Performing History & Land in Vancouver’s Stanley Park — with Selena Couture

Performance scholar and Associate Professor in the Dramatic Arts department at the University of Alberta Selena Couture joins Am Johal to talk about her latest book, Against the Current and Into the Light. Selena speaks about how her book explores varying historical and contemporary performances involving Stanley Park through language, relationships to land, and the unlearning of settler knowledges. She draws from colonial and counter-colonial performances such as the 1946 Jubilee show, and the public performances of Native Brotherhood of BC in the same year.

Selena also explores how her doctoral dissertation and the taking of hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language classes influenced the creation of her book, and speaks about the instability of archive-based “truths,” by discussing the fabricated history of Lord Stanley’s dedication of Stanley Park to “people of all colours, creeds and customs.”

Selena and Am end their conversation by speaking of the absence of Indigenous women from historical archives, and the resonating performances of contemporary Indigenous women artists such as Quelemia Sparrow and Marie Clements.

Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/149-selena-couture.html

Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/149-selena-couture.html

Resources:
— Against the Current and Into the Light: https://www.mqup.ca/against-the-current-and-into-the-light-products-9780773559219.php
— UBC’s First Nations and Endangered Languages Program: https://fnel.arts.ubc.ca/
— Inventing Stanley Park by Sean Kheraj: https://www.ubcpress.ca/inventing-stanley-park
— The Archive and the Repertoire by Diana Taylor: https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-archive-and-the-repertoire
— The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia: https://www.nativebrotherhood.ca/
— Ashes on the Water: A Podplay Video: https://vimeo.com/27876873
— The Road Forward by Marie Clements: https://www.nfb.ca/film/road_forward/
— Urban Ink: https://urbanink.ca/

Bio:

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is a poet and lawyer who lives in Vancouver. She is the author of the ground-breaking poetry book, children of air india, about the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Prize and is the co-author, with Dr. Mark Winston, of the poetry and essay collection, Listening to the Bees, winner of the 2019 Gold Medal Independent Publishers Book Award, Environment/Ecology. She is the curator of the poetry reading series Lunch Poems at SFU and in 2021 curated Vancouver’s first free Poetry Phone, 1-833-POEMS-4-U. Renée Sarojini is an instructor for SFU and VCC and was the first poet laureate for the City of Surrey, (2015-2018). Her work has been adapted for opera, visual art and dance. Her epic fantasy series in verse, THOT J BAP: The Heart Of This Journey Bears All Patterns, is about a female hero battling to save a planet ravaged by climate change, launched in 2021.

Cite this episode:
Chicago Style

Johal, Am. “Performing History & Land in Vancouver’s Stanley Park — with Selena Couture” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, December 7, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/149-selena-couture.html