Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Archives

Mieko Ouchi: 2023 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist

Posted on December 10, 2023December 10, 2023 by James Hutchison

On September 16th, 2023, friends, family, and members of the Alberta arts community gathered in Medicine Hat to celebrate this year’s recipients of The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards. This year’s recipients include playwright and theatre artist Mieko Ouchi, film and theatre performer Michelle Thrush, and film animators Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis.

Chair of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Arlene Strom said, “Albertans can be proud of the contributions of these Distinguished Artists who have pushed the boundaries of art to reflect indigenous identity and expression, present a more inclusive and diverse view of Alberta’s history, and highlight the art of film animation in Alberta and worldwide. Each has contributed immeasurably to the development of the province’s artists, arts communities and expanding art disciplines.”

L to R: Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis, Her Honour Salma Lakhani, Mieko Ouchi, Michelle Thrush, Photo Credit Randy Feere

Her Honour, the Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta said, “The women receiving the Distinguished Artist Award this year have offered important contributions to the arts in Canada. We have all been granted the opportunity, through their work, to learn and grow in our understanding of the human condition. Artists such as these are essential to the lifeblood of our communities, and we are truly fortunate to have them as cultural leaders in their respective disciplines, in our province and our country as a whole.”

I contacted Michelle Thrush as well as Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis to talk with them about their work and creative process. You can read those interviews by following the links above. I also spoke with Mieko Ouchi who is a theatre and film director, screenwriter, dramaturg, playwright and a passionate champion for new play development. She is also a fierce advocate for accessibility, inclusivity, diversity and equity across all ranges of artistic output. In our conversation we talked about her approach to storytelling, how she works as a dramaturge to help other artists bring their work to the stage, and what it means to be recognized for her work by receiving The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award.

JAMES HUTCHISON

You have a big body of work now and I wonder when you look back at that has your approach to telling stories grown and changed over the years?

MIEKO OUCHI

I think as an artist you do grow and change as you write more, and you create more, but I also feel like there’s a heart that always remains the same. And maybe this was best illustrated quite a few years ago when Red Deer College commissioned me to write a play for a group of students. I pitched a couple of new ideas and then I said, “There’s this play that I started writing in grade eleven about the DaDa Art movement and I did some workshops with some professional theatres, but it was never finished, and I’d love to go back and finish that play as an adult.” And that was the project they chose.

And I went back and read this draft of the play that I’d written when I was seventeen and the wild thing is there were lots of things obviously, I had to change and fix but there was a way of writing – of turning a phrase – an approach to text – that remains to this day – and I recognized my voice in that script.

And right now the thing I feel like I’m growing in most is learning to build empathy for all my characters, and I think my goal is continually to make them more than 2D characters and to make them very complex people that actors will have to really dig into and figure out and audiences will too. Because to me those are the most interesting characters for myself as an audience member.

JAMES

I think those types of characters are the most relatable because they are the most human because we are so complex and grey. And how often have we done something and then said to ourselves, “That’s so unlike me. Why did I do that?”

MIEKO

That’s right. We recognize that people don’t fit neatly into boxes – that they do things impulsively. They do things against their better judgment or in spite of themselves all the time. And I think theatre is such a beautiful place to explore those impulses.

JAMES

As a playwright you bring new works to life, but you also work as a dramaturge and director assisting other artists to bring their work to the stage. What are some of the important elements you feel are needed to help workshop and develop a new play?

MIEKO

I really see my job in those roles as being like a doula or a midwife. So, you’re in the room. You’re highly connected to the event – to the people – but you’re also a little bit separate and you’re there to help, encourage, and support the person who is giving birth to the new play.

So, I feel like I’m there as an encourager. I’m there as someone with a lot of experience to say, “Here are some things I’ve noticed in the past when we’ve made these kinds of theatrical decisions.” You know someone who knows a little bit more about technical theatre and how theatre is put together and can help playwrights who might not have a background in that. I’m really kind of a sounding board and another set of eyes to say, “I really noticed this. Did you notice that?” Or “This really landed on me this way today.” Just some information for the playwright to take in.

Playwright/performer Mieko Ouchi in a reading of Hiro Kanagawa’s ‘Forgiveness’ at the 2019 Banff Playwrights Lab. Photo by Jessica Wittman.

I always think it’s not up to me to fix the play. I hate the word fixing plays because the play’s not broken. We’re just continually digging out new layers and things that we want to explore. And it’s not for me to write the play. I’m there to help the playwright find the best form of the play that they can find and that they can write.

And also, in that sense of a doula I want the experience to be a positive one. So, I think I’m also there to make sure the process is a safe and comfortable and a pleasurable experience to go through because it can be stressful. Just like birth. You’re there to make it be the best and most happy place it can be.

JAMES

You mentioned creating a safe space and I understand that but sometimes we’re dealing with plays that are asking difficult and complex questions and so we have to be open to uncomfortable discussions and exploring possibilities. How do you create a room that is open to discussion and yet is respectful and safe?

MIEKO

I think transparency is really helpful. Just being very transparent about those things and talking about them in advance and to say, “You know we’re coming up on this scene that’s really challenging and there’s a lot of content in there that might challenge us in personal ways.” So, you just give people a heads up and say, “If this brings up feelings and thoughts that are unexpected or that take over in a way that you weren’t hoping they would – just come and let me know and we can take a break.” Everyone has a heads up and there’s an open conversation.

And I think there are other artists now that we can invite into the room. There are fight choreographers. There are intimacy co-ordinators. And there are other people we can bring in who have the tools to help us. So, I think that’s been a really great evolution and it has made those things less like – let’s wing it and hope for the best to having a bit more structure and having conversations around it. I find when people have that space then things stay nice and calm, and we figure it out step by step, and everybody feels more comfortable.

JAMES

You’ve talked about your play The Red Priest and you’ve called it a very transformational experience. And I understand that it came into being because of Catalyst Theatre and they had commissioned some writers – you among them – to write short six-minute pieces. And you wrote something called Eight Ways to Say Goodbye. And afterwards you started working on expanding it because it had a great response.

And then Ron Jenkins made you playwright in residence – even though you’d never actually written a finished play – because he believed in you. And you ended up finishing the play, and it was nominated for a Governor General Award, and it won the Carol Bolt Award for Drama from The Playwrights Guild of Canada, and if you’re going to write a first play that’s a pretty auspicious beginning. So how did writing that play, winning that recognition, and having people believe in you transform your view of yourself as an artist?

MIEKO

Well, I think one of the key things is I was so extraordinarily lucky to have Ron recognize me so early as a writer and to encourage me before I had that belief in myself. He believed in me before I believed in me. And there was something about the passion that he brought by saying, “I know you can do this. You have a voice. You just have to be brave enough to let it out,” that got me over the finish line.

He encouraged me to take a risk because it was a very personal story. From the outside you won’t know that. But I’d just gone through a really really heartbreaking relationship breakup in my life and that is very much imbued in the play even though the play’s not in any way autobiographical. A lot of the emotional feelings of what happened are in that play. He encouraged me to let that be there. And I think the lesson that I learned from that play with the recognition that it received was that the moments that people all brought to me afterwards – like audience members would say, “Oh, this moment is the moment that meant the most to me,” were all things that were true. They were emotionally true. There was a core of it that had happened to me, and I was revealing something very very honest. And I think to learn that lesson that early as a writer was an incredible gift because it taught me that when I was truthful people connected.

JAMES

How much do you think drama then is exploring our emotional response to the world?

MIEKO

I think it’s everything. I think that’s exactly what it is. Theatre just gives us this incredible chance to explore feelings that you might not have fully explored in real life where we don’t have a chance to say that to our parent or to our partner or to our child, but on stage we can kind of enact that.

Augusto Boal said, “Theatre is a rehearsal for change.” And I believe that too. It’s a chance to try out things that haven’t happened yet or to say, “What would happen if I put this scenario into a play?” So, for me, it’s been an incredible chance to explore not necessarily autobiographical things but emotionally things that I’ve been through or are thinking about.

JAMES

And then people who have experienced that same emotion even though the context might be different can relate to it.

MIEKO

Yeah.

JAMES

I’ve heard other artists talk about the more specific you make it the more universal it becomes.

MIEKO

One hundred percent. I’ve felt that totally. I really did feel that. And it was very exciting because at the same time that I was having this experience I was also working as a filmmaker and making documentaries. Initially, they were about my family and very biographical and even autobiographical types of projects. And so, I think I was in a world where I was trying to find truth. Whatever, that meant to me and to bring that forward. And that recognition really said, “You’re on the right track. Be brave. You’re onto something. Just keep going.”

JAMES

You mentioned you went back to a play you wrote when you were seventeen and it seems to me all the writers I know have a drawer full of unfinished work. Sometimes we hit a wall and other projects become priorities and I’m curious about those unfinished projects. Do they go quietly into the drawer? Do they protest? Do they whisper to you? Do they remain dormant? When do you open that drawer and take them out and look at them again and work on them?

MIEKO

Those dormant plays – they’re just kind of asleep right now. They’re having a long nap – at the moment. Yeah, I have a couple. And I think they have to find their right time where I feel mentally ready to go back and explore them.

Meilie Ng as Lily in the 2011 ATP Production of Nisei Blue by Miecho Ouchi.

I have a project that premiered at ATP called Nisei Blue which was a noir detective story. And I felt like I didn’t quite get to the heart of it by the end of that production. It was a very fraught time because my father had just passed away before we started rehearsals. And my mind wasn’t fully hitting on all cylinders, and I wasn’t able to get to the heart of it because of everything going on in my life. So, now I’ve actually started a process of adapting that play into a novel and I feel like I am very slowly archaeologically getting there through a different medium. Sometimes it’s about digging into a play at a different time theatrically or maybe it’s approaching it through a different entry point.

JAMES

So now you’re exploring writing a novel — how is that? Fun? Exciting? What have you learned? Where are you at with that?

MIEKO

Oh, my gosh. So, when I started it was terrifying but also it was weirdly exciting because I thought, “I don’t know anything about this. So, who cares? Throw all the rules out the window. I don’t feel beholden to any rules or any lessons because I haven’t had any yet other than being an avid reader and knowing what I like to read. I don’t know any of the things that we’re supposed to know as a novelist. So, I’m just going to start writing the story from my heart — the way I kind of wrote The Red Priest” And there’s just something exciting to be at the very beginning of a learning process. To be at the bottom of this giant mountain looking up at the peaks and the great writers.

And I’m really intrigued by the interior voice. That’s something this novel has let me dig into with this character that I was never able to share with the audience in a stage production. I think my main character in Nisei Blue is a character with a really rich interior world and so writing a novel has really opened up the story for me because I’m able to share what’s running through his mind. And that’s been exciting. That’s been a totally fresh take on it. And it feels right. It feels like a good way to tell the story.

The Citadel Theatre’s production of Pride and Prejudice (2023), directed by Mieko Ouchi and featuring Morgan Yamada, Nadien Chu, Ben Elliott, Beth Graham and Gianna Vacirca. Photo by Nanc Price.

JAMES

This year there’s been a lot of chat about artificial intelligence, and I believe we’re on the edge of a really big disruption in science, business, and technology. And I don’t know what that looks like, and I don’t know if anyone really does but as an artist I was curious about your thoughts about AI and what sort of impact you think – positive or negative – it might have on the arts and the work you create.

MIEKO

Well, I think as a writer there’s a part of it where my heart just sinks at the thought of it. Because I believe in that human journey of struggling to find the path through writing and to find the path to expression. And to allow a computer-generated draft to be hacked out kind of hurts my soul a little bit as a writer, to be honest. But I suppose there might be some places where it is useful. There’s just something to me about the struggle to figure out the path of the story or the play that’s essential to its final shape and its humanity. And I know that some of the things that I’ve seen that have been AI generated that have been in the voice of Chekov or Shakespeare are kind of like gobbledegook.

As writers, we sometimes have this filler dialogue when we’re struggling and you have one person say, “Hello.” And the other person says, “Hi. Why are you looking at me that way?” And they say, “I don’t know. Why are you looking at me that way?” And nothing’s actually happening. We’re just going back and forth. It’s like we’re getting the rusty water out through the pipes until the clear water comes through and you get to the heart of a scene. And I sometimes feel that AI writing is a bit like that rusty water. It’s filler. It doesn’t really have that human drive and that soul that we need for writing to be compelling.

JAMES

There you go. Art is the exploration of the human soul.

MIEKO

That’s great. I love that.

JAMES

So, my last question is about you receiving the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award and I was wondering what the actual evening was like for you where everyone gathered to honour the recipients and what does it mean to you as an artist to be recognized for your work and receive a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award?

MIEKO

Well, it was such a surprise to find out I was receiving the award. It was really just a kind of a heart-stopping moment to hear Kathy Classen on the other end of the phone when she called and told me. I couldn’t quite believe it. And going to Medicine Hat was a wonderful experience.

All of the recipients were able to bring friends and family members along and it really felt like a family kind of weekend. And they rolled out the red carpet for us. They put on this beautiful art festival at the centre with kids doing art. We had our event and then we had a street party with a concert headed up by none other than Hawksley Workman who I worked with on a production of my play The Silver Arrow. He wrote the music for it at the Citadel. They didn’t know that when they set it up but to have Hawksley there was like the cherry on top of the cake.

That night felt like such a beautiful recognition of Alberta and all the people who have supported these distinguished artists to help them get to where they are. So many people talked about the mentors they had along the way. The people who supported them. Fellow artists. Community members. Teachers. Family members. So, it really did feel like a celebration of all that it is to be an Alberta artist and to be someone that has chosen to come here and work or to remain here and work and there’s just something so beautiful about having that connection to Alberta.

L to R: Clint Lawrence, Mieko Ouchi, Michelle Thrush, Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby, Photo Credit Randy Feere

And everybody spoke about that and I think back to my earliest days being a student at Artstrek and having my first tiny little play workshopped at ATP and having Ronnie Burkett as my set designer and Kathy Eberle my high school drama teacher helping me submit my play for that program. And you know Marilyn Potts has been a supporter since way back and then you know Bob White and Dianne Goodman – and all the folks at ATP – John Murrell and so many other folks in this province.

And then all the folks when I came to Edmonton who supported me. You know Stephen Heatley gave me my first summer job at Theatre Network as a summer student. Ron Jenkins supporting me as a first-time playwright and as a playwright in residence. And then all the way up to now working here at the Citadel with Daryl Cloran as his Associate Artistic Director and his support of me and my writing but also my directing on A-House stages.

He gave me my first A-House directing job and he gave me my first commission for an A-House play with Silver Arrow. You really need those folks encouraging you and, in your corner, making opportunities for you to help you find your path.

And so now I get to have that reversed a little bit and in my job at the Citadel I get to support emerging artists and help them get their first assistant directing job or be a part of the playwright’s lab and help them work on their new plays, and I’m really enjoying being able to pass it along and being an opportunity maker for other artists.

Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby: 2023 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artists

Posted on December 10, 2023February 2, 2024 by James Hutchison

Photograph of Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

I contacted Michelle Thrush and Mieko Ouchi to talk with them about their work and creative process. You can read those interviews by following the links above. I also spoke with Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis who are celebrated Oscar nominated and award-winning contributors to the art of film animation. Their unique visual style has captured the hearts and imaginations of audiences worldwide in ground-breaking short films that explore themes of human connection, environmentalism, and the fragility of life. In our conversation we talked about how their work has evolved over the years, the relationship between the artist and the audience, and what it means to be recognized for their work by receiving The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award.

JAMES HUTCHISON

After thirty-plus years you have created a body of work including the three films you’ve produced together and those are:

When the Day Breaks nominated for an Oscar in 1999 and is a story about a pig living in a large city who witnesses the accidental death of a stranger.

Wild Life which was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 and tells the story about a young remittance man sent from England to Alberta to try ranching in 1909 and who is not in any way prepared for the harsh conditions of prairie life he encounters.

And The Flying Sailor which was up for an Oscar this year and is inspired by the true story of Charles Mayers a sailor who was blown two kilometres through the air and landed naked but alive after the Halifax explosion on December 6, 1917.

So, I’m wondering how have the types of stories and themes you’re interested in evolved over the years. What kind of stories did you tell when you began your careers and what type of stories are you telling now, and do you see any sort of path from that early work to the work you’re doing now?

WENDY TILBY

Well, it’s funny, having completed our third film together we’re only now realizing that they’re really all the same. They have similar themes. Preoccupations. When we’re coming up with an idea we’re not thinking, “Oh, yes – let’s do something along the same lines of the previous one.” In fact, we actually specifically don’t do that. But we have noted, and other people point out, that there is a kind of a common thread that I suppose could be described as connectedness. That’s one theme that keeps emerging. And we do seem to touch on death a lot. We’re not obsessed with death, but death is an element of each of the three films and it seems to be a way to talk about life, or aspects of life. If you look at When the Day Breaks, Wildlife, and The Flying Sailor that idea has just become a little more distilled over the years.

AMANDA FORBIS

I think death is a part of every one of them. In The Day Breaks it was primarily about the unseen and often unappreciated ways in which we’re connected to others. In Wild Life it was more about what happens when that connection is severed. And in The Flying Sailor he seems to me to be going solo. He may be reviewing his life and reviewing his connections but he’s on his own and I’m reminded of the line, “You’re born alone, you live alone, and you die alone.” It’s a very bleak statement but we hope that The Sailor isn’t as bleak as that.

WENDY

The explosion and the near-death experience of the sailor is a way for us to explore, in a nutshell, who he was – which is what often happens in near-death experiences. There is a review of life that many people have written about and so we wanted to get at that question – what is life? Is it our physical selves? We’re made up of bones and cells and vessels, but really what our lives are is a collection of experiences and connections and relationships and memories, all encapsulated in this bag of flesh.

JAMES

You’re talking about connections and earlier today I was thinking about how social media has changed the way we connect to the world just as an individual experience. Have you been pondering social media and these connections between people and has that interested you in any way as something you want to explore in your work?

AMANDA

It certainly interests us on a personal level and on how you navigate it because it changes all the ground rules. I’ll just speak for myself. I sometimes say extremely rude things about other drivers from the safety of my own car, and what social media does is it provides us all with our own cars and everybody feels free to say horrible things to other people.

WENDY

Yes, the trolls come out.

AMANDA

But on the other hand, it is a fantastic connection tool. Even at my darkest moments on Facebook I still like seeing my cousin Barbara on her recumbent cycling trips in Oregon. And so just like every single human endeavour it’s a huge mixed bag. But as to whether that will filter its way into our work remains to be seen.

WENDY

Obviously, we contemplate it in a way that everybody does. We marvel at it and how we are able to connect with people virtually. In our film When the Day Breaks – which was made in the late 90s – connectedness is illustrated by way of the plumbing and wires, the telephone and subway – the vessels that literally connect us in cities. That all looks very quaint now.

AMANDA

I never thought of that but it’s true. It looks totally quaint.

WENDY

How much has changed in a couple of decades is remarkable.

JAMES

I think about the telephone a lot because I remember the family phone. And so the family phone was in the kitchen, and people would call the family. So, I would end up talking to my aunts and my parent’s friends, and when my friends would call my parents would end up talking to my friends. It was more of a community and you touched base with many different people involved with the family because it was a family phone. And that has gone away. Now we have our individual phones and I’ve lost all those unexpected connections to people that just don’t happen anymore.

WENDY

We even had a party line for a while.

AMANDA

Yeah, a party line. That’s a connection you don’t want. It is weird how we’re simultaneously much more disconnected to people and much more connected to them.

JAMES

My next question was about how people access your work now. We have YouTube we have Vimeo we have all these ways for me to access stuff through the internet on my desktop on my home TV. Not that long ago about the only way to see your work was if they ran it before a movie or you sought out the NFB library. Do you think that connection has changed the relationship between the filmmaker, the product, and the audience?

AMANDA

Well, yes. Short NFB films used to seem more precious. Now content feels really disposable. How much do they upload on YouTube every day — it’s astonishing. When we started out you could work in the short-animated film area and if you made a good film it would have a shelf life of at least forty years, and it would be in the pantheon of NFB films, and I’m not even sure that pantheon really exists anymore. So that’s one way in which it’s changed.

And people used to ask, “How do we see your work?” And we’d say, “You can go to the library or you can go to the NFB library or if you’re really lucky you might be able to see it at a theatre or on TV.” And so, it’s really lovely to be able to just direct people straight to your work. And also to have our film, The Flying Sailor, on The New Yorker site brought us a massive audience we hadn’t had before.

So, there are tremendous advantages like that, but then there’s the horrible prospect of people watching the film on their phone. I don’t think there’s any filmmaker that likes to see that happen. A couple of times we’ve had people say. “Oh yeah, I watched it on my phone.” And they don’t say much about it – and then if they happen to see it in a big theatre they’re much more profoundly affected. It’s a totally different experience.

WENDY

And we really struggled with that, particularly with The Flying Sailor, because the sound was mixed in a new technology called Atmos, which is a souped-up Dolby with a lot of speakers. We’re not really fans of a lot of the gimmicks with sound but in this case when you experienced the film in a theatre with Atmos in just the right circumstances, it was fantastic. You felt the sound of the explosion viscerally and not in a gimmicky way. We’ve had to accept that very few people are going to see it that way.

JAMES

So, in theatre ten-minute plays are very popular. And I think ten minutes as a platform lets you break some conventions and look at stories in different ways and I’m wondering in what ways do you think the short film format allows you to explore things differently – to look at different subjects – and topics and to examine story.

WENDY

I think the length is appealing to us as animators because of the way we work. We’re like a little cottage industry. We like to do everything ourselves and there’s a handcrafted quality to what we do. The more people you get involved the more diluted that process is and it’s hard to find ten people to paint the way we paint or to draw the way we draw. And if more people are involved it becomes an assembly line. Animation, no matter how you do it, is onerous – it’s tedious – and it’s going to require a lot of hands the longer it gets. So, feature length animation always looks a little watered down in terms of the technique.

