Cree theatre director, playwright, essayist and writer Floyd Favel has been awarded a grant of $15,000 by the Saskatchewan Arts Board to compile a series of essays on his research into native performance culture.

Favel’s research has looked into structuring of a theatre process based on indigenous ritual and social structures. It is the only articulated theatre process in the world by an Indigenous theatre artist.

“This is the culmination of decades of practical and theoretical research into theatre and its relationship with the Iindigenous cultures of Turtle Island,” Favel explains.

“This was one of my goals years ago when I started in theatre, it is my life’s work you could say.”

Favel says his research took him to various indigenous communities in Canada, the United States and the world.

“I also talked and worked with many great theatre people and posed questions, but most importantly it is based on my own Cree background and stories and observations from my culture.”

Favel studied theatre at the Tukak Teatret in Denmark, a school for Inuit and Sami People. Following these studies he studied with the legendary Polish theatre director and theoretician Jerzy Grotowski at the Centro di Lavoro di Grotowski in Pontedera, Italy.

Upon returning to Canada, Favel worked as a writer, theatre and dance director, playwright and journalist. His work has been produced or presented at the Globe Theatre, New Dance Horizons, the National Arts Centre, Montreal Playwrights Workshop, Ondinnok Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Gwandaak Theatre Adventures, the Denver Art Museum, Santa Fe Institute of American Indian Arts and the National Museum of the American Indian.

He has taught seminars at Enowkin Centre, Concordia University, Brandon University, the National Theatre School of Canada, University of Victoria in Australia and UBC in Kelowna, B.C. His writings have been published in Canada, the United States and Europe, and he is an emerging film producer, currently coproducing a film with Kunuk Cohn Productions from Montreal.

The book will consist of new and previously published essays by Favel, interviews conducted with world indigenous theatre and cultural practitioners and essays by invited theatre artists and researchers.

Favel is the director of Miyawata Films, a film production company devoted to developing films that promote Indigenous cultures and languages.