Kiuryaq premieres in Yellowknife before international tour

Theatre production Kiuryaq premieres on Friday in Yellowknife before embarking on a tour across the territory and beyond. The show is circumpolar in both its storyline and creation.

The multi-disciplinary piece was co-created by director Reneltta Arluk, Rawdna Carita Eira and Alon Nashman.

The trio discovered stories told about the northern lights span continents. Arluk, who is of Inuvialuit, Dene and Cree descent from Fort Smith, and Eira, who is Sámi from Norway, recognized one another’s stories as being the same. 

“We were curious if they were the same in Greenland,” Arluk said. “Then we reached out to someone in Alaska and we found out the stories were the same there, too.

“We realized we really need to be telling a story about our relationship with the northern lights through a northern perspective.”

This relationship is mirrored by other people in the production. 

Actor Salik Lennert, originally from Greenland, shared his experience of growing up with the northern lights.

“We also have some kind of a relationship with them, as much as these characters have with these northern lights,” Lennert said.

“The northern lights aren’t just northern lights. It’s our belief in Greenland that it’s our ancestors up there.”

The piece took approximately four years to create through the work of a team spanning five locations in Canada and eight countries.

Arluk, Nasman and Eira started by talking to people who have a relationship with the northern lights, such as photographers, tour operators, trappers, Elders and knowledge keepers.

Through the stories they heard, they created the script and approached Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden early in the process.

Braden said she was able to blend her love of storytelling and musical composition while for the first time combining sound design for theatre – such as special effects or ambiance – with composition for orchestras and string quartets.

“One of the things that is unusual about this show, compared to some of the other theatre projects I’ve worked with, is it has a live musical element on stage,” Braden said.

“It’s not necessarily a musical in the sense of Broadway shows, but there is a really rich musical character.”

The production features a string quartet on stage with the three actors.

“There is the sound of the northern lights that [Braden] relates to and I think for the Sami people who are involved in the production, it’s very personal,” Nashman said.

“The stories across the circumpolar region are very similar. Grandmothers telling their grandchildren: ‘Don’t taunt them. Be very careful. They can come down and get you. Don’t whistle.'”

The two main characters of the play embody the stories of the co-creators and different people interviewed. There is a personal element for Nashman, who is not Indigenous.

“One of my cousins was adopted out of the North and was born in Fort Smith, where Reneltta [Arluk] was also born. So we created this overarching narrative that weaves those stories together, about siblings separated by an adoption,” Nashman said.

The two siblings, portrayed by Inuk actress Julia Ulayok Davis and Lennert from Greenland, are joined on-stage by a dozen other characters portrayed by Sámi actress Elin Oskal.

Choreographer Fia Grogono, who grew up in Yellowknife, was inspired in part by ice roads.

“There’s this beautiful painted floor piece that depicts the ice with cracks in different colours,” she said.

She wanted to capture how performers on stage have a relationship with the ice and the land. For one role, she said, “I was really looking at how that might shape her movement and inform her as a character.”

Ode to Yellowknife

The production features video and animated elements of the northern lights.

“All the content you see on screen is northern-sourced. None of it’s Getty [Images]. So we have northern lights and reindeer from Norway from Rawdna [Eiri] and her photography team,” Arluk said.

The remainder is from Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories.

“Yellowknife is a character in the show,” Nashman added. The co-creators believe audiences in Yellowknife will recognize elements that others likely won’t.

“There’s just so much of Yellowknife, little -isms that the Yellowknife audience will recognize, and only Yellowknife will recognize, and then only Northwest Territories will recognize,” Arluk said.

“Everyone else is going to enjoy the show because it’s beautiful and fun and funny and heartfelt and loving and everything. But this is my little ode to Yellowknife.”

Lighting designer Itai Erdal, working on a show with the northern lights at its heart, said seeing the aurora in Yellowknife this week influenced him to alter parts of his setup to better reflect their constantly changing nature.

“I’ve been wowed by nature before and your heart skips a beat,” Erdal said.

“This show is all about the relationship with these lights and seeing them changed how I feel about the show. In a way, I understand why it’s important now.”

The production makes its debut in Yellowknife on Friday and Saturday, then will appear in Inuvik, Fort Simpson, Hay River and Fort Smith.

From there, it travels across Canada and to Norway and Finland among other countries.

Arluk stressed how important it was for this production to premiere in Yellowknife.

“I just want people to see themselves, that’s the big, important thing. That’s why we created our own content. That’s why all the actors are from the North,” Arluk said.

“They’re the audience that will see themselves.”

Tickets are available on the NACC website.