possible for you to be here today?

Our work on this show is built on the labour of many Indigenous artists, scholars and knowledge keepers and we would like to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to them. A sense of the range of our engagement can be seen in the research board we have used for the multiple classes that have produced this show.

We would like to offer special thanks to Michelle St. John, the director of the documentary Colonization Road. Ange Loft for her powerful Talking Treaties workshop and Kathy Knott for the knowledge shared with our class by the fire.

Our collaboration with Mohawk poet Kahsenniyo Williams and the 1492 Land Back Lane defenders has made the themes of colonialism at the heart of this show both urgent and local.

The concept of the show was directly informed by Morgan Harper Nichols’ poem: Lessons from Monarch Butterfly Migration.

In this work, the students are engaging with the Treaties and environmental sustainability with a focus on Indigenous sovereignty. These can be challenging topics considering how education, politics and the media often portray these as Indigenous issues rather than a direct result of ongoing colonialism. Each work represents where the students are in their analysis, and what they would like to express to their peers in the audience.

The show is the result of three classes in the Theatre and Film Studies program and we extend our gratitude to all students whose important contributions has helped bring us to the journey you will experience tonight.We want to express our special thanks to those actors and crew who have volunteered their time to make this production possible.

Content Warning: Issues of colonial oppression, intergenerational trauma, depictions of racism, racist language, mention of suicide.

Directors: Cole Alvis and Peter Cockett
Dramaturgy: Kahsenniyo Williams
Production Designer: Kelly Wolf
Technical Director: James Kendal
House Technician: Grace Pender
Show Stage Manager: Kenzie Barrera
Stage Managers: Tatiana Selgrad, Yiman Zhang, Tavreet Gill, Laryssa Pichocki, Ekaterina Manukyan
Audience Managers: Sinead Gono, Anhad Ranu, Larissa Padayachee, Jaehyeok Choi
Sound Editing: Paulene Cabang
Sound Design: Ana Skrtic
Video Editing: Nate Legros, Travis Nguyen, Yalei Wu, Xiao Yu Qu
Set Design: Yakari Alfaro-Laganse
Costume Design: Raymone Zhang, Jessica Russo, Bianca Mancino, Kelly Wolf
Props Design: Bianca Mancino
Lighting and Multimedia Operator: Jessica Russo

Opening Video
Yalei Wu

I Wish
Creator/Performer: Kahsenniyo Williams
Director: Travis Nguyen
Editing (I Wish): Xiao Yu Qu

Future Daughters
Creators: Cole Alvis, Peter Cockett, Enoyogiere Ebhonu, Rana Hamdy, Liberty Liu & Saad Sheikh
Costume and Make-up Design: Jessica Russo
Sebayt (purple): Rana Hamdy
Zhang Ling (pink): Liberty Liu Mambhele (green): Enoyogiere Ebhonu Sitara (yellow): Saad Sheikh

The concept of the Future Daughters was inspired by Ancestral Resilience and Joy created for 3PS3 Devising New Plays, Spring 2021, by Tarah Ahmad, Britney Dortona, and Kindrey Krol, by Kahsenniyo’s poem I Wish, and by Syrus Marcus Ware’s Ancestors, do you read us?.

Interviews with land defenders from 1492 Land Back Lane were recorded at Kahnonstaton and the Niagara River.

The Land Defenders
Kahsenniyo Williams
Myka Burning

Two of the land defenders have chosen to remain anonymous to protect their identities from the police.

Interview Transcription: Mads Clement
Sound Editing: Paulene Cabang and Peter Cockett
Production Manage: Kenzie Barrera
Camera Operators: Vanessa Eisele, Travis Nguyen, Xiao Yu Qu, Yalei Wu

Water is the source of life. As part of the process students were asked to name a waterway of significance to their ancestors. Riverside focuses on a local waterway of great significance, the Grand River. In 1794 Lord Haldimand granted the land 6 miles deep on both sides of the Grand River to the Six Nations in gratitude for their service to the British in the American Revolutionary War. Since that time the land has gradually been stolen from the Indigenous Peoples by local, provincial, and Federal governments. The piece asks the question, if the river could speak, what stories would we hear?
The creators drew directly from the Six Nations elected council’s careful documentation of the history of the Haldimand Tract in Land Rights: A Global Solution for the Six Nations of the Grand River.

Credits
Creators: Vanessa Eisele, Aleria McKay, Tatiana Selgrad & Sarah Worron
Directors: Aleria McKay, Tatiana Selgrad, Sarah Worron Costume Design: Raymone Zhang Fisherman 1 (movement): Robb Gendron Fisherman 2 (movement): Catherine Glavina River Memory 1 (movement): Sarah Worron
River Memory 2 (movement): Lily Osburn
Fisherman 1 (voice): Robb Gendron
Fisherman 2 (voice): Maddy Hickey
1787 Indigenous (voice): Shantell Powell
1787 Settler (voice): Sarah Worron
1824 Indigenous (voice): Stacy De Berner
1824 Settler (voice): Maddy Hickey
1831 Indigenous (voice): Jesse Wabegijig
1831 Settler (voice): Tarah Ahmad
1835 Indigenous (voice): Aqua Nibii Waawaaskone
1835 Settler (voice): Lily Osburn
Child D (voice): Parker de Berner
Child A (voice): Lily Osburn
Vocalables: Aqua Nibii Waawaaskone

Characters traverse the edges of immigration, racism, and unsustainable carbon footprints in the absence of respect for the treaties that make it possible to touch down at Pearson Airport. Passengers and airport personnel share their reflections on what it means to call stolen land their home.

