User:Ffavel/sandbox

Floyd Favel-Cree cultural theorist and theatre director

(1964-)

Favel was born on the Poundmaker Indian reserve in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. He grew up in the Cree language and speaks it fluently. He went to public schools in nearby towns and cities. Upon finishing school he attended the Native Theatre School in Toronto, Ontario. He then went onto studying theatre in Denmark at the Tukak Teatret, a school for Inuit and Sami actors. He then went onto study at the Centro di Lavori di Grotowski, in Pontedera, Italy. There he studied with the great Polish theatre director and innovator, Jerzy Grotowski. While in Italy he studied with Polish actress Rena Mirecka and he credits her in many of his teachings and current work.

Upon finishing his formal studies he came back to Canada and worked across the country and in the United States in such places as; The National Arts Centre of Canada, Canada Dance Festival, National Museum of the American Indian, Museum of Civilization and History in Ottawa, The Globe Theatre, The Citadel Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, New Dance Horizons, Denver Art Museum.

With Wendat/Quebec artist Alix Van Der Donckt Ferrand he produced films on Plains Indian Sign Language and one on the burning of the Delmas Indian Residential School in 1948 and this film was presented at the International Presence du Autochtone Film Festival in Montreal, in August2021. Together they have also published books on Cree stories. With Dr. Ulla Neuerburg of Montreal he began to develop his Indigenous theatre method in Montreal at Concordia University and he began to develop his original pedagogy.

He published in locally in local newspapers, and published articles and essays nationally and internationally. His book of theatre theory essays and journalism ' Piszacy z Ziemi, edited and translated by Dr. Eugenia Sojka and Dr. Aneta Glowacka' was published in Poland in 2022.

He has innovated Indigenous theatre by creating a theatrical method based on Indigenous ritual and social structures. In 2018 he began to work with Dr. Sabina Sweta Sen Podstawska, a Bengali/Polish Odissi dancer from Poland and they began the process of turning the theories into performance practice. She is the co-author of this stage of the process. It is the only Indigenous theatrical method in the world, and each year he presents a festival where he invites theatre and performance artists to his community to perform and present. With Dr.Lanny Real Bird, of the Crow Nation of Montana, Favel has also revived the use of Plains Indian Sign Language for use in language development for Indigenous people and also for the deaf and hard of hearing Indigenous community.

He lives in his community in his off-grid culture site that he has built and also invites Indigenous ritual practitioners to conduct healing ceremonies for his people.