KOQM
shalan joudry
Live Performance:
April 5th – 17th
Neptune Theatre Fountain Hall
Co-presented with Neptune Theatre
Virtual Performance:
Saturday, September 3rd – Monday, September 5th
Online
Free
Koqm is a journey through time and land to experience the voices of fictional L’nu (Mi’kmaw) women. Throughout the course of the show we hear and meet the women who might have spoken and walked through one area of forest over centuries. Guided by the strength of an ancient tree (“koqm”), the women’s voices share with us their personal stories of grief, humour and resiliency.
Please be aware that this performance includes references to harmful impacts of European-Canadian colonization suffered by L’nu’k (Mi’kmaq). Some of these include: abuse at the residential school, forced separation of families, forced relocation, loss of access to hunting and fishing grounds, small pox, genocide as well as lasting inter-generational effects of these.
Personnel
shalan joudry | Writer & Performer,
Artistic Director of Nestuita’si Storytelling
Ken Schwartz | Director
Ann-Marie Kerr | Mask Coach
Susanne Chui | Movement Consultant
Sarah Prosper | Movement Consultant
Milidow Joudry-Martel | Tree / Petroglyph Illustration
Dan Froese | Original Photographer
Ed Benham | Props Designer & Creator
Frank Meuse | Set Designer
John Thomson | Technical Consultant
Cedar Meuse-Waterman | Scenic Painter
Rose Meuse | Scenic Painter
Nadine Millet | Production Assistant, Nestuita’si Storytelling
Chelsea Dickie | Stage Manager
Mackenzie Cornfield | Lighting Designer
Supported by
shalan joudry
Photo credits: Stoo Metz
shalan joudry is a L’nu (Mi’kmaw) narrative artist working in many mediums. She is a poet, playwright, podcast producer, oral storyteller, and actor, as well as a cultural interpreter. For over two decades shalan has brought her Mi’kmaw stories to a new generation of listeners, sharing her poetry, oral storytelling, and drum singing with numerous stages, events, schools, and organizations. Her unique specialty is performing for audiences around a campfire. She has had the honour of performing as part of openings for stars such as Buffy Sainte-Marie and Jeremy Dutcher at the King’s Theatre in Annapolis Royal.
Her first full length play, Elapultiek, which tells the story of two contrasting ideologies around conservation and understanding of the landscape of Mi’kma’ki, was commissioned by and produced twice by Two Planks and a Passion Theatre (2018 and 2019). shalan has published two books of poetry with Gaspereau Press: Generations Re-merging (2014) and Waking Ground (2020).
In 2016 shalan graduated with a Master of Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University and was nominated for a Governor General Gold Medal award for her thesis work on Mi’kmaw ways of knowing about fire on the land. In her role as a conservation ecologist, shalan uses Two-eyed Seeing methodologies to ground mainstream ecologists into L’nu cultural perspectives to work more effectively together on conservation programs. shalan, along with her partner, Frank Meuse, facilitates eco-cultural and ecological professional development workshops in a forest retreat within her home community.
shalan has been focusing more in recent years on reclaiming her L’nu language. It’s been a difficult but beautiful journey. She hopes to weave her Indigenous language into as much of her work as an artist and ecologist as possible.
shalan lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sətkuk (Bear River First Nation), where she is currently walking, dreaming, and creating.