Theatre fest brings together thinkers, doers, innovators

By: Randall King Posted: 3:00 AM CST Friday, Mar. 12, 2021

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It takes a bridge-builder to make a Bridge.

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It takes a bridge-builder to make a Bridge.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/03/2021 (2030 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It takes a bridge-builder to make a Bridge.

That would be Kim Wheeler. The 52-year-old Anishinaabe/Mohawk writer and former CBC producer is the first curator of the inaugural Bridge festival at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, proceeding next week under the theme Art and (re)Conciliation.

The Bridge itself was the brainchild of RMTC artistic director Kelly Thornton, designed to take the place of the company’s long-running Master Playwright Festival. Thornton’s notion of a “festival of ideas” has the potential to be as versatile as the Master Playwright Festival, focusing on a different theme each year. The first Bridge festival was to have happened in June 2020, but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Kim Wheeler, curator of the Bridge, says she programmed events that included both up-and-comers and more established voices. — MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kim Wheeler, curator of the Bridge, says she programmed events that included both up-and-comers and more established voices.

“RMTC approached me in 2019 to curate the festival,” says Wheeler in a phone interview from her Wolseley home. “With this inaugural festival, Kelly and (RMTC general manager Camilla Holland) had an idea it was going to be Indigenous-focused.

“Covering the Indigenous arts and entertainment community for all of my career, I had a really good handle on who has done what,” she says.

The festival’s chosen theme was coloured by Wheeler’s own life experience as a child of the ‘60s Scoop, a government policy that saw Indigenous children taken from their homes and adopted out to white families en masse. Wheeler, born Ruby Linda Bruyere, recounted her personal experience with racism and sexual abuse growing up in an adoptive family last year in a personal essay for CBC’s The Doc Project.

That’s one reason why the “re” in “reconciliation” is in brackets.

“I remember this conversation I had with (performer-playwright) Columpa Bobb,” Wheeler recalls. “She was relaying a conversation that she had with her dad, and the gist of it was: reconciliation can’t exist in this country, because we never had a good relationship with the settler community to begin with.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Kim Wheeler is curating the Bridge festival from her home office. — MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kim Wheeler is curating the Bridge festival from her home office.

“That was when I suggested that we put the “re” in brackets,” Wheeler says. “Reconciliation isn’t up to us as Indigenous people. It’s not up to us to make things right. It’s up to the non-Indigenous community to see us and learn about us and listen to the people in those spaces.”

The Bridge provides plenty of opportunity to learn about Indigenous culture. One of the daily highlights of the four-day festival is an afternoon series of interviews between journalist Rosanna Deerchild and guests including playwright Tomson Highway, arts journalist Jesse Wente, art scholars Heather Igloliorte and Julie Nagam, and visual artist Kent Monkman.

The festival kicks off Thursday morning with a “Theatre Matriarchs” panel at 10 a.m., which sees a gathering of stars in the theatre community, including Bobb, Tracey Nepinak and Margo Kane, in a talk moderated by local playwright Frances Koncan (Women of the Fur Trade), a gathering that reveals Wheeler’s strategy in reaching out to a wide audience.

“People tend to program up-and-comers, but we also looked at the leaders who have been part of this community for a number of years and have made great sacrifices and have helped drive change,” Wheeler says. “So I wanted to be able to have space for them as well.

“The artists, the educators, the thinkers, the doers and the innovators who are all taking part in this, they’re all bringing something to the table,” Wheeler says. “Hopefully the non-Indigenous audiences tuning in will broaden their understanding of who we are as Indigenous people on this land.”