Kamloopa

Publisher's Description (Talonbooks): 
Come along for the ride to Kamloopa, the largest Powwow on the West Coast. This high-energy Indigenous matriarchal story follows two urban Indigenous sisters and a lawless Trickster who face our world head-on as they come to terms with what it means to honour who they are and where they come from. But how to go about discovering yourself when Christopher Columbus allegedly already did that? Bear witness to the courage of these women as they turn to their Ancestors for help in reclaiming their power in this ultimate transformation story.

In developing matriarchal relationships and shared Indigenous values, Kamloopa explores the fearless love and passion of two Indigenous women reconnecting with their homelands, Ancestors, and stories. Kim Senklip Harvey’s play is a boundary-blurring adventure that will remind you to always dance like the Ancestors are watching.

Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story is the work of Kim Senklip Harvey, a proud Indigenous woman from the Syilx, Tsilhqot’in, Ktunaxa, and Dakelh First Nations, listed for the Gina Wilkinson Prize for her work as an emerging director and widely considered to be one of this land’s most original voices among the next generation of Indigenous artists.

Author Biography (Talonbooks): 
Kim Senklip Harvey is a proud Syilx, Tsilhqot’in, Ktunaxa, and Dakelh Nations womxn and is a Fire Creator (director / playwright / actor / community member) and Indigenous Cultural Evolutionist.

Past acting highlights include: Rez Sisters, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, The Laurier Memorial, Salmon Row, the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning play Where the Blood Mixes, the final show of Gordon Tootoosis’s Gordon Winter, and the world premiere of Children of God at the National Arts Centre / Centre national des Arts.

In 2017, Kim participated in the residency Centering Ourselves: Writing in a Racialized Canada, which assembled twenty of Canada’s most exciting PoC writers at the Banff Centre. She recently completed her two-year residency with the National Theatre School of Canada / École nationale de théâtre du Canada in their inaugural Artistic Leadership Residency program. Kim has been shortlisted for the Ontario Arts Foundation’s Gina Wilkinson Prize for her work as a director and has participated in the Banff Playwrights Lab and the Rumble Theatre’s Directors Lab.

In 2018, the play Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story had a three-city world premiere. It won the 2019 Jessie Richardson Award for Significant Artistic Achievement – Outstanding Decolonizing Theatre Practices and Spaces, was the first Indigenous play in the Award’s history to win Best Production, and was the 2019 recipient of the Sydney J. Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Play by an Emerging Playwright.
Kim is invested in community and youth engagement and has worked on the Mayor’s Task Force on Mental Health and Addiction and the City of Vancouver’s Urban Aboriginal Peoples’ Advisory Committee. As Youth Program manager at The Cultch, she created, spearheaded, and fundraised the Indigenous Youth Initiative which focused on increasing the artistic opportunities of young urban Indigenous people in Metro Vancouver.

Kim’s passion for theatre lives within its transformational nature. She believes that storytelling is the most compelling medium to move us to a place where every community member is provided the opportunity to live peacefully.

In this video, the cast of Kamloopa introduce the play and offer behind the scenes insights.

Resource type: Book (Fiction/Poetry)

Age recommendation: Grades 7-9, 10-12, Post secondary

Keywords: Matriarch, matriarchal, story, literature, Indigenous, Native, powwow, pow wow, powwow, Syilx, Okanagan, Suknaqinx,Tsilhqotʼin, Chilcotin, Kutenai, Ktunaxa, Ksanka, Kootenay, Kootenai, Dakelh, Yinka Dene, land, nature, ancestors, ancrestral voices, spirit, spirits, mountains, rivers, sky, skies, animals, wind, world, connection, connecting, community, time, Mother Earth, East Vancouver, British Columbia, human, Coast Salish weavings, racial discrimination, heritage, authenticity, authentic, colonization, colonialism, settler, settlers, Pochahontas, sister, white guilt, longing, reparations, eurocentricity, eurocentric, genocide, social media, judgement, stereotypes

Year of publication: 2019

Publisher information: Talonbooks