Performers
Dave Mowat and The Curbside Shuffle Live Band
Dave Mowat hails from Alderville First Nation, 135 km NE of Toronto, but took up playing harmonica back in the early 80s after making the jump to Winnipeg. It was there that he eventually met Big Dave McLean and Gord Kidder, two of Winnipeg’s premier blues men and for the next decade there he worked the blues clubs with forays out on the road.
Moving back to Alderville where he built his home in 1995 Mowat has continued working in the blues over the years with such musicians as R.L. Burnside, Hubert Sumlin, and sharing the stage with the likes of Big Jack Johnson, Mel Brown, Smokey Wilson, and a number of Canadian greats.
Dave’s love of old Mississippi Blues and the post-war recorded Chicago styles of Little Water and Howin Wolf, continues to ground him in this music. Dave’s latest CD release “Crooked Road” is a reflection of that love for the old styles, and his colleagues on that album in Clayton Yates, Terry Wilkins, Jesse O’Brien, Steve Marriner and Jim Bowskill are a testament to that love of the blues!
Red Sky Performance
Red Sky Performance is a global leader in Indigenous performing arts. They create powerful, visually exciting performances that combine dance, theatre, music, and multimedia, and share them with audiences around the world.
Founded by Sandra Laronde, Red Sky is Indigenous-led and celebrates Indigenous ingenuity through powerful storytelling and artistic innovation.
They have performed nearly 4,000 shows in 24 countries across four continents. We have appeared on major world stages, including the Cultural Olympiads of Vancouver and Beijing, the Venice Biennale in Italy, the Kennedy Centre in Washington, and World Expo in Shanghai. At the same time, they regularly perform in communities across Canada - from large cities to rural and reserve communities.
They just had their world premiere of She Holds Up the Stars with 41 musicians and 14 performers at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall.
Pemaadeshkodeyong ~ Plains were fire moves across
To the Michi Saagiig (Mississaugas), the drum is often understood as more than a musical instrument. It is regarded as a living being with a spirit and is frequently described as carrying the heartbeat of Mother Earth. The drum connects people to Creation, ancestors, and one another through its rhythm. The drum is used in healing because it can bring people into balance spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. It helps individuals reconnect with their identity, culture, and community creating a sense of unity as people gather around a common heartbeat. It helps in supporting prayer and ceremony by carrying intentions to the Creator and provides comfort during grief, loss, and times of personal struggle. Our drum consists of members of our community( work and live) who felt the need to reconnect, Dakota Law, Eric Gladwin, Joey Fisher, Noah Thomson, Larry Summerton, Josh Paudash, and Tom Cowie, the drum is not usually seen as healing by itself. Rather, healing comes through the relationships it helps restore with Creator, the land, the ancestors, the community, and oneself.