Friday brought just one performance at the Festival of the Sound, but it was one that brought the Festival to a powerful climax.
The Festival remounted its stunning 2018 premiere production of Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow.
Francis Pegahmagabow is mainly renowned in non-native circles as the record-breaking sharpshooter sniper of the Canadian armed forces in World War One. In native communities, his significance is perhaps even greater as an early activist for native rights and equality, and a founder of the national native organizations which have growing influence over government policy today, and will have even more in the future.
As the struggle for truth and reconciliation continues, it's now evident indeed that Sounding Thunder is deeply relevant to that process, and will continue to be so, losing neither its power nor its timeliness.
Sounding Thunder is an impossible work to categorize. Musically and dramatically, it's neither opera nor musical theatre, although it draws somewhat from the latter tradition. Theatrically, it's not so much a play as a dramatization of vignettes from a man's life story -- yet it's much more than merely a documentary. The story unfolds like a ritual, and as in any ritual, there are ceremonial landmarks to highlight key points on the journey. And it is powerful, that power stretching far beyond my ability to tell it.
Was this performance the same as the original 2018 mounting of the production? No. For one thing, there was more use made of simple, stylized dramatization of moments that were previously only narrated. A good example was the scene, early in the production, where the Deer Woman Spirit offers to sacrifice herself so that Francis can feed his family. The simple staging culminated in an orchestrated pair of gunshots, and the actor portraying the Deer Woman Spirit (Jodi Baker Contin) flung up her hands and whirled around as if falling. I heard several audience members gasp.
I'm less sure on this point, but I think there was a more extensive use of both archival photos and art works as scene-setting projections on the large overhead screen.
Contin's performance in the central lament song had a raw power accentuated by her deep, rich voice, which brought tears to my eyes.
Keenan Keeshig in the role of Francis brought vivid visual sense to his momentary portrayals of key moments in the man's life, and his voice clearly projected all the emotions that Francis struggled to control and direct.
Brian D. McInnes, a great-grandson of Francis, gave again a clear and well-shaped reading of the principal narrations, which create the chain on which the episodes of the story are strung.
Larry Beckwith, also a veteran of the previous production, not only conducted the ensemble effectively but also brought a rich variety of shades of snottiness to his momentary portrayals of assorted military officers and Indian agents.
The chamber orchestra of seven musicians all performed with skill and care in the uniquely crafted musical soundscape of composer Tim Corlis. Special mention here must go to percussionist Beverly Johnston, whose broad variety of sounds, including the evocative handpan, did so much to shape the overall atmosphere and impact of the score.
After the end of the performance, the three native performers (Contin, Keeshig, and McInnes) returned to the stage to host a Q & A session. I was grateful for the woman in the audience who asked about the creators of the native songs that bookended the entire show. Jodi Baker Contin herself wrote the first song, a song of thanks for the beauty of the land of Wasauksing on which the story occurs. Francis spent most of his life in Wasauksing, on what settlers call Parry Island, right across from Parry Sound.
And it was Contin who explained that the final song, the one in which all musicians and audience slowly join their voices together, is a traditional song of farewell for those who have left this life. Suddenly, that final moment, always emotional, took on even more resonance -- not only because of all who have lost their lives in the pandemic, but also for the lives of the children who died in the residential schools, a sad and shameful chapter of history which has been brought forcefully to light since 2018.
It was, therefore, with powerful and mixed emotions, that I and others not of native ancestry, accepted the invitation to linger outside after the performance, to accept a gift of tobacco, and to lay it on the ground with prayer and thought.
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