Biennial Gwich’in Gathering Play Readings

– VENUE –

Diitsii, Diitsuu Haa Googwandak Nakhwatsii, Nakhwatsuu Googwandak Play Readings

Presented in association with

Join us at the Biennial Gwich’in Gathering in Old Crow, Yukon to hear readings from Lear Khekwaii, Sixty Below, Too Oozhrii Zhit Tsyaa Tsal Dhidii, and Justice.

With Patti Flather, Allan Hayton, Leonard Linklater, Princess Lucaj, Melaina Sheldon and friends!

Lear Khehkwaii

A project of the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre and the National Endowment for the Art’s “Shakespeare for a New Generation”, Lear Khehkwaii is a Gwich’in adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. The result is a unique production combining the worlds of Shakespeare with Gwich’in culture, language, and history. The production toured around Alaska in the spring of 2013, traveling to Arctic Village, Fort Yukon, Nome, Kotzebue, Homer, among other locations. A facebook page was created to document the production from the rehearsal process to performance: www.facebook.com/LearKhehkwaii A clip of a rehearsal can be seen on the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub3PGQhEdfk

Sixty Below

This play, by Leonard Linklater and Patti Flather, is a modern-day Gwich’in tale which also features traditional stories. It’s nearly winter solstice when Henry gets out of jail, ready to straighten out his life. Of course it’s not that easy: his old buddies just want to party, his girlfriend Rosie’s moving ahead of him, and then there’s the ghost of Johnnie, everyone’s hero, who just won’t leave the northern lights. Sixty Below was nominated for numerous Dora Awards for its 1997 Toronto productionwith Native Earth Peforming Arts. It toured the Yukon, including to Old Crow, in 2000, with Gwaandak Theatre, Nakai Theatre and SYANA.

Too Oozhrii Zhit Tsyaa Tsal Dhidii (The Boy in the Moon)

The Boy In The Moon is a traditional Gwich’in story about our relationship to the caribou and to the land. The story has a deep spirituality and contains many of our Gwich’in beliefs about respect, sharing, and taking care of others. It is important that we continue to study and share our traditional stories as our ancestral teachings still have much to offer in today’s world. This traditional story was adapted as a play and performed for the community in 2007 by the students of Arctic Village.

Justice

By Leonard Linklater, Justice is inspired by the true story of the Nantuck brothers, the first men to be hanged in the fledgling Yukon territory. During the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, Aboriginal and European cultures came together with sometimes tragic results. The accidental poisoning deaths of two members of the Tagish First Nation led to a cultural misunderstanding and clash of justice systems far from the reach of the papers of the day.