Fusing costume design with Indigenous symbolism, NSCAD’s fashion department had to think outside the box for this all-Indigenous rendition of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Images courtesy of Zuppa
All the world’s a stage, but for the moment, the stage has found its home on the Sipekne’katik First Nation in Hants County.
From August 14 – 25, theatre lovers would be enchanted by Metu’na’q, an abridged, all-Indigenous production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which opened in the Sipekne’katik First Nation last Wednesday. The production is an outdoor event, performed on the reservation’s New Town Trail.
NSCAD Fashion student, Xavier Taylor, is both a performer and a costume builder in Metu’na’q. He is excited about the cultural and artistic impact the production will have in the community.
“For the reservation to have something happen like this is really big,” says Taylor. “It brings a lot of eyes to us and attention to our community. I think it’s going to give us a lot more opportunities.”
A TEMPEST IN THE MAKING
The NSCAD Art Factory, Halifax theatre company Zuppa, and NSCAD’s Sow to Sew initiative—a sustainability project supported by The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation—are all partners on the production.
“We’re world-building so the rules of regular fashion and garments go out the window,” says Leesa Hamilton, an assistant textiles professor at NSCAD, costume mentor on the show, and co-founder of the Art Factory. “Regular garments have to look like beautiful pieces that help us tell the story, but in this case they have to withstand the weather, bug spray, dirt and regular washing. A lot of the work I’ve been doing has been helping the costume team understand the parameters of the work and negotiating what is and isn’t important in telling a story.”
That story, as told by 16 members of the Sipekne’katik First Nation, is about members of Italian royalty who are shipwrecked on a Mediterranean island and ultimately enslave the island’s Indigenous resident, Caliban (played by Taylor).
All characters are played by Indigenous performers, with a mix of experienced and amateur actors. The Tempest was written in approximately 1610, around the same time England began to colonize Canada, and gives viewers a subversion of colonialism.
The costume department consisted of Hamilton, Taylor, and Sipekne’katik members Ida Simon and Vera Marr.
“I went to a meeting just for information purposes and I came out of the meeting sewing,” says Marr, laughing.
Together they built a look influenced by archival photographs of Mi’kmaq entertainer Jerry Lonecloud, and the works of contemporary artists like Kent Monkman and Alan Syliboy. The Italians are symbolized by neck ruffs, easily removable (most actors play two parts). The Indigenous characters wear pieces directly inspired by—or made from—the land.
“Everyone created their own costume piece that is made with leaves, plants, and feathers, headpieces that can come off quickly,” says Hamilton. “Looking at Alan’s work was inspiring because we could see in the Thundermaker images how you could portray status through natural form, like branches or sticks to create antlers. It was freeing because you could see that character in the narrative clearly has power, and we can see that in very simple ways.”
FUSING INDIGENOUS SYMBOLISM WITH SHAKESPEAREAN THEATRE
As a self-taught craftsperson who’s been sewing since she was a teenager, Marr once owned a store called Elegantly Mi’kmaq, fusing contemporary fashion and Indigenous culture— so she was already familiar with the idea behind the play’s costume design. She created the costume for Ariel (Janine Adema), the spirit who serves Prospero.
“She’s gonna be invisible and she has to be of the land,” says Marr. “So I tried to do a colour scheme based on the militaw (hummingbird); her shawl was green so she blended in with the forest, and it worked well with her headpiece. The red and the blue foil feathers were a play off the light, and her chest bib was a shiny material, because she’s the ruby-throated hummingbird.”
Marr added multicoloured ribbons to the bottom of the shawl to symbolize flowers, and Ariel’s costume was complete.
Taylor also took a symbolic approach when outfitting Caliban.
“The material itself and the colour of it, it’s like a leopard-print fish-scaly-looking thing,” he says, “Caliban is supposedly looking like a fish. Seeing how the material stretches, it’s almost rubbery, it really inspired me to envision how this character might have actually looked.”
“What I bring to the team is this background in theatre,” says Hamilton, a Merritt Award winner. “But Ida and Vera are community leaders with such a strong skill base. Many of our students aren’t working alongside senior sewers who have had decades to hone their skills, so it’s been an amazing experience to work with everyone.”
As Metu’na’q moves into its final performances, its makers are already considering what the future could hold for more community-based art projects like this one.
“This show is going to open up a lot of eyes, especially the kids, that things are possible, and things can be done. The whole perception of things shifts,” says Marr. “I think it’ll open their minds to the arts. I remember seeing how apprehensive they were in the initial meetings, not quite getting the idea of the show. But now you’d swear they’ve always been doing it. It boosts their self-confidence big time.”
For tickets, performance schedules and more, visit Zuppa’s website. Tickets are pay-what-you-can.