culture
Truth, Laughter, and a Busted Sound System
A writers' gathering sheds light on Toronto as a hub of indigenous creativity
Dallas Goldtooth leads the crowd in a spontaneous execution of The Wave
From the moment event emcee Dallas Goldtooth bursted on stage, it was clear that last week’s Indigenous Writers’ Gathering Gala Reading Night (held at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto for three hours on Friday evening) would not be the stuffy literary gathering one might typically experience in downtown Toronto. Goldtooth is best known for his role in the sketch comedy troupe the 1491s, whose winking, stereotype-lampooning online videos have scored hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits. The group’s website prominently features the following Oscar Wilde quote: “If you’re going to tell them the truth, you better make them laugh, or they will kill you.” And, incidentally, it’s a statement that could be applied to Friday’s event as well, where laugher-coated toughness facilitated the digestion of jagged truths and audio-visual malfunctions.
Three hours is a long time for any kind of event where the audience is kept more or less captive, but this one did its roughly 120-140 attendees the service of providing refreshments and a thoughtful—and varied—program. With a performance by Winnipeg hip-hop artist Wab Kinew, readings by authors Bren Kolson, Daniel Heath Justice, Waubgeshig Rice and Lee Maracle, screenings and live-sketch renditions by the 1491s, and an unclassifiable and hilarious comedy reading of sorts by writer-actor AmberLee Kolson, there was enough variety to keep the event from getting stale. More importantly, the event provided a glimpse into the broad scope of indigenous artistic expression—and a reminder that such expression does, in fact, occur in Toronto.
“Toronto has no kind of defined neighbourhood where indigenous people congregate,” says Rebeka Tabobondung, publisher of Muskrat Magazine, an independent, online, indigenous arts and culture magazine based in Toronto, which was one of the sponsors of last week’s writers’ gathering. “There are a few silos where there seem to be a few native organizations, but there’s no, like, Little Indigenous Town or something.”
For this reason, Tabobondung was pleased to be involved in the gathering. Sometimes, she says, people need to be reminded of the creative indigenous presence that converges within our own city.
“For whatever reason, people in Ontario and Toronto haven’t really taken up the profiling of indigenous art from these territories, whereas cities like Vancouver have a lot more of a visual presence in terms of art and architecture,” she observes. “There’s next to nothing in Toronto, which increases that sense of invisibility in the city. Also, because Toronto’s such a huge city, it’s harder to see who’s indigenous.”
Which is why, in spite of a program that was arguably too long and a venue whose sound system seemed barely to function—which became almost unbearable during Kinew’s valiant hip-hop performance effort—the presentation managed to work. Each performer had a powerful story to tell, through his or her own medium, that combined knowing laughter with heart-rending glimmers of a stubbornly tragic collective history. The event also provided a reminder: Toronto has a thriving indigenous community with stories to tell. Maybe we ought to try listening.