Frontmezzjunkies reports: Native Earth Performing Arts Announces 43rd Season of Indigenous Theatre, Dance and Performance
Native Earth Performing Arts is proud to announce its 43rd season filled with exciting premieres and explorative collaborations including the Toronto Premiere of Mischief by Lisa Nasson, the Toronto premiere of UPU from Aotearoa’s UPU Collective, White Girls in Moccasins by Yolanda Bonnell, the return of the Niimi’iwe Dance Double Bill, the Inaugural Play Reading Week, the 10th annual partnership with Paprika Festival, the 10th edition of 2-Spirit Cabaret, and more.
“Our 25/26 season will feature Indigenous works from across Turtle Island and beyond,” said Joelle Peters, Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. “Connected by explorations of blood memory, complexities and curiosities, honouring our ancestry and keeping spirit alive. Multidisciplinary works. Native Earth Performing Arts seeks to honour and lift contemporary voices of Indigenous Storytelling.”
Native Earth invites everyone to celebrate the upcoming season with their 3rd annual Community Fire Gathering on October 19 in Regent Park. The Community Gathering Fire is a space for supporters and friends to celebrate the changing seasons and anticipate another fantastic season of Indigenous performance.
The 2025/26 Native Earth Performing Arts Season includes:
Weesageechak Begins to Dance – 38th edition
November 21-30, 2025 at Aki Studio
Weesageechak Begins to Dance is an annual two-week festival that will showcase new works and works-in-development by 10 Indigenous creators from across Turtle Island and beyond. The festival theme for the 38th Weesageechak Begins to Dance is Complexities and Curiosities, weaving stories, conversations, workshops, and more around a fulsome gathering of creativity and inspiration.
The 2025 Weesageechak Begins to Dance Creators are:
• Squeaky by Tara Beagan (Ntlaka’pamux)
Mentor: Anand Rajaram
• ʔa·kinq̓uku by Samantha Sutherland (Ktunaxa)
Mentor: Christine Friday
• Don’t Bring Him Back (Working Title) by Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe (Tla’amin First Nation)
Mentor: Keith Barker
• How Bono Saved my Life (Three Times) by Sonya Ballantyne (Swampy Cree)
Mentor: Olivia Shortt
• The Curse of Stolen Seeds by Jillian Morris (Kanien’kehaka and a band member of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory)
Mentor: Ange Loft
• mi historia que no es única by Jessica Zepeda (Kuskatan*) *Post-colonial El Salvador
Mentor: Violeta Luna
• Conditions to Strike by Montana Summers (Oneida Nation of the Thames)
Mentor: Santee Smith
• Children of the Bear by Todd Houseman (Nehiyaw)
Mentor: Erin Goodpipe
• Northern Indigenous Play Readings presented by Gwaandak Theatre
“The phrase, ‘It’s complicated,’ can be applied to many things, and often is when it comes to the Indigenous experience. So, let’s talk about it at Weesageechak!” said Joelle Peters. “Let’s share our complications; our complexities, our histories, our stories, our ideas.”
From October 16-26, 2025, Bailey Bornyk (Michif) and Frances Koncan (Anishinaabe from Couchiching First Nation), Creators from Weesageechak Begins to Dance 38, will develop their works with mentor Mel Hague as part of the Second iteration of the Weesageechak Festival Workshop Stream, presented by Native Earth Performing Arts in association with Factory Theatre.
Mischief by Lisa Nasson
in partnership with Tarragon Theatre and Neptune Theatre
Directed by Mike Payette with Joelle Peters
World Premiere
September 23 – October 12, 2025, at Neptune Theatre in Halifax
Toronto Premiere
January 15 – February 8, 2026, at Tarragon Theatre Mainspace
Brooke is perfectly content with her job selling cigarettes to the local fishermen at her uncle’s convenience store on the Rez. But what happens when a woman appears in a utility closet and claims to have known her mother? And where can she turn when one act of mischief derails her peace? A heartwarming story where ancestry and the cost of justice collide, Mischief is a gentle comedy from lauded Mi’kmaq artist Lisa Nasson that celebrates the power of community.
Tickets on sale now at: tarragontheatre.com/plays/2025-2026/mischief
Niimi’iwe Dance Double Bill
February 5 – 8, 2026, at Aki Studio
Spine of the Mother by Raven Spirit Dance
Conversations by Vanguardia Dance Projects and Aanmitaagzi
Native Earth invites audiences to explore the nuances of Indigenous identity stories with two dance pieces presented in a single evening during the Niimi’iwe Dance Double Bill, highlighting the importance of self-expression in dance.
