Poundmaker Cree Nation artist Floyd Favel and production company Miyawata Culture Inc. received a number of grant awards for promoting Indigenous culture and history. (submitted photo/Floyd Favel)

By Angela Brown

Preserving culture

Poundmaker artist, production company honoured with grants

Feb 5, 2020 | 3:16 PM

A Poundmaker Cree Nation artist and production company are being recognized with grants for their work promoting Indigenous culture and history. The total amount being awarded by the Saskatchewan Arts Board is $23,751.

“It’s based on a lifetime of work and effort, and sacrifices to do what I do,” the artist recipient, Floyd Favel, said. “Any acknowledgement is much appreciated.”

Favel received an Independent Artists grant of $5,751 to create and present a multi-disciplinary performance called Following the Medicine, which tells the story of Peyote’s arrival into Saskatchewan in the 1930s.

Favel describes the project as a dramatic educational presentation with music. It will document some of the history of the Battlefords area. The show will be premiered at the Poundmaker Performance Festival from July 16 to 19. Favel is involved in writing and producing the project.

“It’s a story that needs to be known in the world, because it’s a tale of faith and cultural renewal” he said.

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Favel also was honoured with a $10,000 Indigenous Peoples Art and Artists grant to write and publish a book accompanied by visual images about the story of the Battle of Broken Knife. The book will be released this fall.

The battle between the Sarcee and the Cree took place in 1840 on what is now known as Poundmaker Cree Nation.

“It addresses the need for our local history to be known and taught in our schools,” Favel said of recounting the story.

Miyawata Culture Inc., the company Favel founded and directs is devoted to preserving and promoting traditional and contemporary Cree culture and language. It received an $8,000 SaskFestivals grant to benefit the Poundmaker Performance Festival’s International Indigenous Performance and Plenary.

The four-day event that is focused on Indigenous performance and culture will take place on the Poundmaker Cree Nation from July 16 to 19.

“[The event] includes many world-renowned artists and speakers,” he said. “The purpose is to continue the revitalization of Indigenous cultures, and also bring our cultures to the world, and the world to our people.”

Favel, who is also the curator of the Chief Poundmaker Museum, said sharing some of Poundmaker Cree Nation’s history and culture is an important part of his life.

“I spent my life since I was a teenager in this profession,” he said. “Arts, culture and language is at the centre and the heart of Indigenous people and their futures. It’s important that the world as well begins to know our teachings, because the world, you could say, is in need of knowledge and understanding.”

The full Indigenous Festival and Plenary activities, begins with a Plains Indian Sign Language Workshop running July 7-10.

Over 100 individuals and organizations received funding awards totaling close to $850,000 from the Saskatchewan Arts Board at the recent grant deadlines. Organizations that offer programs in the arts, professional artists’ creative projects and community art initiatives are among some of the efforts supported from Arts Board funding.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW