Echoes of the Land marries both Indigenous and settler perspectives on our connection to the natural world and seeks to unite people as they melt into sound. The production from Ghost River Theatre invites the audience to partake in a meditative reflection and healing journey, and it's a prime experience for National Indigenous History Month.
“Echoes of the Land is a deep listening experience that allows the audience to be bathed in the sounds, rhythm, poetry of Indigenous thoughts and spirituality, as well as stories from our settler artists around their own experience right now within Calgary,” says Eric Rose, Director and co-creator of the production. “Love, isolation, our connection to the land, and what it means to us.”
The performance itself is a sound bath that brings together poetry, music, and traditional drumming. Rejecting the traditional relationship between the audience and the performer, Echoes of the Land is presented with the audience in the centre of the staging and the musicians in positions all around them. The intention is for the audience to lie down, close or cover their eyes, and see where the rich soundscape takes them while they're unbound from the typical trappings of a concert.
“This is a weird thing to say, but you know, I've blindfolded probably over 15,000 people at this point through different works that I've done,” says Rose. “There's something profound that happens when you take away one part of what I've called the guarantee in our senses, which is our eyes. The moment you take that away, it allows something else to happen. It opens up space for a different kind of interpretation and a different way of being… By changing the audience relationship of, ‘you're on that one side over there, and there's a performer up on stage,’ it creates this beautiful circle.”
First performed as part of One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo in 2025, this will be the show's third run. Rose is credited with the show's concept, and it’s guided through both his direction and the show’s music director, Kris Demeanor. However, all of the talents involved in Echoes of the Land agree that the production is the result of close collaboration and shared creativity.
“We started off with songs. Everybody had a song, everybody had an idea… We started talking with each other. Kris Demeanor had a song. Cedric [Lightning] had some ideas also –– I believe his song went from being a hip-hop song to becoming a blues song. He didn't even know he could sing blues,” says traditional drummer and knowledge keeper Skip Wolfleg. “For me, it was just listening to the music and listening to the soundscapes like the river. That's how I developed one song for the production, and I called it The River. It just kind of inspired me by how the river flows and how I remember hearing it growing up in Siksika.”
For Wolfleg, a pivotal moment in the making of the show was when he was able to bring his father, Elder Clarence Wolfleg Sr., into the process through a cover of one of the Elder’s songs from his time as a folk musician. This channelling of land and ancestral kinship into art is carried throughout the work, grounding it in an indigenous perspective. Siksika and Tsuut’ina Poet Alanna Bluebird found herself not only reflecting on her past ancestors, but her future ones as well.
“I wrote a lot about the connection between me, the land, the language, the culture, the next generation, and how we are all connected through lines of energy,” says Bluebird. “One's called Naahisgaka, that means our children… It's a motivation for the next generation, encouragement and affirmation for the ones that aren't even here yet. It’s sending a message to the next generation about where we're at in life and what we're doing and how we're trying to change history and break cycles.”
While focused through an Indigenous-centred lens, the production also features non-Indigenous artists drawing from their own relationship to the land. It’s a unique opportunity wherein the goal is not only to build an understanding, but to build a shared understanding. While settler perspectives on the land have so often been established in colonial terms, an important idea to foster is that we can all reach a place of communion with the land and relate more deeply to each other.
“What sets the show apart is that it's very inclusive too, it's not just an Indigenous show,” says Bluebird. “They're not trying to put a native show on like, ‘oh, here's some native people,’ you know? They're with us telling their stories about their history to this land, you know, so it's a collaborative thing that you don't normally see.”
For musician Kenna Burima, who performs the keys and vocals, working on Echoes of the Land has been a continuous widening of her understanding of that relationship between us, the land, and each other. It’s been a practice in collaboration that was highly instructive to her when she was the TD Incubator Fellow this past season.
“There was a real understanding of the relationship and the perspective that is different between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Very quickly, we built this feeling of trust amongst all the artists that we were very aware of our different perspectives and lived experience and that we were all unique individuals, but because we were collaborating musically, it was very much about attempting to understand the perspective of each other,” says Burima. “My job as Fellow was to hold and facilitate the creative collaborative process of 50-plus performing artists. I was able to do so because I experienced and trained and educated myself on how to do that for myself and others with Echoes of the Land.”
What makes Echoes of the Land a great piece to experience during National Indigenous History Month is that, rather than focusing on oppression and tragedy –– both themes worthy of exploring –– instead, it is a production built around connection. From the non-traditional staging that removes the barrier between audience and artists, the audience being rooted in the ground and level with each other, and its emphasis on the land being what can bond different people together. It’s an opportunity to separate from the current cultural urge to divide and to surround ourselves only with those we’re alike with. For an hour, the room and everyone in it fades into one breathing being. From there, a bridge is extended to connect with that history and share that cultural experience.
“Music is transcendent. Every culture has music; it brings us all together… When you hear elders say, ‘the stories are in the land, the music comes from the land,’ it means exactly what it's saying. The songs themselves were originally given to us by the animal beings we shared our world with,” says Wolfleg, “When you think about it, it's the rhythm of the universe. Our mother's heartbeats, our heartbeats –– that is life, right?”
Echoes of the Land returns to the Big Secret Theatre for a four-show run from June 25 – 28. Audience members are encouraged to bring their own yoga mat to partake in the full experience. Accessible seating is also available.
See everything happening at Werklund Centre and beyond for National Indigenous History Month at werklundcentre.ca/nihm.