Powwow

The University of Toronto Mississauga will hold its first All-Nations Powwow on March 25. The event is co-hosted by U of T Mississauga's Indigenous Centre and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN).

“This powwow is such an exciting opportunity to celebrate the beauty, joy, and vitality of Indigenous cultures,” said Alexandra Gillespie, vice-president and principal of U of T Mississauga. “It also marks another step in realizing University of Toronto Mississauga's central commitment to reciprocity, as we work to build true friendships with Indigenous nations and answer the Calls to Action for Truth and Reconciliation.

“Sincere thanks to the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation for the privilege of co-hosting this event with them."

“We want to say chi miigwech for taking time out of your life to attend the event, learning about Mississaugas of the Credit/Mississauga Nation history, language and culture – and for University of Toronto Mississauga making space for us to be here on our territory to celebrate through a powwow,” said Veronica King-Jamieson, a MCFN councillor. “This provides an opportunity to build on relationships within our communities across Ontario.”

Doors will open at 11 a.m. and events will run from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Recreation, Athletic & Wellness Centre.

The schedule features a full day of traditional singing and dancing, including a grand entry ceremony at noon as well as intertribal, spot and exhibition dances.

At 2 p.m., dancers will compete in the Tia Lyn Copenace Jingle Dress Dance Special. Jingle dresses – also known as prayer dresses – are believed to bring healing through the shape and sound of their jingles.

When U of T Mississauga's Office of Indigenous Initiatives (OII-UTM) first opened last year, director Tee Duke cited hosting a powwow – an idea that Duke and her team had considered since 2020 but had to put on hold during pandemic restrictions – to be a priority.

“A powwow is a huge social gathering, so it was important to wait to ensure we could all be together again – in person and safely,” Duke said.

In addition to performances, the powwow will include tables featuring Indigenous-owned businesses, with products ranging from apparel and artwork to jewelry and food. There will also be booths on site sharing information about Indigenous community groups and U of T services.

The powwow is part of the campus’s ongoing commitment to meet the recommendations in Answering the Call: Wecheehetowin, the final report of U of T’s Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee.

Pre-registration is highly recommended, but not required. For more information, visit the All-Nations Powwow site, which features details on powwow protocols and etiquette.

Attendees wishing to join in during the intertribal dance are invited to learn basic steps from Deanne Hupfield, the powwow’s head adult dancer.

Although the powwow is a celebration of Indigenous community, history, ceremony and culture, the event is open to the wider community, Duke noted.

“All are welcome to attend,” she said. “Powwows are for everyone to take in opportunities to build friendship with one another."

Sixth annual Honouring Our Students Pow Wow brings together Indigenous community

mattimar — Tue, 17 May 2022 15:44:35 +0000

Sixth annual Honouring Our Students Pow Wow brings together Indigenous community

mattimar Tue, 05/17/2022 - 11:44

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Lua Mondor, a second-year art history student, was one of 10 dancers who took part in the filming of the sixth annual Honouring Our Students Pow Wow (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Indigenous

Powwow

Undergraduate Students

On a recent sunny afternoon at the University of Toronto’s back campus fields, Lua Mondor took her place in front of the cameras.

With music by Young Tribe blaring on the speakers, the metal cones on her jingle dress – made from the lids of chewing tobacco cans – chimed as she began her performance for the sixth annual Honouring Our Students Pow Wow.

In her second year of art history in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Mondor says she is the first in her immediate family to take part in powwow dancing – part of an effort to connect more deeply with her heritage.

“My mom grew up in the foster care system, so we don’t know where she came from – we still don’t know her exact reserve,” Mondor says.

She adds that she began dancing during the pandemic and has already inspired her younger sibling to follow in her footsteps.

“We jam out to powwow music in my room.”

Mondor is one of the 10 dancers who was filmed in-person for this year’s Honouring Our Students Pow Wow event, which is being presented in a hybrid format and is hosted by the Indigenous Studies Students’ Union (ISSU).

With the help of U of T’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, the ISSU recently filmed dancers on the St. George campus. The video will launch on May 20 at 12 p.m. ET on the ISSU’s YouTube channel. The clips will be edited together with community submissions, an opening prayer and more.

ISSU president Teagan de Laronde, who is specializing in Indigenous studies and minoring in political science and religion, and ISSU co-ordinator Anna Feredounnia-Meawasige, were both excited to hold a portion of the powwow in-person.

“It’s nice to have that sense of community again and kind of feel like things are getting back to that,” says Feredounnia-Meawasige, who is specializing in Indigenous and environmental studies and minoring in environmental ethics at U of T.

Although the celebration will be presented virtually, Feredounnia-Meawasige wants to make sure the event embodies the “essence” of an in-person powwow.

“One big thing is that we usually try to have an opening prayer, which is standard protocol whether you’re in-person or online. We go through a list of protocols so that usually signifies that this is a special and cultural event,” she explains.

