Performance : Okinum

Émilie Monnet is an Aboriginal multidisciplinary artist of Anishinabe and French descent. She currently lives in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyaang/Montreal. Her collaborative and interdisciplinary artistic approach blends video, theater, performance and media arts. She questions in her work the notions of identity, memory, heritage and language. She has spearheaded a number of initiatives to highlight Aboriginal projects and artists, while fostering links between communities in Quebec and elsewhere. With this in mind, in 2011 she founded Onishka Productions, an interdisciplinary artistic structure based in Montreal. Since 2016, as Aboriginal artist-in-residence at the National Theatre School of Canada, she also leads Scène contemporaine autochtone / Indigenous Contemporary Scene, a traveling platform dedicated to the dissemination of Aboriginal performing arts. Her collection “Okinum”, meaning “dam” in the Anishnabemowin language, was published by Les Herbes rouges in 2020. This text, staged and performed with Jackie Gallant in 2019 and 2020, and inspired by the recurring dream of a giant beaver, offers an intimate reflection on the notion of inner dams, and is positioned as an ode to the power of dreams and intuition. Other multidisciplinary and performative works include NEECHEEMUS, Kiciweok: lexique de 13 mots autochtones, (co-produced with Jamais Lu and CTD'A), and Marguerite: le feu, premiered in spring 2022 in Montreal and presented in France at the Festival d'Avignon in July 2023. Finally, Nigamon/Tunai, a true poetic manifesto, was created in collaboration with artist Waira Nina of the Inga people in Amazonia, and a stage in the creative process was shared at the Festival TransAmériques in Montreal in 2023.

Jackie Gallant is a musician, video artist, composer, and performer. She composes, improvises, and performs for dance, video, and film. She began her career as a drummer in several Montreal-based rock bands, later touring nationally and internationally with groups such as La La La Human Steps and Lesbians on Ecstasy. She also plays percussion and creates solo pieces based on samples, primarily using electronic drums. As a sound designer and composer, she has collaborated with filmmaker Roy Cross, video artists Nelson Henricks, Nikki Forrest, Sabrina Ratté, and Dayna McLeod, choreographers Holy Body Tattoo, Eddie Ladd, Martin Bélanger, George Stamos, Julienne Doko, and dancers Sarah Williams and Karen Fennell. She has also worked with actress and director Marie Brassard. In 2015, she created and directed POD~themusical, a pop opera presented at the Phenomena Festival, while continuing her collaborations with Stamos and Fennell. As a sound, performance, and video artist, her work explores and deconstructs pop culture through self-referential humour and subtle subversion.