Play recalls Annie Mae Aquash

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Yvette Nolan is often told to get over past persecutions inflicted on her Native culture. But the Native artist says she cannot forget the abused and downtrodden around her.

So, she has decided not to get over it. The outspoken Yukon playwright is speaking out about the injustices she witnesses daily. With her direct style, Nolan boldly seeks to promote understanding and healing.

"We can't just get over it, " she said. "Are we supposed to just forget it now and wipe the slate clean? This, in spite of the fact that we have been living oppressed for hundreds of years? It doesn't work that way. I can't forget that my mother was in residential school. I can't forget that there are still all these walking wounded around."

This need to openly discuss Aboriginal people's struggles led Nolan to write a play about a powerful Native activist who was killed for her beliefs. Annie Mae's Movement tells the haunting story of Annie Mae Aquash, a Mikmac from Nova Scotia who became a central figure in the American Indian Movement in the 1970s. She died under mysterious circumstances in 1976 and her murder remains unsolved.

"It is about not being silenced." said the Canadian writer and director. "Not being silenced as a woman. Not being silenced as an Aboriginal in this country. It is about serving a big cause and fighting for something you believe in and the consequences or legacy of that."

The play gives context to Aquash's death by tracking her rise within AIM's male-dominated leadership and her development as a First Nation warrior. Through the legendary figure, Nolan also examines women's places within organizations, their struggles for power and the sacrifices they make for a better life.

"It costs us all whenever we try to say anything in the world," said the prolific playwright of Algonquin and Irish descent. "But this was the big cost for Annie Mae. She had two kids she left with their father in order to go and work for AIM and that, I think, was a huge sacrifice for her. She was really dedicated to big picture politics. But it cost her everything to be who she was within AIM."

For her dedication and hard work as a Native rights activist, Aquash not only lost her family but also endured accusations from suspicious colleagues of being an FBI infiltrator and a traitor. For Nolan, Aquash was a visionary who drew strength from believing that Aboriginal people would gain their rights through negotiation and politics rather than armed resistance.

Nolan wrote the play's first draft during her 1996 tenure as the first ever writer-in-residence at Brandon University. Yet it took two years for Nolan to produce her script for the stage. Twice through unforseen circumstances, rehearsals were cancelled and scheduled shows at Winnipeg's Red Roots Theatre were postponed.

Disappointed and frustrated, Nolan began to feel cursed and sought her mother's advice and guidance. The Elder suggested holding a traditional feast in Aquash's honor. With nothing to lose, Nolan organized a feast with a few friends in Whitehorse early in 1998. It worked. A few weeks later, the Canada Council notified Nolan that it would fund a Yukon production of her play. She also found a cast and scheduled dates for additional shows in Winnipeg and Halifax.

The play premiered in Whitehorse on Sept. 17, 1998 and was sold-out for its three-day run. Two actors presented Annie Mae's Movement on a sparsely decorated stage, transforming the only prop - a table - into everything from an office to a forest. Sophie Merasty starred as Annie Mae while Archer Pechawis played six different male characters.

In addition, the presence of Jim Maloney - Aquash's former husband - at one of the Whitehorse shows caused quite a commotion and Nolan blocked access to backstage to prevent the actors from finding-out. Ironically, Maloney happened to be in Whitehorse as an independent investigator hired to review the shooting death of a 23-year-old Yukon Native man by an RCMP officer.

Folowing the Whitehorse shows, Nolan's small theatre company, Hardly Art, travelled to her home province for a two-week production in Winnipeg. The response from the Winnipeg audience contrasted sharply with Whitehorse's enthusiastic full houses. Nolan explains that prevalent tensions between mainstream and Aboriginal cultures have created a different dynamic in Manitoba's capital city.

"There is a different kind of politic between the mainstream population and First Nation population," she said. "The response was really fierce to the show. The applause was fiercer as was the anger evoked inside of people."

As president of the Playwright's Union of Canada, Nolan hopes her profile will influence and inspire other Native artists to add their voices and stories to the mainstream.

"I think the mainstream audience needs to see this and hear it so they can start seeing what genuine Aboriginal voices look like on stage," said Nolan. "They have been given Dances With Wolves and all these quaint ideas of what Indians are. But those are not genuine Indian voices and I think that we, in order to be recognized as a people, have to be recognized as our own storytellers."