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Nina Katz

November 27, 2020

DRM101Y1 Y

Professor Seika Boye

Alisha Grech

Library Research Assignment: Delving into Matthew MacKenzie’s Bears

Group A Summaries

1) To fully understand the significance of Bears, one must acknowledge the suppression that the

Indigenous peoples in Canada have been subjected to. Indigenous children were forced into

Residential schools for over one hundred years, and they were not allowed to speak their own

languages. Instead, they were taught English, with threats of extreme violence if they practiced

their native cultures (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission 103). As a result, the Indigenous

children’s ability to speak their languages, and by extension, their connections to their culture,

became endangered:

Aboriginal students were forced to abandon their languages and cultural practices. They

became alienated from their families, their communities, and ultimately from themselves.

This damage was passed down through the generations, as former students found

themselves unable or unwilling to teach their own children Aboriginal languages and

cultural ways. (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission 104-105)

This history of cultural genocide is relevant to Bears because the play contains snippets of the

Cree language, signifying how Indigenous cultures and peoples are beginning to reclaim their

voices in the public domain through art. True reconciliation has not yet been reached, but the

resurgence of Indigenous languages is beautiful. Another important piece of cultural context to

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Bears is the controversy of the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline System.

Environmentalist activists worried about the possibility of oil spills polluting the environment

surrounding Alberta and British Columbia, with a specific concern that the near-by endangered

orcas would be especially vulnerable (CBC News). The introduction of Bill C-69 in June 2019,

whose purpose was to ensure big projects did not cause terrible damage to the environment,

scared pipeline enthusiasts because of its stricter environmental guidelines, which they thought

would shut down construction (Elliott). Bill C-69 also claimed to work for Indigenous peoples,

but the way the bill was phrased was too vague for it to be legitimately helpful: “Finally, and

perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this analysis, the Crown's duty to consult

Indigenous nations is almost as absent from the informational documents about C-69 as it was

from C-69 itself” (Crawford 21). However, in spite of the implementation of Bill C-69, the Trans

Mountain Pipeline expansion was approved.

2) Métis playwright Matthew MacKenzie was raised in Edmonton, Alberta and studied

playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada (Nothof). MacKenzie “was a member of

the Tarragon Theatre’s 2012 Playwright’s Unit and… In 2014, he was a playwright-in-residence

at Downstage Performance Society in Calgary” (Nothof). He accumulated several awards before

he wrote Bears, such as the Lieutenant Governor’s award for his work at NTS, and the 2010

Alberta Playwriting Competition’s Grand Prize Category for his play, Sia (Nothof). MacKenzie

founded Pyretic Productions in 2008 (Playwrights Canada Press). He is the Artistic Director of

Punctuate! Theatre, and an Artistic Associate with both Pyretic Productions and Alberta

Aboriginal Performing Arts (Playwrights Canada Press). MacKenzie’s work, both in writing and

in production, focuses on socio-political problems, particularly that of Canada’s Indigenous

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peoples (Nothof). However, the goal of his productions is not to coerce the audience into

adopting his political views; rather, it is to expand their minds by introducing them to

perspectives they may not have encountered before (Nothof). Mackenzie’s Bears was originally

produced by Pyretic productions in 2015 and was produced once more by a partnership between

Punctuate! Theatre and Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts in 2018 (Nothof). His inspiration

was the story of his grandmother’s journey through Alberta (Mackenzie 9). He sourced

knowledge from his great-aunt and grandfather, who investigated their family history, which had

been obscured by years of colonial suppression (Fricker, “MacKenzie and Dotter”). When Bears

was taken on by Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts, MacKenzie began dialogue with Christine

Sokaymoh Frederick, the company’s Artistic Director (Frederick and MacKenzie). Frederick saw

that the piece had great potential and connected MacKenzie with Elders of Cree culture so that

he could clarify and strengthen the play’s ties to Indigenous culture (Frederick and MacKenzie).

Frederick stressed that while everyone can be a Keeper of Knowledge and that their

contributions are crucial, it is essential to appeal towards the Elders, who hold cultural authority

(Frederick and MacKenzie). Frederick’s intention was for MacKenzie to gain a better

understanding of his own culture so that he might present a recognizable product to an

Indigenous audience, and an accurate and educational product to a Western audience (Frederick

and MacKenzie). As a result of all of this consultation and reworking, Bears was “quite a

different piece” by its 2018 production (Frederick and MacKenzie).

