f ) ARTS THE REZ SISTERS Bringing the reality of the ‘rez’ to theatre audiences across } Canada & Anne Anglin, Sally Singai, Margaret Cozry, Gloria Miguel, Gloria Eshkibok, Monique Mojica and Rene Highway in the Rez Sisters. The Rez Sisters is about seven Indian women from the Manitoulin Island reserve in Ontario. Their world, the “rez,” is stifling and there is little to break the monotony except for gossip, beer, country rock and, above all, bingo. When they hear that the “world’s biggest bingo game” is going to be played in Toronto it’s a chance to realize dreams. Under the surface of The Rez Sisters there is the world of poverty, sexism and lost rights — one of the sisters laments the lack of paved roads on the reserve and it is a metaphor for everything else that is wrong. One sister, mentally handicapped, has been brutally raped and abandoned by two white guys who mutilated her with a screwdriver. Another sister has just returned to the rez from her roamings with a bike gang — her female lover killed herself by driving head- on into an oncoming semi. Another sister dreams of having a clean, porcelain toilet, another of becoming a country-rock singer. But there is also the inner-strength pos- sessed by these seven rez sisters as they cope with what life dishes out. In the background is the Trickster, Nanabush as he is known in Ojibway, vis- ible to only two of the sisters. A pivotal character of Native mythology, Nanabush represents a crucial link with past. A bit beaten and weary after decades of assimila- tion and cultural dominance, he still person- ifies the spiritual centre of Native culture. If he dies, so does the meaning and memory in thousands of years of Native existance. The Rez Sisters is about those contradic- tions and it is also about the good times. With a poignant mixture of gritty humour and cutting sadness, Tomson Highway, the 35-year old Cree playwright and artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, has created a play that embodies the Native reality in Canada today. I spoke with Highway as he was preparing for the open- ing in Toronto. — Paul Ogresko Q: How did Native Earth Performing Arts get started? A: It was started five years ago here in Toronto by a group of people who were committed to Native theatre. In spite of tremendous funding difficulties they man- aged to pull through. Elaine Bomberry, the current administrator, and I came into our positions last year. There is a small community of Native writers right here in Toronto and we are essentially working towards the develop- ment-of a Native Canadian literature that speaks from the context of theatre. The development of Native writers and quality Native scripts is a priority of Native Earth. Q: Do you find your plays reach more to Native or non-Native audiences? A: We have to speak to both simultane- ously. We have to reach each with equal impact. Certainly The Rez Sisters has proven itself to be immensely popular with both audiences. I know of non-Native peo- ple at the original run here last year (Native Canadian Centre in Toronto) who saw the show five or six times. The same in the Native community. Q: Do you find it easy to draw links with traditional Native story-telling and contem- porary reality? A: Native people come from a very ancient and potent literary tradition, an oral, story-telling tradition that goes back over 30,000 years. It’s a mythology, Cree mythology in my case, that paints a power- ful dreamscape that’s particularly applica- ble to the specifics of Canada. It speaks about the power this particular landscape has and its relevance to us as a living, func- tioning culture. This generation of Indian people of my age, between 30 and 45, are the first genera- tion of Native people to get some university education and a reasonable grasp of Eng- lish. We can now begin to articulate some of these concerns. Now what is happening is Native writers are extending that oral trad- tion and making it relevant to the 20th cen- tury urban, technological environment — a three dimensional dreamscape. Q: Being university educated do you feel there is a danger of losing contact with your culture? A: Yes, there is that danger. The 20th century technological culture is so over- powering that it makes little sense for me to try to continue trapping. I come from a family of trappers and fishermen who speak nothing but Cree — my parents don’t speak a word of English which is something I'm terribly proud of. But once I come into contact with the English language, once I see a television, once I see a microwave — those things, whether I like it or not, have become a part of my reality. I can’t reject it because it’s there but I might as well articulate Cree mythology. Q: So Indian culture can adapt and sur- vive? A: It has to adapt to survive. Right now, up in northern reserves on the James Bay coast and all across the North people who don’t speak a word of English are watching Days Of Our Lives and General Hospital. Day in and day out even if they don’t under- stand a word of English. This is a irrefutable fact and the languages are dying because of it so we have to take those mediums and use them to serve our own particular culture. We are faced with the harsh reality that 28 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 16, 1987 all the Indian languages on this continent may die in the face of this incredible, video- technology assault. In Canada, with over 250 Native languages, there are three, Inuit, Cree and Ojibway, that have a hope in hell of surviving. Indian kids I see nowadays refuse to learn their aboriginal language because TV is “cooler.” Because Don John- son and Miami Vice is “cooler” than they are. What we are trying to do is create a literature that speaks Cree specifically and to make the lariguage beautiful and “cool” and fashionable. Christ, we’ll do anything to retain those languages as functioning, living languages. That is a goal of Native Performing Arts. Q: Do you see your writing as a political statement? A: Yes, it does serve a political purpose. Rez Sisters starts and ends on the Manitou- lin Island reserve. Reserve living conditions are certainly not the most desirable condi- tions. Poverty, alcohol abuse and unem- ployment are very much day-to-day reali- ties, certainly on my reserve. Communities are being torn apart by these things but there are the desires of Native people to change these things. Things must be doneto change these conditions. These things have to be done by making powerful statements to the powers that bein this country, mainly the politicians and the political and economic system in this coun- try. There is one character in the Rez Sisters who harbours these latent, political desires to change things politically. Later, in another play in what I call the Rez cycle, this woman, who’s 53 years old in The Rez Sisters, will come forward and become chief and challenge the entire reserve system — even the entire status of being an Indian. Right up to the Supreme Court of Canada — God knows, the United Nations, whatever. By the time that babe’s finished with the system every reserve in this country has got paved roads. : Rez Sisters, currently in the middle of its successful Canadian tour, is at the Vanco' East Cultural Centre, 1895 Venables, J 7-30, Monday through Saturday. Tickets VTC outlets or call 254-9518 to reserve. Season's Breetinogs and wishes for peace in the New Year. Finnish Organization of Canada Local 55 Season's Greetings to all readers of the Pacific Tribune Veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion