Episode 15: A Cry From An Indian Wife

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Episode 15: A Cry From An Indian Wife

Oct. 14, 7pm

A Cry From An Indian Wife (2017)

Ian Cusson (CA), composer

Marion Newman, mezzo soprano

Rachael Kerr, piano

A Cry from an Indian Wife was first premiered in Toronto January 2017 and is a setting of E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913) who is of Mohawk descent. The poem was published in 1885 and was one of the first about colonial injustices written from an Indigenous perspective for a white Canadian audience. Here, Johnson complicates notions of Nationalism and Indigenous identity. Writing about the Red River and Northwest Resistance from the viewpoint of an Indigenous woman whose husband goes to fight white Canadian forces, Johnson explores the conflicted psychology of a person attempting to sympathize with the enemy.The text is based on the events of the battle of Cut Knife Creek during the Riel Rebellion. First published by Charles G.D. Roberts in the Toronto magazine, The Week, in 1885.