O.Dela Arts supports the research, creation, production, and touring of creative activities, choreography, and installations and provides the platform for educational and community projects offered by Artistic Director, Olivia C. Davies. O.Dela Arts values generosity, integrity, and an openness to learn. The mandate of O.Dela Arts Society is to support Canadian Indigenous choreographer, Olivia C. Davies, (Anishinaabe) in the creation and production of choreography, community-engaged projects, creative collaboration projects and commissions. Since its inception in 2018, O.Dela Arts’ programming seeks to develop audiences for Contemporary Indigenous dance and multidisciplinary arts. The organization has built a solid foundation of peer exchange, professional development opportunities and performance series. In celebration of Indigenous women dancing stories of transformation and coinciding with National Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we curated the first Matriarchs Uprising Festival in June 2019 to showcase works by Indigenous choreographers from Australia, Canada, and the US. The events solidified our goals of becoming an organization that supports multiple voices and visions through our artistic curation.

In this virtual circle conversation setting, we invite listeners to sit in circle and hold space for women to speak our truth about the ways our creative acts connect us to our communities, help define our worldview, and communicate our dreams for the future. Talking Truths: Circle Conversation extends new ways of viewing Indigenous and Community art as an act of healing, political assertion, and cultural continuation. These events are curated by O.Dela Arts, Artistic Director, Olivia C. Davies to engage audiences in new learning about the nuances of Contemporary creative performance, storytelling, dance and song.

Olivia C. Davies is a dance artist, choreographer, community-arts facilitator and emerging writer of Anishinaabe, French-Canadian, Finnish and Welsh heritage. Davies’ works often explore the emotional and political relationships between people and places. Her recent choreographic explorations are driven by a desire to explore neo-traditional aspects of her Indigeneity, story-weaving, and collaborative projects that bring about new awareness of the world around us.

Davies formally trained at York University and was an apprentice with Body Narratives Collective, Raven Spirit Dance and Starrwind Dance Projects and collaborated with Diane Roberts (Arrivals Legacy Project) in developing community-engagement facilitation skills. She is a founding member of the MataDanze Collective (2005), Circadia Indigena Aboriginal Arts Collective (2016), and Crow’s Nest Collective (2016). Davies was artist in residence at The Dance Centre  for the 2018-2019 season where she curated the inaugural CoexisDance Western Edition and Matriarchs Uprising festival. The festival was co-presented in 2020 with Talking Stick Festival and continues to provide new context for Contemporary Indigenous dance with online presentations and showcases.

Davies’ choreography transmits narrative. She has collaborated with Canadian spoken word artists Julie Peters (I Want, 2018) and Melissa Frost (Gidaashi, 2019, Wishing Well, 2020), and with award-winning author Carmen Aguirre to adapt the short story Open Fire (2015). Davies combined forces with celebrated Coast Salish storyteller Rosemary Georgeson to create Crow’s Nest and Other Places She’s Gone (2017) exploring the shifting landscapes of refuge and dispossession experienced by Indigenous women. Directions (2018) activated the garden stage of a private residence in East Vancouver, while Kichissipi Love (2019) activated the banks of the Ottawa River; each work building on a solid foundation of site-specific performances that subvert the audience gaze to revel in the world of land-based dance and ritual.

Davies’ community-engagement practice includes facilitation of Home: Our Way dance and story-weaving workshops, Healthy Aging Through The Arts, and collective creation labs. Davies facilitates spaces for movers to find their unique expression of personal legacy. Her work has been presented across Canada since 2004. She has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and the First Peoples Cultural Council. To learn more about her company, collaborations and projects, please visit www.oliviacdavies.ca

Maura García (non-enrolled Cherokee/Mattamuskeet) is a dancer, choreographer and erotic artist. Her vibrant creations channel the sensual rhythms of the natural world and inspire people to liberate themselves. She makes original work and collaborates with other creatives and clients to produce: new dance works, music videos, theatre productions, fashion shows, sex shows, live music shows, private performances and erotic print art. At the root, Maura’s luscious work is powered by a desire to bring ancestral wisdom to life, to respect the living earth and to bring happiness to people. To learn more please visit her website.

Winnipeg-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, collaboration and Métis-Assiniboine + settler roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie has a passion for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography. With a unique list of credits deeply impacting personal process and vocabulary, Sophie has experienced the bounties of working with some of Turtle Island’s wonderful dance innovators, including Chimera Dance Theatre, Kaeja d’Dance & O.Dela Arts. In 2021/22, Sophie fulfills roles as: a creative director of FLIGHT: PEC’s Festival of Contemporary Dance, residency artist with NuSqool/KindePay, Dance West Network & Dance Victoria, musician with The Honeycomb Flyers and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Thai Massage.

Christine Friday is based in her home territory Bear Island, Lake Temagami creating dreams into reality as a proficient resilient Indigenous storyteller. She began her career with In the Land of Spirits in 1992 and has maintained a professional dance career for 30 years. She is deeply connected to the cultural wellness of her Anishinaabe people, specifically Temagami First Nation  Her company, Friday Creeations, a film and stage Production Company, has allowed her to transition her skills as a Dance artist and Director into filmmaking to broaden her audience while fulfilling her potential. Christine is the recipient of the 2018 K.M. Hunter Award for Dance through the Ontario Arts Council. She is currently in the development of activating Cultural Creation spaces in her community.

Jeanette Kotowich is a multi-disciplinary iskwêw, independent dance artist, creator, choreographer and professional Auntie of Nêhiyaw Métis and mixed settler ancestry. Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, she creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of contemporary dance, Indigenous performance, and Indigenous futurism. Fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, de-colonial practices and embodied research methodologies; Jeanette’s work references protocol, ritual, relationship to the natural/spirit world and Ancestral knowledge. Her practice is intergenerational and vocational; it’s a living and lived experience. Jeanette resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) əl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ/ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territories, colonially known as Vancouver. To learn more please visit her website.