Yat-Ah: Chilcotin Sky

Description:

Written and directed by Alison McApline, Yat-Ah: Chilcotin Sky was a performance by an intercultural cast of Indigenous and European clowns, an old storytelling couple, and an ensemble of musicians to express images and rhythms of a Canadian history.

Structured in fourteen parts, Yat-Ah proposed a counter-narrative to dominant tellings of first contact and the legacy of the fur trade, the coming of disease, European missionaries, the lumber industry, Hollywood’s export of “cowboys and indians,” the judicial scales of history, and imaginings of the North and its storytelling traditions. The performance featured a vocal percussive score sung in Cree, Salishan, and Cayuga languages. 

The cast included Sam Bob, Oona McOuat, Kelly Moyah, Debbie Danbrook, Vern Clair, Troy Awassis, Jimy Sidlar, Ronnie Sauve, Tina Louise Bomberry, Ahmed Hassan, Sam Miller, and Tina Farmilo.

Presented with support from Canada Manpower, Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, The National Film Board of Canada, Simon Fraser Institute for the Humanities, and Eastside Educational Enrichment Society.