Accent and Language Training for the Indigenous Performer: Results of Four Focus Groups

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the experience of Indigenous performers in Canada; it makes recommendations on how to better serve Indigenous actors-in-training, for appropriate and effective accent and language resource creation, and on how to improve the ways that professional Indigenous artists are supported in roles requiring Indigenous language and/or accents in theatre, television, and film. This project reviews the outcomes of four focus group discussions with Indigenous performers around the topic of accent and language training and its use in performance. Participants reported on their experience with accent and voice training in western and Indigenous performance training institutions, on their experience performing in traditional language and/or performing with an Indigenous accent of English, how they felt performance training can be decolonized, and on the accent/language resources they felt were important to improve training opportunities for Indigenous artists.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous performance in Canada
• indigenous accents and dialects
• decolonization
• actor training
• accent coaching
• indigenous actors
• cultural sensitivity

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. AMDA is the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

2. Our focus group transcripts are available from the website our partner, Native Earth Performing Arts, https://www.nativeearth.ca/artists/resources/indigenous-accent/research/. Within this citation system, the name is included if applicable. FG represents the focus group, which is followed by the city or number of the focus group and then the page numbers.

3. The Centre for Indigenous Theatre was formerly known as The Native Theatre School, which ran under that name from 1979–1999.

4. Martha Burns is one of Canada’s foremost stage actors, having worked with The Stratford Festival and The Shaw Festival; she was a founding member of SoulPepper Theatre Company. She is well known for her performance of Ellen Fanshaw in the TV series Slings and Arrows.

5. Onkwehonwe is the traditional name for the Mohawk people. The traditional name for Mohawk language is Kanienʼkéha, which literally means “language of the Flint People.”

6. In Canada, the term “reserve” is defined in the Indian Act as a “tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band.” The term “reservation,” is the term preferred in the United States (Joseph 2016, 27). The term “Rez” could also refer to a form of English that evolved in Residential schools, where Indigenous children were taken from their families by the Canadian government, forbidden from speaking their traditional languages, and required to speak only English (or French).

7. Joe from Winnipeg is a character Ian Ross created for the radio; he resurrected the character back briefly on the RiffRaff Youtube channel in 2016. https://youtu.be/6_Cc0g9D10U.

8. Graham Greene, known for his supporting roles in The Green Mile and Dances with Wolves, is perhaps one of Canada’s most respected Indigenous actors.

9. North of 60 was a 1990s tv show set in the Dehco region of the Northwest Territories. As stated in the Wikipedia article, “The show explored themes of Native poverty, alcoholism, cultural preservation, conflict over land settlements, and natural resource exploitation.”

10. The International Dialects of English Archive, https://www.dialectsarchive.com.

11. Jessica Drake was Michael Greyeyes’ coach.

12. Voice Memos is the default audio recording app on iOS devices like the iPhone.

13. Of the more than 70 Indigenous languages in Canada, UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php) identifies the following languages as being critically endangered: Assiniboine, Bella Coola, Cayuga, Coast Tsimshian, Comox/Sliammon, Ditidaht, Eastern Ojibwe, Haisla, Han, Heiltsuk, Huron-Wyandot, Kwak’wala, Lakota, Michif, Munsee, Nisga’a, Nootka, Okanagan, Oneida, Onondaga, Oowekyala, Potawatomi, Rigolet Inuktitut, Sekani, Seneca, Siglitun, Southern Haida, Southern Tutchone, Tahltan, Tlingit, Tuscarora, Upper Tanana, and Western Abenaki. There are 24 “Severely endangered,” 6 “Definitely endangered,” and 22 “Vulnerable” languages on the UNESCO listings for Canadian Indigenous languages.

14. Halkomelem is a Central Salish language, located on lands on southeastern Vancouver Island, and parts of the lower Mainland near Vancouver. Haida is a language isolate, located on the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the west coast of British Columbia, and on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. Both languages feature fairly rare pharyngeal consonants.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Insight Development Grant.

Notes on contributors

Eric Armstrong

Eric Armstrong teaches voice, speech, accents, and text in the acting programs at York University in Toronto; he has taught full-time in universities for 25 years in the US and Canada. His professional practice focuses on accent coaching/design, with numerous credits on award-winning theatre, television, and film productions. He has presented frequently at the annual VASTA conference and published articles and reviews in the VSR. His recent research interests lie in the pedagogy of accent training for diverse populations.

Shannon Vickers

Shannon Vickers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg where she teaches voice, speech, and text. She has served as a text, voice, and/or accent designer and coach for theatres across Canada, with 20 productions at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre over the last decade. Shannon holds an MFA in theatre voice pedagogy (University of Alberta) and a BFA honors acting (University of Windsor) and is a certified Associate Teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork.

Katie German

Katie German is a Winnipeg based Métis artist and theatre educator. She received her training in theatre performance at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton and studied theatre through the University of Winnipeg and classical voice through the University of Manitoba. Katie is the owner and director of Junior Musical Theatre Company (JMTC), artistic associate with Manitoba Theatre for Young People, and voice director and character voice for an upcoming cartoon with Media RendezVous and Big Jump Entertainment. She is also a mother to a beautiful four year old who shares her love of language and stories.

Elan Marchinko

Elan Marchinko is a Vanier Doctoral Scholar in theatre and performance studies at York University. She examines the role of dance in staging Indigenous experiences of Canadian colonial violence where settler artists who collaborate on these works become implicated in our shared history. Respectively, Elan is an artistic associate and an embedded performance researcher with Toronto-based companies ParaSoul Dance and Signal Theatre. Her writing on dance and public memory has been published in InTensions Journal, Canadian Theatre Review, The Dance Current, and the edited collection Remembering Air India: The Art of Public Mourning.