Tag Archives: theatre

ActiveHistory.ca repost — Decolonizing Cottage Country

Photograph of a calm lake with a brown wooden dock extending away from the viewer. There are red and green leaves on a tree branch in the foreground.

ActiveHistory.ca is slowing down our publication schedule this summer, but we’ll be back with more new posts in September. In the meantime, we’re featuring posts from our archive. Thanks as always to our writers and readers! The following post was originally featured on February 22, 2018. Since then, Drew Hayden Taylor has released Cottagers and Indians in print and directed… Read more »

History Slam Episode 172: Historians’ Favourite Musicals

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/History-Slam-172.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In what has been a most challenging year, any moments of fun and joy have been incredibly valuable. For me, musical soundtracks have offered a great respite from the real world. Not only can they offer some upbeat music and positive messages, but since most of them are about an hour… Read more »

The Resonance of Almighty Voice (Kitchi-Manito-Waya)

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By James Cullingham One Arrow First Nation Chief Tricia Sutherland says this “the right time for the story to be told.” The story concerns Almighty Voice (Kitchi-Manito-Waya) the young Cree man from One Arrow, a community near Batoche who became subject of one of the longest manhunts in Canadian history. Almost exactly 125 years ago, Almighty Voice slaughtered a settler’s… Read more »

Who speaks? Who Tells? Who Listens? – Part 2

By Victoria Freeman Birds make me think about freedom. They can go where they want and don’t have to talk about it. It’s a gift in itself because it’s something that doesn’t come overnight. You have to work on it. If you have it, it’s just there, like a light. These words, from a person who lived for 20 years… Read more »

History Slam Episode 145: Hamilton as Public History

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/History-Slam-145.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham In August 2015, a new musical opened at the Richard Rogers Theater in New York. With music, lyrics, and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who had previously won a Tony for In the Heights, the show was an adaptation of Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton.  Miranda had previewed some of… Read more »

Staging History

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By Craig Heron Historians have become increasingly attuned to the role of performance in history. Many of us have written about the pomp and pageantry of the powerful, the theatre of the high courts, the processions of urban respectability, the rituals of resistance among the poor and powerless. We have been much more reticent, however, about using theatre to present… Read more »

Decolonizing Cottage Country

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Peter A. Stevens In Canadian popular culture, few symbols are as iconic as the family cottage. The summer home appears regularly in Canadian novels and films, and it has long been used by governments and private corporations to signify what the good life looks like in this country. Cottaging thus represents escape from the cares of the world, and immersion… Read more »

History Slam Episode Eighty-Eight: Translation and Canadian Theatre

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Nicole-Nolette.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Remember Bon Cop, Bad Cop? It was that movie set between Ontario and Quebec where the characters spoke French half the time and English half the time. During the French sequences, English subtitles would adorn the bottom of the screen and vice versa. The movie has earned a bit of a… Read more »

Hamilton: A Belated Discussion

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By Jonathan McQuarrie It turns out rap is a perfect medium for history. Hamilton has become a touchstone musical, winning laurels from a range of audiences from musical aficionados to people (like me) who are never quite sure why everyone is singing. Its wide appeal has made it a notoriously difficult ticket to get—as of this writing, the tickets are… Read more »

History Slam Episode Fifty-Three: What to Wear to the Birth of a Nation

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Laurie-Campbell.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham The story has been told thousands of time in the same way: the Fathers of Confederation met in Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 and laid the groundwork for Confederation. These were men of vision who, according the video shown at the PEI legislature, had few major disagreements and passed the time… Read more »