CupOf Coffee 1983

A song to listen to with your cup of coffee

I'm Not A Prophet Just A Singer

 I was living at 1750 Davie Street, Vancouver hanging out with Colin MacPherson, Debra Charlie, Barb Gunderson, John Anderson doing the Carnegie Theatre Guild 401 Main Street Vancouver, DTES. 1983

Getting up at 4 AM to RESPOND to my friend and colleague filmmaker Loretta Todd!!!

I wrote this in response to a friends Facebook posting . First paragraph is original posting: Image from old performance art gig I did in 1990: Loretta’s Original Post: "On various occasions I was approached by our people - not artists or filmmakers - who had seen films/plays made by our people that they felt traumatized them, that the stories were constructed without any consideration for the meaning or effect it would have on Indigenous people - especially Indigenous women. In fact, many felt those films/plays were really white man's fantasies or that the women in the work were to blame for their tragedies. Does a filmmaker/playwright have any responsibility to the people who watch their films? Do Indigenous filmmakers/playwright have any responsibility to audiences? We talk about the "power" of words but what does that mean to those who write or make films? Do we give the white audiences what they want but couch it in Indigenousness so it is ok? My answers to those people was to say, well, I respect the work that goes into making films or plays - and as a filmmaker all I can do is make decolonized work myself to counter those colonized imaginations. Can we possibly have a forum for such discussion or will the colonized win?" by Loretta Todd A forum would be of interest. How did we as indigenous people develop in according to the transformation of storytelling from an oral based tradition to the colonial based creations that occurred during contact, or exist today in some form of Eurocentric patterning, construction, sculpturing or pictorial reference. From the time, we are little babies, we are introduced to stories from our parents, relations, and the written word. Learning how to live with our fears as we grew, how to compartmentalize our traumatic experiences as a child How emotions develop or do not develop ((Residential, assimilation control) and what happens to us when we personally have a private or public meltdown, a cathartic release of emotional baggage which gets triggered by watching and listening to an emotional moment in a play, film, song, musical motif, artwork, performance, novels and so on. From my early days as a child remembering the abuse I experienced, work or play accidents, the pain, the blood, (what ever my senses were absorbing at the time) such sad moments would and did come back to my present senses because if what I was doing that day. Listening to a song, (remembering a breakup, or the ecstasy of ones first time falling in love.) Does the Creator have an obligation to inform me of my “upcoming “ experience of traumatic event, experience prior to it happening, so that there is some consideration to how such an future event is going to affect me? In some case, God and the gods did warn the humans to watch out for an upcoming event, to prevent harm or suffering, and well, today, do us little creators have to go around every other day to inform our audience that our creations may offend you, traumatize you, or cause you to feel bad, or confused??? I do not know the answer to your question Loretta. Similar posting to Curtis’s posting on fb a while ago about production practices of Eurocentric filming to indigenous filming, (ceremonies, circles prior to production, versus the hierarchy of the Hollywood Hallucination, its value system, and modes of production. Ultimately, I am not talking about the regimentation of the arts in cases an actor or dancer’s training, a filmmaker’s long endless trail of writing, re-writing, number crunching, photographing, or a writer, or visual artist’s endless array into constructing the perfect form to entice, or embrace the audience member or reader into the world of one’s creation. So, on that note, lets look at the people who inquired about cause and effect of works on the audience member. You open with: “On various occasions I was approached by our people - not artists or filmmakers - who had seen films/plays made by our people that they felt traumatized them, that the stories were constructed without any consideration for the meaning or effect it would have on Indigenous people - especially Indigenous women.” On an elementary level, yes, the artist should post a notice if objectible content may offend or affect people severely. ON that elementary societal level, it exists today, Film labels at beginning of movies, book introductions, public announcement prior to shows. As in an old book I once had Amos Vogel’s Film as a subversive Art, there were many articles and examples of film works which crossed cultural, sexual, and aesthetic taboos, which shocked the audience, happenings which enraged the audience member, and where as of course police came in and did their arresting job. An artist may have or may not have a responsibility towards notifying the audience of objectible material in ones’ work? Depending on the artist’s intention. Entice, massage, entangle, shock the audience member’s sense to get a reaction, a change of thinking, rationalization? So, we come to the difficult notion regarding the re-traumatization of indigenous women through our work as creators? From an indigenous standpoint, yes, we as artist must take inconsideration how our works will affect our people when it comes to re-telling the traumatic personal and public stories of the genocide assimilation policies, institutions, orphanages, foster homes, priests estuaries, and private and public places where our people were abused, sexually assaulted, or murdered because we were “Indians”. More so for our women, because of in my opinion the Missing women tragedies which affected so many families and mothers and fathers. Daughters, sons, and babies. Now on another level, I think about performance art and other cultural aspects if I can coin a phase “Reactionary” art works, Guerilla filmmaking, shock art, Otter Muhols “Happenings “Happenings” of the post Nazi Germanic years. When I first read about this character in Vogel’s book, I was shocked and appalled at the artist’s previous history. I was taking Experimental and Avant Guarde filmmaker Al