Category Archives: News

Fall/Winter Workshops 2022

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After what seems like forever, we are extremely excited to get back to engaging, making art, and sharing good food with community through our new Fall/Winter Workshop series! The workshops are part of our current project, ALL MY R(el)ATIONS, which explores and examines the themes of relationality and resource capacity/scarcity, and through them we will be gathering, creating, and developing stories, installation materials, and performance pieces that will be presented at Ice Follies in February 2023. The workshops are free to attend and no experience is necessary.

Workshops

Nishinaabemwin with Blair Beaucage
Fun and easy Nishinaabemwin language classes for learners of all ages and abilities.

Singing & Music Jam with Blair Beaucage & Tasheena Sarazin
Weekly drop-in jam sessions. Bring your voice and/or an instrument and join in!

Multi-Arts Kids Class
Geared towards children aged 5 – 13, the Multi-Arts Kids class will include activities such as drawing, painting, storytelling, crafts, dance, and more! Snacks are also included. 😊

Yoga & Dance with Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey
The focus of these classes will be to build on our strengths and knowledge of our bodies, and gain freedom of motion, so that we can play and have fun. No yoga or dance experience necessary.

Elders Storytelling Luncheons
Have some lunch and an extra helping of stories and conversations with local Elders and knowledge keepers every Thursday afternoon at Big Medicine Studio.

Visual Arts with Sherry Guppy
Working in textiles, painting, harvesting, and sculptural components, participants will explore installation making for Aanmitaagzi’s latest project All My R(el)ations and the upcoming presentation at Ice Follies 2023.

Dance with Penny Couchie
Contemporary dance and movement explorations to unleash our power and creativity.

For more information, please contact Sid or Penny at aanmitaagzi@gmail.com or (705) 474-2227.

*Please note that the Yoga & Dance workshop on Wednesday and the Dance workshop on Thursday are now starting at 6:30 pm.

Aanmitaagzi participating in ON THE EDGE Fringe’s 2022 Duality program

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The Light in Us All
ON THE EDGE Fringe Festival – North Bay, ON

Thursday, August 11th @ 7 pm
Big Medicine Studio – 161 Couchie Memorial Dr.

As part of the ON THE EDGE Fringe Festival‘s 2022 Duality program, Aanmitaagzi and the participants of this year’s Summer Arts Program will present a reworked performance of The Light in Us All, which was first presented in Durham, ON last month as part of the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film.

The performance is free to attend, and all are welcome. For more information, please contact Sid Bobb or Penny Couchie at (705) 474-2227.

ASAP 2022 presenting The Light in Us All in Durham, ON

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The Light in Us All
Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film – Durham, ON
July 23, 2022 @ 7 pm

The Light in Us All is a presentation of the 2022 Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program and our multi-year project, ALL MY R(el)ATIONS.  It is collaboratively created and performed by the Aanmitaagzi company artists and the program participants. It is an investigation and expression of an indigenous story shared by Monique Manatch. This is the way we heard it: A long time ago the light went out. Fear and distrust grew. Loved ones were lost. They all journeyed together to find the light. What fans your light? How do we protect the light? The Light in Us All shares and celebrates our stories and imaginings.

This is our 15th Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program. Our company and community have experienced great change. We are excited to look back at our repertoire and past participants: our elders, artists, and youth. We have been engaging with, dreaming of and developing our narrative sovereignty through art-making. We will re-imagine and re-envision our previous works in a new performance.

The Aanmitaagzi Summer Arts Program (ASAP) is a 6-week intensive in indigenous performing and visual arts. Now in its fifteenth year, the program faculty is led by award-winning and renowned professional indigenous artists and educators. Participants learn, share, express and create alongside our professional multi-arts team.

ALL MY R(el)ATIONS, our latest work-in-progress, explores our historic abundance in opposition to systemic oppression and poverty. How much of what we have now is a ration? A small shadow of what we once had. What are we entitled to? What dances, stories, songs and language are our birthright?

ALL MY R(el)ATIONS explores historically rooted ways in which we make a return to abundance by connecting to ourselves and all of Creation.

CREDITS:

2022 Aanmitagzi Summer Arts Program Participants – Dan Babin, Ouske Couchie-Bobb, Abby Hopkins, Brad McDonald, Angel McLeod, Georgia Mianskum,  and North Sutherland-Spence

Artist Leads / Facilitators

  • Penny Couchie – Choreography / Direction
  • Sid Bobb – Theatre / Direction
  • Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey – Dance / Choreography
  • Sherry Guppy – Visual Arts, Installation / Set
  • Michaela Washburn – Theatre, Story-telling
  • Tasheena Sarazin – Singing
  • Blair Beaucage – Anishinaabemowin

Photo Credit – Liz Lott Photography

Graphic Design – Daniel Couchie

The Miserere Project opens tonight in Toronto

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Still image from the short dance film Love Fights.

Still from Love Fights, a short film by Penny Couchie & Aanmitaagzi

May 18 – 21, 2022
8pm @ The Citadel
Livestream May 21, 2022

Commissioned as part of The Miserere Project to celebrate the 41st anniversary of David Earle’s dance masterpiece Miserere, Love fights is a conversation with an artist ensemble, a collaborative investigation through movement and words. Guided by Choreographer/Director, Penny Couchie, it is a community of voices coming forward. Through improvised, ensemble movement, and written work, the consideration of community is anchored in self, ebbing back and forth between creation, family, and nation.

This work looks at times in our lives, when we experience fracture within ourselves, our families and our communities. In times when we feel lost or alone, what are we connected to? What brings us back to ourselves? In our ceremonies, when we are in a place of hurt, we begin by looking at ourselves, family, community, nation and then all of creation. This ripple outwards, in turn, spirals back to self. It is a conversation about finding our way back from that which divides us from ourselves, each other and all of creation.

Sincere gratitude to Danielle Baskerville for this opportunity to honour David Earle’s work and legacy and respond to what has moved me so deeply. This piece is created in loving memory of Lee Maracle and Carol Guppy.

– Penny Couchie, Choreographer/Director

Love Fights and the other works commissioned for The Miserere Project will be on view at The Citadel from May 18 – 21, 2022. Tickets for in-person and Livestream viewing can be purchased on their website here.

Production Credits:

Choreographer/Director: Penny Couchie

Written and Performed by: Sid Bobb, Animikiikwe Couchie-Waukey, Penny Couchie, Christine Friday, and Michaela Washburn

Co-produced by Aanmitaagzi in collaboration with RFPMEDIA.

Camera Operators: Bernardo d’Ávila, Kevin Love, and Richard Fortin

Video Editor: Kevin Love

Video Production: RFPMEDIA INC.

Production Coordinator: Richard Fortin

Audio Recording and Post Production: Suite 16 Studio, North Bay, Ontario

Music: “Miserere” by Gregoria Allegri performed by Ars Nova Copenhagen

Approximate run time: 12 min 15 sec