As part of the upcoming Indigenous Dance Double Bill, our CoWorks series will present Brian Solomon’s the NDN way. Here, we ask Brian about story telling and re-imagining in his new work.
DANCEWORKS: the NDN way is inspired by an original recording of Cree storyteller Ron Evans. Can you tell us more about this inspiration?
BRIAN: My friend Cindy Bisaillion had a forty-year career with CBC IDEAS as a radio documentary maker. Several times over the years, Cindy mentioned to me the first documentary she ever made was called, THE INDIAN WAY. It was an hour-long interview with a Cree man named Ron Evans. Then, one day, as she was cleaning her house she discovered an old tape recording of the documentary. We listened. It was amazing. I had never heard someone speak so succinctly on vast indigenous concepts and beliefs in just one hour. I said to myself, “I must recover this from the radio-time-vault. I must do something with this”.
DANCEWORKS: How did you move from inspiration to creation to performance? What was your process?
BRIAN: It’s different every time. Often though, it starts with images; ones I’m haunted by; ones that appear in dreams, or even during my morning shower. I believe everything in this world is speaking a language of images – the plants, animals, stones, water, and all of us are using pictures to communicate with each other. It unite us. I began as a visual artist, so I create the images, and move them around in space and time to tell a story in a collage type manner.
DANCEWORKS: Thank you, Brian.
the NDN way (part of an INDIGENOUS DANCE DOUBLE BILL. Margaret Grenier’s and Karen Jamieson’s light breaking broken will be presented at 7pm)
March 30-April 1, 2017, 9pm @AKI Studio
Interpreted by: Brian Solomon and Mariana Meinke
