A young girl, her face alight with wonder and recognition appears in an ever-changing space defined by floating wooden fence posts …
Suddenly exploding near her a thunderous music of movement and sound …. a magnificent young horse rearing and neighing so close and unexpected … but this beautiful creature is being whipped by a fierce looking man with a boy by his side in a shocking juxtaposition of beauty and cruelty …
The other day, I had the wonderful chance for an early look, in rehearsal, at She Holds Up the Stars, a new multidisciplinary work written and directed by multi-award winning artist Sandra Laronde for her company Red Sky Performance, to be performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall Sunday April 19.
Based on Laronde’s 2022 award-winning young adult novel of the same name, the story’s opening image is emblematic: both of the world that the girl we are seeing, has left behind in the city, and of the world she has returned to on the rez in her search for her mother’s truth – including why she disappeared when Misko was very young. In doing so, she will have both new and old friends at her side, none more important than the horse, whom she will name Mishtadim, and through whom “she finds courage and resilience in a world shaped by beauty and cruelty, and the deep pull of land and family.”
The rehearsal took place in a studio in the basement of Meridian Hall, with the actors in rehearsal clothes and the orchestral score on playback, operated by the stage managers, but the magic of this new creation still shone through. Following the rehearsal, I had the chance for a conversation with Laronde herself.
Even while she was writing her book, Laronde told me, she “saw Misko’s story as it would become in live performance” – a story to add to the rich repertoire she has created since founding Red Sky Performance back in 2000. From its beginning Red Sky has engaged with audiences large and small: from intimate community platforms to the biggest of international stages including two Cultural Olympiads (Beijing and Vancouver); from theatre for young audiences to pure dance and musical works; in various combinations of multimedia and multi-genre experiments.
Always with the goal of celebrating “Indigenous ingenuity, beauty and resilience through powerful storytelling and artistic innovation”. Red Sky’s repertoire has continued to diversify while engaging more and more audiences in its heartfelt storytelling and its own constantly evolving theatrical language. With She Holds Up the Stars this language takes a leap forward incorporating for the very first time large scale puppetry as an integral storytelling element.
Laronde had created two other shows in the past that featured horses: Mistatim (2016) created with playwright Erin Shields for younger children (5-8) and Tono (2008) a large scale dance work for audiences of all ages that explored, through dance and live music, the shared horse cultures of North American Plains Indigenous peoples and Mongolian/Chinese traditions. Both shows toured extensively but in both the horses were portrayed by dancers.
This time the story seemed to demand a different path as Laronde “distilled the novel down to its essential journey, moving away from internal narration and turning everything into action,” along the way “reimagining the horse as a life size puppet which would create a completely different emotional relationship” between Misko and the horse, and also for the audience. To do so, Laronde approached a new collaborator to create with her a uniquely Indigenous life-size horse puppet – internationally acclaimed UK-based puppet maker Nick Barnes, known most famously for the puppets he created for the stage version of Life of Pi.
Even in rehearsal, the horse adds a tangible yet otherworldly element to the story. Operated by three puppeteers, one at the head (Dayna Tietzan) , one at the hind quarters (Brad Cook), and one at the heart (Troy Feldman), the movement is magical to watch, both real and fantastic, capturing our imagination as it captures Misko’s heart.
“I wanted to explore the limitless creativity that puppetry offers and to inspire storytelling methods, artistic techniques and stagecraft,” Laronde explained. “I wanted to break human limitation with puppets as they are not constrained by human anatomy and can be massive, delicate, surreal or shapeshifting. Puppetry can communicate on deep and fantastical levels, transcending language and cultural differences.”
Joining Laronde’s team to accomplish this very specific stage magic are Puppetry and Movement Director Scarlet Wilderink (global puppetry director for the Life of Pi US tour in 2024), Puppetry Associate Dayna Tietzen, and the three horse puppeteers. They are joined by many of the company operating other puppets added by Laronde to counterpoint the majesty of Mishtadim: a rambunctious puppy, two flighty grouse, a puppet version of a happy six year old version of Misko herself, and a mystical hawk who becomes a guide for Misko as the story segues into visionary sequences later in the show.
Underpinning everything, puppetry, spoken scenes, and all the movement, is an original orchestral score composed by previous Red Sky collaborator composer Eliot Britton (Adizokan), who is also the show’s sound designer. The score will be played live onstage by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Trevor Wilson, but — as a new experiment with the stage format — with the conductor at the back facing the musicians and the audience, and with some of the larger brass instruments up in the choir lofts upstage.
Laronde and Red Sky have worked with live music from day one, she says. “Our relationship with the TSO spans over two decades beginning in 2002 with our very first production,” says Laronde, “and since then we’ve had the honour of working on four productions together. For “She Holds Up the Stars, a live orchestra will provide emotional and sonic depth, enriching the storytelling with. dynamic range, evoking mythic times and reinforcing the grandeur of the story.” Throughout the symphonic setting, unexpected elements underline the Indigenous world of the story: spoken and sung text, many varied drums, wind chimes made of shell and sliced stone, and at the suggestion of Laronde, the miked voices of all three horse puppeteers “who all make the sounds of the horse so beautifully, and so the horse will have a voice in the piece and add an iconic live layer to the score.”
As in the novel, the spoken scenes of She Holds Up the Stars resonate with some of the universally darker sides of growing up, Indigenous or not. One of the most powerful elements of the whole is how Misko’s coming of age story entwines with the coming of age story of Thomas, the non-Indigenous boy she first sees at the story’s opening, standing by as Mistadim Both find new ways to understand the world. Both find the courage to stand up for what they believe to be right.
As Laronde said to me, “If an adult asked me, What's this book about? I would say, of course it's about a young girl who navigates the world through beauty and cruelty. But I would also say, it's really about things that break in life. Oh. We break horses. We break up, we break down, we break promises, i.e. treaties. We break beautiful things. Why do we, as humans, have to break everything? That's the big question. And that's the question in my novel, really. Why do we try to break indigenous kids young, so they grow up not knowing who they are? So the horse really represents that spirit that can never be conquered. He does settle a little bit with Misko's love, but he's still wild in his heart of hearts.”
“This story has been with me for years,” Laronde continues. “It comes from a very personal place, But right now there’s a deeper readiness in audiences, and in the conversation around truth, reconciliation and identity. It feels like the moment where this story can really land.”
I am looking forward to being in the audience when it does.
The world premiere of She Holds Up the Stars has only a short run this April in Toronto – two public performances on April 19, following school performances April 13-18. It will, however, also be performed in the near future with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and there is interest as well in Winnipeg, Victoria and Regina for future engagements. Beyond that, Laronde hopes to see this new and original contemporary Indigenous story travel around the country and abroad: “It fills a void and resonates with those who yearn for positive stories that reflect their experiences. My hope is to nurture a new generation that grows up with Indigenous stories, values, and a worldview that ultimately leads to a better world.”
She Holds Up the Stars was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in association with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, TO Live, and the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund. The cast includes: Julia Davis (Misko), James Gerus (Thomas), Marsha Knight (Kokum), Hilary Wheeler (Shoshana), Geoffrey Pounsett (Mr. Turner), Mike Shara (Mr. Desjardins), and Kehew Buffalo (Nelson).
