I sit, socially distanced, in the courtyard of the Firehall Arts centre which is situated on the traditional and unceded lands of the Coast Salish people, to watch Wishing Well by dance artist Olivia C. Davies (Anishinaabe) in collaboration with poet Melissa Frost (Vuntut Gwichin). I have feelings of discomfort as I wait, this being my first live performance that I have seen since the lockdown in March 2020 due to Covid-19, and my first venturing out apart from grocery shopping. After I sit and ponder my anxiety, I look around the audience space and begin to recognize people by their eyes, hair and posture. I almost feel embarrassed as I acknowledge them, anxious that they won’t recognize who this mask is waving to them. Then I look towards the performance area and see 3 people dancing.

I watch each dancer moving separately in what seems to be their designated spaces, each beside a bench table. It is as if they are exploring internal, proximal and distal spaces, diving in to and out of their individual bodies, occasionally landing their eyes on to mine. Through them I witness the different textures, objects and tones that surround us. I think to myself that there is no perfect truth, that we experience our worlds differently, and the dancers were inviting me into this world of their individual and collective performance. So, I sit here, my hard seat now becomes a soft cloud, and I am instantly taken away from my inward unrest as I gently shift with and towards them

After watching the 3 dancers for a while, I turn my gaze to a person sitting in a chair to my left of the stage. It’s Sharon Jinkerson-Brass, multimedia artist and community leader. She sits wearing a long skirt, eyes closed, and what I perceive as a knowing, comforting and peaceful smile on her face. I look around the space further and notice cedar branches along the front of the stage. What could its presence and placement mean here? A reference to ceremony? Or to time immemorial – I think of the thousands of years that cedar has been here. After a short while Sharon stands and welcomes us to the space.

Olivia and Melissa cross the trajectory of my vision and I follow them as they interweave around the space each step purposeful, soft and sustained. They sprinkle something…maybe salt around the performance area, a ritual of sorts, a cleansing of the space. Olivia arrives at the box, picks it up and turns on the spot around the space offering the box in four evenly spaced directions within a circle, then she pulls out a red string – a re-occurring symbol throughout the piece. It is not only the audience witnessing this, the other performers are seemingly holding Olivia with their soft attention as she talks of belonging, independence, mastery and generosity.

Softness.  This fluffy cloud I sit on has enough strength to carry me along. It takes me to many places. Three of which are the moving solos of the witnessing collaborators Ziyian, Rianne and Kelly. Amongst the movement, ritual and poetry performed by Olivia and Melissa. The three dancers take to the stage to open the wishing well. “I wish you well”, Kelly scoops an invisible substance out of the box and pours it over her face, she swirls as if being consumed within a vortex. “to grow is to take route”, Rianne’s wavey movement looks as though she is calling for or manifesting magic energy, a mix of unwanted darkness trying to infiltrate with joyful and surprising visions. “I choose you”, Ziyian full of poise, yet vulnerable to what arrives, it’s as though she is gracefully exorcising something within.

All this time, the gentle gaze of Sharon Jinkerson-Brass watches each performer, knowingly and peacefully, still a soft smile graces her face. Olivia and Melissa meet at the tree and talk to each other in English, Anishinaabemowin, and Gwichin. Olivia carries a silver bag and they walk towards and then on to the stage, and upon arrival pulls objects out of the bag and carefully places them on to a black mat as she says, “to bring ceremony to a place that is accessible”. There is a bottle filled with water which Olivia pours into a decanter, and then from decanter into a wooden bowl, Sharon and Melissa standing in line behind her – “to close our eyes and make a wish”. End.

Previous to the performance, Olivia and I had a short conversation over the phone about some of her ideas and experiences that inspired the work. She spoke of her experiences of belonging, non-acceptance, being in-between and about difficult conversations with various people from different cultural groups regarding this. From the conversation, I understood that through the process of creating the piece (this one presented at Firehall being an evolution of a previous work), Olivia seemed curious to re-imagine how the feeling of displacement could be transformed, through one’s own initiation of acceptance.

In collaboration with the other artists of Indigenous, Asian and European descent, Wishing Well made visible a declaration of Indigenous philosophy, ways of being and art, whilst simultaneously making visible the ways in which one can create one’s own rituals to find connection and belonging in this very complex world. My settler colonial senses, that could lead me to make meaning of the work through a very narrow and neutrally centred perspective of me and the other, was shifted as I too navigated, whilst watching, what it really meant to ‘be’ myself.  For me, this was an invitation to witness love, care, connection, generosity, and attending to one’s and the collective past, present and future. Through dance and spoken poetry, I was taken on a journey that felt dreamy, and yet I was there, and it was actually happening – we can make real what we work to manifest.

Written and witnessed by Daisy Thompson

July 2020