Amuksism. You really have to listen
2024, 60min
a film by Neven Lochhead and Dylan Robinson, with Nick Dangeli
featuring Dylan Robinson, Mike + Dr. Mique’l Dangeli, Git Hayetsk Dancers,
Pat Carrabré, Jessica McMann, Taqralik Partridge, Marion Newman, Cheryl L’Hirondelle,
Peter Morin, Ian Cusson, Alexander Neef, Dr. Robin Gray, J. Alex. Young, Joseph Glaser,
Melody McKiver, Steve Loft, Jani Lauzon, Melody Courage
supported by by Canadian Music Centre and Canadian Heritage
In 2016, Dylan Robinson began working with the Canadian Opera Company, the National Arts Centre, the Canadian Music Centre, and the Nisga’a Lisims Government to repair the misuse of a Nisga’a lim’ooy̓ (dirge/lament song) used in the opera Louis Riel (1967) by Canadian composer Harry Somers and librettist Mavor Moore. Following consultation with Nisga’a Lisims Council of Elders, a request was made to have the song removed from the aria and all other locations. This request led the Canadian Opera Company to work with the executors to the estates of Moore and Somers to replace the song with a new aria. In early 2020, a new aria was premiered by Métis composer Ian Cusson that will stand in place the limx’ooy in future productions. However, countless instances of the lim’ooy̓ still exist in print, scores, and recordings that should not be publicly accessible to sing.
Redressing Riel is a documentary film that follows the redress process, and the outstanding work to be done. The documentary consists of interviews with participants and stakeholders involved in various parts of the redress process. The documentary offers a compelling beginning-to-end perspective on thoughtful, community oriented, and Indigenous centered practices of repatriation in the context of a major, multi-institutional, national arts production.
House | Hall
2022, 48min
a film by Neven Lochhead and Dylan Robinson
with Agnes Etherington Art Centre and Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
Indigenous artists and performers are increasingly approached to contribute to the work of institutional decolonization, as arts institutions recognize the need (or feel pressure) to make their spaces more welcoming and hospitable for Indigenous audiences and community engagement. Within this work, it is sometimes assumed that the more Indigenous artwork/performance that enters a space, the more that space will re-emerge as decolonized. And yet, to program Indigenous work, as important as this shift in representation is, leaves institutional infrastructure intact. Moreover, even in the large-scale projects to rebuild institutions, we may find that infrastructure remains guided by normative values that do not at their foundation (their walls, ceilings, windows and stairs) prompt decolonial and non-normative forms of perception. This video work, a collaboration between Dylan Robinson and Neven Lochhead, improvises around the recurrent demand to “decolonize this space”; it seeks a form through which the institution might be turned toward and away from; it plays with a process for institutional avowal and derangement. It is offered as a prelude for renewed conversation about how Indigenous and allied artistic practices might take (a)part in institutional abolition and structural change without falling into the trap of mere visibility and representation.
not like us; Not like us
2022, 15min
a film by Tanya Lukin Linklater with Neven Lochhead,
Ceinwen Gobert and Ivanie Aubin-Malo
This two-part film and performance document is built around a close reading of Tanya Lukin Linklater’s book of poetry, Slow Scrape (2022), which the poet Layli Long Soldier describes as “an expansive and undulating meditation on time, relations, origin, and colonization.” A long-term collaborative methodology between Linklater, filmmaker Neven Lochhead, and dancers Ceinwen Gobert and Ivanie Aubin-Malo developed out of Linklater’s concept of “felt structure,” which she defines as “a space between us” that is “atmospheric, ever-changing, on the move.”
This moment an endurance to the end forever
2020, 23min
a film by Tanya Lukin Linklater with Neven Lochhead,
Ceinwen Gobert and Ivanie Aubin-Malo
The treaty is in the body
2017, 12min
a film by Neven Lochhead and Tanya Lukin Linklater
with Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Sassa Linklater and Keisha Stone