The Indigenous arts and culture festival will take place in Whitehorse from April 12 to 26
The Gwaandak Theatre will host the seventh annual edition of its Awaken Festival this April, with programming in Whitehorse and Dawson City. The Indigenous arts and culture festival, which will take place from April 12 to 26, this year, was first presented digitally during the pandemic in 2020. Over the years, it’s grown from a small local event to a destination festival, bringing performers from across the country to Whitehorse.
Gwaandak Theatre was founded in 1999 by Leonard Linklater and Patti Flather and remains the Yukon’s only professional Indigenous theatre society. In 2019, Colin Wolf came on board just in time for the first edition of Awaken Festival. He now serves as the company’s artistic director.
“It was a very low-key, one-weekend, online festival the first year we did it,” Wolf says. “It was very last-minute, put together in about a week.”
In 2023, the Gwaandak Theatre started receiving presentation funding, meaning they were able to bring travelling shows to Awaken Festival. “That became a really core part of what we do,” Wolf says.
This year, the festival’s main events are three Canadian plays, which will be presented at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. The plays are who will save the night sky? by Philip Jonah Logan Geller, Miss Carcass Caresse: Soft Waters by Erica Wilson, and Climate Play by Yvette Nolan and Joel Bernbaum.
“A cool part of my job is getting to go to festivals and see plays,” says Wolf. “I get to pick which ones I think would be a good fit for coming up to [the] Awaken Festival.”
As Awaken festival continues to grow, Wolf has big plans for future programming. One year, he was able to bring an international show in from Greenland and wants to see the festival continue to reach beyond Canada in future years.
“We’re looking at, in the future, building a bit more of an international presenting capacity for First Nations shows from Australia and New Zealand, as well as from the Nordic Circle and Greenland,” he says. “There’s none of that this year, unfortunately, but we’re building up to that.”
There is no shortage of programming this year, however. In addition to the three shows travelling from other parts of Canada, the artists will deliver workshops and do artist talks about their shows. The festival will also feature a schedule of local programming and social mixers.
“There’s also a lot of local workshops and local presentations from folks like the Whitehorse Aboriginal Women’s Circle,” says Wolf. “We have a Hand Games demonstration this year, as well as a Drumming demonstration on our cultural day, so we have a lot going on that’s local as well as national.”
Wolf likes to use the term “cross-pollination” when he talks about the benefits of people being able to experience events like Awaken Festival and their importance to northern communities.
“I think cross-pollinating in the arts is really good,” he says. “We have folks come in and experience local presentations by local artists, as well as sharing their work. We have that happening with audience members who come see the shows, and artists who participate in the workshops. That’s a really core tenet of it.”
Wolf says another goal for the festival is to bridge gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities through education and connection. With programming from the festival travelling to Dawson City, as well, Wolf is excited to reach farther parts of the territory.
“Going somewhere in person is the best way to make those connections, obviously,” Wolf says. “And bringing shows and art is a really important way.”
Visit gwaandaktheatre.ca to learn more about Gwaandak Theatre, as well as to see the programming schedule and find tickets for Awaken Festival’s main performances. Admission to most of the events is free or by donation.