3) One of Bears’ most unique and striking elements is its form. The play is a fusion of dancing

and acting. Its characters consist of Floyd, Mama Bear, and a chorus of eight dancers who

transform into the various environments, animals and people that Floyd interacts with along his
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journey (Fricker, “Indigenous-Led Production”). The chorus’ often biting remarks contrast

amusingly with their ethereal dancing: “The juxtaposition of their graceful and imaginative

movement as choreographed by Monica Dottor and the saltiness of what they say is one of the

production’s key sources of delight” (Fricker, “Indigenous-Led Production”). Humor was a

major motivation in many of MacKenzie’s artistic choices. He decided to have Floyd narrate the

action of the show in third-person because MacKenzie found that Floyd’s jokes landed better that

way (Frederick and MacKenzie). MacKenzie also wanted to present one-man shows in an

innovative way, free from the conventional form of a single character speaking in first-person to

the audience (Frederick and MacKenzie). MacKenzie also inverted the classic theatrical trope of

the Greek Chorus by making Floyd narrate his own actions instead of the chorus. This inversion

was done for comedic purposes (Frederick and MacKenzie). MacKenzie revealed that the

dancing in Bears is used to similar effect as that of singing in a musical. In a musical, a character

must sing to express emotions that cannot be put into words. The same is true in Bears, but

characters use dance to express themselves instead of song (Frederick and MacKenzie).

Mackenzie wrote the script’s stage directions in a purposely vague way so that the

choreographer, Monica Dotter, could have artistic freedom with the dances (Fricker,

“MacKenzie and Dotter”). Eric Gruber, the set designer of Bears, expressed the Indigenous

concept of nature’s unity through the way he constructed the environment of the play:

This is also communicated through T. Erin Gruber’s environmental design: large fabric

backdrops adorned with white cut-outs of a mountainscape. The performers’ movement

through and around these set pieces, as coloured lighting projections transform them into

different locations, underlines the characters’ close and symbiotic relationship to nature.

(Fricker, “Indigenous-Led Production”)

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Bears uses its set as well as its characters to convey its themes. Every element of the play, from

its script to its performance, adds to the cohesiveness of the product.

4) Something that interested me about Bears was the idea of reclaiming the Indigenous narrative

through performance. My interest in this topic was piqued by Christine Sokaymoh Frederick,

who explained that as a producer, her job involved procuring funding for artists. Frederick

recalled, “An issue ten years ago was that a lot of the art forms weren’t accepted by our major

funders” (Frederick and MacKenzie). This led her to advocating about what defines an art form,

and who gets to decide which art form is acceptable (Frederick and MacKenzie). Bears is an

example of redefining Indigenous art because it challenges the audience’s cultural expectations

of Indigenous peoples through the implementation of contemporary dance (Frederick and

MacKenzie). By choosing to use contemporary Indigenous dance as opposed to the expected

powwow, Bears asserts that Indigenous peoples are a part of cultures that are constantly evolving

(Frederick and MacKenzie). The idea of Indigenous resurgence through performance is pushed

by other Indigenous artists as well, such as Kent Monkman, whose performances as Miss Chief

“is a Swampy Cree response to colonization, especially sexual colonization. Monkman… uses

Indigenous ways of knowing to create new artistic traditions, particularly in urban settings”

(Scudeler 198). Monkman’s performance art, Miss Chief: Justice of the Piece, exemplifies the

blending of traditional Indigenous culture and urban society through the mixing of a chief’s

outfit and high-heel leather boots (Monkman). Performances such as those by Monkman help

assert Indigenous presence in the modern world, on Indigenous terms. Theatre also helps

Indigenous peoples cope with the traumas they have been subjected to. A study analyzing how

community theatre could help heal the colonial wounds inflicted upon Indigenous youths found
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that theatre is a particularly helpful tool of expression because “theatre requires action: the body

has to move. Sometimes the body holds messages that are not clear conceptually but are

expressed in a movement or through a static body shape” (Linds, Warren, et al. 39-40). Physical

movement is crucial to self-expression, but theatre does not just provide action; it provides voice.

Through the practice of community performance, Cree theatre educator Carol Greyeyes “realized

that our own stories and perspectives were interesting and valuable, and that hearing our own

voices through this style of story-telling connected people at a deep level” (Greyeyes 54).

Expression through theatre encourages connection and the sharing of Indigenous stories,

ensuring that Indigenous voices can be heard and appreciated by wider society.

Reflection 1

The easiest sources to find were the non-academic articles. This is because I could look up key

words on Google and find a plethora of options. Finding scholarly articles was surprisingly easy;

by using the Boolian search method on the U of T library page, I was able to find my articles

with relative simplicity. It is a lot easier to search for articles on the U of T library than to search

for articles on online databases. I found that the most complicated sources to use were books,

because it was difficult to find a source readily available online. Not only that, but once I found

the book, I had to peruse through the vast amount of information to select what was relevant to

my assignment. Overall, I think the best sources to rely upon are academic articles, because I can

be confident in the quality of the source. Non-academic articles have a risk of containing false

information, or of having ambiguous sources.

Reflection 2
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One of my questions about Bears was about the set design: what did it look like and did it

contain any thematic relevance? I was able to find the answer to that question in the interview

from lecture, and in a review of Bears. I learned that Eric Gruber designed the set in a way that

complimented how the chorus used their bodies to form Floyd’s environment. I was also curious

about the process of creating Bears, and how long that took. I learned from the interview and

from more reviews that Bears first premiered in 2015, and after being reworked, was presented

again in 2018. That was interesting to learn because it showed me that the artistic process and the

potential for improvement is never finished. I was also curious to learn the specific details of

what MacKenzie learned from the Cree elders he consulted, but I could not find the information.

I think this is because the information was delivered orally, so few records exist of what was

told. That experience taught me that records of spoken information are more difficult to obtain

than written information.

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Works Cited

*CBC News. “What You Need to Know about the Trans Mountain Pipeline.” CBCnews,

CBC/Radio Canada, 2017, www.cbc.ca/player/play/1007711299831.

*Crawford, Stephen S. "The Canadian Crown's Duty to Consult Indigenous Nations' Knowledge

Systems in Federal Environmental Assessments." International Indigenous Policy Journal,

vol. 9, no. 3, 2018. ProQuest, http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?qurl=https%3A

%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F2122749754%3Faccountid%3D14771,

doi:http://dx.doi.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.18584/iipj.2018.9.3.4.

*Elliott, Josh K. “Why Critics Fear Bill C-69 Will Be a ‘Pipeline Killer.’” Global News, 21 June

2019, globalnews.ca/news/5416659/what-is-bill-c69-pipelines/.

*Frederick, Christine Sokaymoh and MacKenzie, Matthew. Interview by Seika Boye. In class,

October 27, 2020,

https://mymedia.library.utoronto.ca/play/8e4dbad7d3016952714b2a945aa527e8?t=1679.

Accessed 18 November 2020.

*Fricker, Karen. “Indigenous-Led Production Bears Combines Ingenuity, Humour, and a

Powerful Message.” The Star, 20 Jan. 2018, 6.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/review/2018/01/20/indigenous-led-production-

bears-combines-ingenuity-humour-and-a-powerful-message.html.
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*Fricker, Karen. "Matthew MacKenzie and Monica Dottor on the Collaboration Behind Best

New Play Winner Bears." ProQuest, Mar 01, 2019,

http://myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com

%2Fdocview%2F2187110066%3Faccountid%3D14771.

*Greyeyes, Carol. “Making Our Own Bundle: Philosophical Reflections on Indigenous Theatre

Education.” Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage, University

of Regina Press, 2019, pp. 51–71.

*Linds, Warren, et al. "Layering Theatre’s Potential for Change: Drama, Education, and

Community in Aboriginal Health Research." Canadian Theatre Review, vol. 154, 2013, p.

37-43. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/504666.

MacKenzie, Matthew. Bears, Playwrights Canada Press, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,

https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/lib/utoronto/detail.action?

docID=6199717

*Monkman, Kent. Miss Chief: Justice of the Piece. 2012. Smithsonian’s National Museum of

The American Indian,

https://www.kentmonkman.com/performance/rk3rjfjv2w0ep0r0ak7ga5tq38v1ld. Photo by

Fogdan, Katherine.

*Nothof, Anne. “MacKenzie, Matthew.” Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia - MacKenzie,

Matthew, 18 Oct. 2019, www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=MacKenzie%2C+Matthew.

*Playwrights Canada Press. “Matthew MacKenzie.” Matthew MacKenzie | Playwrights Canada

Press, 2020, www.playwrightscanada.com/Authors/M/MacKenzie-Matthew.

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*Scudeler, June. “‘That's Who the Stories Are About’: Cree Ways of Knowing in Kent

Monkman's Miss Chief: Justice of the Piece.” Performing Indigeneity: Global Histories

and Contemporary Experiences, edited by Laura R. Graham and H. Glenn Penny,

University of Nebraska Press, 2016, pp. 197–213.

*The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “‘I Lost My Talk’: The Erosion of Language and

Culture.” Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy, vol. 5, 2015, pp. 103–138.,

doi:10.2307/j.ctt19rmbqj.6.