BIG THEMES HAUNT 509 DANCE DRAMA

Indigenous man tries to understand and acknowledge circumstances of his death

509 AN INDIGENOUS DANCE DRAMA

★★★ 1/2 out of five

Written, directed and choreographed by: Justin Many Fingers

Starring: Zach Running Coyote

Where and When: At the GRAND

until Sunday Justin Many Fingers’ dance drama for Making Treaty 7 is a bit of a long and winding road.

At its heart, 509 is a simple, sincere story about the tragic death of Danny, a young native man killed in a car crash.

According to Blackfoot mythology, Danny’s spirit cannot cross over until he accepts, understands and acknowledges his death. Because Danny seems to have unfinished business in the corporeal world, he is stranded in a kind of limbo between life and death.

Over the course of two acts, Danny’s mother, grandfather and the Blackfoot trickster named Napi all try to help Danny complete his journey.

Not only did Many Fingers direct, choreograph and write, including the lyrics for the songs, but he stars as the story’s narrator, Danny’s grandfather and mother and the wily Napi. It’s both remarkable and commendable how well Many Fingers wears all these hats.

As a director, he has a strong sense of theatricality.

As the audience enters the theatre, there is a cowboy on stage with his hat pulled down to conceal his face. He is telling a story with hand gestures. On one side of the wall behind him is a mobile representing the jumbled remains of the car and on the other side is a gigantic cloth drape representing a buffalo head. There is a kind of eerie soundscape completing the tableau and it effectively sets the mood for the piece that follows.

The characters Many Fingers plays are accompanied by dancers Elizabeth Ferguson-breaker and Ayla Modeste, who act like a Greek chorus. Sometimes they are in the background, but at other times they are an integral part of the action. There is a particularly powerful scene where they act as ghostly orderlies in the hospital where Danny died.

As Danny, Zach Running Coyote gives 509 the pathos it needs. His body speaks volumes about the confusion and fear Danny experiences when he awakens in the spirit limbo and his enactment of the car crash is especially powerful. Running Coyote has an impressive emotional range that manifests itself in his anger at not being told where he is to his soothing tones when he is given the opportunity to return to the hospital to comfort his mother.

Many Fingers brings humour to the story through Napi, who is effete and cynical.

As effective as Many Fingers is in playing Danny’s mother, this piece would benefit greatly from a female presence and voice in this character, especially given several of the themes of the piece.

There is something dreamy and ethereal about 509 that makes it uplifting and reassuring even though it is a story about death.