David Dalle
Thursday January 7th, 2016 with David Dalle
Guest, composer Christos Hatzis and his masterwork "Going Home Star", a ballet about the Indian residential schools.

Today, perhaps the most significant program I have presented with one of the most powerful and moving works composed by a Canadian composer, Christos Hatzis, who is joining me today to discuss “Going Home Star”. “Going Home Star” is a ballet commissioned by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet for its 75th anniversary based on a script by author Joseph Boyden and composed by Christos Hatzis on the subject of Indian residential schools in Canada. The Indian Residential School system is Canada’s greatest shame and a crime and one that is both as old as Canada and quite recent—residential schools being enshrined in the 1876 Indian Act and the last one only being closed in 1996. The forceful removal of thousands of children from their parents and families, in a concerted attempt to destroy their ties to their First Nations culture in Canada, amounted to cultural genocide as noted in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 report (http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf). The transgenerational trauma from more than a century of residential schools is still very much with us today and has had an enormous negative impact on First Nation communities and individuals to this day. However, it is a history which is still barely known to most Canadians. “Going Home Star” does justice to this difficult subject matter in a story in 2 acts and 10 scenes. There are two protagonists in the story, Annie, a young, urban First Nations woman who works in a hair salon, and Gordon, a residential school survivor and homeless man who possesses the teachings of the Anishinaabe trickster. Annie leads a hectic, partying life, but she feels a deep and disturbing sense of emptiness; Gordon cannot move beyond his painful history which holds him back. Gordon's pain is physically represented by a reliquary of the residential school which he always carries with him. The two meet and instinctively recognize that they need each other to learn and heal. Together they have visions of two children in the residential school system, Niska and Charlie, who are abused. Charlie escapes the school on a winter’s night and follows the “Home Star” to try and reach home. Their ultimate fates remain unknown, but through these shared visions Annie learns the traumatic history of her people and realizes she is destined to heal Gordon and perhaps her people. She creates a pyre for the reliquary and hands the flame to Gordon to light the pyre and burn away all the pain he has been burdened with in a cathartic end. They go forward in a new morning with a sense of renewed hope and love. Christos Hatzis has used an almost dizzingly ecletic range of musical sources and influences ranging from French Baroque, Tchaikovsky references, tango, dubstep and dj scratching, the unique and elemental singing of Tanya Tagaq, the beautiful songs and powerful drumming of Steve Wood and the Northern Cree Singers, a symphony orchestra and electronics to compose this magnificent piece. It covers an enormous range and extreme emotional states by the final uplifting, numinous scene. For a detailed synopsis and information including performance visit www.rwb.org/whats-on/show/going-home-star The Royal Winnipeg Ballet will be in Ottawa at the NAC for 3 nights performing “Going Home Star” on January 28-30. Do not miss this! http://nac-cna.ca/en/event/11175