On Native Land follows three different characters— a lawyer, a chief and a singer-songwriter—in what Corey describes as a musical conversation about land, identity, and love.  “It really explores the complexity of indigenous life,” he explains. “So, yes it is a love story, but it also looks at how issues related to land and identity can sometimes complicate things for indigenous and non-indigenous people. It has twelve different actors on stage and four musicians— it’s just a huge cast and company— so it’s really an exploration of all those different perspectives to tell this story.” The project really feels like a culmination of Payette’s last few years of work, synthesising over many different modes of storytelling and perspectives. Though the synopsis of the production may appear small scale, Payette has proved time and time again that he is able to beautifully configure large scale stories that are kaleidoscopic, and ever-expansive.The production nods to Rodger and Hammerstein, traditional Mattagami drumming, and pop ballads in order to create something which feels entirely of Payette’s own.

“For this story in particular, I’m doing something I’ve never done before, which is a dream ballet,” Corey explains, which is a type of dance sequence found in classic musicals like Oklahoma! and West Side Story. “It’s choreographed by Jera Wolfe, who is a Mètis choreographer out of Toronto. It’s a huge number with the whole cast, but where the story is being told through movement. At that point, we’ve gone as far as we can through music and speech, so it’s like. Well now, we have to dance. We have to allow movement. It’s calling back to a very classical storytelling, while also considering what that might look like through an indigenous lens,” he explains.

“A big part of what I think about in my work is, how do I tell the stories and share the teachings I knew when I was a kid, and received over the years, and how do I layer that and weave that into the stories I am telling today, really as a service to the next generation?… There’s a lot of young indigenous people who don’t have those lessons, or have those connections. And so my hope is that this musical really offers a generous opportunity of learning, and also leaves people with a sense of hope for the future.” Echoing the importance of connection with younger generations, Payette notes that this show is also available for free viewing by anyone indigenous-identifying, as a way to deconstruct the common barrier of pricing for low income folks to access theatre productions.“Those accessible tickets really make the difference, because sometimes these stories are out there for people to get to hear, but behind this expensive ticket price, which means that you’ll just never get to see it.”

Payette hopes to use this kind of work as a stepping stone in the dialogue of community building—using artistic expression to facilitate conversations of reconciliation, language revitalization, and relationship to land. “The narrator of the piece is called Land. For me, presencing the land in the way that we are really connects us all to a larger story and history of place. In many ways, we’ve inherited so much complexity that we have little to do with. But by holding that broader story today, my hope is that it helps people to see our contemporary experience with fresh eyes.”

On Native Land runs from April 8-19 at the York Theatre. | TICKETS & INFO