Land, spirit and community come together in Braiding the Land, a powerful showcase from Raven Spirit Dance Company. Through three compelling works, the company honours the beauty and strength of Indigenous women’s stories – blending contemporary movement with traditional forms.
Experience Indigenous worldviews brought to life on stage in Courtenay on May 16. Presented by the Sid Williams Theatre Society as part of the Blue Circle Series, this tour also marks a milestone as Raven Spirit celebrates 20 years of storytelling through dance.
The anniversary program brings that legacy to the stage with a trio of unforgettable pieces – Frost Exploding Trees Moon, Spine of the Mother and Confluence.
“The pieces themselves are part of our repertoire over the last 20 years, so that’s kind of been part of our celebration,” says co-founder and co-artistic director Michelle Olson. “Each piece is a response to land, a response to landscape and, in a way, it’s about how our bodies are the land. We are like the trees, we are like the waters, we are like the earth, the mountains. Our bodies do have a place in the landscape.”
The evening opens with Frost Exploding Trees Moon, a solo work performed by Olson and co-created with Floyd Favel over 15 years ago. It follows a woman’s physical and spiritual journey on her trapline as she settles into her camp and becomes present through breath and perception.
From this intimate beginning, the program expands into a duet choreographed by co-artistic director Starr Muranko and performed by Tasha Faye Evans and Marisa Gold. Spine of the Mother began as a groundbreaking collaboration with Indigenous artists from Canada and Peru. The piece traces the inner landscapes of women’s bodies, where breath, impulse and memory awaken kinetic energy and ritual – mirroring the spine of the mountain range that runs through the Americas.
“Spine is from at least 10 years ago,” notes Olson. “Originally, when Starr first started work on that piece, she started creating it by Skype – this was even way before the pandemic – because she was working with dancers in Peru, in Cusco.”
The program culminates in Confluence, the company’s most recent ensemble work. Dancers Michelle Olson, Starr Muranko, Jeanette Kotowich, Samantha Sutherland and Emily Solstice weave perspectives, histories and bodies into a dynamic tapestry that speaks to the resilience of Indigenous women.
“It’s the piece that’s kind of ‘got legs,’ so we thought, if we were to do this piece again, what would complement it? And we felt like those other two pieces would.”
Raven Spirit’s ability to create and curate stories that resonate across time and territory is rooted in both creative practice and a deep relationship with place. While the company is based in Vancouver, its foundations stretch north to Olson’s Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation ancestry in the Yukon.
Performing at Dawson City’s cozy 90-seat cultural centre played a key role in the company’s early development. It became a nurturing space to stay grounded in community and land.
“It was such a great venue to create work, share work and just continue to dance,” Olson says. Weekly performances drew both elders and children, with one daycare returning all summer to see the same show. “They would be just as excited every week. It just meant a lot to me.”
That sense of rootedness reflects Raven Spirit Dance’s core values: generosity, integrity, honouring, courage and creation.
“I think we’re always working from a place of ‘What are our values and are we engaging with them as we do our work?’ They’re kind of our guiding light of how we exist in the world and what we do in the room, how the room is run and how the work is realized…. There’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of acknowledgment of who has contributed to the work.”
It’s this strong footing that allows Raven Spirit Dance to move fluidly between communities, responding to different landscapes and different audiences while staying connected to their purpose.
In Braiding the Land, audiences are invited to reflect on their own relationship to land and body. “Their own bodies are of the land, and that in itself can be such a great source of transformation and healing.” Whether someone is tied to traditional territory or not, everyone is encouraged to consider how land lives within them.
The performance also welcomes those new to Indigenous contemporary dance. “There’s a lot of access points in the work,” says Olson. “It’s not like we’re operating on a specific code, which sometimes can happen in certain art forms.” Instead, connection is based on shared humanity and embodied experience.
As Braiding the Land continues its anniversary tour, Raven Spirit Dance is looking ahead. With an upcoming New Zealand tour and new pieces in development, the company’s legacy lies not only in the stories it has shared across continents and decades, but also in its steadfast commitment to Indigenous-led creation.
Don’t miss Braiding the Land – a powerful night of dance, story and spirit.