Skyborn is a spiritual voyage for Quelemia Sparrow

A soul canoe is a sacred vessel that no one else but you can travel in.

The sacred vessel is what transports your immortal soul through eternity on a universal river made of stars. It can also retrieve it when it wanders during times of sickness or healing. Belief in this ancestral ritual is deeply held in the Musqueam culture. It isn’t typically shared publicly.

In Skyborn: A Land Reclamation Odyssey, Musqueam artist Quelemia Sparrow invites us to be witnesses to a soul-canoe voyage to reclaim her lost soul from the land of the dead. Along the way, elements of what it takes to heal and cure past calamity are illuminated as the traveller engages with a cosmic cast of characters.

This artistic ceremony is both a sharing of ancestral teachings of the Musqueam and Sto:lo Peoples and a window to the world of Coast Salish mysticism. Developed out of a workshopped 2016 production titled O’wet, the multimedia performance piece is produced by Savage Society on the unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

It has its world premiere at this year’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as part of the Cultch’s fourth annual Femme Series, highlighting female-identifying voices and experiences. 

Source: The Vancouver Sun