KIVIUQ RETURNS: AN INUIT EPIC by the Qaggiq Collective (Qaggiq Collective, Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman). Runs to January 27. $14-$60. 416-531-1827, tarragontheatre.com. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Assembling five stories from the myriad legends of Kiviuq, the eternal seafaring wanderer of Inuit lore, this new work from Qaggiq Collective fuses the stark timelessness of epic poetry with the technologically enhanced elegance of contemporary performance.
Kiviuq Returns is composed of moral tales of cruelty and grace, desire and loss, fear and tenacity, inhabited by humans, wolverines, foxes, seagulls and spirits. These tales were provided to the artists by a quartet of elders, members of the last generation to have lived traditionally on the land, and among the shows smartest, simplest presentational tropes is projecting video of these elders relaying their tales on a large oval-shaped skin, suspended within a frame and resembling a ghostly cameo portrait.
Kiviuq Returns is performed entirely in Inuktitut, with an English-language study guide included in your program to reference during interludes when the house lights are up.
As suggested by director Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory in her notes, the airy, tactile tenor of this holophrastic idiom as delivered by the highly animated cast which includes the extraordinary throat singer Charlotte Qamaniq and Atanarjuat star Natar Ungalaq possesses a unique lyricism and spectrum of emotion and intent.
I opted to hold off on reading the study guide until after the show, and suffered no great confusion or depletion of interest. Indeed, so much in these stories of bullying, deception, amorousness and the splintering of family is conveyed through behaviour the performance style lends itself to some suitably broad comedy.
The productions most powerful elements, however, are video designer Jamie Griffithss images of rolling sea, full of magnificence and doom, projected over a trio of light, moveable, translucent screens, and the stirring use of ensemble songs whose melodic and textural allure require no translation to draw you into their oceanic sweep.
