Catch and Release
Culminating performance for the 2025 Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program
August 21, 2025 at 7 pm
Big Medicine Studio
161 Couchie Memorial Dr, Nipissing First Nation
Aanmitaagzi and the participants of the 2025 Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program are pleased to invite you all to Catch and Release, the culminating performance for this year’s program. The artists and youth participants have been working hard since the beginning of July to develop and prepare for this presentation through singing, dancing, regalia making, storytelling, visual explorations, attending pow wows, and other arts activities. The collaboratively created and performed work is an investigation and expression of indigenous dance and storytelling that has grown out of these activities and what lies in the hearts and minds of everyone involved. The presentation is free to attend and all are welcome.
The Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program (ASAP) is an annual 8-week intensive in indigenous performing and visual arts. Now in its eighteenth year, the program is led by award winning and renowned professional indigenous artists and educators. The program gives indigenous youth the opportunity to learn, share, express and create alongside our professional multi-arts team, guest artists, and community-members in a collaborative, inter-generational, and welcoming space.
Catch and Release is co-created and performed by:
Lead Artists – Sid Bobb, Penny Couchie, Katie Couchie, and Darren Nakogee with special guests Doreen Bellaire and Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey
Program Participants – Albany Benson, Ouske Couchie-Bobb, Lukas Driedger, Autumn Hookimaw, Mya Katt, Markus Lazary, William McGrath, Tayton Mianskum, Malia Mathias-Mizzi, Niibin Nakogee, Finn Rice, and Shania Splane
Set by Sherry Guppy with Laura Linklater-Wong and Paige Linklater-Wong
Aanmitaagzi wishes to thank the Government of Canada through the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canada Summer Jobs Program, the Ontario Government through the Ontario Arts Council, Mushkegowuk Employment & Training Services, Moose Cree Training & Employment Unit, and the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre’s Apatisiwin Program for generously supporting the 2025 Summer Arts Program.
