Dance production signifies generational impact of family matriarchs

A full-length performance of Raven Mother will take place at the Fleck Dance Theatre at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre later this month.

The Nov. 29 event, performed by the Dancers of Damelahamid and presented by DanceWorks, illustrates the significant generational impact of family matriarchs.  

“I think for me something that is really at the heart of this work, is really the place that women hold and that's why we wanted to call it Raven Mother,” said Margaret Grenier, executive and artistic director of Dancers of Damelahamid. “I think that it’s something that is not just from the work that we do to make sure that we have song and dance to pass forward.

“It's something that we do as women, for our families, for our children, to care for our families and to ensure the healing and the strengthening and all of the different aspects that come from the practice are there for them and I think that's something that my mother did very generously.”

Raven Mother was written to honour Grenier’s mother Margaret Harris, co-founder of the dance group.

“We wanted to create a work that honoured the legacy that she left us, but also to really commemorate and celebrate the women of her generation who really revitalized our songs and dances and ensure that we have those practices today,” Grenier said.

The Dancers of Damelahamid, an Indigenous dance company, was created once the Potlach Ban was lifted in 1967. The ban had outlawed Indigenous cultural practices for almost 70 years (1884-1951).

Grenier’s grandmother Irene felt there was an urgency to share the traditional practices before they were lost.

“When our family began this work in 1967, that was under the vision of my grandmother, Irene Harris, and the leadership of my parents Margaret Harris and Ken Harris,” Grenier said. “My mother was trained by my grandmother, and it was really the first time that these dances had taken place since prior to the Potlatch Ban.”

Raven Mother combines these years of efforts to revitalize cultural practices through many of the production elements including masks, song composition and regalia.

Work originally began on the production in 2020 following Margaret Harris’ passing. Each element of the production was created in relationship to one another.

“We start with the story or the narrative that we want to be told and, and that's rooted in our training, our cultural training,” said Grenier. “Then the work that my daughter does, what Raven does, with a song composition then informs the movement. Then the lyrics and her songs are informed by the story and the Regalia is informed by the dances.”

And then, the masks are created.

A significant piece of the Raven Mother performance is the traditional Gitxsan transformation mask which Grenier collaborated with members of her family and other artists to create.

It begins with a larger raven mask that opens to reveal smaller interconnected masks inside.

“They come out one at a time and the dancers each dance them,” said Grenier’s husband Andrew, who is the production manager for the Dancers of Damelahamid. “They represent a different female generation of Margaret’s family. The outer mask is representing Margaret’s mom, it’s the raven, and the very inner mask is a sun, which represents her grandmother, and then the three masks that come out, one of them represents Margaret herself.”

A total of five generations are represented in the one mask.

Andrew Grenier’s role was to help create masks, making two of them himself while David Boxley and his family created the other three.

“David Boxley is an artist who is from Metlakatla, Alaska, but his community was moved there from the Canadian side by the missionaries,” Andrew Grenier said. “And so back in the 1970s and ‘80s my mother went to that community because they no longer had a dance practice. And our family lent our songs and dances according to our cultural way of lending songs and dance. And it was from that that their community began to dance again.

“So, we really wanted to honour that history of relationships that my mother had not only within our community and within our family’s history, but also in other communities as well.”

In addition to the transformation dance, the group will showcase a woman’s staff dance, which is like a women’s warrior dance.

“You will see a lot of pattern choreography in the dancing,” Andrew said. “It’s not just people moving around freely. There is very specific choreographed patterns and steps that the dancers will move through to do the different dances, as opposed to it just being a bunch of people individually doing their own thing.”

One of the performers will be the Greniers’ daughter Raven, who is a composer, visual artist and dancer.

“She’s amazing,” her father said. “She’s a visual artist and she has visual art in the show, but also she’s a really good singer and composer. She’s composed I think a dozen of the songs in the soundtrack that we’re going to have.”

Raven Grenier said the songs she has composed for the show are about the “intergenerational transfer of knowledge” with the use of soundscapes that are authentic to the traditions of her community while “trying to generate new beats and new melodies.”

“There's the Latin song,” she said. “There's the Snake song. There's the Paddle song. And it all kind of follows a sequence along with the narrative of the production. It really is informed by the dance and the story behind it and everything.

“It's very much a collaborative process in creating what songs we were going to do and then from there the lyrics were refined and reworked with the group to make sure it's true to the story.”

Raven Grenier said her grandmother (Maragret Harris) was a member of the Raven Clan from  Manitoba and her grandfather was part of the Whale Clan on the west coast.

The production of the Raven Mother visually ties these two clans together for her.

“It’s all very interconnected and to the basis of who I am and the teachings I grew up around,” she said. “It feels very much like a memorial and honourary piece to my kookum and ye’. It feels like a final production that’s kind of accumulated over a number of years with the transformation mask and everything. Making the transformation song was quite pivotal for me in terms of where I am with my music.”

The details and resources put into every aspect of the production is beyond what the Dancers of Damelahamid have done in past productions.

“The work and the time put into all of the elements of music and sound and bringing it all together, is something that really reflects the several years of work that our company has put into it,” said Margaret Grenier. “I think for us it was really wanting to do something to make her (Margaret Harris) proud of what we have accomplished, to really show the love that we have for her and for the lifetime of effort that she put into this.”

A sentiment echoed in DanceWorks’ vision.

“DanceWorks is concerned with championing stories and lived experiences kind of somehow in opposition to what we might call dominant culture or colonial norm at this particular time,” said David Norsworthy, co-executive artistic producer for DanceWorks.

For more information on the Raven Mother tour or to purchase tickets visit www.danceworks.ca