“I didn’t want as a writer or creator of some- thing to hit the audience over the head with a hammer of righteousness. I want to approach it and say, ‘This could be you, your daughter, your friend.’” Audiences were moved beyond emotion


and perhaps to a bit of understanding about the traumatic experience of residential schools for Indigenous peoples. “This clarified for me cause and effect: why


things are a certain way, what happened to the culture, what happened to the language, what happened to the belief system. It was incred- ibly enlightening,” says Herd. “There was this wonderful incident one


of the elders told me about. At intermission, an elderly non-Indigenous person came up to


him with tears running down her face saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ His response was, ‘It’s not about being sorry. It’s about understanding how we move forward together,’” says Herd. Lewis’s commitment to the ballet came


from meeting an elder, the late Mary Richard (Metis), in Winnipeg. “Everybody knew her. Mary used to go to


the ballet and say to Andre, ‘I would really like to talk to you.’ She made a meeting with him and told him, ‘You need to create some- thing new – a Native-themed creation.’ She was the one who inspired him. This ballet is a dedication to the late elder, Mary Richard,” says Keeper. X


Millie Knapp (Anishinabe), a freelance journalist, writes about art and culture.


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 31


“I didn’t want as a writer or creator of something to hit the audience over the head with a hammer of righteousness. I want to approach it and say, ‘This could be you, your daughter, your friend.’”


PHOTO BY SAMANTA KATZ


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