Deer Woman Worldwide — Arts Commons Blog

Oct 8

Oct 8 Deer Woman Worldwide

AC@Home, Behind the Scenes, Downstage, Inspiring Stories

The internationally acclaimed production of Tara Beagan's Deer Woman returns for a triumphant encore screening from ARTICLE 11 and Downstage on October 4 - 18, 2021. This undeniably moving one-woman show was reimagined for the virtual landscape after the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown, perfectly blending the mediums of film and stage for a story of strength and righteous vengeance. After it’s initial screening, it continued to make waves as it was screened by National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre, Chinook Festival in partnership with Azimuth Theatre and the Kia Mau Festival (New Zealand). Visit downstage.ca today to learn more!

Audiences around the world
Deer Woman’s first public audience was the reading at Native Earth’s Weesageechak festival in November 2017. After four days of development we had a showing. We experimented with blocking and video design. The primarily Indigenous crowd was silent when we concluded, and Cherish recalls feeling worried. The first sound to explode from our people was not applause, but a loud sob from one woman, followed by resounding cheers.

Our first audience for full performance was in June of 2018, predominantly Māori, and enormously encouraging. We debuted at the Kia Mau Festival through our whānau Tawata Productions. Artistic Directors Mīria and Hone are so gifted at nurturing community that people attend from all over Aotearoa and Australia. Blood was not yet off book, and the show’s pace suffered. Still, the houses were packed and the response impassioned. There we were able to actualize all elements, including major refinements to the script.

Our aunties Lily Shearer and Rachael Maza, who had been at Kia Mau, sung the show’s praises loudly. Wesley Enoch, Festival Director of the Sydney Festival, programmed us in January 2019. We were held in community by Mooghalin Performing Arts throughout our time at Carriageworks, and loved having time with our Aussie cousins. Being so close to the neighbourhood Redfern, many people had points of parallel as they witnessed Deer Woman.

We ran for a month in Edinburgh at the fringe, in August 2019, to our quietest crowds. It is difficult to unpack Canada’s race relations in a country where the Indigenous peoples are identified as “white,” even though we share the same colonizers. Some nights we were blessed with the presence of our Indigenous colleagues from Turtle Island, and it was a great relief to hear their laughter and applause.

Immediately after Edinburgh, we returned to Australia where we enjoyed a strong Indigenous presence in the crowd, thanks to Daniel Clarke and the outreach of the Arts Centre Melbourne’s Big World, Up Close programming. Several of our cousins were repeat viewers and we appreciated them so very much.

What follows are some questions we fielded at these many locations.

What does it cost Lila to do what she does?
Lila’s actions are extreme. She understands that it will change her life forever, as well as the soul that she is. Part of the grief she faces during the telling of Deer Woman is her own loss of humanity as she confronts this inevitability.

Why is Lila Blackfoot?
It is no accident that the national border slicing across Turtle Island cuts through such powerful nations as the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the Haudenosaunee (Mohawk.) These are nations renown for their warrior societies as well as their guiding matriarchs.

Was this play written for Cherish?
The writing began in residence at the Leighton cabins, Banff Playwright’s Lab in 2017. My aim at the time was to complete a draft of a play for young audiences, but as soon as I arrived, Lila began speaking clearly. Curator Brian Quirt gave his blessing, noting I should write whatever was driving at me. The draft came to ¾ full when I arrived at a standstill. For 24 hours, my partner Andy Moro and I traveled to Vancouver, to see PJ Prudat perform in Margo Kane’s Moonlodge.

On the drive there, I read what I had written aloud. Andy excitedly proclaimed “It’s Cherish!” I agree. On arrival in Vancouver, Prudat gifted me a beautiful handmade copper and bird’s eye maple knife created by Mick Harms. That knife and the power of Cherish allowed me to enter the final ¼ of Deer Woman when I returned to Banff.

Is the “theatre play” Lila talks about- the one her Gloria saw with some women from the halfway house – is it real?
It is a semi-fictionalized account of the Theatre Network premiere of Colleen Murphy’s play, Pig Girl. This production in Edmonton had outcry from the Indigenous and Métis community. The playwright and director were identifying as white (the director Bradley Moss began identifying as Métis during this production) and the title character was inspired by the serial murder victims perpetrated by a man who will remain unnamed here. In the play, she is not named, but is peripherally identified as “Aboriginal.” In the premiere production, a non Indigenous actor was cast in the role and anecdotal evidence tells us she affected a “rez accent.”

Deer Woman is, in part, a response to this work, but it is really addressing a larger issue. Non Indigenous people not only benefit from the exploitation of Indigenous lands and peoples, they also exploit the stories of those exploitations for their financial gain. The whole Deer Woman team considers this highly problematic.

How do you feel addressing MMIWG with your work? Also, “How do you take care of yourself in this kind of work?
Every time one of our women or girls is stolen, I feel powerless and despair. Writing is a gift given to me, and it feels like all I can do to address the profound damage that occurs in the world when another of us is taken. It feels vital. Yes, it takes a toll, to project the imagination into these tellings, but as Blood so articulately put it, “It’s way easier than what people go through when the body of their family member turns up.” It is what little we can do.

We create as safe a space as possible, by acknowledging and paying homage to the land we work on, and and the peoples who belong to that land. We focus on love and gratitude in the work, we ensure smudge is available, and we enjoy great belly laughs at every opportunity. All of this is medicine that carries us along. This reality has to stop.

What can we do?
Do your own homework. Learn about whose land you’re on. Pass along resources to others who need to learn. Don’t put the burden of educating on Indigenous peoples, because we are already expending energy surviving this colonized nation as well as working hard to excel at our work as storytellers. We are fluent in hegemonic society, and so the least you can do is have a cursory knowledge of the wisdom held in the land you live on and in the peoples who rightly belong to it.