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IndigeNOW! Indigenous Opera from Three Continents and Three Countries

Executive Producer: Gordon Bronitsky
Festival Director: Eric Sims
Associate Producer: Pamela Karantonis

When you hear the word Opera, what do you think of? An art form that has the monopoly on ridiculous stories, plotlines or characters? Buxom women with metal bodices and Viking hats? Sobbing clowns covered in blood? Suicidal sopranos hurling themselves from castles? Why did such great music attach itself to stories that seem dated to us now? Imagine the power of opera revealing itself in new presentations. How about dispossessed Aboriginal peoples? Cutting-edge Native American composers? Traditional Sami chants mixed up to fresh beats and new stories? Imagine the power of opera telling the stories of the oldest continuous living cultures in the world today. Imagine stories that are over 40,000 years old being told now. If these things don't come to mind now, they will--after you experience IndigeNOW!, the first annual festival of Indigenous Opera from Three Continents and Four Countries.

IndigeNOW! will bring together four renowned Indigenous writer / composers from Sweden, the United States, Canada and Australia to exchange ideas and workshop their original pieces. At the end of this process, several of these works will receive their first public workshop-performance, followed by an informal meet-and-greet reception with the artists. This process will give our composers the unique opportunity to develop their works through the rehearsal process and hear them sung out loud for the first time by professional performers in front of an audience. Audience members will not only hear the freshest new voices in opera, but will actually be able to guide the development of their work through their feedback.

As the centerpiece of this festival, we are proud to present a very special concert performance of Deborah Cheetham’s groundbreaking Pecan Summer, Australia’s first Indigenous opera- performed by members of the original cast. Not only does Pecan Summer, premiering in Australia in fall, 2010, feature a libretto and score written by an Indigenous Australian, it will be the first opera in Australia’s history to engage the talents of a classically trained Indigenous cast. We hope that Cheetham’s longstanding commitment to helping young Indigenous performers and musicians find their voice through the medium of opera and the extraordinary work that she and her ensemble have produced will serve as an inspiration to Indigenous composers and performers searching for ways to tell their own stories through this uniquely demanding and expressive medium.

This festival represents a critical first step in the development of these pieces. The objective is to develop these works into fully realized stage productions on the LA, New York and European stages and to find, inspire and nurture a new generation of Indigenous writers and composers around the world.

Creative partnerships are essential to bringing this festival to life. We will reach out to the top companies from LA's rich and diverse theatre scene- including Center Theatre Group (Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theatre), The Actor's Gang (Artistic Director Tim Robbins), LA Opera (Artistic Director Placido Domingo), Not Man Apart Physical Theatre Ensemble (Edinborough Fringe Festival Award Winners), and others for creative, logistical and promotional support.

This festival represents a first and critical step not only in the development of new works and new voices but in the reinvention and re-invigoration of a classic art form for a new and changing world.

IndigeNOW! is presented in association with The Powerhouse Theatre Company- a non-profit theatre company dedicated to the use of theatre as an educational tool and committed to sharing the power of theatre with audiences young and old, presenting the finest quality programming possible.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Many sponsorshipship levels are available for IndigeNOW! If you are interested in supporting the festival through a donation or a sponsorship, please click here for complete details.

Indigenous Participants

Composer Brent Michael Davids (USA)

Brent Michael Davids is a professional concert and film composer, and American Indian citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation. Davids founded and currently operates music company Blue Butterfly Group (BBG), which includes Blue Butterfly Theatre, a fully-equipped electronic film scoring studio. He is an American Indian music expert, serving as an educator and consultant to schools, festivals, seminars and film scoring workshops. Davids is Founding Artistic Advisor of the First Nations Composer Initiative (www.fnci.org) with the American Composers Forum (www.composersforum.org) and a Master performer of American Indian instruments and music styles. He is also a designer of original music instruments.

Composer Lyz Jaakola (USA)

Lyz Jaakola is an accomplished singer, experienced in many musical styles. She is a member of the Fond du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and works as a composer and educator.

Playwright Harriet Nordlund (Sámi, Sweden)

Harriet Nordlund is an actress, play-writer and director, currently working as the head of the Cultural Department within the council in Jokkmokk, Sweden, the center for the native Sámi people of Lule valley. She studied at the Theatre Academy of Acting in Stockholm, with focuses in art, painting and drawing, Sami language, and Jacque Le Coq’s summer clown-school in Paris. After her studies, Harriet returned to the north of Sweden and started the first Sámi Theatre, called ”Dálvadis,” in Jokkmokk together with the Sami artist Maj–Doris Rimpi. She has worked with many established Swedish theatres, as well as in small groups and production companies.

Composer/Singer Deborah Cheetham (Australia)

Singer
In October 2003 Ms Cheetham performed World In Union with Argentine tenor Jose Cura at the Opening Ceremony for the Rugby World Cup. This performance was broadcast to a worldwide audience estimated at more than one billion.