AMANDA

Well not always. It depends on who’s doing it.

WENDY

Well, they’re less idiosyncratic because it’s an assembly line. And also the budgets are such that to get the money needed to make a feature it has to be a money-maker. And what we do at the Film Board is not reliant on it making money. We’re making films as art and there’s no expectation it’s going to turn a profit. And so as a filmmaker and as an artist that’s a…

AMANDA

…gift…

WENDY

… and greatly appealing. So, nobody’s going to be after us about it being popular in that sense. And we like the concision. It’s like a poem or a short story. Everything we put in there is in there is there for a reason because it’s so much work. We wouldn’t put it in there if it wasn’t furthering our story. We’re striving to convey character in as few strokes as possible and that’s challenging and that’s interesting to us.

AMANDA

You come up with an idea for a shot and it has to convey a number of things. You’re trying to pack as much into every shot as you can and then you tweak it so it goes in a slightly different direction and it says more. And then you throw it out. Then you put it back in again. It’s a bit of a puzzle. A creative puzzle. And it’s a lot of fun and that’s something that I don’t think the long form does in the same way.

And as you say it frees you up from conventional dramatic structure. You don’t necessarily have to have a dramatic arc and a climax three-quarters of the way through and then have the character be changed and be a new person at the end of the story. You don’t have to follow those conventional structures because you’re not holding the audience that long, so we’re big fans of the short structure.

WENDY

Short animation is also is also a very rich form of expression. If you go to an animation festival and you see an evening of animation with one film after another it’s almost too much. It’s like too many candies at once because each one is so rich.

JAMES

I’m curious about your thoughts right now in regard to artificial intelligence. We’re just on the cusp of something changing and I’m not looking for any definite answers. But in the six months, it’s just been in the conversation. There are good things and bad things about it just like you mentioned before with social media. What are some of your general thoughts about AI and how do you feel it’s going to influence your work and the future of creation?

WENDY

A friend of ours, Jay Ingram, just published a book called The Future of Us. He was writing about AI just as ChatGPT was coming out – along with other major developments – and he kept having to update it. It was frustrating because even by the publication date the landscape was still changing. And so, it’s one of those things that’s almost impossible to talk about because the ground is shifting beneath our feet.

In our field people are nervous about it. And I think it’s actually more nerve-wracking when you think about it in the context of news and people imitating other people’s likeness or voice. And we work in advertising too and that’s a whole other ball game. I think in advertising it’s going to put a lot of people out of work, particularly in storyboarding or visualizing.

It’s actually a helpful tool because you can ask it to visualize a scene in three dimensions which is helpful for storyboarding and blocking the action. Whether it will replace what we’re doing remains to be seen, but what we’re doing is so specifically aimed at something that’s not AI that I hope that distinction will continue to be appreciated. But I don’t know. It is a little bit frightening and intriguing at the same time.

AMANDA

I think one of the things that bothers me is that since 1830 or whatever we’ve been looking at the extinction of craft. People who craft. Craftsmen. And what Wendy was saying is the people who storyboard and who do previsualization – these people who are deeply committed to that part of filmmaking – they’re out of a job. And that’s regrettable because humans are built to craft, and craftspeople always bring a depth to what they’re doing that cannot be imitated – in the same way that a handmade box is a completely different thing than a box that’s slammed together in a factory.

And then if you consider that we don’t even really understand how AI learns at this point and how it’s producing what it does we can’t really know where it’s going to end or if it’s going to end. And that’s pretty alarming.

So, the thing I have to lean on as an artist and I’m talking about the realm of really great art – that I’m not going to lay claim to – but a really great piece of art takes you somewhere that you didn’t see coming, or makes a point to you that you understand but it comes from way back in the depths of your brain and you recognize the truth of it. I would like to believe that’s beyond AI.

So, I trotted that thought out to our friend Jay and Jay said, “Oh, bullshit.” (laughs) He said, “It’ll get there.” And then I thought, “Well he’s not an artist. I don’t know if he necessarily feels that in the same way as I do.”

WENDY

Well, it brings up so many bigger questions about consciousness and what it is to be human and the big question of whether or not machines will ever get there. We’ve played a little bit with Midjourney and it’s a program where you can tell it to give you an image of a man running down a hallway…

AMANDA

…in the style of Picasso…

WENDY

…carrying a briefcase and see what comes up. And it’s very good at ultra-realism and it’s astonishing really what it does but it’s quite boring. A lot of people would be seduced by it and enraptured by the images that it gives you. We didn’t really like them but we were impressed by it that’s for sure.

JAMES

You’re one of this year’s recipients of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards and so what was that evening like – you know – where everyone gathered to honour the recipients? What sort of weekend was it like and what does it mean to be recognized for your work by receiving that award?

AMANDA

The evening itself was – what’s the right word – it was elegant. It was really a wonderful event, and everybody involved with it did such a great job, and Salma Lakhani was fantastic. I don’t know how to get past saying all these effusive things, but it was a beautiful evening, and it was actually a genuine honour to be there. The whole weekend was really fun.

WENDY

And two dear friends of ours were also there. Part of the award is you are able to honour one other artist. We actually sneaked in with two because there are two of us after all. And they were there and that made it especially fun. It was more fun than the Oscars.

AMANDA

It was more meaningful than the Oscars.

WENDY

And much less stress.

