Poetry Cafe

The Poundmaker Performance Festival Spoken Word Poetry Cafe is a space for our stories, cultures, and identities to come alive as we share our healing arts of oral storytelling. Featuring a young ensemble of Treaty 6 spoken word artists, ecoaborijanelle, Sissy Thiessen-Kootenayoo, Dash Reimer, and Peace Akintade will sure spark your heart as they speak life to their poetry. The event is all ages with a special content advisement of decolonial, anti-racist, and mature content in solidarity with the land.”
Our first performer and host for the poetry cafe is Janelle ‘ecoaborijanelle’ Pewapsconias (s/her), a multidimensional nehīyaw spoken word artist from Little Pine First Nation. Influenced by nehiyaw oral storytelling customs and slam poetry, ecoaborijanelle has competed nationally thrice, published in the American Indian Culture Research Journal, and has delivered a TEDx Talk. Her dedication to honour the Earth inspires her to perform, design and create art from her home community with her son and dog, surrounded by the endless living skies and rolling prairies.
Dash Reimer (he/him) is a spoken word poet and hip hop artist. He has a decade of experience performing on stages across Canada, Africa and Turkey. Dash is passionate about community building and collaboration, having been a co-director of Write Out Loud for many years as well as an avid collaborator in playwriting, jazz combos, improv troupes, rap groups and everything in between. He loves baking, biking and making you feel some type of way.
Peace Akintade is an African Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon, SK. Peace was the 2020- 2021 Saskatchewan Youth Poet Laurate, Co-coordinator a Saskatoon-based youth poetry community Write Out Loud, and board member of the Tonight it's Poetry Community. One of the 21 Black Playwrights chosen for Obsidian Theatre's 21 Black Future Project. Her play "Madness with Rocks" can be found on CBCArts and CBCGem.
Her poems touch on the impact of slavery in her village, colorism, growing up in Kuwait, Nigeria, and Canada, and relearning her culture in the face of colonization. She dreams of a world where poetry is accessible and interconnected with different art media.
The creative mind behind breakout IndigiKing Drag character “Stone E Rivers,” Sissy Thiessen Kootenayoo is an Treaty 6 Nakota Sioux, Cree, and German cultural facilitator, Powwow dancer, crafter/beader, spoken word poet, and creative writer. She maintains ancestral roots in both Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation and Steinbach, Manitoba.
Since 2014, Sissy has been living and working as an Indigenous artist, performer, producer, community leader, and facilitator based out of Edmonton, Alberta. She operates her own Indigenous cultural education and performance business- Wase Saba Experiences and lives her passion of educating audiences from all around the world on Treaty 6 Indigenous history, issues, and culture as an Indigenous artist, community leader, and facilitator.
Poundmaker Indigenous Performance Festival 2021
Miyawata Culture Inc.