We're so excited to share our 2023.24 season! Our 41st season includes an audio play, live theatre and dance, festivals and collaborations. We invite you to celebrate a new season of stories that showcase Indigenous talent and creativity with us! See our season announcement and show descriptions below:

A new season of stories. Stories that honour our past and show us what the future can look like. This season, we aim to celebrate, to hold space for difficult truths, and to push our audience’s perspectives on what Indigenous art can look like.

We are showcasing a powerhouse of creativity and talent, which is guaranteed to leave us all in awe. We are thrilled to be working with Indigenous artists not only locally based, but from across Turtle Island. We’re excited to welcome artists both new to NEPA, along with artists that have been with us for years.

We’ve been thinking a lot about the 7 Sacred Teachings with this season.

Courage. Tolerance. Strength. Patience. Humility. Wisdom. Generosity.

Each story this season holds a bit of the Teachings, and that balance is how our company continues to move forward.

There truly is a bit of something for everyone this season. So, mark your calendars, and join us in cheering on this extraordinary celebration of Indigenous talent.”

– Joelle Peters, Interim Artistic Director & Himanshu Sitlani, Managing Director

CANOE

Libretto/Story by Spy Dénommé-Welch

Music by Spy Dénommé-Welch & Catherine Magowan

An Unsettled Scores production in collaboration with Native Earth Performing Arts, The Toronto Consort and Theatre Passe Muraille

Previews: Sept. 12-13 | Sept. 15-16 | Trinity-St. Paul's

Canoe is a captivating tale of two sisters from Northern Ontario, their ancestral tree, and an old, but familiar, visitor from the past. Through a minimalist aesthetic, this poignant work breaks free from Eurocentric operatic structures, creating an accessible and safe space for diverse audiences to experience the transformative power of Indigenous storytelling and opera.

THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

Written by Tara Beagan

Directed by Desirée Leverenz

Produced by Native Earth Performing Arts

September 30, 2023 | 30 Minute Audio Play

Free – available on multiple streaming platforms

Available on September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, They Know Not What They Do, by Siminovitch Award winner and former NEPA Artistic Director, Tara Beagan, follows three separate yet parallel journeys through Residential School. Stories of survival weave through time, and as we hear from Elders in the present day and moments in their own voices as small children, we are reminded that these atrocities were perpetrated on vulnerable young people. Within these stories of survival live the strength and wisdom of our ancestors, past, present, and future.

We invite you to this year's Weesageechak festival, for both in-person and online offerings! This year, the festival will bring together 22 Creators from across Turtle Island to develop and showcase their work. In addition, we will have fantastic ancillary programming during the festival of various performers. Join us for the celebration of contemporary Indigenous art!

Full Artist Line-up and Festival Schedule to be Announced in October!

OMAAGOMAAN

Choreography & Performance by Waawaate Fobister

Presented by Native Earth

February 5-18, 2024 | Aki Studio

The Anishinaabe of Grassy Narrows are resilient. They are stitching their fractured landscapes back together from the impact of mercury poisoning. Using dance, movement, sound, and storytelling, the Dora-award winning Waawaate Fobister embodies Omaagomaan, a two-spirit being, and a manifestation of the earth and man-made poisons that have seeped into the earth’s crust. A fierce shape-shifter inspired by Anishinaabeg worldview and cosmologies, Omaagomaan forces us to reckon with the ways the maanaadizi (ugly) and the onishishin (beautiful) collide.

WOMEN OF THE FUR TRADE

Written by Frances Končan

Directed by Renae Morriseau

A co-production with National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre & Great Canadian Theatre Company

April 9-21, 2024 | Aki Studio

Eighteen hundred and something something. A room in a fort on the banks of a Reddish River. This important history is brought to you by Marie-Angelique (a Métis Taurus), Cecilia (a British Virgo), Eugenia (an Ojibwe Sagittarius), Thomas Scott (an Irish Capricorn), and Louis Riel (a Métis Libra). This new production, directed by Renae Morriseau, will premiere at the National Arts Centre’s Azrieli Studio in Ottawa, in January 2024, before coming to Aki Studio.

PAPRIKA FESTIVAL 2024

Presented in Partnership with Native Earth

May 13-19, 2024 | Aki Studio

Currently in the 8th year of partnership, Paprika Festival is working with Native Earth to present the 23rd annual youth-led performing arts festival. Following a year of professional theatre training and mentorship programs, Paprika Festival showcases creations from the next generation for one full week in Aki Studio.

2-SPIRIT CABARET

Presented in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

June 2024 | Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

We are proud to partner once again with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre to present the eighth edition of the 2-Spirit Cabaret!

The 2-Spirit Cabaret is a celebration of the strength, beauty, and talent of queer and 2-Spirit Indigenous people through music, dance, spoken word, drag, performance art, poetry and comedy.

For more information visit www.nativeearth.ca.