Margo Kane's creative and community work : moving towards social change

• Main Author: Couture, Selena Marie
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: Indian; Kane; First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33797

This is a study of Margo Kane’s creative work – Memories Springing/Waters Singing, Moonlodge and Confessions of an Indian Cowboy – as well as her Vancouver-based community work – Full Circle First Nations Performance Company and their annual Talking Stick Festival. I examine how Kane’s creative and community work can be understood in terms of postcolonial theory of performance while also further illuminating that theory. I apply Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophical concepts of Totality and Infinity and the Saying and the Said to the content of her creative work as well as its publication. I use Édouard Glissant’s poetics of relation to explain her administrative style and creative choices, particularly in Confessions of an Indian Cowboy. Postcolonial theatrical concepts including Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert’s model for interculturalism and Christopher Balme’s syncretic theatre lead to an investigation of the numerous forms of movement that Kane’s work demonstrates. Through analysis of the multiple published texts of her performances as well as of an interview I conducted with Kane on the founding and continuing administration of her company and the festival, I determine how the importance of movement in her work can help the shift from a colonial to a postcolonial society.