Nativedance.ca

By Felan Parker

Elaine Keillor is a professor of Ethnomusicology at Carleton University, and specializes in Canadian aboriginal music. Her most recent project, set to launch in January 2007, is a website simply called Native Dance, found at www.nativedance.ca. The followup to a similar website dedicated to Native Drums (www.nativedrums.ca), Native Dance is an online repository of information, stories, interviews, video clips and images relating to the traditions of dance in eight of the several hundred aboriginal cultures in Canada.

Native music and dance, as well as other cultural expressions, were banned in Canada until the 1950s, and so much of the tradition has been lost. Keillor hopes that this website will help all Canadians, First Peoples and others alike, to rediscover this rich cultural heritage. There is very little if anything written about native dance, and the website, in collaboration with a diverse group of museums, archives and other organizations will proudly showcase an art-form which, prior to the 1950s, had to be performed in secret.

Keillor hopes that the website will educate Canadians about our native heritage in a respectful way, and in cooperation with the First Nations. Once the website goes live, it will continue to update and develop as more information and media becomes available. It is important, says Keillor, that the ongoing relationships between native and non-native Canadians (musical and otherwise) are strengthened and preserved into the future.