askîwan ᐊᐢᑮᐊᐧᐣ at PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

Part live cinema, part ecological opera, askîwan ᐊᐢᑮᐊᐧᐣ conjures a cosmology of land, memory, and time. This operatic multimedia performance transforms a miniature film set—complete with cameras, mylar, mirrors, and bowls of water—into vast dreamlike mountainscapes that unfold in real time.

Through live video projection, electroacoustic sound, and baritone vocals sung in nehiyawewin (Plains Cree), creator and director Tyson Houseman (nêhiyaw) invites audiences into an Indigenous vision of deep, cyclical time: where rivers breathe, fire regenerates, and childhood memories ripple through vibrating water. Viola da gamba and electronics entwine ancient and digital frequencies as landscapes shift from winter ice to aurora skies. At once cinematic and ceremonial, askîwan ᐊᐢᑮᐊᐧᐣ reveals how land remembers—and how, even amid ecological crisis, the earth continues to sing through us.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher cynnamon schreinert