Spine of the Mother by Raven Spirit Dance
Choreography by Starr Muranko
Performed by Tasha-Faye Evans and Marisa Gold
Tracing the inner terrain of our bodies as women through breath, impulse, and memory unlocks kinetic energy, creating ritual that spans the spine of the mountain range we have shared for millennia. The metaphor of the “Spine of Mother Earth” is a name given by Indigenous Elders in South America to the Andean mountain range that spans from the base in Argentina, through the Americas, and ends at the tip of Alaska. Our bodies become the landscape like the mountain ranges that connect the North and South (the Eagle and the Condor), and through this, we find our kinetic connection to others that transmits impulse, breath, and spirit.
Conversations by Vanguardia Dance Projects and Aanmitaagzi
Director and choreographer: Olga Barrios
Starting from the investigation of “body and territory” by the Colombian-Canadian choreographer Olga Barrios, this work seeks a conversation between women through the Americas, seeking a South-North echo. It is a dialogue of bodies extended in various latitudes of the Americas. Barrios’ research/creation explores the traces of Indigenous heritage that have been erased in her personal journey, as has happened with many people in various places in America and the planet. This work is based on the woman of many colours that she experiences in herself and with the many other voices in the world that seek connection with ideas of traces erased from history.
UPU by UPU Collective with the support of Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa
February 27-March 1, 2026, at Aki Studio
Directed by Fasitua Amosa
UPU is a collection of voices from a people who live on a sea of islands connected by the largest body of water on earth, known as Te moana Nui a Kiwa, or the Pacific Ocean. In many of the islands in this ocean, UPU means word. UPU Collective has taken the words of 28 poets; ranging from young voices, international activists, top Literary prize winners, to Poet Laureates, major influences in Pacific Literature; combined it and arranged it to create a snapshot, a Vox pop of stories and perspectives from Te moana Nui a Kiwa. Stories like: Hawaiians debating how they Cooked Captain cook; a young Māori trying to navigate their Indigenous culture in an increasingly digital world; the joys that cans of SPAM have brought to Guam and other Americanised islands; a Polynesian woman’s rejection of Gaugain’s painting of Polynesian women; how a village boy in Niue seduced the missionaries wife; a plea from the Marshall Islands as they’re losing their homes to the rising sea; and so much more.
White Girls in Moccasins by Yolanda Bonnell
presented by Native Earth Performing Arts in partnership with manidoons collective
March 22-April 12, 2026, at Aki Studio
White Girls in Moccasins is a hilarious and poignant reclamation story that world-hops between dreams, memories, and a surreal game show. Miskozi recounts her life and is forced to grapple with her own truth, while existing in a society steeped in white supremacy. A love letter to brown kids born in the 80s, surviving in the 90s, and all those continuing to deeply reclaim.
Play Reading Week
April 20-26, 2026, at Studio 1 of Suite 130 in Daniels Spectrum
Native Earth will light a new fire in the heart of Spring 2025, revisiting Indigenous works from the past plus a newly published play, marking an inaugural Play Reading Week. Native Earth will stage readings of notable works by Indigenous playwrights from the past four decades to revisit work with community to laugh, reflect and explore themes, ideas and perspectives, honouring and ushering Indigenous artistic legacies.
“Play Reading Week will be a way for Native Earth to honour our history, our Voices of Aki,” said Joelle Peters. “Where the past meets the present. How do these works reflect their time? Are the themes explored still prevalent in today’s contemporary landscape? What conversations can be sparked from exploring works from the past?”
Paprika Festival
May 2026 at Aki Studio
Paprika is proud to be in its 10th year of partnership with Native Earth Performing Arts, presenting the 25th annual Paprika Festival in the Aki Studio for a week of showcases, workshops, community gatherings, and more by emerging artists. Paprika Festival is a performing arts company that offers emerging artists and arts administrators access to paid opportunities, mentorships, and hands-on labs to develop their artistic practices and gain professional experience in production and arts management. This work culminates in a performing arts festival of new work by young and emerging artists.
2-Spirit Cabaret
June 2026 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Presented in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
The 10th annual celebration of the strength, beauty, and talent of queer and 2-Spirit Indigenous people, the Cabaret features music, dance, drag, performance art, poetry and comedy.
Tickets for the Native Earth Performing Arts 2025-2026 Season will be available starting in September at www.nativeearth.ca.
Native Earth Performing Arts is Canada’s oldest professional Indigenous theatre company. Currently in its 43rd year, Native Earth is dedicated to nurturing Indigenous storytelling. We develop, produce, and present Indigenous art. We champion talent. According to the Seven Sacred Teachings, we do what we do and fulfill our purpose with truth, wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, and humility. nativeearth.ca
