Bell Park is welcoming back the Northern Lights Festival Boréal (NLFB) to its home of origin for a special event on Sept. 10 to 11. The two-day festival will include food and craft vendors, a beer garden and musical performances by various artists.
One of the artists that will perform is the 2018 Polaris music prize winner, Jeremy Dutcher.
The Northern Lights Festival is particularly excited to have Dutcher on board this year on Sept. 11.
“The work Jeremy Dutcher is doing transcends music itself,” said NLFB Artistic Director Max Merrifield in a press release. “It is so inspiring and impactful. The compositions that he has created are truly beautiful and 100 per cent unique. Just come see it, and it will expand your mind.” he said.
Dutcher is a critically acclaimed musician and composer who is also a member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick.
His music style is “unapologetically playful in its incorporation of classical influences,
full of reverence for the traditional songs of his home,and teeming with the urgency of modern-day struggles of resistance,” said the NLFB press release.
Dutcher takes inspiration from the ancestral songs and stories of the Wolastoqiyik that had been suppressed by the Canadian Government’s Indian Act generations ago.
“I’m doing this work because there’s only about a hundred Wolastoqey speakers left,” he said. “It’s crucial for us to make sure that we’re using our language and passing it on to the next generation. If you lose the language, you’re not just losing words; you’re losing an entire way of seeing and experiencing the world from a distinctly indigenous perspective.”
The NFLB is requiring all attendees to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination this year. Seating will also follow social distancing guidelines as tickets are purchased in group packages. This is to effectively seat the audience in their “bubbles”. To find out more about the COVID-19 guidelines for the NLFB, please visit their website here. To purchase tickets, click here.
