As part of this month’s New Constellations Digital Residency, we’re featuring some of the artists and mentors joining the nation(s)wide tour running from November 23 to December 20, 2017.
What’s your favourite song at the moment?
This hour? Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Darlin’ Don’t Cry.
How do you celebrate a great performance?
Mine? I self-loathe less. Others’? I cry.
The best place in Toronto to enjoy winter weather is ……
… an example of fallacious reasoning.
What’s the last performance/concert you saw?
I saw Jann Arden two nights ago, Barenaked Ladies today.
Name one other New Constellations artist you think audiences should see during this nationwide tour.
Billy Ray Belcourt is the next generation of beautiful. He is heart. He is cerebral. See him, buy his work, love him.
Describe the best gig you’ve ever played.
As a singer, Saskatoon’s Bud’s on Broadway made my heart pound. As a writer, anytime I got to be with Cherie Dimaline, Maria Campbell, Lee Maracle or Marilyn Dumont. Oh! Reading at the Dakota Tavern with Tanya Tagaq there was pretty amazing.
New Constellations will bring together a lineup of Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Why is that an important feature of this tour to you?
I don’t know what reconciliation actually is, but I like the idea of our revolutionaries meeting Canada’s. We share intellectual imaginative terrain with respect and kindness. That’s a great place to start a relationship.
What’s coming up for you next?
I have book on the Lubicon Lake Nation, my nation (the Kelly Lake Cree Nation) and another novel that looks at four generations of Cree women’s experience of Canada coming out. And I hope to sing more, sleep more and tell people I love that I love them more often.
