Native Earth Performing Arts

Volunteers who generously share their time and skills with Native Earth have the opportunity to learn from our dynamic team. There is always something exciting happening, whether it’s gearing up for the upcoming season, sending out newsletters, selling merchandise before a show, helping plan events, or assisting one of our talented staff members in the office. You will have the opportunity to learn different aspects of running an arts company while being involved in the arts community and have the chance to see one our shows. Native Earth lives by seven core values: Tolerance, Wisdom, Respect, Strength of Character, Humility, Patience, and Generosity. As an Aboriginal Arts Company, this is how we live and work. Anyone who becomes a part of the Native Earth family is also expected to adopt these values. Many of our current staff have been volunteers, which makes for a very respectful work environment.

Made to Order is a program that caters to individual organizations, schools, businesses, etc. The program was created so that anyone within Canada can book Native Earth for their event online or over the phone. Some examples of our past Made to Orders range from Savage, a piece about living as an Aboriginal homosexual in rural Canada, which played at Fort Francis High School, to Taking Pride, a piece about school mascots and what it means to represent your culture, which played at Westhill Collegiate, to Strong Medicine, a piece about traditional practices with tobacco, which played for The Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy Conference. We also offer a nice variety of professionally facilitated workshops some of which are: Traditional & Contemporary Dance, Aboriginal Singing & Drumming, and Improv. Be creative at your next event and have Native Earth create, illustrate, and send the audience home with the message you want.

NEPA offers hands on engagement with established professional artists in a three-stream training program comprising Professional Development Workshops, Apprenticeships and New Creation Practise.

We are open to arts practitioners in every aspect of the field, including performers, creators, designers, directors, dramaturges, curators, producers, technicians and administrators. Apprenticeships afford emerging arts practitioners the opportunity to assistant direct a mainstage show, to contribute to policy development or to play a leading role in festival coordination. Workshops in new media, staging ceremony and spoken word look to keep our artists abreast of current practices.

Through a close relationship with artists at all stages of their careers we know that we are investing in the future leadership of this organization.

Animikiig is an entry point into play creation, ideal for artists beginning to explore their stories, moving into theatre from another form or wanting to become more familiar with the conventions of Indigenous playwriting.

Thundering Voices seeks to support playwrights through the creation of a new work and to forge relationships between playwrights and other artistic collaborators (dramaturges, directors, designers, choreographers).

Both tiers of development are accessible to artists outside Toronto through Distance Dramaturgy. These programs and the annual festival where participants gather help us to build a community of storytellers who will support, commiserate, teach, inspire and elevate each other.