In May 2005 Ms Cheetham added to her list of international credits several engagements in Paris including performances at the Australian Embassy and the on stage at La Cigale in the Marais.

In August 2000 Ms Cheetham was commissioned to write and perform an original composition, Dali Mana Gamarada, which she would later perform as the welcome to country at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Deborah later collaborated with Wicked Beats Sound System to record Dali Mana as the lead track for Festival Records 2001 CD Corroboration.

"Opera diva Deborah Cheetham and Wicked Beat Sound System create the ethereal Dali Mana Gamarada."
The Bulletin

Throughout 2001 Ms Cheetham performed in several major events celebrating the Centenary of Federation including January 1st when she appeared as a soloist and speaker in a Concert broadcast nation wide from Centennial Park in Sydney. Other events included Ceremony at the Melbourne Concert Hall and Peoplescape - broadcast nationally on the ABC from Parliament House in Canberra.

"Soprano Deborah Cheetham.performing the most achingly beautiful Italian and French arias.treating us with her gorgeous singing"
The Age (Australia)

During 2002 Ms Cheetham performed in Melbourne at the 2002 Australian Business and Arts Foundation Award Dinner. In May that year she performed with Simon Tedeschi in a concert honouring His Holiness the Dalai Lama held at the Sydney Opera House.

"Strauss.in the hands Simon Tedeschi and Deborah Cheetham evoked a magic equal to that of the Gyuto Monks' chants."
World Tibet Network News

In November 2002 Ms Cheetham gave a world premier performance of True, a newly commissioned work by Australian composer Martin Wesley Smith. This performance was recorded live for ABC radio.

Pecan Summer
Sixty thousand years of Yorta Yorta history. 70 years of dispossession. The summer of 1939 will change the lives of the people of Cummeragunja forever.

Alice is nine years old. Her family is her entire world. Alice’s world is about to be torn apart.

Pecan Summer is an opera for the 21st century, a contemporary opera for Indigenous Australians, a story for all Australians.

What if Australian Indigenous voices became the new sound in opera around the world? What if there was a way to encourage young Indigenous singers and musicians to tell their stories through the medium of opera?

Pecan Summer will be Australia’s first Indigenous opera. Pecan Summer’s claim to this title is not only due to the fact that this is the first time an opera libretto and score has been written by an Indigenous Australian. Pecan Summer will be the first opera in Australia’s history to engage the talents of a classically trained Indigenous cast.

For 20 years Composer and Artistic Director of Pecan Summer, Deborah Cheetham has pursued a successful career as a freelance classical soprano. In all that time she has been the only classically trained Indigenous Soprano in Australia making a living from this profession. It has long been her belief that there are great Indigenous voices out there that go unheard due to the lack of opportunity and a clearly defined pathway. Pecan Summer is forging that pathway.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation conducted two very powerful interviews with Deborah Cheetham and the cast of Pecan Summer. Follow the links below to see them.

Executive Producer Gordon Bronitsky, PhD - founder/president of Bronitsky and Associates. (www.bronitskyandassociates.com), with offices in New Mexico and Germany. Bronitsky and Associates specializes in working with Indigenous talent around the world in international cultural marketing of traditional AND contemporary art, music, dance; fashion; film/video; photography; theater; and speakers and writers (Native languages and English). The firm also works with Indigenous communities in festival development as an integral part of economic development across sectoral boundaries.

Bronitsky and Associates produced ORIGINS: First Nations Festival™ in May, 2009, which brought Indigenous theater companies and performers from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to theaters and venues all across London (www.originsfestival.com).

Festival Director Eric Sims - has produced over 80 shows and events in Los Angeles- including the smash-hit engagement of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, the 25th Annual L.A. Weekly Theatre Awards and the world-premiere interactive production of The Boomerang Kid, in which audiences used wireless devices to vote on the choices made by the main characters. In his capacity as Interactive Production Manager at Center Theatre Group he helped craft marketing strategies for productions as diverse as A Chorus Line and Avenue Q at the Ahmanson Theatre and the world-premieres of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. He is currently the Operations Manager for the Kirk Douglas Theatre, where he oversees all business, facility, and front-of-house operations.

Associate Producer Pamela Karantonis is a trained opera singer and theater professor in the United Kingdom. Along with her Canadian colleague Dylan Robinson, she organized the first international conference on opera and First Nations in London in 2008 and has edited a book by the same title due out in October 2010: Opera Indigene – Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures. She has been a guest speaker on opera and experimental music theater on a number of occasions, including at Oxford University and the University of Amsterdam. This year, Pamela hopes to present papers to opera and music theatre colleagues in Munich and Rio de Janeiro. She also conducts workshops on voice and performance-making and has enjoyed participating in a number or projects with the Welsh National Opera over the past three years.

For more information, please contact us via email at .

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