Interdisciplinary theatre and film artist Corey Payette is best known for creating large-scale productions offering Indigenous perspectives. The artistic director of Urban Ink has garnered widespread praise for his four trailblazing musicals: Children of God, Les Filles du Roi, Sedna, and Starwalker.
Now, Urban Ink and Raven Theatre are hard at work on his newest production, On Native Land. On Saturday (November 9) at the Transform Festival, Payette’s fans can enjoy a sneak peek of this work-in-progress at the Vancouver Playhouse.
On Native Land shares the perspectives of three characters: a lawyer, a chief, and a singer-songwriter. Payette is a member of Mattagami First Nations with French Canadian and Irish ancestry.
“It’s about the legalities of land but also pairs that with a conversation and whole circus of identity issues that are very common nowadays, as it relates to Indigenous communities,” Payette tells Pancouver in a phone interview. “It’s like all of my musicals. I’m looking to create complex characters and a storyline that is new and fresh—and helps people to understand these different stories in a new way.”
Payette has spent the past five years working On Native Land. Transform Festival will present a fully staged show with 15 songs and more than a dozen performers. However, he notes that it will be delivered with a minimal set and minimal costumes.
The work-in-progress follows a series of high-profile media reports about Indigenous identity fraud.
“I really wanted to find a way to share what these experiences have been like for Indigenous people and how these stories resonate within Indigenous communities,” Payette says. “Basically, that was the impetus behind writing it.”
Payette co-founded Transform Festival
Payette reveals that he was also thinking about how the disconnection of Indigenous people from their land. Moreover, he feels that this has had a direct impact on people’s disconnection from their sense of self and identity.
He readily acknowledges that On Native Land addresses heavy subject matter.
“But I hope that it really is an offering and a gift to the next generation of Indigenous people who feel that that they don’t belong,” he adds. “And that it will give them hope for the future and that there is a community that is welcoming and wants to see them thrive.”
After the work-in-progress is staged at the festival, attendees will have an opportunity to offer feedback.
“At the end of it, we’ll come out and sit with the audience and have a discussion around the show—what’s working and what’s not,” Payette says. “We will have a level of integration of the audience’s perspective that I’ve ever had with my work before… I’m excited for that conversation.”
In 2019, Payette and the Cultch executive director Heather Redfern co-founded the Transform Cabaret Festival, as it was then called. Their goal was to create opportunities for Indigenous artists to collaborate with non-Indigenous artists in a range of disciplines, including music, dance, theatre, circus, and comedy.
This year’s Transform Festival runs from November 6 to 9. It begins with Opening Night Bash. The festive event features Canada’s Drag Race Season 4 winner Venus. This marks the Indigenous drag performer’s return to Transform.
“She actually started performing in the festival many years ago,” Payette says. “She was part of one of our digital seasons.”
Honouring Indigenous veterans
Opening Night Bash will also feature circus performer Sido Adamson, choreographer and ballroom dancer Ralph Escamillan, hoop dancer Notorious Cree, Métis dancer and choreographer Jera Wolfe, and the Inuit throat-singing duo Piqsiq.
The following night, Escamillan will host Circus Ball. It includes Adamson, Wolfe, Lola Loops, Matt Bagshaw, Batty Banks, and the Kiki House of Siriano.
Then on November 8, the festival will present In Spirit, which is described as “A Concert for Heroes” for Indigenous Veterans Day. Chor Leoni and the Vancouver Youth Choir will perform.
“I’m going to be hosting the concert and singing a number of different pieces,” Payette says. “They’re going to be performing pieces of mine, but also, Russell Wallace has a piece called ‘Forgotten Warriors’.
“That is specifically about Indigenous veterans that Chor Leoni is going to be singing,” he continues. “Vancouver Youth Choir is singing a song by Alex Vollant, who is a wonderful Indigenous composer. It promises to be a unique and special night around this theme of recognition.”
For more information and tickets to the Transform Festival, visit the website. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia and on Instagram @PancouverMedia.