Razutis’s video production course and reading that book affected the development and creation of my performance video theatre performance By Leisure/By Penance, (1986) which look at the Native Artist in Contemporary society. I utilized some of those shocking images briefly in my video trying to understand my history as a native man in a white racist society. I also captured a video image of apiece of liver falling in front of the camera onto a piece of glass, and shot a scene of hands tearing apart the liver. Shock value, what was I trying to say back then? I know at that time of my life, all my physical and sexual abuse as a child was repressed and forgotten, until such traumatic memories came out through my academic training as a young artist! Playmaking class (theatre) we were working with the colour punk: that was when suddenly my rape experience came up and I went into a rage in my working space area, with the teacher eventually coming up to me to ask me to tone it down! Another time in an acting directing semester, the teacher Olive Crawford came up to me and whispers in my ear, “to come back to earth, you are scaring the other students” Again, rage and anger from my abusive years came out through the exploratory work of the time. Which brings me back to your other statement: “In fact, many felt those films/plays were really white man's fantasies or that the women in the work were to blame for their tragedies." What was I projecting through these experiences, performance art? Were they uncontrolled cathartic releases in the sacred theatre space where we can explore such emotions if we are in control as actors or artists? An actor must be 110 % committed to his/her performance but at the same time remember that 10% of his/her brain that it is only acting! So, at the time as a young native art student I was learning the euro centric forms of art/culture, filmmaking void of my cultural history but learning all aspects of art culture, when to break the rules, and so on. It was not till Spirit Song Native Indian theatre Company (1884) and the Chief Dan George Memorial Foundation Nine-month video training program (1986), that I was being re-introduced to the oral tradition, and “True” history of what happened to us as a people. Previously I was the white Indian Artist performing the “white man’s fantasies” the Hollywood Indian, or attempting to find white man’s success on their playing terms, which was a take it or leave it scenario, an unworkable scenario unless we worked a subservient level, and that if I did not get the part, it was my fault because I was an Indian. So, when these -good indigenous audience members say “those films/plays were really white man’s fantasies …or that the women …were to be blam[ed] for their tragedies” What does that say for the indigenous creator/author of the story? That our creation abilities are thwarted by euro-centric forms of story-telling, western semiotics, colonial upbringing? Looking at the well-made play, a one act play, a standard three act play or two act play, episodic play, or film, we are in one level governed by the traditional euro-centric forms of storytelling, traditional dramaturgical devices to introduce characters, rising conflict, climax, and the denouement. But as you point out Loretta, we are now attempting to de-colonized out stories through our own practices, training, and cultural upbringing. In closing, you finish off your inquiry: “We talk about the "power" of words but what does that mean to those who write or make films? Do we give the white audiences what they want but couch it in Indigenousness so it is ok? My answers to those people was to say, well, I respect the work that goes into making films or plays - and as a filmmaker all I can do is make decolonized work myself to counter those colonized imaginations. Can we possibly have a forum for such discussion or will the colonized win?" The power of the word, and what does that mean to us as artists? Well, the power of the word, the spirit of the word in endless, much can happen in life in how we chose our words. Spiritually, we can only look at the Creator, and how the power of the word brought creation in to being. How our words as artist bring into fruition the genesis of our own creations. How to respect the tools and gifts our creator has given us through our genes, upbringing, cultural training education and academic reasoning. Yes, respect is so important these days, Wars have been started over the wrong usage of words, we must consider how our work will affect audience members and have initiatives to counter act negative reactions, and attitudes. For Headline theatre’s tour of Out of The Silence, we had counsellors on our tour because of how forum theatre affected the audience members and even ourselves as actors. As a filmmaker, I had to change one of my films to take in consideration another artists’ objections to usage of a poem of the artist because as a university student I did not ask the artist permission and used the poem in a filmic scene to get an reaction for the audience members of the time. And as I stated earlier, the liver scene was created for purely audience reaction. So, the life of an artist is a learning curve. Respect for the audience is important and awareness of culture history is important and artists should create accordingly and respectfully, unless we live in a fascist society and we need shock art/culture to shock the society out of complacency! Decolonizing oneself as an indigenous artist is important and decolonizing the audience member is justified as well to change the colonial mindset of the last century and the next generations. God, bless you Loretta, hopefully I haven gone off on a tangent and my words make sense today in this complex world. Donald Morin, BA

On one final closing note, I remember my friend and colleague late Metis Artist Donald Ghostkeeper's performance work with this piece. Former SFU Modern Dance Student Maggi Guzzi, one of the dancers with us who played a residential school nun, did a scene where she straddled one of us residential school student character's on the stage while (I think) she poured milk over the performer. People were shocked and offended at the time. Genocide, how offensive was that? smile emoticon:-) & frown emoticon:-( The things we do as artists to change the world. Have a nice day Loretta, thanks for allowing me to express my ideas and experience