As for Mondor, she excitedly shares why her regalia – including a black jingle dress – holds so much meaning.

“Our dresses have spirits in them,” she says. “My dress is a healing dress, it came about in the Spanish flu. An Elder had a dream about this dress because there was a lot of sick people in their village.”

There are variations of the story but, as Mondor tells it, after the Elder’s dream, the women in the village sewed the jingle dress and it eventually healed a sick girl.

Mondor says that dancing in powwows has helped her reclaim her roots. To honour her ancestors, she introduced herself in Anishinaabemowin.

“It’s a way to not only introduce yourself to people, but the space around you and your ancestors because we weren’t allowed to speak the language for so many years.”

When the ISSU posted a callout for powwow dancers on social media, Sara Pitawanakwat immediately asked her nine-year-old daughter Emilee Ann if she wanted to participate.

“She hasn’t danced at a powwow since the pandemic,” says Pitawanakwat, who is originally from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island. “Being dressed in her regalia brings out her spirit as a child and it makes her happy.”

Pitawanakwat sewed her daughter’s regalia, noting she was just 15 months old when she danced her first powwow with her cousin. “She was so effortless and danced as if she knew how to dance already,” Pitawanakwat says. “It was so beautiful. It was in that moment; I knew I had to start making her regalia.”

Nine-year-old Emilee Ann Pitawanakwat wears regalia that was sewn by her mother (photo by David Lee)

Not only a talented dancer, Emilee Ann is also an award-winning co-director of a Canadian music video thanks to a chance encounter with Toronto recording artist Andrea Ramolo at an Every Child Matters march last year – a meeting that led to a close bond and an opportunity for collaboration.

“She approached us and asked if Emilee Ann would be willing to star in her music video,” says Pitawanakwat, adding that Ramolo and Emilee Ann then had several brainstorming sessions about what the artist’s song “Free” meant to her. She co-directed and starred in the music video.

In March, the music video won a Canadian Independent Music Video Award in the folk category.

“I’m so proud of her accomplishments and where dance has taken her,” said Pitawanakwat. “As long as she loves it… she’s performed at so many places, it’s opened a lot of doors for her.”

As for de Laronde, this year’s powwow holds special meaning since she is graduating this year. She says the ISSU events are her way of “saying goodbye to the university.”

Feredounnia-Meawasige, meanwhile, plans to do her master’s degree at U of T in ecology and evolutionary biology – and hopes that she can participate in the powwow planning next year and that it will return to a fully in-person event.

“I really enjoy having my community around me, it makes me feel better and it makes me happier,” she says.

First-year student takes big step as head female dancer at U of T powwow

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 16:20:31 +0000

First-year student takes big step as head female dancer at U of T powwow

geoff.vendeville Mon, 03/18/2019 - 12:20

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Miyopin Cheechoo, a first-year student studying humanities, was the head female dancer at the U of T powwow organized by the Indigenous Studies Students' Union (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

City & Culture

Centre for Indigenous Studies

Undergraduate Students

University College

Miyopin Cheechoo hasn't even been a University of Toronto student for a year, and she was already asked to fill important shoes as head female dancer of the spring powwow.

The Cree student from Moosonee has been dancing at powwows in northern Ontario basically as long as she could walk, but this was her first in Canada's largest city.

“It's a big responsibility because you're representing not only your tribe but also your community, your family and Indigenous Peoples here,” she says. “It's a lot actually.”

Miyopin Cheechoo, the head female dancer and a New College student, poses for a portrait at the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

If she had any pre-dance jitters, they seemed to melt away as she took the floor at the Goldring Centre on Saturday for the grand entry. In red polka dot print and wearing eagle feathers and beadwork given to her by her aunt, she danced to the drumbeat alongside the head male dancer, Amos Key Jr., an assistant professor at the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the department of linguistics.

An age gap of almost five decades separated the head dancers, but they danced in harmony. Cheechoo says she looked to Key for guidance when she lost her place. Key, a member of Mohawk Nation from Six Nations of Grand River Territory, has no shortage of experience, spending much of his summers at powwows across southern Ontario.

On the sidelines, more than 100 people watched the event or left their seats to join in. The Indigenous Studies Students' Union put on the event for the third year in a row after resurrecting a campus tradition that was lost for 20 years. Earlier the same week, U of T Scarborough hosted its first Indigenous conference and powwow.

Ziigwen Mixemong, the membership co-ordinator at ISSU and the head female dancer last year, says she had planned to invite Cheechoo to be the next head dancer even before she was a U of T student. They met through the Soar program, a week-long campus visit for Indigenous students in Grades 9 through 12 hosted by the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education. Mixemong, now a third-year student at University College and former on-site co-ordinator at Soar, says Cheechoo struck her as an “empowering young woman” who could rise to the challenge of being head dancer.

