By Rena Priest
The Cultch and Urban Ink presented Kaha:Wi Dance Theatre’s production of The Mush Hole at The Cultch Historical Theatre from November 14 to 16.
The Mush Hole, winner of five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, is a visceral modern dance performance that unflinchingly confronts the cruelty enacted on six generations of Indigenous children in Canada’s residential schools.
As a curtain riser, Xwechtaal Dennis Joseph of the Squamish Nation, takes the stage to share a few words. He talks of our regional tradition of song and dance, saying, “This fire that I speak of, these songs, are what kept us here.” He speaks of the children who escaped the residential schools, “They went to the mountains, they hid in closets.” He speaks of the good teachings he carries, “My granny told me, always be kind, and welcome the people.” He welcomes us with Chief Dan George’s song. He sings alone, but the room is filled with a silent chorus of ancestors.
Prefacing the show with an elder who speaks to the audience about survival while enacting his teachings of kindness and welcome is an act of compassion for the audience—proof that despite what was endured, our way of life continues.
The Mush Hole refers to the Mohawk Institute residential school, nicknamed thus because of the wormy mush that the children endured there, a wretchedness second only to the pain of their hunger. The show was created and directed by Santee Smith, who also performs the role of #29 Mabel. Though the evocative performances embodied by an all-Indigenous dance troupe are often brutal, there are moments of warmth, tenderness, and beauty to hold onto—sunshine, orchards, a warm kitchen, a newspaper with coffee, the kindnesses of a companion. We are given to understand that these little consolations are what sustained our dancers.
The dance of the Mush Hole begins with children marching, cleaning, labouring, being assigned a number, being accounted for, being beaten. A shadow projection declares, “Our objective is to get rid of the Indian problem… The Indian problem.” More marching, more scrubbing, scrubbing, marching, marching, maggots in the mush. Ghosts issue forth assaults. Soon the children are taught to kneel and pray, and forget their own songs; to sing instead, “I am weak, but thou art strong.” For picking apples, they are beaten and taught to forget that the earth is loving and giving. They learn to hide food and fight over it amongst themselves.
As they try to make a life from what they learned in their formative years, we see that the children carry the ghosts of their torment beyond the school walls and into their adult lives, where they re-enact the marching, scrubbing, labour, and violence they were taught. Scenes of the school are projected in black and white, while home and nature are cast in colour. The dancers reach for each other across time—the youth reaching toward a future beyond the torments of the school, the adults reaching back to try to rescue their younger selves and pull them through to a better life. It is a powerful image that is repeated throughout. Or perhaps they are meant to represent the generations reaching for each other as parents and children are torn apart.
I am watching from the balcony, with a bird’s-eye view, and someone near me smells of roses in bloom. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in the front row. The intensity of the show’s imagery is unrelenting, and as an audience member, I think, if I am having a hard time watching people dance about it, what must it have been like to live it?
As the show moves toward resolution, we see #11, the one who got away, running away in the snow. In the show’s final song, “T’will Be Glory”, we hear the lyric “I tore this school down a thousand times in my mind”, and a photo of the school is projected onto the screen that serves as a backdrop. You see, finally, that the seemingly abstract set construction is actually a silhouette of the Mush Hole. You see how it has been the skeletal framework underpinning the architecture of their lives, and though there are no real walls, you see how the school maintains its hold.
In sixty short minutes, we are given a poignant glimpse of the lives of the children who survived and perished in the hands of the genocidal colonial project carried out in Canada’s residential schools. The Mush Hole is a courageous undertaking, powerfully executed, to break down the walls that separate us from our higher selves, to bring us fully into our empathy, so that, collectively, we don’t have to recreate and thereby continue to live in our shameful past. This is the power of song and dance. It lights the fire. It keeps us here.
Rena Priest is an enrolled citizen of the Lhaq’temish [Lummi] Nation. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently working toward an M.A. in Theatre Studies at UBC. She is the first Indigenous person to have held the position of Poet Laureate of Washington state. Follow Pancouver on Bluesky @pancouver.bsky.social.
