Presented by Redbird Therapy Centre, Cecil Community Centre, and Native Women's Resource Centre of Toronto.
This special film brings the magic of collaboration to the screen, with award-winning First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists from across Turtle Island joined by Billboard charting/6x CFMA winners Sultans of String!
Opening remarks with Dr. Duke Redbird.
Suggested donation:
$10 - Film Screening and Panel talk
$20 - Film Screening, Panel talk, and you receive a charitable donation receipt for $20
$100 - Artist meet & greet VIP Reception with live music and Indigenous catering by Charger Foods at 7:00 pm, Film Screening, Panel talk, and you receive a charitable donation receipt for $100
Limited free tickets for unwaged, please contact Barbara at info@redbirdtherapy.ca for a spot.
100% of the ticket price going to the Native Women's Resource Centre of Toronto
Film will be followed by a Q&A panel with artists from the film including Dr. Duke Redbird, Shannon Thunderbird, Marc Merilaïnen, Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, as well as filmmaker and Sultans of String producer Chris McKhool.
Walking Through the Fire: Visual Album is a musical film experience unlike any other. From Métis fiddling to an East Coast Kitchen Party, rumba to rock, to the drumming of the Pacific Northwest, experience the beauty and diversity of music from Turtle Island with Elder and poet Dr. Duke Redbird, the Métis Fiddler Quartet, Ojibwe/Finnish Singer-Songwriter Marc Meriläinen (Nadjiwan), Coast Tsm’syen Singer Shannon Thunderbird, The North Sound from the Prairies, Blues singer Crystal Shawanda, Heavy-Wood guitarist Don Ross, Northern Cree pow wow group, Dene singer-songwriter Leela Gilday, Inuit Throat Singers and more!
A central theme running through Walking Through The Fire is the need for the truth of Indigenous experience to be told before reconciliation can begin in earnest. Embedded in the title is the energy of rebirth: fire destroys, but it also nourishes the soil to create new growth, beauty, and resiliency. Walking Through The Fire ensures that we emerge on the other side together, stronger and more unified.
Sultans of String created this project in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together as an opportunity to show a path forward. Says bandleader Chris McKhool (whose grandfather was a stowaway from Lebanon at the turn of the last century), “We know that as a society we can’t move ahead without acknowledging and reflecting on the past. Before reconciliation can occur, the full truth of the Indigenous experience in this country needs to be told, so we’ve been calling on Indigenous artists to share with us their stories, their experience, and their lives, so we settler Canadians can continue our learning about the history of genocide, residential schools, and of inter-generational impacts of colonization.”
"The place that we have to start is with truth. Reconciliation will come sometime way in the future, perhaps, but right now, truth is where we need to begin the journey with each other. As human beings, we have to acquire that truth”
Dr. Duke Redbird - Chippewa/Anishinaabe Elder and poet
"The very fact that you're doing this tells me that you believe in the validity of our language, you believe in the validity of our art and our music and that you want to help to bring it out. And that's really what's important, is for people to have faith that we can do this”
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, Ojibwe Elder and former chair of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission
See the trailer here https://youtu.be/wWSZUduo5Kk
Ticket link: https://WalkingToronto.eventbrite.ca
Experience in Full Surround Sound. 82 Minutes.
Cecil Community Centre is an accessible venue.
Many thanks for the support of non-Indigenous funding streams of the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario, and Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this project.
Thank you to Screening Sponsors!
Jeanette Bicknell: Bicknell Mediation
Christopher Case: Case Insurance Brokers
Jessica Heald: Dig It Designs
Seema Sharma: Wealth & Estate Financial Canada Inc.
Darlene Rites, Rites Law, Family Law & Mediation
Christina Becker, Canadian Nonprofit Academy
Prologue Performing Arts
