A multimedia stage presentation exploring how aboriginal culture and mainstream culture can not only coexist but work beautifully together takes the stage at Vanier Hall on Wednesday. Forganza - A Beautiful Destiny is a product of a cross-section of PGSS students and others from the community.
Connecting to your heritage is a natural pursuit, said Tessa Fraser, an aboriginal education worker for School District 57 and the director of Forganza, but so is looking for links to the people around you. Fostering a community of inclusion doesn't dismiss anyone's makeup, she said, and it can make the roads to success shorter for everyone.
"We have to move past barriers when it comes to learning and progressing," Fraser said. "We have to participate in one another's cultures. How do you get the majority to include the minority, unless the majority feels part of the minority? We have to move forward as a cultural unit."
Dance, art, singing, lighting design, fashion, and especially rhythm are being used on the Vanier stage to demonstrate young people and adults creating performance pieces that join colonial culture with traditional culture. The drum, said Fraser, is one of the elemental items common to all cultures. Whether it is a Carrier hand drum, a Celtic bodhran, an Indian tabla, an African djembe, a tap-dancers rapping toes, or modern culture's hiphop, dub-step, rock, country and techno beats, every thread of society feels plucky for rhythm.
Maizie Bernard is, with Kimiko Hernandez, a PGSS dance teacher. She is part of the Forganza show, by choreographing their students using modern dance techniques married to elements of aboriginal music.
"For our dancers it is a great opportunity to prepare and perform and have that complete experience, and take part in an event unlike anything I have never seen before at PGSS," said Bernard. "We have some aboriginal students in our dance group, but most are not, and it's great to see them all working together and learning together. Every year we try to implement some form of aboriginal content in what we do. We always touch on a number of different kinds of cultural influences from all over the world. It builds everyone's respect for the music of all cultures, and especially the ones close to home."
Fraser said the local Lheidli T'enneh First Nation has been so far dated to at least 9,000 years ago on the land the city of Prince George currently sits on. "That's twice as old as the pyramids, so talk about an exciting historical record," she said. "Everyone can appreciate the depth of a culture that old, and it is right here in our place where we all live. We want to bring that to the forefront, respectfully for everyone, and be able to celebrate each other in this ancient place."
She said the one thing Prince George doesn't lack is leadership and cultural resources.
"School District 57 talks about becoming a national model for including local First Nations content in an integrated way. We have all the people and abilities to make that happen. We do not lack the resources, we only lack the execution."
After a successful aboriginal-themed flashmob at the Pine Centre Mall, orchestrated in February by more than 260 elementary students in the PGSS catchment system, it will be these same schools that will watch the Wednesday show. It is a way for those students, aboriginal and otherwise, to see PGSS as a place of welcome when they grow from their elementary programs into the high school, and know it is a place where all cultures are appreciated.
