Discussion on Native Canadian Theatre Readings

On Monday, the Feminist Reading Group had a lively discussion of Annie Mae’s Movement by Canadian playwright, Yvette Nolan. Much of our discussion around this play was concerned with the role played by gender politics in male-dominated activist movements.

For further information/context for Nolan's play, please see the following, taken from Yvette Nolan's page on the Native Earth Performing Arts site:

Native Earth Performing Arts: Yvette Nolan
http://webhome.idirect.com/~naterth/yvette.html

It has been twenty five years since the body of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Mi'qmak woman from Pictou Landing, Nova Scotia, was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Twenty five years since the FBI cut off her hands and informed us she died from exposure. Twenty five years and her Murder is still unsolved. I did not write this play to explain what happened to Anna Mae. Rather I wanted to explore what it must have been like to be Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a woman in a man's movement, a Canadian in America, an Aboriginal in a white dominant culture at a time when it felt like we really could change the world. I wanted to give voice to one who they tried to silence in life and in death. I never intended to write a documentary. What really happened to Anna Mae back in 1975/1976 cannot be truly known, not to the satisfaction of her family and her friends. The facts are now lost in disinformation and denial, in misinformation and memory. Instead of facts, I am looking for the truths we can gleam from examining the life and death of Anna Mae Aquash: that we must fight for what we believe in; that we cannot know the consequences of our actions; that we live on in the work that we do and the people we affect long after we have passed from this world.