"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.

This book is the first comprehensive study of the theatre of contemporary Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta to appear in thirty years. It raises the curtain on western theatre and the accomplishments of the many facets of theatre: educators, writers, performers, and more.
"West-words "gives the reader a bird's-eye view of the contemporary theatre scene across the prairies. Eighteen essays written by scholars, educators, dramaturges, publishers, designers, directors, and playwrights--all actively involved in the Canadian prairie theatre--explore the professional, cultural, and aesthetic complexities of creating, producing, performing, and publishing dramatic "words" in the Canadian "west."
While acknowledging the role of older, established theatres--like Prairie Theatre Exchange in Manitoba, The Globe Theatre and Persephone in Saskatchewan, and Alberta Theatre Projects, Theatre Network, Workshop West, and the Citadel in Alberta in generating new work outside conventional theatre spaces. Finally the collection also looks at how smaller theatres like Sarasvati, La Troupe du Jour, and the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company give women, francophones, and aboriginals their own dramatic voice.