The creators were inspired by the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, and the teachings from Elder Kathy Knott.

Credits
Creators: Rana Hamdy, Chris Liu & Travis Nguyen
Director: Travis Nguyen Costume Design: Raymone Zhang
Child 1: Jordan De Groot
Child 2: Jyoti Rai Janitor: Kabir Sachdeva Mother: Saadia Fatima Security Guard: Zachary Thomas Voices: Stacy de Berner, Chris Liu & Rana Hamdy
Airport builds on the work of several pieces produced last Fall in THRFLM 3PS3 Devising New Plays. Emma Yim’s one act play, Where I Am, Syed Usman Jafer and Theo Wilson’s short film Whose Land, and Yalei Wu’s Spring solo project.

The fence is a colonial imposition on this land. It divides land into parcels of personal property and as such stands in conflict with Indigenous world views and treaties that ask us share resources equitably and to live in reciprocal relationship with the land. Fences uses a conflict between two settler neighbours over their property line as a springboard for an exploration of the different world views proposed by colonial law and the sacred treaties of the Wampum belts: the Two-Row and The Dish with One Spoon.

It draws text from the Royal Proclamation, from the Haldimand Proclamation, from Ange Loft’s workshop Talking Treaties held at McMater this Fall, and from the teachings of Elder Kathy Knott.

Credits
Creators: Kindrey Krol, Bianca Mancino & Laryssa Pichocki
Director: Kindrey Krol
Costume Design: Bianca Mancino
Trey: Cieran Diebolt Fiona: Isabella Stavropoulos
Noises: Kindrey Krol
Movement: Catherine Allen

Fences builds on the work of Nate Legros and Alexis ??? and their radio play The Uninvited Fence, a radio play created for 3PS3 Devising New Plays, Fall 2021.

Spoken word poet, Kahsenniyo Wiliiams, spits fire and truth in her work. She brings to life the realities and struggles of being an Indigenous person in a modern society. Utilizing her personal story of teenage motherhood, intergenerational trauma, activism and decolonization she engages audiences and participants. She is also a leading force in the 1492 Land Back Lane defence, as is Myka Burning who is also featured in this location

1492 Land Back Lane Interview
Interviewer: Kahsenniyo Williams
Interviewee: Myka Burning
Editing and Projection Design: Peter Cockett
Camera Operators: Vanessa Eisele, Travis Nguyen, Xiao Yu Qu, Yalei Wu
Difficult to Love
Creator/Performer: Kahsenniyo Williams
Director: Travis Nguyen
Editing (I Wish): Travis Nguyen
Camera Operators: Vanessa Eisele, Travis Nguyen, Xiao Yu Qu, Yalei Wu

The land defence at 1492 Land Back Lane is ongoing. If you wish to contribute to the legal defence fund to support the land defenders, you may do so here.

Stacy de Berner, an off-reserve Chippewa from Beausoleil First Nation and now a 3rd year English and Cultural Studies student at McMaster wrote Birchbark, describing her mother Lillian Elsie’s tumultuous life. Her mother experienced abuse, foster care through the Sixties Scoop, poverty, enfranchisement from her reserve, loss of Indian Status, and other atrocities at the hands of the government and by Treaties long ignored. This piece seeks to tells one Indigenous woman’s story of colonialism which ultimately ended with Lillian Elsie’s suicide in 1989 when Stacy was only 12. By sharing this story orally, as traditionally done by Indigenous peoples, Stacy aims to explore and illuminate the intergenerational violence and trauma of Settler contact and employ it as a tool of decolonization.
For information, maps, and the history surrounding these Treaties and settlements, please visit Chippewas and Mississaugas Williams Treaties First Nations and the Beausoleil First Nation to learn about Stacy’s ancestor Chief Yellowhead.

Writer and Director: Stacy De Berner
Creative Team: Yakari Alfaro-Laganse, Stacy De Berner & Jessica Russo
Elsie (movement): Shima Clarke
Owl/Elder (movement): Dylan Monson
Nurse (movement): Vanessa Eisele
Elsie (voice): Stacy De Berner
Owl/Elder (voice): Shantell Powell
Nurse (voice): Sarah Worron
Arty (voice): Alex de Berner
Queenie (voice): Parker de Berner
Chief Yellowhead (voice): Jesse Wabegijig
Mother Iris (voice): Nicole Joy-Fraser
Vocalables: Aqua Nibii Waawaaskone

When reflection on family histories and the way they are entangled with national identities, it can be hard to confront the crimes of those who came before and question the assumptions we have about our nations. It can be a challenge to see the path forward. Emperors brings an international perspective to the complexities of historical and ongoing colonialism.
The Emperors scene was informed by the creators personal research into the histories of China, Taiwan and Canada, and by the article “Healing Words” by Helen Davidson.

Credits
Creators: Mykenzie Barrera, Zezhou Chen, Xiao Yu Qu, Raymone Zhang & Yiman Zhang
Director: Zezhou Chen Costume Design: Raymone Zhang
Miya: Mimi Han
Li Shimin: Zezhou Chen
Professor: Jenna Bienstock
Andrew: Chris Liu
Kale: Aaron Houghton