Dancers Stephan Azulay, front left, and Tymin Keown, front right, rehearse for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods, which debuts April 25.
Silhouetted against beams of fluorescent light shining from the ceiling of a vast studio, more than two dozen dancers from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet listened closely to choreographer-in-residence Cameron Fraser-Monroe.
In the centre of the room, ballerina Emilie Lewis spread her arms out like wings. She took flight to the sound of her instructor’s voice, held aloft by the encircled ensemble lifting her from below.
“Brilliant. Keep paying attention to each other,” said Mr. Fraser-Monroe, nodding with satisfaction.
Cameron Fraser-Monroe is a member of the Tla’amin First Nation in B.C., whose stories inspired T’əl.
That evening, a week before the RWB’s last production of the season, as sonorous strings filled the air, the 26-member troupe was acutely aware: They were about to make history. For the first time since it was founded in 1939, North America’s longest continuously operating ballet company is collaborating with Indigenous artists from across Canada and the United States to present a performance in a First Nations language.
T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods, an entirely
