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Inuktitut Language

Theatre for Youth in Nunavik

As part of the Inuktituurniup Saturtaugasuarninga project, a youth theatre program was launched to promote communications through a medium that would appeal to Inuit youth.

Onira Lussier and Marie Deaudelin from Les Vidanges en cavale theatre company were hired to animate a series of workshops.

To accommodate participants from the coasts of both Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay, theatre workshops were organized last October in two communities. Hudson Coast participants gathered in Puvirnituq and those from the Ungava Coast attended workshops in Kuujjuaq.

In the five-day workshop, young participants explored a variety of theatre, communication and creation techniques. They learned these tools through theatre exercises incorporating cultural and language content based on Inuit legends and stories, and discovered the theatre of the oppressed developed by the Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal. The last day of the workshop was reserved for preparing a performance for the community. When circumstances made it impossible to do the Puvirnituq show in October, Lea Hiram from Avataq, who has a background in theatre, went back to Puvirnituq with the participants in December. They rehearsed and did a wonderful job of putting on a show for the Puvirnituq community.

Nunavik youths found the workshops to be very intensive. But with curiosity, creativity and perseverance, they learned and practiced their new skills. Moreover, both shows were a success, and revealed some definite talent for improvisation and acting.

Click here to see workshop pictures.

The next step in this stimulating project is to follow up and keep the momentum going with Onira Lussier, Marie Deaudelin and Léa Hiram from now until next summer. We expect them to return in Nunavik for two weeks in July, for a summer session, when they will focus on giving more intensive technical theatre training to the workshop “graduates”. Our other objective of this training is to help participants to involve themselves in organizing theater activities in Inuktitut in their own communities.

This first experience in creative theater was extremely positive, and we think following through on it is crucial in order to make theatre an ongoing reality accessible for everyone in Nunavik. Our hope is that theater becomes another way for young Inuit to express their lives, and we foresee that this project can reinforce the use of Inuktitut, both written and spoken, among Nunavik’s youth. We also want to see young people creating their own theatrical works, so that they can be even more proud of their culture, opening other doors on cultural events. Indeed, theatre leads to so many forms of artistic expression, including videos, music, dance, painting and set design, directing and staging, and so on.

We believe that this project – in combination with all the other efforts being made in Nunavik in the field of culture – can lead to the creation of a theatre company if we dedicate the necessary time and effort to that goal.

Without the support of people in the community, none of this would have been possible. Charlie Tarkirk from Avataq was also essential to the success of these two workshops.

This pilot project was entirely paid for by the Ungaluk Program of Makivik Corporation and Kativik Regional Government who subsidize the Inuktituurniup Saturtaugasuarninga.

For a detailed account of the workshops, please visit the blog:
http://www.uqavvik.wordpress.com