Bawaajgun: Visions IN Dreams is an excerpt of Thunderbird Rising premiering to ignite the transformative spirit of dance traveling through dimensional realms of existence — ancestors, dreams, blood memory and the land directly connected to our Anishinaabek way of living, awakening the healing of our Nation's future. Bawaajgun: Visions IN Dreams combines traditional and contemporary dance elements featuring Christine Friday & Beany John.
Choreography Starr Muranko & Marisa Gold
Performance Marisa Gold & Ysadora Dias
Christine Friday is deeply rooted to her family’s ancestral hereditary lands, Friday’s Point which includes surrounding lands and lakes that make up her family’s tribal hunting grounds, located within the unceded lands of the Wabi Mkwa family. She lives on Bear Island, in her community of Temagami First Nation. Christine is Anishinaabe Kwe, she is a proficient resilient Indigenous storyteller. She began her dance career with In the Land of Spirits in 1992 and has maintained a professional dance career for over 30 years, as a choreographer and director, developing solo work, commissioned work, youth creations and full-scale productions.
In the past four years she has produced several dance films to broaden her audience and expand her potential. As a community activator she inspires gifts that awaken the connections to ignite the cultural wellness and traditions of our Anishinaabek community. Christine has developed and delivered strong community focused programs and gatherings for over 20 years. Her company, Friday Creeations based on Bear Island Lake Temagami is a First Nations professional arts and culture -based community platform that encourages creative entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency that connects to land, empowerment and truth. She is in the process of launching her dream into reality with the grand opening of the Dance Studio Lodge and Outfitters Company the summer of 2024, inspiring and activating land based with professional performance and traditional artistic practices to awaken storytelling rooted in land and individual creativity, connection and healing.
Beany John is a Two Spirit shapeshifter, storyteller, and dancer. She is Taino and Cree from Kehewin, Alberta. She is a Grass Dancer, Hoop Dancer, and traditional artisan.
Beany grew up learning traditional storytelling, dance, and arts from a young age as a part of Kehewin Native Dance Theatre. Travelling and performing, she learned from meeting traditional knowledge keepers from many different nations across the world and was initiated into the Grass Dance Society in Kehewin in 2001 at the age of 10.
Since 2004, Beany has been one of the principal workshop facilitators and performers for Kehewin Native Dance Theatre. She/They has been teaching Hoop Dance to Native youth, community members non-Native allies since 2015. She has facilitated and performed in urban centers and First Nations communities throughout Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Mexico and the US.
She is one of the four KNDT Hoop Dancers that toured internationally with Nelly Furtado and her SPIRIT INDESTRUCTIBLE tour. Her contemporary style is one-of-a-kind and she has a following of young Native people across Canada and the United States. She shares the Traditional art of Hoop Dancing blended with Contemporary, as well as traditional Pow Wow music.
Beany is inspired by wanting to make people feel good about who they are as Indigenous people and has brought wonder, appreciation and excitement to the thousands of audiences she has performed for.
