Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey
A black hole, hungry ghosts, a Grandmother wolf—Quelemia Sparrow’s Skyborn is an epic odyssey grounded in Indigenous ancestral knowledge.
Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey
By Quelemia Sparrow
A Savage Society production presented with The Cultch
A black hole, hungry ghosts, a Grandmother wolf—Quelemia Sparrow’s Skyborn is an epic odyssey grounded in Indigenous ancestral knowledge. Guided through the universe on a river made of stars, Sparrow makes a journey by canoe to recover her lost soul from the land of the dead. This adventure is deeply rooted in the cosmology and teachings of her Musqueam heritage. It invites the audience to bear witness to a reclamation of culture, land and self.
Skyborn is imaginatively constructed and fiercely poignant. It introduces never-before-seen Musqueam/Sto:lo visual storytelling and animation, as well as inter-Indigenous sound and puppetry, but at its heart is the simple, irreducible force of human presence: Sparrow is a natural performer, endowed with grace and magnetism. This work is her gesture of liberation.
PLAYWRIGHT AND PERFORMER Quelemia Sparrow DIRECTOR Kim Senklip Harvey DRAMATURG Lindsay Lachance SET DESIGN Andy Moro VIDEO DESIGN Emily Sousanna COSTUME DESIGN Evan Ducharme LIGHTING DESIGN Itai Erdal ILLUSTRATIONS Chief Lady Bird, Chrystal Sparrow, Carrielynn Victor SOUND TEAM Mishelle Cuttler, Christie Lee Charles, Russell Wallace PUPPET DESIGN Stephanie Elgersma
SUPPORTED BY National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund FURTHER FUNDING FROM Canada Council for the Arts, Government of Canada, British Columbia Arts Council, The First Peoples’ Cultural Council, City of Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, Boca del Lupo.
Quelemia Sparrow is a writer and performer of Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey, showing at The Cultch from January 23-February 1. 1) What motivates your work as an artist? Being Musqueam, our land, Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Joy. Aspirations to shake down false narratives with cheekiness, truth and humour...
The 90-minute long, no intermission, presentation is part of the Cultch Fourth Annual Femme Series; a series of shows and events centered on presenting Indigenous women’s voices and personal journeys...
A soul canoe is a sacred vessel that no one else but you can travel in. The sacred vessel is what transports your immortal soul through eternity on a universal river made of stars. It can also retrieve it when it wanders during times of sickness or healing. Belief in this ancestral ritual is deeply held in the Musqueam culture. It isn’t typically shared publicly...
Directed by Kim Senklip Harvey, Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey is a one-woman play where actor Quelemia Sparrow acts out the characters of a granddaughter and her grandmother, with brief appearances as her mother, father, and sister. If this sounds confusing, it’s because it definitely had the potential to be. It’s a difficult feat, even for a highly talented actor, to convincingly pull off multiple characters in a live setting — but Sparrow manages to evoke different sensibilities in each one...
Politics, language, history: all play a part in playwright and actor Quelemia Sparrow’s Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey, but this innovative interdisciplinary undertaking began with time for quiet reflection, dreaming, and the act of putting pen to paper...
Shawn and Kristy during the Skyborn touch tour holding a paddle, decorated with abalone and carved with a wolf's head....
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