Sâkêwêwak Storytellers Festival celebrates sound in unique ways

Kat Ross wants to subvert your expectations at this year’s Sâkêwêwak Annual Storyteller’s Festival.

“The event this year is about coming in and listening as an Indigenous relational technology,” she said. “So all the events really try to fit within that vision.”

Take nightlife. Typically the playground for the extroverted and a nightmare for the introverted. Under Ross’ vision of things, that dichotomy is flipped.

“This is an invitation to draw your energy and attention inward,”  she said. “To practice coming out of really strong, socially-outward energy, which is mostly what is available for a nightlife event, and instead focus inwards.”

Ross, an artist from the Peepeekisis Cree Nation and who is also a part of the Red River Métis, is the acting curator for this year’s festival. The yearly event in Regina is a community-based, multidisciplinary arts showcase featuring diverse Indigenous artists.

Under the vision of Ross, it’s focused on the art of frequency and is aptly titled Find your FRĒQ.

“The concept is tuning out the noise and tuning in,” said Ross. “We live in a culture that demands speed, spectacle, and distraction. And this whole festival is meant to invite you into a different rhythm – to be present.”

Built around this philosophy, the festival features several artists and events inviting guests to sink into a different rhythm: reading from author Tenille Campbell; Indigenous silent disco at the Farmers Market; hypnosis and sound healing workshops with Jori Cachene and Desmond Williams, respectively.

The main event is ‘Find your FRĒQ’, an immersive audio storytelling experience that combines the traditional with the unexpected.

“Sometimes we’re perceived as representing something that’s more static and traditional. So, a big portion of the evening is audio erotica. When I share that with people, I get a strange response,” she said.

“It brings Indigenous storytellers into this very forward and innovative space, where I’m suggesting we’ve always been. Here’s a funky and fresh way of saying ‘we’re technologists, we’re futurists, we’re storytellers, we’re powerful’.”

Ross describes the main event as a ‘choose your own adventure’, where attendees receive a headset with three different channels: they can listen to music, a DJ, or sounds of nature, or listen to one of the audio artists. From there, they can dance, sit down, journal, or head into the ASMR booth.

“It really gives people agency,” said Ross. “It’s a space where silence is honoured.”

The Find your FRĒQ event features up to 14 different artists, all of whom are Indigenous.

Ross’ motivation for curating the festival comes through her late friend, Hillary Ryder, an Indigenous artist and winner of Sask Fasion Week’s first Indigenous Design Bursary, who passed away last year. Ryder had also been involved in the Sâkêwêwak festival in past years.

“She was a young, bright light that went out way too young,” said Ross.

The event on Friday April 11, an open gallery exhibition, is a celebration of Ryder entitled Supernova.

“We want to uplift her and her legacy as best we can. She was involved in Sâkêwêwak, so doing an event in memory of her seemed like the right call.”

Ross said since COVID, many Indigenous artists and collectives are struggling, hence the importance to support festivals like Sâkêwêwak.

In the process, attendees will connect with their community, and maybe even connect with themselves.

“I think this interation is deeply powerful and has the potential to heal, uplift, and transform,” said Ross.

“It’s definitely worth investing into the community that you belong.”

A full schedule of events is available online at Sâkêwêwak.