Red Rock Indian Band artist performs at Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s newest exhibition opening
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Red Rock Indian Band’s Ron Kanutski enjoyed performing his Native American flute music during the opening of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s Indigenous Ingenuity exhibition on Dec. 17. The exhibition, which runs from Dec. 10, 2021 to Feb. 21, 2022, is presented by Indigenous Tourism Ontario and Science North in collaboration with the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
“I was asked by Dave Simard and the Science North team to do the opening,” says Kanutski, comedian, musician and owner/sole proprietor at With Care Consulting. “I shared one song, and the song is one of the few that sort of came from my spirit. The song was called I Wish, and it’s a song that I use to promote healthy change or to be optimistic about the future and to celebrate things that blossom — it’s a song of gratitude, it’s just hoping for things to be better and for things to be positive.”
Kanutski says “a lot of people” enjoyed his performance and asked him afterwards if he had an album of his flute music.
“[But] no, I’ve never put an album together in relation to the flute,” Kanutski says. “I was kind of shocked that people enjoyed it at that level. That instrument was gifted to me and I just learned to play it from spirit. It’s just something that I do and people are requesting for it a lot more these days.”
Kanutski says the flute was gifted to him about 10-12 years ago by William Buchholtz, a musician from Chicago, and he was taught by a friend about some of the basics of the flute and the scale, noting that he already knew how to play the drum and guitar before taking up the flute.
“Now I’ve got 10 or 12 [flutes],” Kanutski says. “Over the years, I’ve bought a couple of different keys, they come in various keys.”
Kanutski says he has been asked by a couple of organizations to do some online virtual shows, so he plans to ask some flute players from the area to perform with him.
“I’m going to bring a bunch of them online one night and we’re just going to do a mini show, and maybe not just perform but actually show how it’s played and encourage other people to want to do it,” Kanutski says.
Kanutski says he has been doing virtual classroom presentations for schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and has some drum and flute presentations scheduled.
“I just did a comedy show with Oshki-Wenjack (Oshki-Pimache-O-Win The Wenjack Education Institute) for their orientation for their students and talked about careers,” Kanutski says. “I’ve got a radio show coming up that’s going to be live on Facebook with Jon Roberts, another comedian, on KBFT 89.9 FM. They’re out of Bois Forte, Minnesota.”
Kanutski says he also has “a bunch of outstanding” comedy shows that will likely have to be cancelled if the current wave of the pandemic continues on.
“We’re going to just keep the dates open in case [we have] the chance to get back to performing,” Kanutski says. “Even at 50 per cent, we’re going to try to get it going again in February.”
Kanutski says his indoor healing circles at the Sister Margaret Smith Centre in Thunder Bay started up again in September, but they had to be moved back to an online virtual format for the next three or four weeks due to the current wave of the pandemic.
“It gives a place for people to come and hang out and visit,” Kanutski says. “It gives them something to participate in, so I thought we’ll just keep it going.”
Kanutski says he also created two Facebook Live shows, Ron’s World and In My Circle, where he interviewed musicians, actors, authors and other people during the pandemic.