Native earth Performing Arts presents HUFF at the Aki Studio

Native earth Performing Arts presents HUFF at the Aki Studio Theatre inside the Daniels Spectrum in Toronto from Oct. 10 to Oct. 25. The production launches an eight-city national tour in 2016, including Montreal, Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Kelowna and Victoria.

HUFF was written and is performed by Cree playwright Cliff Cardinal. It explores the lives of Indigenous youth battling addiction and systemic injustices while in search of a better life. An email sent to Windspeaker reports that when Cliff was 15 years old his mother, actor and activist Tantoo Cardinal, allowed him to miss a semester of school in order to sit in on rehearsals of Michael Hollingsworth’s Canadian history plays at VideoCabaret.

“Cliff’s youth was spent surrounded and supported by pillars of Canadian theatre shaping him into the artist he is today.” HUFF, it said, is the story of First Nations youth “grappling with inherent hardship as told through a mixture of reality and a gas-induced fantasy. Cliff’s solo performance gives life to an entire cast of characters in this spellbinding and poignant play,” reads the press statement.

Cliff Cardinal says “HUFF began, like all my stories do, as a creative exploration of the pain of those living outside the mainstream: the weirdos, the addicts and the romantics. To take the characters to their lowest, where they hurt the most, and to find them there with love.” For more information visit www.nativeearth.ca