November 5, 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 Philip Geller.
Philip Jonah Logan Geller (they/them|he/him) is Jewish (Ashkenazi) and Red River Michif (Métis) with Logan, Dupuis, Vandal ancestors, and roots to the historic Métis community of Rooster Town. Philip is a theatre/performance artist, educator, and scholar who is focused on decolonizing their process by listening to and dialoguing with ancestral and cultural knowledge. Their practice includes land-based creation, circular storytelling, and destabilizing hierarchical power structures in the rehearsal process, with a focus on anti-oppressive/anti-racist modalities. They are a SSHRC funded Master of Fine Arts Directing graduate from York University, a top 30 under 30 York University Alumni, and a Ken McDougall Award recipient for promising emerging director. As a storyteller they have worked across Turtle Island as an actor, director, dramaturg, producer, clown, creator, and community worker with companies and festivals including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Indigenous Arts Knowledge Exchange, Stratford Festival, Theatre YES, Gwaandak Theatre, Toronto Metropolitan University, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Made in Exile, Citadel Theatre, Nextfest, Play the Fool Festival, Edmonton Fringe Festival, and Paprika Theatre Festival. They are a graduate of the BFA Acting Program at the University of Alberta. Although, more importantly, they learn from all the incredible relations – human and more than human – they have the fortune of visiting with.
Please take a moment to introduce yourself to our audience for those who may not know you.
Taanshi kiya ! Philip dishinakshon, aen Michif egwa Jewish niya.
Hello everyone, my name is Philip. I am Michif (Red River Métis) and Jewish (Ashkenazi). I am a theatre and performance artist, educator, and scholar. I have been privileged to work and travel across so-called Canada working in many roles as a performer, director, creator, clown, educator, facilitator, and community worker.
In this moment, I am a bit of a wanderer: journeying across artistic disciplines and practices and bouncing between lands. Sometimes I can be a bit hard to pin down – but living between and through categories seems to be the gift I am nurturing at this moment.
my artistic practice is nimble and ever evolving
however,
the stories I tell are rooted and firm
I like to hold the contradictions
Could you please tell us a bit about your approach to creation? Are there particular themes, topics or elements of your practice that you find yourself frequently drawn to?
At this moment I am interested in creating work and telling stories that open dialogue about place, identity, community, and responsibility.
I work in a collaborative framework, that attempts to decolonize processes through land-based creation, circular storytelling, and de/re-centering. I am interested in breaking down hierarchies in creative spaces, especially when in a leadership or facilitator role.
I also feel a great pull towards clown and trickster narratives and practices – I love that these practices are able to playfully subvert. They hold both the sacred and profane in the same breath, they are the wise-fool, they are the prophet and the poop.
In 2023, you presented a workshop performance of your work who will save the night sky at the Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival and in residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Could you tell us a bit about the work and expand upon what inspired you to create this piece?
“allow me to take you on a celestial journey, snacks provided, to a big board room in the sky. plleeeaaassee, allow me to whisk my tail and weave you a tale and tattle tale on the tell tale signs of a GOOD STORY! a long time ago, in the future an important group of star beings got together to discuss the fate of earth and the two leggeds…and the celebration begins.”
The show is a one-person performance that blends bouffon, clown, storytelling, and spectacle.
who will save the night sky is an interactive performance that reminds us of the importance of our relationship to the sky world.
I was really interested in my relationship to stars, star stories, and star beings. I remember looking up at the sky one night and realizing I didn’t recognize most of the stars and could barely name a few constellations. Then I got really freaked out and hyper focused on Starlink, which is Elon Musk’s fleet of satellites that is creating light pollution in the atmosphere and space debris (there is a satellite graveyard floating in our upper atmosphere !). I thought about how our ancestors had such an intimate relationship to the night sky and how that relationship for myself and so many needs nurturing.
The story is told by a trickster character, that carries the audience on a journey with many star beings who have visited earth and their positive and negative relationship with the humans. It is super playful, slightly scripted and improvised, and silly, but hopefully marginally profound.
Is there any piece or project you’ve worked on that you feel particularly proud of? If so, which and why does that work mean so much to you?
I have so much love for all the projects I have embarked on in recent years. I have worked really hard to put my energy only into pieces that feel like they align with my values and are going to offer something positive into the world. I am proud of them all!
But if I had to pick something…I feel very proud about my work at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. For the past two years I have had the pleasure of directing and facilitating their story creation project, which is a collectively created performance that explores a theme using Indigenous dramaturgical models. It is an extremely collaborative process where we get to celebrate the students’ stories and find common threads to create a wholistic piece. I love the experimentation of process and getting to play with the students in such a circular space. I am honoured to be doing it again this year and the show happens end of January at Aki Studio – come and check it out !
Do you have any advice for emerging Indigenous creatives?
I would offer a list:
experiment!
play!
let it go
find your people
root in community and kindship
it’s okay to not know
learn who to trust
build your bundle
forgive yourself (everyday, over and over again)
your story matters, deeply
dream of the future you want, and go out and make it
ask for help (reach out if you need to!)
create a practice that works for you, that builds your love, your abundance, and your strength
play!
we need you!
Is there anything else that you would like to share? Do you have any upcoming work that we should look out for?
I am working on a project with my mama, that I am very excited about. It is in development right now with Theatre Passe Muraille’s Buzz Program. It is an ancestral performance-installation, it is the imagined-true story of two boys meeting in the interlakes of Manitoba, in the 1920s. Two boys from vastly different yet deeply similar communities, the Métis and Jews. In harsh and (un)familiar Land both boys, both communities need each other. Using familial and land based dramaturgy me and my mama, Pam Logan, open an exploration and conversation about ancestral narratives, identity, sovereignty, and (re)conciliation.
Also, as I write this, I have begun my transition back to my homelands – Winnipeg, Treaty 1 territory. So, for the time being, I am splitting my time between being a guest in Tkaronto and Manitoba. I am excited about this because I think my work will be able to root more deeply in kinship and land, but also be able to travel outwards to communities across Turtle Island. I am inspired and hopefully for what the future holds.
Keep up with Philip Geller
Official Website: https://www.philipgeller.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.geller
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipjgeller/