CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS MAGAZINE
LANGUAGE REVOLUTIONARY Randy Morin
GOT LAND? Comedians on the Rise FILMS, MUSIC, PHOTOGRAPHY AND MORE
ISSUE 115 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DISPLAY UNTIL SEPT. 1, 2022
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STEFAN RICHARD From the Ring to the TV Screen
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SINCE 2002
9 CONTENTS ISSUE 115 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Cover Feature: Former Professional Wrestler Stefan Richard Is Building a Successful Career in Broadcasting
Cover photograph by Roger Boyer
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SAY MAGAZINE Volume 21, Issue 3 SAY Magazine is a bi-monthly publication that publishes six issues a year—one issue every eight weeks.
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Mailing Address: Kildonan Place, RPO Box 43084 Winnipeg, MB Canada R2C 5G7 E: info@saymag.com www.saymag.com Publishers: Dominick Blais and Kent Brown Editor-in-Chief: Danielle Vienneau editor@saymag.com Editorial Team: Sarah Ritchie sarah@saymag.com Theresa Peters theresa@saymag.com Art Director: Orli Gelfat - Orli G. Design Sales Team: Megan Henry megan@saymag.com Dominick Blais sales@saymag.com Website and Social Media Sphere Media Agency info@spheremediaagency.com
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Role Models from NACCA’s Indigenous Women Entrepreneurship (IWE) Program Share their Business Success Stories
6 Films to Stream this Summer 18 Brandy Bloxom Photography 22 Kuper Island Podcast Series 24 Music 27 Marketplace
28 The Frog Radio’s Summer Picks 29 pîkiskwêwin Podcast 30 Indigenous Fashion 32 Literature 35 Advertiser Index
As a diverse team of both Indigenous and ally collaborators, we strive to embrace, embody and live the truth that we are all Treaty people. All our relations!
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The Got Land? Indigenous Comedy Show Is Making its Way across Ontario and Quebec this Summer
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Cree Language Keeper and Indigenous Knowledge Keeper Randy Morin Has Devoted his Career to Language Revitalization
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CINEMA
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a well-known filmmaker and actor, known for her recent roles in Blood Quantum and Night Raiders. Her documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is an intimate portrait of survival, love and the collective work of healing in her home community, the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta, a Blackfoot community facing the impacts of substance use and a drug-poisoning epidemic. In the film, community members active in addiction and recovery, first responders and medical professionals implement harm reduction to save lives. This work is contextualized within the historical and contemporary impacts of settler colonialism. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy draws a connecting line between the effects of colonial violence on Blackfoot land and people, and the ongoing substance-use crisis. Held in love and hope for the future, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy asks the audience to be a part of this remarkable change with the community. This NFB co-production with Seen Through Woman Productions received a wide range of festival rewards, including Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2022. As with all NFB films, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is available for booking at community screenings. Contact communityscreenings@nfb.ca for more info. Watch it for free: nfb.ca/film/kimmapiiyipitssini-the-meaning-of-empathy
This Is Not a Ceremony This Is Not a Ceremony is not a “film” you can watch on a regular screen. It is a cinematic VR experience you can watch with a virtual reality (VR) headset. In This Is Not a Ceremony, Niitsitapi writer and director Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) takes us beyond the veil of traditional media and transports us directly into another realm, where past, present and future are one; where colonial rules and assumptions are forgotten; and where we can finally get to the truth of the matter. Presented in stunning cinematic VR, the narrative unfolds all around us, on a dream-like plane of existence. Panoramas flow and merge, stories come to life and dance before our eyes, and community protocols confront our notions of personal responsibility. Here, we are asked to witness some of the darker sides of living life in Canada while Indigenous. This unforgettable experience will stay with you long after it’s over. This Is Not a Ceremony calls on all who’ve watched to take action, to share what they have seen and heard, to learn from these tragedies and never forget—so that they will never happen again. The National Film Board of Canada is planning to present this experience in select locations across the country. For updates, visit: nfb.ca/NOTaceremony 8 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT l JUNE 2022
Filmmaker
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Norway. She was named the 2018 Sundance Film Institute’s Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab. Her short documentary Bihttoš was selected as one of TIFF’s Top Ten Canadian shorts and also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival. She acted in and co-wrote (with Kathleen Hepburn) the narrative feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and received the Toronto Film Critics Association and Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards for best Canadian film. It was also nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, and Tailfeathers and Hepburn won the CSAs for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was picked up for distribution by Ava DuVernay’s company, ARRAY, and is available to stream on Netflix in the United States.
Filmmaker
Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) is Blackfoot and Dutch, originally hailing from the Piikani Nation. During his upbringing, he resided alongside his mother in Lethbridge and many other dusty Southern Alberta towns. Currently, Ahnahktsipiitaa is the operations manager for the Indigenous Matriarchs 4 AR/VR media lab (IM4-Lab). Ahnahktsipiitaa sits on the Telefilm Indigenous Working Group, among others. Community-centred, he aims to elevate the voices and stories of Indigenous Peoples, whether creating spaces for youth works in the Talking Stick’s Festivals REEL Reservation: Indigenous Cinematic Indigenous Sovereignty Series or through his company Blackfoot Nation Films.
Film information and photography courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
COVER STORY
Stefan Richard His Journey from the Ring to TV Host Stefan Richard, a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, has built his career in the media and entertainment industry, first as a professional wrestler, then a seasoned podcaster and now in radio broadcasting as the current morning show host for Now Country 104.7, a local Winnipeg radio station. He has also recently started work as the host of a TV series centered on learning different Indigenous cultures and languages. The series will air on APTN Lumi (APTN’s streaming service) later this summer.
The time is right now for us to tell our own stories, instead of having our stories told for us.
Photo credit: Roger Boyer
By Danielle Vienneau
I
’ll never forget the first time I met Stefan. He was quiet and had a somewhat intimidating demeanour about him—I wondered if he was in the right place. You see, we met at a youth leadership conference over a decade ago; he was a youth delegate and I was the youth leadership program manager. The conference brought such a diverse group of young people together from all across Canada, youth who wanted to see positive change in the world and have a hand in creating that change through youth-led initiatives. Stefan was there for the same reason. When he smiled, the intimidation melted away, and I was surprised by his lighthearted temperament and sense of humour. He brought a unique perspective to the group as a First Nations youth from Winnipeg, and I am forever grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know him. Fast forward 13+ years and our paths cross again, both of our lives looking much different now than they did when we first met. In my recent interview with Stefan, we reminisced about our younger days and talked about his time as a prowrestler and all the places he travelled to across Canada, the United States and Japan. What I learned was that, soon after I met Stefan, he began his struggle
with addiction. A five-year struggle that nearly took his life. He’s been clean now for almost a decade, and although it was a challenging time in his life, he’s moved on. A father of two now, Stefan chooses to focus on the positives in his life and has set some lofty career goals. So how does one go from being a prowrestler to broadcasting and then becoming a TV host? Well, it turns out Stefan was quite the showman and often played the villain role in his wrestling matches. He compared the appeal of pro-wrestling to that of watching a play or going to see a stand-up comedy show. “It’s a form of acting and entertainment with a little something for everyone,” he said. “There are ups and downs. There are tag-team matches, matches with dudes flying off the ropes, and then some are more care-free and comedic.” And like a good movie, almost every professional wrestling match has an antagonist and protagonist, and all the anticipated drama
one could expect, especially when a championship belt is on the line. “The one thing I was really good at with pro wrestling is the entertainment part, the talking and the interviews. Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold and The Rock are notorious for being good talkers. So I figured I could build on that in other areas of my life, because I knew I had that gift. I knew that there were certain fields that it would apply to really well—one of those being podcasting. So I started the Ever Sick podcast and I interviewed as many people as possible, like comedians, musicians, athletes, business people and sports executives.” Stefan interviewed everyone he could to see if he was cut out for broadcasting. It paid off because others started to notice his work, which led to hosting the Digital Drum podcast on APTN where he had the opportunity to interview artists from all over Turtle Island. JUNE 2022 l ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | 9
COVER STORY
A natural transition from podcasting turned out to be radio broadcasting. Stefan was recruited to work at Native Communications Inc. (NCI) radio station as the afternoon radio show host, which eventually led him to his solo gig as the morning show host, for Now Country 104.7. Stefan’s path into media
Photo credit: Blair Pacheco
Over the years, Stefan has interviewed many incredible people, but the two most memorable thus far are 1975 Stanley Cup winner Reggie Leach of the Philadelphia Flyers and rapper Drezus. “We were in this little makeshift studio at like 10 a.m. on a Monday morning, and there’s a Stanley Cup winner just sitting in the same room with me and we’re just shootin’ the breeze. And I’m like, ‘What is even going on? How did this happen?'” Stefan’s interview with Drezus was a pivotal moment in his career. “We got super personal and really connected on a different level. We talked about growing up with single moms and not being connected to our culture, and just really deep stuff that caught a lot of people’s eyes and ears.” and broadcasting was certainly not a linear one—he never imagined he would be where he is today. When asked what advice he has for young people interested in getting into broadcasting, he shared, “The thing I say, especially to Indigenous youth who ask me about getting into
media, is to do it! Because the time is right now for us to tell our own stories, instead of having our stories told for us. Our stories are often told from a damaged narrative, but they don’t have to be. Focus on the story, the people and the great things being done in community. There is power in telling your own story.” One of Stefan’s proudest moments in his career is co-hosting the Manitoba Country Music Awards (MCMA) with musician Don Amero last November. “Historically, country music has not exactly been left-wing—the 2021 event was the first time there has ever been two Indigenous hosts hosting the awards together. Don wore a big Winnipeg Jets Jersey that had the number 215 on it, and my beadwork and my Every Child Matters bracelet. It was a very proud moment for me.”
Stefan (center left) with the Canadian country music band The Wilkinsons. 10 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT l JUNE 2022
So what’s next for Stefan? He plans to shoot for the stars, optimistic his experience as a radio personality, and a writer and host of the upcoming show on APTN Lumi will open more doors for him in media and television. At just 34 years old, he’s got a book deal in the pipeline and has a goal of one day being on the New York Times bestseller list. Stefan also looks forward to hosting more award shows. “I like to say the Manitoba Country Music Awards was my warm-up for the Oscars. So I’ve put that out in the universe and I’m hoping it comes true.”
“My journey has been very nonlinear. There was wrestling and then I had to overcome addiction and get my son back. Then I had to find something to fill the wrestling gap, and it ended up being podcasting and radio broadcasting,” said Stefan. “I’ve controlled none of it, but this is what I want to do. It’s all come naturally, like one after another, and that’s the only reason I say things like hosting the Oscars and being on the bestseller list. It’s because I feel like things have come so far that I can say something like that now and it has the potential to come true.”
little bit heavier, a little bit older. It was a big shock to the system, but I did it for fun.” Stefan’s not sure if he will hit the ropes one more time before hanging up his wrestling boots for good, but in the mean time we can catch him on APTN’s Face to Face and on APTN Lumi later this summer as he takes a fresh and lighthearted approach to learning Indigenous languages, interviewing Elders and Language Keepers, and helping people connect to their Indigenous cultures in Canada.
After a seven-year hiatus, Stefan recently stepped in the ring for a special appearance in Fargo, North Dakota, but it wasn’t as easy as it once was. “It was okay. I’m in a little bit different shape now—a
Danielle Vienneau, Editor-in-Chief with SAY Magazine, believes in the power of sharing stories to inspire greatness in others. To submit your story, email editor@saymag.com.
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