Nakai's Pivot Podcast: Recent Episodes
Nakai Theatre
“DON’T GET LOST IN THE TRANSIT MINDSET”
Christine Genier guides you on a journey down the Alaska Highway from the Carcross Cutoff to the Klondike Highway turn-off, down a route of personal stories and memories that give new life and presence to this everyday commute.
Joining her for a phone conversation along the way, her mother, Ta’an Kwach’an elder Shirley Adamson, reflects on the history of local landmarks Mt. Sima, Mary Lake, and Wolf Creek and the importance of their original Southern Tutchone place names. Meanwhile, Genier's father makes an appearance in the form of remembered French folk songs, sung by him during the car rides of her childhood. Under Genier's guiding voice, this all-too-familiar route becomes profound in how it holds so many experiences together.
Artist Biography
Born and raised in the Yukon, Christine is a Wolf Clan Woman and citizen of the Ta’an Kwach’an Council. The Alaska Highway has been the backdrop of her life in the north, bringing with it a complicated relationship between two ancestral lines. In this PIVOT piece, Christine explores one facet of this relationship through a childhood lens and draws a story from the stretch of asphalt that has always been home and how the city has grown since the early 80s.
Christine Genier is a Yukon writer, performer, public-speaker, broadcaster and story gatherer. Her work speaks to her lived experience working and living in the North as a mixed-raced Indigenous Woman,Tagish language revitalization, and working with her family’s restaurant on the Alaska Highway.
Facebook / Twitter: @ChristineGenier
JANUARY 21, 2021
THIS USED TO BE
Ivan Coyote invites you to re-imagine the Wal-Mart parking lot as a wild marsh, Mountainview Drive as a sprawling forest, and all of Whitehorse as full of mystery and possibility, seen through Coyote in their youth. Beginning at Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters, the drive leads you up and through Porter Creek, to two of Coyote’s childhood houses built by their father, a trailer park home to werewolves, to the Porter Creek industrial section ripe with old rusted vehicle chassis to climb on and explore, and finally to Trails North Truck Stop. Accompanied by an ambient soundscape composed by Sarah MacDougall, Coyote’s stories flow together in a vivid and compelling picture of a different, older Whitehorse.
STARTING SPOT: Midnight Sun CoffeeGOOGLE MAPS ROUTE
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller who was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. In 2019 Ivan marked 25 years on the road as an international touring storyteller and musician, and released their twelfth book, Rebent Sinner. Coyote’s stories grapple with the complex and intensely personal topics of gender identity, family, class, and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, and a quick wit. Ivan's stories manage to handle both the hilarious and the historical with reverence and compassion, and remind us all of our own fallible and imperfect humanity, while at the same time inspiring us to change the world.
Website / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Multiple Award winning singer/songwriter Sarah MacDougall is known for her poetic songs and passionate performances. Sarah mixes folk, pop, and rock elements into her infectious, often epic songs. Born in Sweden, now based in Canada, Swedish magazine Nöjesguiden declared her: “one of Sweden’s best singer/songwriters' and Rootstime Belgium described her as 'One of the greatest talents of our era”.
Sarah has played festivals such as Iceland Airwaves, Edmonton Folk Festival, Reeperbahn, and has shared the stage with artists such as Bruce Cockburn, Tallest Man on Earth, Buffy St. Marie, Passenger, and more.
Website
“GRAB YOURSELF A SNACK AND THEN BUCKLE UP”
This collection of fine mood pieces retrace the steps of the past of Local Boy’s Kelvin Smoler and Jeremy Parkin through downtown Whitehorse, Whistle Bend, Porter Creek, and Crestview, in a co-produced melange of sounds. Beginning at Riverside Grocery, this soundscape immerses you into the cool, ambient world of cruising the town with Local Boy. Veteran CBC North radio voice (and Smoler’s great uncle) Cal Waddington provides guiding directions for the drive.
STARTING SPOT: Riverside Grocery
GOOGLE MAPS ROUTE
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
A message from Local Boy Incorporated regarding two of its employees:
Kevin Smoler and Jeremy Parkin are two Whitehorse born and raised musicians. Kelvin raps, and Jeremy makes the beats for our establishment. Together they have proven to be a worthy asset to our company and they have been working on finishing their debut album. You can expect said album in the year of 2021. Post plague lifestyle music. Cheers mate, xoxo
Jacob Zimmer introduces the feed with music from Local Boy backing him up.
PIVOT WEBSITE
NAKAI on FACEBOOK
Hello! Happy New Year
Welcome to Nakai’s 2021 Pivot Podcast feed – new for our festival of delight for covid times.
I’m Jacob Zimmer, Artistic Director of Nakai Theatre and curator for Pivot.
This is, unsurprisingly, going to be a different kind of festival – but here at nakai we’ve been Pivoting in the new year for over a decade, so we’re used to it.
This feed is where you’ll get the Drive Along Stories from Local Boy, Christine Genier and Ivan Coyote with Sarah McDougall.
Those will drop on January 21st. Along with a starting location and a map.
Later in the festival, we’ll include music and excerpts from the comedy and new works created just for Pivot
We’ll also share conversations with the artists through the festival.
But for now, check out nakaitheatre.com or find us on facebook to see all the festival has to offer
PIVOT WEBSITE
NAKAI on FACEBOOK