A shared breath : vocal performance and manifestations of cultural identity and acts of survivance in Chantal Bilodeau’s Sila

Abstract EN

Aboriginal peoples of North America in general and Canada in particular have been victims not only to military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands and resources but also to systematic eradication of their cultures, and other life forms.

demolition of indigenous practices and epistemologies is based on a Eurocentric assumption that proposes the inferiority and insufficiency of all that does not belong to the western culture.

propagating colonial notions such as the “ecological Indian” led to communal disasters revealing that the exploitation of land and people are connected.

throughout years of oppression and abuse indigenous people have used representational and aesthetic modes in order to keep and protect their cultural identity amid a dominant western culture, that aimed at suppressing theirs, practicing what is referred to as “survivance”.

survivance is a way of life that maintains indigenous cultural identity implying both survival and resistance.

anishinabe scholar Gerald Vizenor coined the term survivance.

survivance does not simply refer to the survival of indigenous people but to how survival has been transformed into an active act to confront the domination, colonization and victimization of indigenous people by settlers.

in telling stories, natives have always tied their present and future to their historical roots.

consequently, embodied practices such as contemporary Eco performance can be regarded as an act of survivance through which aboriginal peoples nourish their ways of life.

the intersection of native studies, performance studies, culture studies and Eco criticism promises deconstructing the eurocentric notions and colonial discourses.

in focusing on vocal performance such as throat singing and spoken word poetry in Chantal Bilodeau’s Sila, this paper aims at regarding this performance as an act of survivance in addition to showing the dynamicity of indigenous cultural identity.

vocal performance in sila is intended to provoke a dialogue through shared experiences.

both throat singing and spoken poetry are counter posed to the single-thought discourse enforced by the colonial discourse.

they undermine the monological colonial discourse which has been systematically constructed from the western perspective in order to exclude indigenous voices.

this shared breath is an act of survivance as it not only nourishes the indigenous epistemologies, aesthetics and conceptions, but also allows for a range of voices that belong to different times, species and genders to be heard.