“And with the earth as my mother, we began to sing a song,” sang Métis Two-Spirit artist Moe Clark.
Clark closed the three-show Decolonize the Chan series on March 26 with Feast Of The Invisible, an immersive performance that blended ceremonial storytelling, têwêhikan (hand drum) and musical genres from jazz to throat singing.
Clark’s performance was dramatic and anthemic. Her music was a mix of spoken word, throat-singing and gospel singing. The echoing effect created through background vocals and throat singing abducted the listener from an auditorium and put them in a mystical forest-like environment where they could feel one with nature.
Her spoken word poetry was compelling as every syllable slipped one after the other effortlessly, making listeners pay attention. She spoke about prophecies and wrath, like she was reciting an epic (R.I.P. Homer, you would’ve loved Moe Clark).
The meditative yet playful body language that accompanied her words made it seem as if she was one with the music. Her voice was free as if it was fleeting away in the forest, travelling between tall trees yet still hinged to a place, to a story.
There is a freedom that comes from watching someone who is free — someone who is proud of who they are and is willing to share themselves with others. Her music felt like nature talking back at me, but not softly like I always imagined, but bravely and proudly.
She invited the audience to howl like a coyote — something I never knew that I wanted to do. As entertaining as the howling was, what I enjoyed more was the all-encompassing feeling of not knowing — and wanting to reach out to know more.
Clark mixes vocal improvisation with multilingual lyricism, singing in English, Cree, Ojibwe and Inuktitut. The English lyrics and the coyote sounds were the few aspects of the performance that I understood.
UBC’s mandatory practice of land acknowledgement, however important, is not enough to understand the rich cultures we miss out on due to the lack of Indigenous representation in settler Canadian popular culture. Clark’s performance left me feeling more connected with the world that surrounds me.
The exceptionally talented ensemble that accompanied Clark lifted the audiences’ spirits even further.
The ensemble included Nina Segalowitz on voice and throat singing, Ahau Marino on guitar and voice, Éveline Grégoire-Rousseau on harp and voice, Anit Ghosh on violin and voice, Marton Maderspach on percussion and voice and Summer Kodama on upright bass.
Segalowitz mentioned during the performance that learning her ancestral art form was a process of healing for her.
To finish off the performance, Clark performed a sacred song. While the applause echoed through the theatre, all I could think about was how sad it was that there were only a few university students in the audience. Clark’s performance provided the audience with an otherworldly sacred experience that would benefit younger generations on campus.
It represented a distinct way to connect with the land of Indigenous peoples – the stolen Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh land which UBC students now inhabit.
As Margo Kane, a Cree-Saulteaux performing artist, said in her pre-concert talk, there is a lot to learn from the stories that survived of the people who could not — and from the people like Moe Clark who continue to speak them to life.