October 2, 2024
Started in 2018, the Indigenous Artist Spotlight series is intended to foster greater awareness and understanding of the strength and diversity of Indigenous art available in Ontario and beyond.
Find all of our past Spotlight interviews here. This month, we spoke with Margaret Grenier.
Margaret Grenier is of Gitxsan and Cree ancestry. She is the Executive and Artistic Director for the Dancers of Damelahamid. She has produced the Coastal Dance Festival since 2008. Margaret’s multimedia choreographic works bridge Gitxsan and Cree dance forms with current expressions. Her works have toured internationally and include Setting the Path (2004) and Spirit and Tradition (2007), and Visitors Who Never Left (2009), Luu hlotitxw (2012), Flicker (2016), and Mînowin (2019). Mînowin premiered at the Mòshkamo Festival, National Arts Centre, Ottawa (2019) and at the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico. Margaret holds a M.A. from Simon Fraser University and a B.Sc. from McGill University. She was a sessional instructor for Simon Fraser (2007) and faculty at the Banff Centre (2013). She received the REVEAL Award (2017), the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts (2020), DSA Distinction in Dance Award (2022), and the Isadora Award (2024).
Please take a moment to introduce yourself to our audience for those who may not know you.
I am Margaret Grenier, the Executive and Artistic Director of the Dancers of Damelahamid and producer of the Coastal Dance Festival. I am an Indigenous dance artist and choreographer, from the Gitxsan and Cree nations.
You are the current Executive and Artistic Director of the Dancers of Damelahamid based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Could you tell us a bit about the company, its vision and your approach as Executive and Artistic Director.
The Dancers of Damelahamid started in the 1960s under the leadership of my parents Chief Kenneth Harris and Margaret Harris. At that time the focus was on dance revitalization, following the lifting of the Potlatch Ban. I was born into this dance lineage and my role as a leader for the company began in 2003. In 2010 our company began taking contemporary approaches to create newly choreographed works based on our ancestral form. Through this work we are establishing our cultural dance form within the broader sector and addressing decolonization within dance. We maintain an intergeneration practice, with a significant focus on training Indigenous youth, whose vision is its future.
Ontario Presents last spoke with you in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. How have things changed since then? What was it like for you to return to in person performance? Have you made any changes to your approach?
The pandemic was an affirmation of the importance of maintaining our dances as a constant practice for our health and wellbeing, and for nourishing a strong identity in our youngest dancers. We have not changed our approach since the pandemic; however, we are conscious of the changes that have taken place in the sector and the need to take care of our practice and our young dancers future practice.
Your new work Raven Mother is set to premiere this fall at The Clutch in Vancouver. Could you tell us a bit about how this piece came to be and expand a bit upon the meaning of the work?
Raven Mother is a very personal piece for our family, and we have put all our efforts into realizing this work. It recognizes the legacy left us by the lifetime of work that my mother Margaret Harris gave to her family and dance community. It is a work that also acknowledges the vital role that women have held in this intergenerational dance practice, as visionaries, as caregivers to the younger generation of dancers, and as catalysts within the practice itself. It is a piece that speaks to both the beauty and the hardships of this journey as women and the hope that our children bring us.
Keep up with Margaret Grenier
Official Website: https://damelahamid.ca/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user10011734
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Damelahamid/