Entitled Akuteu, an Innu word that means “something that is suspended, hooked, perched”, the first text by Soleil Launière is based on the metaphor of the animal being suspended to bleed it. The 70-minute solo translates a vertigo, a feeling of emptiness, a tension between two cultures, contradictions with which the pekuakamilnu artist, originally from Mashteuiatsh, learns to live, so to speak, before our eyes.
Directed by the author and performer, with the complicity of Johanne Haberlin, the show marks the start of a residency of two creations at the Salle Jean-Claude-Germain. From an inclined, openwork platform, probably the quay from which the crossing begins, Launière speaks: “Here, I open my mouth. I open my mouth wild beastwild, wapush, crow. To tell you, what screams inside. I try. Because I really like you. »
Two distinct tones
From childhood to adulthood, from silence that worries parents to poetry that unfolds sovereignly, from Innu culture to that of whites, the artist approaches with determination all that constitutes it. His monologue intertwines two distinct tones. The first, let’s call it that of confession, allows Launière to speak directly to his audience, to share his convictions and his doubts, to pay tribute and to address reproaches. There is anger, anxiety, lucidity, but also a lot of humor.
“I’m sick of the bullshit, allochthonous comments from indigenous experts. People who teach me what is said, what is not said about me. […] Who teach me how to live or think better about my “condition”. It’s physical. That to me fucking the brain. But you have to feel valid one day to open your hatch. Do today, just for you guys, I’m gonna do it. »
Then there is the other tone, a register where the language and the body become more poetic, more sacred, passages where the artist honors her predecessors – starting with her kukum, mother of 18 children — but also the forgotten, disappeared, flouted and murdered women. “I shout my prayer to the ancestors. Souls flown away by the thousands. Neglected childhoods. Stillborn ancestors. Let’s get together. Straight as trees. I rely on the drum, on braided grass. Soaring souls, you are not forgotten. »
To find her clan, to explain herself to herself as well as to her audience, Soleil Launière recounts the most diverse adventures: from an unsuccessful audition (“I’m not native enough to do TV.”) to a striking incursion into a sweat lodge (“I try as best I can to reconnect with my ancestral traditions.”), passing through a youthful passion for film Pocahontas (“Probably the first Aboriginal woman abducted and murdered. Became an object, an object of shame.”).
The point of view of Soleil Launière is not only valid, but it is unique and necessary, giving access to a language, to an experience and to a sensitivity, a free speech which allows a lot of hope for the continuation of things.