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O’kosi is the Blackfoot phrase that means autumn, the time when Indigenous peoples gathered to return to their winter camps. It’s additionally the time when nature readies for the approaching season of chilly and snow, and alter is what O’kosi is all about.
Conceived three years in the past by Michelle Thrush, Garret C. Smith, Alanna Bluebird and Janine Owlchild, O’kosi appears to be like on the devastating results that the signing of Treaty 7 had on the folks it promised to guard and assist.
There was appropriation of lands, and residential faculties that robbed Indigenous peoples of their houses and identities and fractured their households. Set in numerous a long time from the day of that fateful treaty in 1877 via 2023, and even into an imagined future in 2077, it tries to seek out hope and reassurance via the plight of two households.
Grace’s son Jordan (Dustin Frank) was taken from her at age 5 and raised by Polish foster dad and mom. Remorse despatched Grace (Owlchild) right into a downward spiral and a life on the streets of Calgary. One other character, Darren, (Garret C. Smith) is so damaged by the generational results of residential faculties that his grandparents and fogeys have been despatched to that he deserted his spouse and daughter Lily (Mary-Rose Cohen).
Destiny, within the guise of Sylvia (Alanna Onespot), a mysterious poet and the present’s narrator, brings Darren and Grace into one another’s lives, and finally again into the lives of their misplaced kids. It’s not linear storytelling which makes it a much more intriguing expertise. There may be additionally a surreal facet in that Sylvia can enter the ideas and areas of the characters she intends to affect. That is notably hilarious when she intrudes on Jordan, a gamer dwelling within the basement of his Polish dad and mom’ dwelling. His personal expertise with avatars makes him extra inclined to this spirit particular person than most younger folks his age.
Lily is an aspiring dancer which supplies Cohen the chance for a haunting interpretive dance sequence which blends trendy dance with conventional pow-wow. There’s a stay band and a pow-wow band with lovely solos from Kaidynce Goodwill. This mix of music, track, dance and storytelling locations O’kosi firmly within the style of any Indigenous theatre from Asian to Center Japanese.
Andy Moro’s set permits for a number of totally different appearing areas, whereas his projections take the viewers from fields to streets in Calgary, the Arts Commons, a dance studio, Jordan’s bed room and a cabin sooner or later. Matt Levesque’s lighting design helps set up the always-changing moods.
There’s a bench on set and several other of the play’s greatest moments happen there as when Grace approaches Darren asking for cash, solely to seek out they’ve a lot in widespread. She is asking for change, but it surely’s not likely cash she desires, however an escape from her present scenario. It’s a lovely scene, so wealthy with authenticity and unforced emotions. Smith additionally has a strong second on that bench with Cohen when father and daughter lastly unburden their hearts, and there’s one other sweeter, funnier second when Cohen and Frank discuss to one another about what it meant to be deserted by their dad and mom.
When the set turns into the tv sport present Let’s Make a Take care of Smith because the host and Frank because the contestant, it’s all nice slapstick enjoyable, that results in a touching reunion between son and mom.
Thrush’s route offers the night a wide range of colors and feelings, continually reminding us there are such a lot of methods of telling tales. O’Kosi is a mild means of coping with some highly effective insights and messages and by no means appears like a historical past lesson or a diatribe as a result of Thrush and her co-creators and forged members know one in all their major objectives is to entertain.
O’Kosi runs within the Grand Theatre’s Flanagan Theatre till Saturday, nightly at 8 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday.