"A valuable and timely collection." - Alan D. Filewod , author of Committing Theatre Following the Final Report on Truth and Reconciliation, Performing Turtle Island investigates theatre as a tool for community engagement, education, and resistance. Understanding Indigenous cultures as critical sources of knowledge and meaning, each essay addresses issues that remind us that the way to reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples is neither straightforward nor easily achieved. Comprised of multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives, Performing Turtle Island considers performance as both a means to self-empowerment and self-determination, and a way of placing Indigenous performance in dialogue with other nations, both on the lands of Turtle Island and on the world stage. "Brilliantly introduces pedagogies that jump scale; a bundling project for future ancestors revealing knowledges for flight into kinstillatory relationships." - Karyn Recollet , co-author of In This Together: Blackness, Indigeneity, and Hip Hop "An important resource for those who want to introduce or incorporate Indigenous artistic perspectives in their course or work." - Heather Davis-Fisch , author of Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance "A very significant and welcome contribution to the growing body of work on Indigenous theatre and performance in the land now called Canada." - Ric Knowles , author of Performing the Intercultural City

This book investigates theatre as a tool for community engagement, education, and resistance. Understanding Indigenous cultures as critical sources of knowledge and meaning, each essay addresses issues that remind us that the way to reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples is neither straightforward nor easily achieved. Comprised of multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives, Performing Turtle Island considers performance as both a means to self-empowerment and self-determination, and a way of placing Indigenous performance in dialogue with other nations, both on the lands of Turtle Island and on the world stage.

"Sighting/Citing/Siting "is a broad contextualization of an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural performance entitled Crossfiring/Mama Wetotan. Produced by Knowhere Productions Inc. at the Claybank Brick Plant National Historic Site (Saskatchewan, Canada) in 2006, this site-specific event explored the significance of the Dirt Hills to pre-contact aboriginal culture and to the non-aboriginals who have proliferated there since the mid-nineteenth century. The negotiation between practise and theory, in particular the desire to privilege neither, is represented in the book's design; its collection of critical articles, full-colour catalogue, and DVD of artist interviews and performances describe the interaction of a range of site-specific practises focusing on collaboration and interdisciplinarity.
This book is pertinent to those interested in non-conventional performance, site-specific practise, post-colonial history, labour history, cultural geography, and eco-tourism--and to all who understand the beauty of the Canadian prairies. DVD included.