AMANDA

And I don’t think we’ve necessarily been on Alberta’s radar (if I can even say a strange thing like that) so to get that honour at a provincial level and to be declared someone of note in the Alberta Arts scene felt pretty great. Of course, at the Oscars, you talk to lots of people who have interesting things to say about your work and care very deeply about animation, but really that kind of all gets swept aside for the grand pageant and the promotion. But to be nominated for the LG award by somebody in the Arts community and then have it juried by the Arts community is very meaningful. It’s much more meaningful than measuring success by whether or not our film was on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

Michelle Thrush: 2023 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist

Posted on December 10, 2023December 10, 2023 by James Hutchison

Chair of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Arlene Strom said, “Albertans can be proud of the contributions of these Distinguished Artists who have pushed the boundaries of art to reflect Indigenous identity and expression, present a more inclusive and diverse view of Alberta’s history, and highlight the art of film animation in Alberta and worldwide. Each has contributed immeasurably to the development of the province’s artists, arts communities and expanding art disciplines.”

L to R, Arlene Strom, Chair LG Arts Awards Foundation Board, Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbes, Her Honour Salma Lakhani, Mieko Ouchi, Michelle Thrush, Photo credit Randy Feere

I contacted Mieko Ouchi as well as Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis to talk with them about their work and creative process. You can read those interviews by following the links above. I also spoke with Nehiyaw performing artist Michelle Thrush a multiple award-winning actor whose acting credits include Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, North of 60, Blackstone, Prey, and Bones of Crows. She is also a director, producer, community builder, and one of the founding members and current Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society. In our conversation we talked about her career, about her one-woman show Inner Elder, and what it means to be recognized for her work by receiving The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Michelle, when you look back over the course of your career and the body of your work as an artist in what ways has it been an intentional journey and in what ways has it been more a road of discovery?

MICHELLE THRUSH

That’s an interesting question because back when I was a kid there were not Indigenous people on television or anywhere really. We weren’t a part of the shows I watched like Little House on the Prairie when I was a kid or if we were it was Italians playing us. It was something that wasn’t in our psyche and so in my little brown girl brain I never thought that I could be an actress or work in the arts.

But I grew up loving pretending and loving imagination and I was always trying to get my friends together and direct shows and put on plays. And then when I was sixteen or seventeen, I met a man named Gordon Tootoosis who along with Tantoo Cardinal, Gary Farmer, Grahame Greene, Augee Schellenberg, Margo Kane, and of course Chief Dan George were all doing little bit roles here and there on film and that was the beginning for Indigenous people. I’d see them and think whoa there’s a real native person and they’d have a line in a movie like Running Brave where Robbie Benson who is Jewish played the actual star of Running Brave who was a Lakota.

And Gordon who was just a beautiful indigenous actor really encouraged me to follow my dreams and he said, “Michelle it’s important that we tell our stories from a place of honesty.” My big goal in life at that time was to be a social worker. And I ended up throwing that aside and just going, “Okay, I’m going to move to Vancouver from Calgary at nineteen and I’m going to try and get an agent and I’m just going to hope and pray that auditions come up.”

So, I did all that. Moved to Vancouver. And it took a few years of working in restaurants before I started to get a few little auditions. And I often say in 1992 Dances With Wolves came out and that’s when things began to open up for us as actors, and I ended up getting into a TV series called North of Sixty, and that was the beginning. And things just kind of fell into place after that.

Michelle Thrush as Aruka in 20th Century Studios’ PREY, exclusively on Hulu. Photo by David Bukach. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

JAMES

It’s interesting you mentioned you were looking at being a social worker and I wonder if there are connections between that career and acting. Because social work and sociology look at relationships between people and between people and society and I think an actor has to sensitive towards those kinds of things.

MICHELLE

I think the connection for me was I grew up with two chronic alcoholic parents. And I didn’t realize the trauma that my family had been through because as a kid – and it’s really hard for me to talk about this – but as a child I had so much shame when it came to being an Indigenous person because I related it to the pain and the trauma of my parents and of my grandparents and of my aunts and uncles and everybody else in my family who was alcoholic. And as a child that imagination part for me was about creating these other scenarios that didn’t include violence and all that stuff that comes along with trauma which is a big part of my one-woman show Inner Elder.

So, when I was a kid, I knew it wasn’t proper that my parents didn’t know how to be parents. I knew it wasn’t proper that they would drink for days and us kids would fend for ourselves. In my brain, I thought if I become a social worker I can create change in this world for children. I can do something that’s going to make sure other Indigenous children don’t have to go through what I went through.

And then I realized through meeting Gordon and getting involved in acting that the power we have as artists can change the world and we wouldn’t have to deal with all the red tape it would take to be a social worker. It was like fast-tracking the ability to create a shift in people’s thinking.

Back then, of course, we didn’t have Truth and Reconciliation. We didn’t realize our families were suffering from this huge history. I just thought that my parents were messed up and I felt a lot of shame because I swore to God that every white kid at my school went home, and their moms would hand them cookies as they walked through the front door, and they had these perfect homes and alcohol didn’t touch white people. That’s how I thought when I was a kid. I thought it was something that was part of who we were as Indigenous people. But then you know obviously I learned that alcoholism touches everybody.

So, that connection between acting and social work was a very strong connection because there was the ability to really affect people’s lives using the arts as opposed to going in and trying to work with the family of Indigenous children. And almost all my work still leans in that direction, you know, trying to create healing. And I always say, “We aren’t in it for Shakespeare. We don’t do what we do to recite Shakespeare. We do what we do to create healing and to contribute to the goodness of our communities and our children.”

Eric Schweig, Darla Contois and Michelle Thrush in the Canadian Drama Television Series Little Bird

JAMES

You mentioned healing and change and you’re one of the founding members and the current Artistic Director of Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society and on your website, it says – “Making Treaty 7 is dedicated to Indigenous artistic expression and the transfer of Indigenous knowledge through story.” So, what are some of the things you feel you’ve accomplished so far and what are some of the plans, goals, and hopes for the future?

