Sun spirits stole the show

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The Milk International Children's Festival of the Arts, which ran from May 23 to 30 at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre, featured eight days of entertainment for children. Programming included live music, dance, circus, theatre, storytelling, puppetry, improv and sketch comedy and film. Many of the performances featured hybrid forms of dance theatre and storytelling theatre.

The Eagleheart Singers and Red Sky Performance both performed during the festival. Red Sky's show combined two theatre-dance pieces under the title Sun Spirits. The first piece was How the Raven Stole the Sun, a Tlingit story about an old man who keeps the sun, moon, and stars in three boxes until raven tricks him into releasing them, bringing light into the world. The second piece was Caribou Song, based on the 2001 children's book by Cree playwright Tomson Highway, describing two brothers who get swept into a migrating caribou herd.

To convert the traditional oral story of How the Raven Stole the Sun into a theatre performance, Red Sky artistic director Sandra Laronde approached Tlingit storykeeper Shaa Tlaa/Maria Williams, who granted her permission. Laronde then asked Anishinabe playwright Drew Hayden Taylor to write the script.

"First, we asked Maria to tell us all the story," Laronde explained in a post-show interview. "We wanted to hear it first, so we could develop our first reactions from the gut. Then we commissioned Drew to write the piece. It was a bit of a collaborative effort, because we went through four or five drafts, working to integrate the dance aspect into traditional theatre form."

How the Raven Stole the Sun contained two dance solos, by Red Sky cast members Carlos Rivera (Mixteco) as the old man and Jonathan Fisher (Anishinabe) as Raven. Fisher's hiphop solo and Rivera's powerful modern dance moves were refreshing additions to the show's theatre form.

All the performances were strong, but Fisher's outstanding portrayal of the scheming and single-minded Raven, intent on gaining access to the old man's house and finding out what he keeps in the boxes, was particularly memorable. Fisher and Laronde (Anishinababe), who appeared as the old man's daughter, also had an excellent comic bit in which Raven was (re)born as the daughter's son. The bit involved a wearable device that Laronde inflated as she "slept," and required Fisher to hide beneath a camouflaged bench, emerging from between Laronde's legs as she sat on the edge. The sight of Fisher's skinny legs and adult face in a diaper and bonnet, his Raven-like squawks of "Box! Box!" reverberating to the rafters, nearly brought down the house.

The simple set featured only a stone hearth, three cedar-like boxes, a chair, a bench, and blue silk to represent water. But there were some sophisticated touches: an electric fan was placed offstage, under the silk, to help it move like water. And when Raven took the lids off the boxes, the sun, moon, and stars appeared overhead as projections, eliciting an awed "ahhh!" from the audience.

The music for both sections of Sun Spirits-both score and sound effects-was performed live. Virtuoso percussionist Rick Lazar and marimba player Rick Sacks appeared onstage behind the actors during both performances. (Fisher joined Sacks and Lazar on electric guitar for Caribou Song.)

This kind of integration is a key concept for Red Sky Performance, which combines theatre, dance and music to tell both traditional and contemporary Aboriginal stories.

"Our approach has always been multi-disciplinary," Laronde said. "Aboriginal oral tradition uses theatre, dance, song, mask work, and live music. Even sculpture, if you look at the masks.

"It's about having theatre with a body, and dance with a voice."

Laronde believes that taking theatre to young people will make it a lifetime habit. "I love it when I hear little kids yelling 'Bravo!' after the show," Laronde said. "They're learning to appreciate theatre at a young age."

Attendance was high, according to festival artistic director Jeremy Stacey, who reported full houses for all of the indoor performances.