1. The sound of the rain stick accompanying the orchestra.
2. The huge arching whale bones that were part of the set.
3. The fact that Asian dancers were cast in aboriginal roles.
4. The glowing turtle shell.
5. The hymns I recognized in the music score.
6. The priests’ sinister costumes.
7. The way the stars twinkled through the birch bark trees.
8. The voice-overs that described how the first immigrants to Canada would never have survived without their First Nations neighbours.
9. The way Gordon, the main character, had a model of a residential school on his back, and it kept weighing him down to the floor, and Annie, the woman trying to help him, kept lifting the school off his back, but each time it pushed him back down.
10. The cast and production crew taking their bows at the end and realizing just how many different talented and accomplished people from many different fields of the arts had come together to produce the show.
Other posts about the Canadian First Nations Experience ……..
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