Kiuryaq

"I Saw the Northern Lights Once, but This Play Took Me Deeper" - The New York Times

Details.

Touring in 2026 – 2028

Creative Team

  • Producers: Akpik Theatre & Theaturtle

  • Director: Reneltta Arluk

  • Music Director: Carmen Braden

  • Writers: Reneltta Arluk, Rawdna Carita Eira, Alon Nashman

  • Dramaturgy: Christopher Morris

  • Cultural Envoy: Rawdna Carita Eira

  • Performers: Julia Ulayok Davis, Salik Lennert, Elin Oskal

  • Recorded music: Dior Quartet (Noa Sarid, Tobias Elser, Caleb Georges, Joanne Yesol Choi)

  • Live Performance: Dior Quartet (Noa Sarid, Yuri Santos, Jacob Clewell, Joanne Yesol Choi)

  • Choreographer: Fia Grogono

  • Stage Management: Ashley Rees

  • Lighting Design: Itai Erdal

  • Costume & Props Design: Jay Havens

  • Composer | Sound Designer: Carmen Braden

  • Set Design | Illustrator: Hailey Verbonac

  • New Media/Projection Design Team: Chimerik 似不像

  • New Media/Projection Design Collaborator: Vanka Salim

  • New Media/Projection Design Consultant & Facilitator: Sammy Chien-MacCaull

  • Digital Content: Davis Heslep & Barry Bilinsky

  • Video Dramaturgy: Barry Bilinsky

  • Collaborating Filmmakers: Riddle Films, Cabin Productions, Jan Helmer Olsen, Artless Collective

  • Technical Director: Gordon Simmons

  • Projection Technical Consultant: Cody Dyson

  • Production Manager: Kayleigh Sandomirsky

  • Image Design: Rise Frequency Intuitive Graphic Design

“Kiuryaq was at its most captivating when it directly tackled the tension between Indigenous Arctic life and philosophy, and Western culture.”

— The New York Times

Never whistle at the northern lights They will come down and get you. They will play soccer with your head. They are your ancestors calling you home.

Kiuryaq is an immersive circumpolar theatre performance that explores our relationship with the Northern Lights. It is a multi-disciplinary piece created in collaboration with sound composition, digital media and theatre artists from Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of Canada, Greenland, Sápmi territory and Alaska. We follow these northern stories of connection which inspire us through the aurora borealis, Kiuryaq in Inuvialuktun. These stories, frightening, spiritual, epic and playful, are situated in our memories of then and experiences of now. All are held in our vast cosmologies which converge in ways we discovered together through this journey.

Kiuryaq is about about two siblings born in the north with one being separated by adoption down south. An older sister and a younger brother. One raised under the aurora with her grandparents and the younger brother raised with no knowledge of his place of birth, yet under the ancestral connection of the northern lights choices are made that change their realities. Kiuryaq is a transformative performance work which brings the circumpolar region together to share some wisdom, warnings, and humour to all those who are curious. In form, Kiuryaq is a blend of theatre, with three performers embodying multiple roles; concert, with original music played by a live string quartet; and film, with expansive, immersive projections. It is designed to tour for impact in multiple performance venues: Indigenous communities, large concert halls, theatres, from planetariums to snow amphitheatres and, of course, northern centres.

Reneltta Arluk, D.Litt: Writer | Director | Producer

Reneltta is an Inuvialuk, Denesuline, Gwich’in, Cree mom from the Northwest Territories. She is founder of Akpik Theatre. Raised by her grandparents on the trap-line until school age, this nomadic environment gave Reneltta the skills to become the multi-disciplined artist she is now. For nearly two decades, Reneltta has taken part in or initiated the creation of Indigenous Theatre across Canada and overseas. Under Akpik Theatre, Reneltta has written, produced, and performed various works creating space for Indigenous led voices. Reneltta is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to graduate from the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program and is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to direct at renowned The Stratford Festival. There she was awarded the Tyrone Guthrie – Derek F. Mitchell Artistic Director’s Award for her direction of Governor Award winning playwright, Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole. She also directed The Breathing Hole at Canada’s National Arts Centre. She co-directed award winning Messiah/Complex with Against the Grain Theatre, with soloists from every region of Canada, including many Indigenous performers singing in their language. In 2024, Reneltta received an Honourary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Alberta for her commitment to decolonial change.

 

Rawdna Carita Eira: Writer | Cultural Envoy

Rawdna is a Sami/Norwegian writer and playwright, born in Elverum and raised in Brønnøysund. She writes in Norwegian and Northern Sami. As a playwright, Eira debuted with the monologue Elle muitalus / Elens historie in 2003, where she played the lead role. She has since written several plays for the Sami National Theater Beaivváš. In 2012, her play Guohcanuori šuvva / Sangen fra Rotsundet, was staged at Beaivváš Theater. The play was nominated for the Ibsen Prize. Eira now lives in Guovdageaidnu and works as a director at Beaivváš Sami National Theater. Eira is also a lyricist and vocalist in the band Circus Polaria with musicians Roger Ludvigsen and Kjetil Dalland. Eira has written the text in the Sami part of the opera Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin / Gállabártnit. In 2020, the opera was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding Opera Production” and was awarded the prize for “Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble”.

Alon Nashman: Writer | Producer

Alon is a performer, director, creator, and producer of theatre. Selected acting credits include: The Children’s Republic (HGJT/Koffler Arts), The Merchant of Venice (Theatre Bash’d), The Breathing Hole (National Arts Centre), Birds of a Kind, Hirsch (Stratford Festival), I send you this cadmium red (Art of Time Ensemble), Much Ado About Nothing, Forests, Scorched, Democracy, Remnants, Alias Godot (Tarragon Theatre), Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well, Botticelli in the Fire/Sunday in Sodom, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, THIS (Canadian Stage), The Wild Duck (Soulpepper), Hedda Gabler (Volcano/Buddies in Bad Times), If Jesus Met Nanabush (De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre), and Tales of Two Cities (Tafelmusik). Alon established Theaturtle in 1999 to create essential, ecstatic theatre that touches the earth and agitates the soul. With Theaturtle, Alon has been involved with the creation and touring of numerous theatre pieces, such as Adam Nashman’s The Song, Wajdi Mouawad’s Alphonse, Kafka and Son developed with Mark Cassidy of Threshold Theatre, and The Snow Queen, scored for string quartet and narrator by Patrick Cardy. Alon wrote the libretto for Charlotte: A Tri-coloured Play with Music which premiered at Toronto’s Luminato Festival and has toured to Taiwan, Israel and Europe, including the Czech National Opera.

Carmen Braden: Music Director | Composition | Sound Design

Carmen is a versatile, genre-jumping musician from the Canadian sub-Arctic. Winner of the 2019 and 2020 Western Canadian Music Award for Classical Composer of the Year, Carmen is a composer/performer based in her hometown of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Hailed as “a talented, bold musician” (Up Here Magazine), Carmen is a life-long Northerner whose music has been described as “drop-dead gorgeous” (Ottawa Citizen). Carmen’s second studio album Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars (2019) was nominated for an East Coast Music Award for Classical Album of the Year. Her debut studio album Ravens was released in 2017 – both albums are on the Centrediscs label.

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