Indigenous Language Revitalization and the Arts

Laura Michel is an Adams Lake Band member from the Secwepemc Nation in the BC interior. Grandchild of Joe and Anna Michel and Les and Lucy Williams. She is a Thompson Rivers University alumni, with a Bachelor of Arts, with a Major in Theatre and a Minor in Sociology. Her personal work in the community is focused around community-engaged arts, including currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Kamloops Film Society and a former Board Member of the Kamloops Arts Council. Her recent work as a playwright includes When Did I Lose You? a piece about Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and girls was originally broadcast as part of Western Canada Theatre's -A Broad's way Cabaret - for International Women's day. Echoes of the Homesick Heart, her full length Multigenerational Language Verbatim Theatre project has recently premiered with Western Canada Theatre. This project has been completed with the aid of TRU CURA ( Thompson Rivers University - Community University Research Alliance), Canada Council for the Arts, and First Peoples Cultural Council.

Polaris Prize winner, Jeremy Dutcher is a classically trained operatic tenor and composer who takes every opportunity to blend his Wolastoq First Nation roots into the music he creates, blending distinct musical aesthetics that shape-shift between classical, traditional, and pop to form something entirely new. Dutcher’s debut release, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, involves the rearrangement of early 1900s wax cylinder field recordings from his community. “Many of the songs were lost because our musical tradition was suppressed by the Canadian government. I’m doing this work as there’s only about a hundred Wolastoqey speakers left. It’s crucial that we’re using our language because, if you lose the language, you’re losing an entire distinct way of experiencing the world.”