Miyopin Cheechoo, centre, holds hands on the gym floor. Ziigwen Mixemong of the Indigenous Studies Students' Union is on the far left and Amos Key Jr, the head male dancer and an assistant professor of Indigenous studies, is on the far right (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

It's a role that comes with challenges, not least of which is to stay on your feet all day. The dancing took a toll on Mixemong, but the soreness only caught up afterwards, she recalls. “When you're dancing you don't really feel pain because it's just about the beauty of dancing,” she says.

Maybe the biggest responsibility of the head dancer is to get people on their feet and keep the party going. “Powwows aren't a spectator sport,” Mixemong says. ”I always say, if you haven't danced at a powwow, you haven't been to a powwow.”

In her earliest memories of powwow dancing, Cheechoo is wearing her purple butterfly print regalia and dancing her heart out. Others kids might run around and play, but her mom Christina used to say, “You're not here to run around, you're here to dance.”

Young and old danced across the gym floor at the U of T powwow over the weekend (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Her father Don didn't want to miss seeing his daughter make her debut at a Toronto powwow. Earlier in the week, he and his truck made the six-hour train trip from Moose Factory to Cochrane, Ont., and then he drove another 10 hours to U of T. He sat in the bleachers with his daughter's friends.

It's not easy being so far away from his daughter, he says. “I miss her all the time, every day,” he tells U of T News, “and I worry about her all the time now that she's in the big city, but she's doing really well.”

He was happy to see that U of T students organize a celebration of Indigenous languages, cultures and communities that attracts a large crowd each year. “First Nations have been underrepresented and marginalized,” he says. “It's good to have this at a major university and have that recognition that we are here, we exist.”

Miyopin agrees. “Having an event like this at U of T is important for Indigenous representation, and also it provides a space for both Indigenous Peoples and settlers to interact in a way that's fun.”

The Indigenous Studies Students' Union organized the powwow, the third event of its kind at U of T after the tradition went dormant for 20 years (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

U of T's giant powwow draws hundreds of people from across the province

hjames — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 21:00:49 +0000

U of T's giant powwow draws hundreds of people from across the province

hjames Mon, 03/13/2017 - 17:00

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Traditional dancers performed at Saturday's powwow to celebrate Canada's indigeneity (photo by Hannah James)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

Hundreds gathered at the University of Toronto's Athletic Centre on Saturday for a major powwow, featuring traditional dancers, food and Indigenous culture.

The event, organized by the university's Indigenous Studies Student Union, was the first powwow at U of T in 20 years. It drew young and old from across the province, including Carolyn Bennett, the federal Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and a U of T alumna.

Bennett spoke briefly at the event and presented the Indigenous Studies Student Union with a painting of a wolf.

Indigenous student leader Zachary Biech is one of the faces behind U of T's grand powwow this weekend

hjames — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 19:24:51 +0000

Indigenous student leader Zachary Biech is one of the faces behind U of T's grand powwow this weekend

hjames Fri, 03/10/2017 - 14:24

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Law student Zachary Biech is a founder member of the Indigenous Studies Student Union and will be a flag bearer at Saturday's powwow (photo by Hannah James)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

When Zachary Biech – a descendant of the legendary Chief Poundmaker – first arrived at U of T he had little connection to his Plains Cree ancestry.

By the time he finished his degree in Indigenous studies, Biech (who describes Poundmaker as his uncle of seven generations) was well on his way to becoming an engaged student leader.

Biech, now a first year law student, has been asked to be a flag bearer at Saturday's first-large scale powwow in decades. The powwow is organized by the Indigenous Studies Student Union, which he founded less than two years ago.

Read the Metro News story about the powwow

The Indigenous Studies Student Union has also been awarded the Sanjeev (Sanj) Dewett Course Union of the Year Award by the Arts and Science Student's Union, which will be presented officially to the union on March 22.

“The group is meant to be a symbol of hope, and I think it’s living proof because it shows a small group of friends with a good idea really can change everything,” says Biech.

Inspired by his ancestors – like Chief Poundmaker (pictured above, courtesy of Archives Canada), and celebrated scholars Freda Ahenakew and Edward Ahenakew – Biech says as he continues to study at U of T, he remains dedicated to standing up for his people.

“It was the greatest gift to me to come here and learn about my people, my culture and other Indigenous cultures," he says.

Powwow

‘All are welcome’: U of T Mississauga to host inaugural All-Nations Powwow

Sixth annual Honouring Our Students Pow Wow brings together Indigenous community

First-year student takes big step as head female dancer at U of T powwow

U of T's giant powwow draws hundreds of people from across the province

Read more at CBC News

Read more about U of T's response to TRC

Read more about organizers

Read more about the event

Indigenous student leader Zachary Biech is one of the faces behind U of T's grand powwow this weekend

Read more about the powwow

Read the Metro News story about the powwow