A profile of HORIZON Performers on International Women’s Day

March 8 is International Women’s Day, an initiative celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. This year’s theme is #EqualityMatters, encouraging people to be leaders within their own spheres of influence to accelerate gender parity and help advance the global status of women.

In honour of International Women’s Day, we want to highlight three women we met during the production of HORIZON who are using the arts to share their perspectives and influence positive change in their communities.

Preteens Samantha Metcalfe and Cailyn Degrandpre have been performing as Inuit throat singers for nearly half their lives. They first learned to throat sing at the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre. This style of singing is an Inuit tradition, passed down from generation to generation, but was once considered a controversial act of rebellion. For decades, it was banned by missionaries in residential schools, as part of a larger social and political movement to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. Throat singing was just one of many traditions repressed during this dark era in Canadian history, but the ban was finally lifted in the 1980s.

Though the girls cannot make up for lost time, Metcalfe and Degrandpre say throat singing is extremely important to them. By reclaiming this tradition, their goal is to recognize and honour the experiences of Indigenous children in residential schools and carry the tradition forward for the next generation to preserve and share.

Watch Tarniriik perform at Ottawa’s Remic Rapids Park

Margie Gillis is an internationally acclaimed modern dancer and choreographer from Montreal, Quebec. Her interpretive style of dance explores the many facets of the human soul. In 1979, she was invited to teach as a guest lecturer at a university in China, becoming the first person to introduce modern dance to the country since the Cultural Revolution. She was subsequently named Canadian Cultural Ambassador in 1981. That year, she also founded the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, where she has now been experimenting, teaching, creating and sharing a love for dance for over three decades.

In addition to her achievements in the dance community, Gillis is a social advocate for many causes including OXFAM and the Planned Parenthood Foundation. She is also a fierce defender of environmental causes, offering support to organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation.

Watch our behind the scenes interview with Margie Gillis, when she performed at Sandbanks Provincial Park.

We’re honoured to share the art and the message of these inspirational women, actively making our country and our world a better place. They are just a few of the incredible Canadians behind the SESQUI experience and we look forward to sharing more of their stories with you this year.