DanceWorks Presents Six Nations' Kaha:wi Dance Theatre

DanceWorks proudly presents the highly acclaimed Kaha:wi Dance Theatre (KDT) in the Toronto premiere of Blood Tides, conceived and directed by KDT Artistic Director Santee Smith of Six Nations of the Grand River territory. Blood Tides delves into sacred space to retrieve women's ancient knowing and rites of passage. Blood Tides runs for 3 nights only - Thursday, February 14 through Saturday February 16 - at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre.

Illuminated by elemental and ancestral forces, Blood Tides activates sacred alignments from cosmos to womb. Its imagery and energies span the wide range of what is woman: warrior, leader, mother, divine goddess, creator, huntress and thresholder of life and death. With an ensemble of four Indigenous women, Blood Tides acknowledges the magnificence of woman in all of her phases and ages.

Through the power of the feminine voice and body, Blood Tides opens a sacred space with an inter-generational, inter-cultural and interdisciplinary performance featuring song and dance of earthworld, underworld and universe for a rematriation to the house of humanity.

This visual and sonic feast is performed by Marina Acevedo (Mexico/Zapotec), Julianne Blackbird (Kahnyen'kehàka Nation /Mohawk Nation), Santee Smith (Kahnyen'kehàka Nation /Mohawk Nation), and Jahra 'Rager' Wasasala (Fijian/New Zealand), with dramaturgy by Monique Mojica (Guna and Rappahannock Nations).
The recorded musical score by Cris Derksen (mixed Cree Nation) features Pura Fé (Tuscarora and Taino Nations), Ngahuia Murphy (Ngati Manawa, Ngati Ruapani ki Waikaremoana, Tuhoe, Ngati Kahungunu, New Zealand), Semiah Smith (Kahnyen'kehàka Nation /Mohawk Nation), and others for an international Indigenous women's emotive landscape where Lightning Woman, Mother of Mothers, and Clay Woman come to tell their story, gather strength and activate power.
View a 1:30 min excerpt for Blood Tides at https://vimeo.com/290677073 .

Blood Tides is the second production in Santee Smith/Kaha:wi Dance Theatre's triptych performance series: Re-Quickening (2016), Blood Tides (2018, St. Catharines' FirstON Performing Arts Centre premiere, co-presented by Celebration of Nations) and Skennen (slated for 2020), all created through Indigenous process and from a Konkwehon:we (Indigenous woman's) perspective and research.

"Blood Tides opens up space to question, retrieve pre-colonial Indigenous women's knowledges, and weave her narratives and experiences. The embodiment of her divinity and humanity united, owning and navigating space, Blood Tides activates women's ceremony and cycles remembering Indigenous matrifocal ways of being," notes Santee Smith.