Native legends to feature prominently in awards show

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Expect to see a very different National Aboriginal Achievement Awards show than what you've grown accustom to in the past.

Roman Bittman, the new executive producer of the gala show, to be held this year in Saskatoon on March 31, says the elaborate sets of years gone by are out, but that's not to say the audience can't expect something "quite spectacular" to replace them.

Bittman is in close collaboration with the current set designer of the Cirque de Soleil for this year's show and the thunderbird and dreamcatcher legends feature large.

"The motif is the thunderbird, which protects all of Turtle Island ... so we can never see the thunderbird in the whole sense, but we see glimpses of the thunderbird and the idea of the thunderbird in the set," he said.

The theme of this year's gala show is The Power of Dreams, said Bittman.

"Without dreams we have no hope and without hope our children, young people, will never have anything to realize. They must have dreams and it all starts there," he explained.

Also new this year, and in years to come, said Bittman, is that the region hosting the gala will be showcased, so Saskatoon and the Great Plains people will be featured throughout the night. He has been consulting with cultural advisor Jacob Sanderson to ensure that the show is accurate in the Great Plains traditions.

"The Elder invited me up to his reserve just a couple of hundred kilometres north of Saskatoon, on the weekend, and he invited me to sweat in his lodge, sweatlodge. I provided him with tobacco, cloth and ribbon gifts and he inspired by doing a pipe ceremony in aid of the goals of the Aboriginal achievement awards this year, so that was a great honor."

Tyrone Tootoosis (Bittman describes him as his storykeeper) is charged with a number of tasks, including organizing traditional dance performances. Tootoosis says he's expecting to showcase a variety of men's and women's dances particular to the Plains people, then end the performance with tiny tots.

Tootoosis has also been asked to consult with a Lakota Elder about that cultural group's version of the dreamcatcher story, so that it will be accurately reflected in the night's activities.

The colours of the medicine wheel will be the dominant colorus of the set, said Bittman, and the show's hosts are Andrea Menard and Michael Greyeyes, "both from Saskatchewan and both fantastic personalities," he enthused.

Roberta Jamieson is the new Chief Executive Officer of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. She said the show is first and foremost a celebration of the 14 individual award recipients honoured each year, but it also is an opportunity to showcase the performance talents of Aboriginal people.

"Through both exercises we are heightening the Canadians' awareness of both the contributions our people have made to this country, and the contributions we stand poised to make, the sort of unrealized, unleashed potential of our people."

Jamieson said Bittman was a good choice to fill the position left vacant last year by former executive producer and foundation founding president John Kim Bell.

"I thought it was very important to have someone of high calibre, and Roman's an award-winning film and television producer, so I was just delighted that he agreed to take it on."

When asked how it felt stepping into the shoes left by Bell, Bittman had high praise for what had gone before.

"John Kim had done a terrific job, just a wonderful job in getting [the show] where it is, in terms of an event that is the premier, one of, if not the premier event in the Aboriginal world in theatre and also on television. So there is no way I would try and step into his shoes," he explained.

"All I can do is step from his shoes into the direction he was going, and that was to make the rest of the world, and the Aboriginal world, really proud of what they've accomplished, and the non-Aboriginal world know what is going on in the boriginal world, which is positive."