Please join us for this unprecedented collaboration featuring live performances from artists creating vibrant new works in Mi’kmaq and Yiddish musical traditions and languages. This free concert is open to the public.
The night begins with songs from Mi’kmaw songwriter and fiddler Morgan Toney, whose music brings together the fiery fiddling of Cape Breton with the songs of Mi’kmaq in a fusion he calls Mi’kmaltic (Mi’kmaq + Celtic)!
Then, Montreal-based klezmer quartet Yene Velt String Ensemble and Burial Society will share their music, which features violin and tsimbl instrumentation drawing from a repertoire of 100-year-old recordings, manuscripts collected by travelling folklorists, and original compositions.
Next, local artists and King’s alumni Rachel Kimmelman and Lucas Tennen will take the stage, transforming Yiddish dance traditions into a distinctly modern art form that invites all people to connect with ancestral traditions.
Closing off the night is award-winning Halifax violinist Gina Burgess, whose musicianship embodies Canada’s diversity and the possibilities of cross-cultural connection. A musician shaped by the vitality of both Jewish and Indigenous musical traditions, Burgess will perform new music and moderate a post-concert discussion among the performers.
This is part of our ongoing series this fall called “Fostering Indigenous-Jewish Dialogue in Mi’kma’ki: A Two-Eyed Seeing/Etuaptmumk Approach.” The series is being organized by Dr. Dorota Glowacka in collaboration with Dalhousie’s Jewish Studies Department, MSVU’s Two-Eyed Seeing Program, and other university and community partners. It takes place October 25 to 27 and involves events open to the public—including a keynote roundtable, a film screening and conversation both at the Halifax Central Library and an art exhibit at the NSCAD Treaty Space Gallery.
“Fostering Indigenous-Jewish Dialogue in Mi’kma’ki: A Two-Eyed Seeing/Etuaptmumk Approach” will also include workshops for students and workshops for faculty and staff on the topics of: language destruction and revitalization, material culture, and restitution and return of cultural objects. For information about the workshops please contact Dr. Glowacka at dorota.glowacka@ukings.ca.
