When truth has been incinerated and reconciliation seems impossible, there is Reckoning.
ARTICLE 11, Toronto’s new Indigenous theatre company announces an intimate, multi-disciplinary triptych addressing the personal impact of the Truth and Reconciliation process.
On Tuesday, December 15, 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its final report. The report chronicles a government-led inquiry into the impact of the Indian Residential School system. Indian Residential Schools (IRS) were intended to kill Indigenous cultures, languages and practices.
“It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”
– Sir John A Macdonald, 1879
In 2009, after receiving her Common Experience Payment (for all IRS survivors) Tara Beagan’s mother bought her a new laptop. Beagan immediately began writing a play in response to the Common Experience Payment and the TRC. When they founded ARTICLE 11 in 2013, Beagan and Andy Moro completed the creation of that play. That play is Reckoning.
Featuring performers PJ Prudat (Cree/Saulteaux Métis and French/Scandinavian of Saskatchewan), Jonathan Fisher (Pottawattami, Mukwa Dodem, Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve), Brandon Oakes (Ratsienhonoron, Mohawk from Akwesasne) and John Ng (Ottawa via Hong Kong), Reckoning debuts at the Theatre Centre in Toronto in April, 2016.
Directed and designed by ARTICLE 11 founding artists Tara Beagan (Ntlaka’pamux and Irish “Canadian”) and Andy Moro (Omushkego Cree / Mixed Euro), Reckoning is an ode to the irreconcilable. A triptych in sound, movement and video, Reckoning is an incendiary theatrical presentation of three separate experiences with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
ARTICLE 11’s inaugural Toronto main stage work will premiere at the Theatre Centre. The Theatre Centre’s mission is to nurture artists, invest in ideas and champion new work and new ways of working.
From Theatre Centre Artistic Director Franco Boni:
The 79th recommendation from the TRC Call to Action states: We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Survivors, Aboriginal organizations, and the arts community, to develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration. The Theatre Centre is proud to work with all in taking up this call, with our greatest assets in partnership, to bring this work to Toronto audiences. By getting the stories out there, a framework is begun.
Reckoning
Created by: ARTICLE 11 Artistic Directors Tara Beagan & Andy Moro
Featuring: PJ Prudat, Jonathan Fisher, Brandon Oakes, John Ng
Collaborating artists: Melody McKiver, Paul Chaput, Lina Cruz, Casey Hudecki, Brittany Ryan
April to 13 to 24, 2016 at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen Street West, Toronto
Tickets: General $28, Students and Arts Workers $22, Elders $18
Residential School Survivors Complimentary
PWYC Saturday matinees
