Dancer Santee Smith offers a new way to consider indigenous women’s issues

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Award-winning choreographer and dancer Santee Smith wanted to think about indigenous women's issues in a new way. She wanted to incite a fresh dialogue on women, reconciliation and healing – and part of that dialogue meant reframing the idea of "truths." By assembling a team of internationally renowned indigenous women artists, she's put together an interdisciplinary show called Re-Quickening, which opens at Toronto's Fleck Dance Theatre next week. The Globe and Mail caught up with Smith in Toronto.

What does Re-Quickening mean?

The word "quickening" refers to the moment that a woman feels life in her womb. It refers to the beginning of life, the essence of life, the movement of life. My background is Six Nations and Mohawk, Turtle Clan – so the term comes from one of our ceremonial processes, the "re-quickening address." Basically, it's an address that embodies how to move beyond grief or how to deal with grief. So Re-Quickening has to do with both the beginning of life and the moving through death.

You've brought together a really impressive team of indigenous artists from all over the world to work with your company, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre. Who are they and how did you select them?

The selection process was really about finding mature, indigenous women artists and activists and having their voices central to the work and the collaboration. There's my colleague, Louise Potiki-Bryant from New Zealand – she's a choreographer and video designer. There are two Mexican collaborators; one is Marina Acevedo from Oaxaca. She's one of the three female dancers who will be live in performance. Then there's Humberto Alvarez, who's working as a musical collaborator. Monique Mojica is another performer, she's Toronto-based. It's a really diverse group.

Tell me more about Re-Quickening's structure. Does it consist of smaller pieces choreographed separately by these artists – or is it more of a full-scale collaboration?

It's a performance work, so I like less to use the word "dance" or "choreography." We have text and sounding and original music and other interdisciplinary aspects, with movement as the main form. The process has been similar to how I usually work – I come up with the overarching theme and the concept, then I invite artists to come in and build upon the theme. I do a lot of research; I spent two years researching. But inside the studio, it's very collaborative.

I pulled a quote from your press material: "It's about our experience, our truth." Can you elaborate on what that means?

In 2013, I brought together Christi Belcourt (Métis), Leanne Simpson (Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg), Monique Mojica (Guna, Rappahannock Nations) and Frances Rings (Kokatha tribe descent) – she's my other collaborator from Australia. We spent a weekend just talking about where we find ourselves as indigenous women. The talk was really about finding our truths, personally as artists and activists, and where we find ourselves in the larger societal context and within our own communities. Then "truth" becomes something that's created in that collaborative process by us, the key collaborators.

What were the big issues that came up when you had these roundtable talks in 2013?

The murdered and missing indigenous women was already in the forefront of everybody's mind. Christi Belcourt had already started her Walking with our Sisters campaign. I didn't have an agenda on what was going to be our take on it. It came out of talking very personally about what we could do to move forward. We reflected on our histories; we reflected on the history of violence against indigenous women – Leanne Simpson had been researching and documenting that. So it really started from that very personal chatting around the table – kitchen-table kind of talk.

Does what's happening in Attawapiskat make you rethink how a project like this can have an impact?

Yeah, for sure. If you look around at the art work that's being made by indigenous artists, the themes are so similar – about intergenerational trauma and the fallout of that, and historical inequities. For my work, what's interesting about our initial 2013 conversation was that part of it was being able to find our solutions – moving forward in our own process of healing. My history of work has always been about finding empowerment and finding strength, and finding the beauty in a culture, even through all these issues. That's still my vision.

You started taking ballet in Six Nations, where you grew up. Then you were accepted into the National Ballet School in Toronto and lived in residence for six years. What was that like?

When I was younger, it was my desire to go to the school. My parents actually wanted me to stay home and be their only child on Six Nations. I was just passionate about ballet, dance and music, so when I was accepted, there was no doubt in my mind that I would go. As I moved forward, I found that I wasn't able to express who I was and my identity through the work. I had the feeling that classical ballet wasn't really representing who I was as a person. I might have gone into contemporary dance, but at that time, the National Ballet School wasn't as open to contemporary dance – it was either ballet or nothing. So I decided to stop.

What were your thoughts on the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's production of Going Home Star and the fact that the production used ballet to tell a Canadian and indigenous story?

It's very complex. My overarching feeling is that the more people know about the residential schools – the history and experience of them – the better. Where it gets into a bit of an issue, especially with indigenous artists, is questioning the degree of collaboration, and the degree of embodied work. When you're working with dance – which is all about your body – you have an embodied experience. With Going Home Star, we're talking about indigenous bodies and seeing indigenous people, seeing indigenous bodies. And for everyone – any population, any audience – being able to see that embodiment is really important. For me as an artist, a mover, and as a person who is really looking at an embodied experience, I think Going Home Star had some issues because of the lack of indigenous bodies in the work. I guess it was an artistic choice to stay with the classical form, but I felt it was a bit of a missed opportunity in terms of that.

Re-Quickening premieres as part of Harbourfront's NextStep series and runs from April 28 to May 1 at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre in Toronto.