Day four and some

So it is just over half way past this truncated festival and I am thinking about the richness of gifts that the artist have given to the festival, each other, the audiences, and myself. I am certain part of this is because today when Reona stepped out of the van and into the airport departures area I wanted to tell her how honoured I was that she was part of the festival and how moved I was by her performance - the first time because it just pulled out emotions from me that left me tearful and hopeful at the same time. Today during her performance - which I thought was tighter - I was able to connect with the performance differently and obtain some clarity - yesterday I was moved to tears so they are pretty equal. Tonight, I realize that I have my own special performance traces from her performance residues - scratches on my arms from her barb wire. They hopefully will heal, but the impact will be far longer lasting…

As curator I think of a large part of my role is to actually care for the artist, their work and the art which I often attempt and often succeed. It is also hard as these artist come for intense periods of time and create great works, build relationships and create bonds and then leave. While I understand this is life I am struck wondering where is performance art in Canada today and what are we doing collectively to build stronger relationships over our vast nation? Currently, performance art is homeless again - we had a home that was nurtured and developed through the InterArts Office at the Canada Council for the Arts - but now it seems both organizations that continually present and develop performance art and the performance artists are in limbo - InterArts seemingly evicted us from that home and suggested that we return to the empty nest parents of Visual Arts - where, we might assert, were never much but the poor cousin to the cash strapped visual arts in the Assistance to Artist-Run Centres pool. What will happen to performance art as we begin again to rebuild a sense of place? I write this because the talks that I shared with Reona often came around to mentoring and to youth and I think of the positive and timely injection that performance art received in Canada during the InterArts Office's early years; without which Visualeyez might not have continued and many emerging artist developed under that support through grants.

In her talk today after her performance Reona said that she never learned to speak the language of her elders - and could learn the language now through universities - but that the language is dead as no new words are actively added - it was likened to Latin. She said that her language was performance art and that this language is universal. This thought sticks to my mind like barbed wire to my skin - I need to let it scratch some more. Maybe sleep will help this idea to grow.

Reona Brass: Glossolalia

I read once that barbed wire changed the history of North America. The lives of the First Nations were changed dramatically by fences containing sharp metal barbs that were meant to wound anyone or anything that dared to cross them. A mark of the lines drawn by the executors of the Dominion. A mark of the end of the nomadic way of life. Keeping cattle in, keeping the "noble savages" out.

"...surrendered lands" means a reserve or part of a reserve or any interest therein, the legal title to which remains vested in Her Majesty, that has been released or surrendered by the band for whose use and benefit it was set apart..."


"...surrendered lands" means a reserve or part of a reserve or any interest therein, the legal title to which remains vested in Her Majesty, that has been released or surrendered by the band for whose use and benefit it was set apart..."

As someone who grew up of the prairie, I am familiar with the gesture of searching for the loosest part of a fence, pulling apart the wires and stepping gingerly onto the other side. I wasn't worried about getting caught by the farmer, but I was worried about getting snagged by the wire. It would be painful and there was danger of being infected by the rusty barbs. (One of my friends had a nasty snowmobile accident when he collided with a barbed wire fence.) So when Reona Brass started to unroll a spool of silver barbed wire, I was relieved she was wearing thick leather work gloves. Standing at a music stand in a tailored brown business suit and matching shoes, she named the piece Glossolalia, Speaking in Tongues. Then she began to read selections from the Indian Act.

..."intoxicant" includes alcohol, alcoholic, spirituous, vinous, fermented malt or other intoxicating liquor or combination of liquors and mixed liquor a part of which is spirituous, vinous, fermented or otherwise intoxicating and all drinks, drinkable liquids, preparations or mixtures capable of human consumption that are intoxicating...

The words made me feel ashamed to be Canadian. They are injurious, repulsive, bathed in an acid bath of legal jargon. I was compelled to the Government of Canada website check if the artist had made the text up. She did not. The connection between the text and the image of the barbed wire was shocking.

"...mentally incompetent Indian" means an Indian who, pursuant to the laws of the province in which he resides, has been found to be mentally defective or incompetent for the purposes of any laws of that province providing for the administration of estates of mentally defective or incompetent persons..."

As she read the text her unwrapping action became more intense, she was wrangling physically with the wire and it began to snag on her business suit. She fought with the wire, taking its resistance on as a challenge and becoming more determined and frenzied in her struggle. Finally she stopped and took the time to catch her breath before she lowered herself into the wire, entangling herself in it and crawling through it towards the stage right podium. She stood up and read the words of the Navojo poet, Sherwin Bitsui:


What land have you cast from the blotted out region of your face?

What nation stung by watermarks was filmed out of extinction and brought forth
resembling frost?


Finally, Brass unhooked herself from the wire by shedding her suit to reveal the jeans and a blouse she wore underneath and she stepped free of the wire.


The artist doesn't speak her native Soto language, and performance allows her to escape the vicious traps laid by the words of the Indian Act and other words written in the same spirit. "Performance art is my language," Brass states. It allows her to be hopeful. She is also inspired by the words of her collaborator Navaho poet Sherwin Bitsui. "He thinks in Navajo," she says. It is wonderful to see a performance grounded in experience and intention. Brass has been working with barbed wire for four and a half years, she likes physical nature of it, but has grown wary of its ability to injure. For the past few years she has been teaching on her reservation, and she loves to see young people create pieces of performance art so that they can share in her power to create their own language.