Festival to showcase traditional forms of Indigenous storytelling

First held in 2001, the annual SkwwakArtists' Collective Storytellers Festival will see a more relaxed approach than last year, focusing more on traditional aspects of storytelling, says Adam Martin.

Martin is the executive director of Skwwak Artists' Collective, based out of Regina, and has held the position since 2014. Since he started, the festival has been focused on mixing local members of the artists' collective with established Indigenous artists. Martin is from the Six Nations of the Grand River, located on Mohawk land in Ontario.

"These pairings of the established professional artists from around Canada coming to Regina and able to work with in the same venues as our emerging artists, that[has] been the focus of the last couple of festivals," Martin said.

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Juno-award winning artistMurray Porter also from Six Nations held a concert as part of the festival in 2016, which saw him share the stage with Cree artist Lindsay Knight, also known as Eekwol, and Regina-based hip-hop group Rezofwar Dawgz.

The festival showcases Indigenous storytelling across multiple platforms, such as music, paintings,on-stage plays, spoken wordand more.

The audience wanted to see more of an emphasis on traditional aspects of storytelling, Martin said. Back in 2001, the festival was held at Scott Collegiate and focused on elders telling stories, Martin said.

"From there, it sort of evolved and carried on," he said.

In 2017, the festival willbe centralized at the First Nations University of Canada. Monday through Thursday will see storytelling sessions in the FNUC's atrium. The final storytelling session on Friday will take place in the University of Regina before moving to the Saskatchewan Writers Guildfor a workshop on Saturday.

During the evening, events will be spread throughout the city. A full schedule and list of artistscan be found on the Collective's website.

There will be no admission costs, Martin said.

"Free for everyone, an opportunity for all audiences interested in the arts to come and experience the festival that's focused on Indigenous storytellers and artists telling their own stories," Martin said.