MICHELLE

Making Treaty 7 has had this really long history and I’ll just explain a bit of the history about how we began. Michael Greene who was one of the founding members of One Yellow Rabbit and is a beautiful Icon in theatre here in Calgary was a good friend of mine for many years and a huge supporter of the work I did in theatre with Indigenous story. And he was always trying to figure out ways to bring more Indigenous presence into the High Performance Rodeo and whatever else was going on in Calgary.

So, back in 2012 he became the curator of something called Calgary 2012 which was when Calgary became the artistic capital of Canada for a year. He ran that and we put together a committee of about ten of us – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – so we could have an Indigenous presence and we ended up forming a template for what we wanted to do. Part of that was exploring the land and the history here in Southern Alberta and how the land connects us to story. And not a lot of people including us – I’m Cree – my family is from Maple Creek Saskatchewan Treaty 4 but I grew up here in Treaty 7 and I have family who are married into the Blackfoot Confederacy, but we didn’t know much about the treaty.

The Making Treaty 7 production of O’kosi with Garret C. Smith, Mary Rose Cohen, Michelle Thrush, Janine Owlchild, and Dustin Frank. PHOTO: Hidden Story Productions.

So, I didn’t know anything about the treaty and the Blackfoot artists that we brought in didn’t know a lot about the treaty which was signed in September 1877 in Siksika. So, it was a huge learning journey for us, and Micheal ended up writing these big grants and bringing together over a hundred elders from Southern Alberta. And we asked what do you know about Treaty 7? And a lot of their parents and their grandparents were at the Treaty signing and so they opened up this huge vessel for us. And as artists we spent the whole weekend just listening to all these elders talk about the Treaty and the true intention of Treaty 7. And they talked about what life was like leading up to the signing, what life was like on those ten days, and what life was like after the Treaty was signed. What were the repercussions? What happened with the Indian Act. All these things.

And they just filled us up with all this incredible knowledge and we went out to Banff Centre for two weeks. And Micheal asked myself and Blake Brooker to be the directors of the show and I was an actor and a writer on it as well. And we came up with the very first Making Treaty 7 and we had to perform it for the Elders first and get their permission which we did. And it became this huge spectacle of incredible entertainment which brought in all the voices that call Southern Alberta home but was an Indigenously led process.

And since then we’ve been expanding on that and as the Artistic Director my goal is to wake up the stories that belong here. That are a part of this land. And to decolonize theatre and create a safe space for Indigenous people to tell stories of the land and I’m very proud because Making Treaty 7 is doing some really beautiful work.

Bernard Starlight and Quelemia Sparrow in The Making Treaty 7 production of Tara Began’s The Ministry of Grace. Photo Alanna Bluebird

JAMES

You mentioned your own show. You touched on it and I wanted to ask you a little bit about that. It’s called Inner Elder. I saw it when you did it at Lunchbox Theatre and really enjoyed it and thought it was an amazing piece of theatre. And in it you transform into an Elder in the play and it’s moving. It’s funny. What was the genesis of the story and what are some of the highlights of performing that piece?

MICHELLE

So, more than thirty years ago this character started coming through me and she was an old woman and she loved comedy. Her name is Kookum Martha and she was very much a clown in a lot of ways. And so I started to do comedy and she started to be known as an MC of various Indigenous conferences and concerts in Canada. And I hosted the Inspire Awards on CBC a few years back and we did some things with Kookum on there. And in 2018 Ann Connors was the curator of the High Performance Rodeo and she had seen my Kookum character and Anne’s like, “Why don’t you create a big show and we’ll fund you and we’ll present you for the Rodeo.”

And so, I was like how can I do a show in a way that honours the clown of Kookum as well as telling my own story in a way that doesn’t make me a victim. That allows me to sort of flip the script on what it means to grow up in an alcoholic environment and then winning the Gemini for playing a chronic alcoholic on Blackstone which is a show I starred on for many years. And I created a show about learning how to take what’s given to us in life and then turning it into something that works for us.

And when I get into the zone with Kookum she can get wild on stage and I’m like, “Oh my God, did I just hear her say that?” And I tell people when they hire me to do my comedy with Kookum I am not responsible for any marriages that break up because she goes after the white guys all the time. She picks on them and they fall in love with her. It’s a fun character. And I’m a true believer that as artists we channel our energy through us and it’s not about us – it’s about being vulnerable enough to bring that energy through us.

JAMES

That’s part of the magic of theatre I suppose that moment that you’re so fully in the story and the performance that it’s almost not really you.

MICHELLE

Yeah, it’s magic. And it happens in film too. I swear to God on that episode of Blackstone I did where I won the Gemini I stood there on my mark before I heard action and I prayed and called in my grandmothers, and they took over my body and I felt like I was allowing them to work me through that scene. And low and behold I won a Gemini and a whole bunch of other awards but it’s that trust to be able to really zone in taking the focus off of yourself and putting it on the story and then just allowing that energy to come through you. It’s about being vulnerable to the moment of creation.

JAMES

You know one of the things art can do is help us understand our place in the universe but I’m sort of curious as an artist do you think art provides actual answers or do you think art operates more to provoke us to come up with answers and ask questions.

MICHELLE

I think both. I often say as Indigenous artists that we’re frontline workers. We shine light into places that are dark. And the work that we do is not just about a love story or whatever. The work we do whether it’s in film or in theatre is tough and it sometimes creates huge amounts of triggers for people because what we focus on is bringing to light things that people don’t want to talk about.

