Responding to the Call of the Drum: transmission workshops within the project Songs of Mourning, Songs of Life

ONISHKA is a Montreal-based arts organisation that creates bridges between indigenous peoples worldwide while honoring their diversity, richness and resilience. ONISHKA means Wake Up in Anishnabemowin. In this spirit, we believe that indigenous cosmologies provide pathways towards sustainable communities. Through artistic expression, we can challenge and transform how indigenous realities and struggles are understood.
In 2010, ONISHKA was approached by Engrenage Noir / LEVIER – a non-profit community art and humanist activist art funding and advocacy organization – to co-create with them Songs of Mourning, Songs of Life. This project is bringing together Odaya – a group of Montreal-based Aboriginal women singers and drummers – and several members of Ingoma Nshya – the first ever troupe of Rwandan women drummers. From April 30 to May 15, 2012, between Montreal and the Atikamekw community of Wemotaci, both groups will partake in a unique artistic collaboration which will culminate with a series of performances at Maison de la Culture Frontenac and the M.A.I. in Montreal. The theme of grieving will be central to the project, since these two cultures have been impacted by a history of colonization and genocide, which marked, and continues to mark, the course of their collective and individual experience.
Recognizing that the youth are our future, ONISHKA is putting special emphasis on creating opportunities for cross-generational dialogue between elders and youth, contributing to the transmission of traditional stories, teachings and art practices. In this spirit, ONISHKA is developing a methodology for workshops and artistic projects with Aboriginal youth, to celebrate the depth and richness of Aboriginal cultures while investigating creative and innovative ways to expose existing tensions and offer sustainable solutions. Within the framework of Songs of Mourning, Songs of Life, ten young women from age 14 to 25 year-old, from both the Aboriginal and Rwandan communities, will partake in a series of workshops where knowledge and protocols, songs and personal experiences with the drum, will be shared. Young artists from the Rwandan Youth dancegroup Ihozo in Montreal and the Atikamek young women drummers of Wemotaci will be paired with the members of Odaya and Ingoma Nshya, so that experiences as professional women artists determined to improve the quality and well-being of their respective communities may be shared to the young women, and possibly inspire them.
Eight workshops, which will take place over a period of several months, will focus on the impacts of colonization in both Canada and Rwanda, as well as the role of arts and culture for preserving Indigenous knowledge and traditional practices, for keeping memory alive and inspire action. Participants will be encouraged to connect deeper with their cultural heritage through music, and will partake in a guided discussion around the complexities arising for young women playing the drum. Special emphasis will be put in providing the young women with critical and creative thinking skills, and developing some much needed self-esteem and confidence in themselves and in their capabilities to transform the world around them.
Responding to the Call of the Drum will be the opportunity for participants to reflect on the impacts of colonisation on their respective communities, and exchange on the importance of grieving processes, both individual and collective. In Aboriginal and African cultures, music and songs play a central role throughout periods of mourning; they are healing tools to share with others, to bring peace to existing relationships and celebrate the lineage of traditions that are still alive and teaching us today. The workshops will therefore look at how music is a positive tool for improving the communities’ well-being by bringing people together in a supportive environment so as to celebrate the strength, resilience and beauty of their cultures.