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 Joelle Moses, Darwin Norwegian and Shaylene and Josh Baton of the Wrigley Fiddlers perform the song Old Joe Clark at last summer's Open Sky Festival in Fort Simpson. The fiddlers will be back this summer. |
Tracy Kovalench of the Open Sky Festival and Tracey Bryant of Folk on the Rocks took part in the "All tribes - no boundaries" round table discussions on increasing aboriginal participation in arts festivals.
The discussion, hosted by the Odanak reservation outside Montreal, was part of the larger Folk Alliance conference going on in the city.
Kovalench said Northern festivals were unique in their aboriginal content.
"It seems that other festivals are desperately seeking their aboriginal component, where we have it," said Kovalench. "It's part of our daily life. I didn't even think to tell people that we have over 75 per cent aboriginal programming, because it was so normal to me."
Folk on the Rocks pegs its aboriginal artist content at about 50 per cent.
"You don't see a lot of aboriginal performers at other festivals," said Bryant, Folk on the Rocks' festival director.
She said she hoped the discussion would result in more invitations for Northern artists to perform in the south. The differences between the Northern and southern festival experience became clear during the artists' showcase that capped off the event.
"They had drummers perform in the last part of the showcase, so we all held hands and did a drum dance. All the Northern people knew what to do," said Kovalench. The southerners, she added, needed some instruction.
At the Folk Alliance conference, Kovalench said she made many connections with the people running festivals across the country.
"Sometimes when you're in an isolated community, you don't have any guidance, especially if you're a non-profit organization," said Kovalench. "Now I can contact festival directors in Vancouver and Ontario and say 'hey, we've got this problem, can you help us out?'"
The Open Sky Festival in Fort Simpson celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. Yellowknife's Folk on the Rocks celebrates its 25th, but its festival director is impressed by what she's seen happen in the Deh Cho in such a short time.
"Open Sky is going to go far," said Bryant. "It's getting stronger and stronger."
