Geography: Europe > Western Europe > France
Year: 2018
Produced by: Théâtre du Soleil with Festival d’Automne à Paris
Creative Team: Written and directed by Robert Lepage; performed by the Théâtre du Soleil ensemble under the artistic leadership of Ariane Mnouchkine.
Synopsis: Kanata follows two French artists who settle in Vancouver and become connected to the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women. Their movement to Canada places them within a colonial history they initially understand only from outside. The production links contemporary urban precarity and ecological preservation to the forced displacement of Indigenous communities from their land. The piece considers who has the right to represent and depict another community’s suffering through artistic interpretation. It asks whether artistic encounters can challenge colonial erasure or whether they risk repeating the appropriation through which Indigenous experience has often been controlled by settlers.
Source: Théâtre du Soleil, official production archive: https://www.theatre-du-soleil.fr/en/our-theatre/shows/kanata-episode-i-la-controverse-2018-2164 Théâtre du Soleil, interview with Robert Lepage about the production and controversy: https://www.theatre-du-soleil.fr/fr/a-lire/robert-lepage-artistes-quavons-nous-le-droit-de-faire-4226