Where do you come from ? What are the traces of your lineage in your life? What place do you give to memories, to memory? What is your family, social, cultural heritage? As part of the sixth edition of the Scriptarium, this theatrical writing project launched by the Théâtre Le Clou, Kim O’Bomsawin probed with interest this notion of past, grandfather, ancestors among adolescents aged 3e at 5e secondary for whom this notion may seem a priori rather abstract.
If the filmmaker has agreed to play the role of curator this year — and thereby have a first theatrical experience — it is first and foremost for young people. A youth that calls her, inspires her and to whom she regularly directs her creations. “We are in high demand. My First Nations colleagues who work in the media could answer the same thing. We have to make choices […]but when people call me and ask me to get involved in inspiring young people, I can’t say no, and that’s kind of what happened with The Scriptarium “, she says in an interview granted to the Duty. She also adds that she is very honored that we thought of her to put on these shoes worn, she says, by “big sizes”. We will remember in particular Louise Arbour, Stéphane Crête or Didier Lucien, to name only these commissioners.
Committed to everything related to the first peoples, accustomed to meeting young people to talk about the duty of memory and identity, Kim O’Bomsawin gratefully underlines all the work of reflection carried out upstream with the theater team. to arrive at this all-encompassing and universal subject. “It must be said that the gang of the Théâtre Le Clou is really great. The topic hasn’t crossed my mind, wouldn’t it be nice of me to take all the credit. We “brainstormed”, but they especially made me talk for an afternoon of time and, by dint of talking, the theme of origins, lineage, ancestors — because it is all the same something that is at the heart of my approach, the duty of memory and all that — was proposed, and I thought it was brilliant. Because everyone can write on this subject. Everyone has ancestors, a lineage, everyone has a heritage, whether cultural or family,” she explains.
Take stock of the past
Faced with this subject with a thousand possibilities, the theater team and the curator found themselves faced with texts of great richness, varied, open to different horizons. “A lot of young people have written about diversity, about diversities, I should say. Diversity of gender, culture, origin, recent immigration, immigration from afar, of stock — which I don’t like to say — we found this whole spectrum. There was also a lot of fiction through it. Sometimes people let themselves make up stories. »
The guest curator also believes that the requested exercise allowed many young people to see that they had a legacy. “If they didn’t know it, or if they thought they didn’t have any more, they realized they still had some. So it forced them to take a little journey deep within themselves, their family, their surroundings and then, in the end, we see that the concept of heritage, ancestors, lineage, d Cultural identity is still very, very present » Impressed first of all by the diversity of the texts, the filmmaker also underlines the maturity of the writing, of the reflections brought by these young people. “They were assumed and went to the end of the process. It was beautiful to see […] Me, at that age, I would have said to myself that the heritage is my family. I would then have turned to my father and my mother, and I would have continued to my grandparents, my great-grandparents. But in this case, they really broke the concept. I imagine that there are also the teachers behind all that. In fact, I would like to salute them and thank them for getting involved. It’s really off-curriculum; you have to give yourself a little more trouble, say […] There are really motivated teachers who had to push the idea to the end with them. »
The idea of thinking about this notion has thus forced young people to look behind them to better move forward, an essential element in building a solid future, believes Kim O’Bomsawin. ” […] Because I always repeat it, if we don’t have our feet firmly rooted, if we don’t know our history and if we don’t know where we come from, it will be difficult to find each other and find a mission of life, whether professional or personal. If it can have helped them in this quest, so much the better. »
And even if she observes that the importance and respect accorded to the past and memories tend to dissipate in the ambient noise and speed, she arms herself with hope in the face of such a lit and aware youth. ” [J’invite tout le monde] to go on that journey, a journey to the heart of their own heritage, whatever it is, whether it’s painful or not because in the end, it’s a necessary journey to propel themselves forward,” she concludes.