The Auditorium showcases local talent at community celebration
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — The Auditorium’s Community Celebration of Local Talent included performances by the Algonquin Avenue Public School Choir and Red Rock Indian Band’s Ron Kanutski on October 14 in Thunder Bay. The Art in Motion Dancers, Rodney Brown, Dulcisono Choir, Theresa Thibert, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra Quartet, and Cole Myroniuk also performed during the Community Celebration of Local Talent.
“We have a great bunch of kids from Grade 3 up to Grade 8,” says Corine Bannon, Native Language Teacher at Algonquin Avenue Public School, one of the Choir Instructors and a Fort William First Nation citizen. “They did really great, they did an amazing job. They were a little nervous, but so was I.”
Bannon says the choir opened up their performance with a traditional song from Orville Councillor.
“Then, we blended in the Migisi song, which is another very powerful Anishinaabe song,” Bannon says. “Because we only had five minutes, we had to do only two verses and then we blended in the Wildflower song. After that, we did a more contemporary one, which is the Somewhere Only We Know by Keane — they had a lot of fun with it.”
Bannon says the choir did a lot of practice at school to prepare for the performance.
“When they grow up, this is their city, so performing at these kind of events gives them the confidence to feel like they belong, and I think that’s really important, that feeling of belonging,” Bannon says.
Kanutski says he did a 10-minute comedy performance during the Community Celebration of Local Talent.
“I’ve been here playing the flute, I’ve been here playing music, but I’ve never done comedy, so it was a chance to come up and do 10 minutes,” Kanutski says. “My material is quite different here.”
Kanutski says he wrote his comedy material for the performance, including the aloe vera plant joke, during the day of the performance.
“Everything is based on truth, of course,” Kanutski says. “I did have an aloe vera plant that I was going to throw out and I just resurrected it and I’m keeping it alive.”
Kanutski says he’s been doing comedy for about 14 years, noting that he started doing comedy in the remote fly-in community of Nibinamik First Nation.
“I was asked by Johnny Yellowhead to do some jokes because all of the entertainment had been snowed out,” Kanutski says. “He said, ‘Do you know anything that you can tell.’”
Kanutski says he has done his comedy performances in four provinces across the country since then.
“I’ve worked in quite a few states in the United States of America, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois,” Kanutski says. “I get treated well there, I perform at a lot of casinos.”
Andrew Edwards, Acting General Manager at The Auditorium, says they recently changed their name to The Auditorium after being known as the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium for the past 40 years.
“At the heart of everything we do is representing our community,” Edwards says. “Indigenous culture is a really big part of our community, and we have some amazing and talented Indigenous performers here in our own back yard, so we felt [it was] absolutely necessary and appropriate to showcase some of that to the community.”
Edwards says they recently had Bear Grease The Musical in early October at The Auditorium.
“We had over 1,000 people in here for an all Indigenous musical,” Edwards says. “It was fantastic, we’re looking to bring that show back again.”
Edwards says they look forward to continuing to diversify their events and performances, noting that there has been a lack of representation by Indigenous performers at The Auditorium over the past 40 years.
“In our 40th year, I’m pretty proud to say we had Bear Grease The Musical, we had Snotty Nose Rez Kids, we had Sara Kae perform, we had Aysanabee, and tonight we had Ron Kanutski and the Algonquin School Choir,” Edwards says. “As we move forward, that commitment is un-wavered, we’re going to continue to diversify.”