And the work that I’ve done through the years and all of us as Indigenous Artists have done through the years is really truly groundbreaking work I think because that’s how you bring healing. I often say if you have a wound and you just continue to cover it all the time with Band-Aids it will never heal. You have to be able to bring the light to allow that wound to heal and I feel that’s what we do as artists – we bring light.

Bones of Crows, Day 2 Ayasew Ooskana Pictures with Michelle Thrush — Bones of Crows, Day 2 Ayasew Ooskana Pictures

JAMES

And I think you need multiple stories right? You need many stories. Like you mentioned initially Indigenous actors were getting little bit parts and now we’re seeing shows like Bones of Crows. That’s an epic story. I watched that and I thought it really is an outline for a five-season series. Because it’s massive. Each episode could be ten episodes. But having that story now expands what you can tell in the future, I think.

MICHELLE

Exactly because again, it brought light to something that previously wasn’t lit up. Like that whole history most Canadians don’t understand any of it. Our own people are just beginning to understand what happened in reality and when you do bring light you bring life and then you’re right it just spreads out and it creates more conversations and it gives people permission to be able to discuss those things that were taboo twenty years ago. It’s about expanding consciousness really you know as artists.

I was proud of Bones of Crows. Marie Clements is a dear, dear, friend of mine from years ago. I’ve worked on many of her things and it took her five years to get Bones of Crows to camera. It took a huge team to convince CBC and to get all the funding and it’s a fully Indigenously created, directed, written, acted, performance.

JAMES

So, Artificial Intelligence has exploded onto the scene this year and it’s going to be disruptive in science and art and everything and I am just sitting here going well – this is good – this is bad – so I’ve been asking a few artists and a few friends what are their thoughts about AI. What sort of an impact do you think it’s going to have?

MICHELLE

I don’t know. I feel like I’ve got my head in the sand and I’m trying to avoid talking about AI because it really bugs me. I have so many friends that are all pro AI and how it’s going to change everything and I’m just like, “No, I just want real humans. I have a hard enough time checking out at Safeway with computers” I’m so old school in that way and so I’m sort of in denial about AI and I don’t have a lot to say about it.

JAMES

It’s hard to know what the impacts are going to be.

MICHELLE

It is. Even the SAG strike had a lot to do with AI. And who knows man. They can do a video now of you and change what you’re saying and that scares me.

JAMES

It’s getting difficult to be able to distinguish between the fake and the real. And that can be scary. So, I guess we’ll have to talk about this in five years?

MICHELLE

Exactly.

2023 Distinguished Artist Michell Thrush with family and friends, Photo credit Randy Feere — 2023 Distinguished Artist Michelle Thrush with family and friends, Photo credit Randy Feere

JAMES

So, you’re one of the recipients this year of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards and I was wondering what was that evening like for you where everyone gathered to honour the recipients. What sort of evening was it and what does it mean to you to be recognized for the award?

MICHELLE

It was a fun weekend. It was a whole weekend it wasn’t just one evening. The funnest part of it was they did it in Medicine Hat this year and my family comes from Maple Creek which is just forty-five minutes down the number one highway on the Saskatchewan side. So, when I found out I was receiving this amazing award and that it was in Medicine Hat I called everybody – “Everybody’s got to come to this.” So, the highlight of receiving that award was having two or three rows of my family – Indigenous faces out there with all these government officials. And it’s not often that we feel comfortable or welcomed into these types of spaces, right?

JAMES

Right.

MICHELLE

Even just in theatre alone and that’s a big part of my whole agenda is trying to find ways to make sure that Indigenous people feel comfortable in the theatre. It’s the same thing for these types of awards. My cousin got the Chief to come and they did a ceremony with me when I went up on the stage. It’s a beautiful ceremony where they come up to you on both sides and they just wrap you in this blanket. And they did that with a star quilt which is a beautiful handmade style of blanket. And to me that was such a beautiful gesture of honour. I’m glad obviously I got the Lieutenant Governor Award and the gold pin and all that wonderful stuff but to have my family there and to be recognized in that way was also an honour.

JAMES

How does it feel to be offering that mentorship now to others because Indigenous artists and young people today can look to you and see somebody who has a successful career?

MICHELLE

I try to stay away from this whole role model thing with Indigenous people. I don’t believe in putting anybody on a pedestal no matter who they are. I think we are all amazing contributors to each others light. But I do understand because when Blackstone came out my whole life shifted. I felt like a lot of my privacy was shifted with my own people because going to Pow Wows and stuff people are always coming up and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, your character on that show was my mom or my auntie or my grandmother and then they would tell me this whole story of you know alcoholism in their family and how my character gave them permission to be able to discuss that.” And so again as an artist, it’s shining that light onto previous taboo topics and giving people permission to speak about it without shame and to share that load.

JAMES

How do you stay resilient then? Because that sounds like sometimes a heavy burden.

MICHELLE

I don’t know if it’s a burden at all. I think it’s just really a part of our development in this world. There are so many amazing beautiful things happening for Indigenous people right now. Like Reservation Dogs is on and we’ve got people in the NHL. And I remember I was on George Stroumboulopoulos back in the day – The Strombo Show – and I remember mentioning Wab Kinew who was rising up in the political scene and saying you know this is a young man who inspires me and now he’s Premier of Manitoba. And it’s just expanding continuously, and I get hope from seeing our young people. There are so many young people right now that are so resilient, and they are pushing boundaries that I never thought about when I was a teenager or when I was in my early twenties. I see these young people resurrecting language and being proud of who they are and that’s what keeps me going really is just knowing that we’ve got so many incredible young people.

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