Urban Ink Presents GUIDE MY WAY: A Celebration Of The Music From Sedna

Urban Ink presents Guide My Way: A Celebration of the Music from Sedna - ONE NIGHT ONLY! - on Friday, August 12th at the York Theatre.

Guide My Way premieres the music from Sedna and shines a spotlight on some of Vancouver's local musical talent, including Corey Payette, Chelsea Rose, Merewyn Comeau, and a feature performance by the JUNO nominated singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson. The concert will feature dancers with choreography by Shion Skye Carter and kick off the release of the Sedna album.

The Guide My Way concert is the result of Urban Ink's resiliency and commitment to continually move forward and create. In May of 2020, Urban Ink was scheduled to produce a full-scale production of Sedna, created by Corey Payette, Reneltta Arluk, & Marshall McMahen, in Stanley Park, but our production was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in November 2021, we faced another heartbreaking loss when the show's production materials, including the magical large-scale lantern puppets, were irreparably damaged in the flooding in Abbotsford. But COVID and the effects of the climate crisis have not stopped us. While the full scale production is still postponed, the music, and the spirit of Sedna carries on. Guide My Way concert celebrates the music through the concert and album release. The digital album will be available for sale at the event.

"We know audiences have been looking forward to seeing our production of Sedna in Stanley Park. And through this concert celebrating the music from the production, we will be able to come together and share the sounds of this new Indigenous work." says Corey Payette, Artistic Director of Urban Ink, Director and composer of Sedna.

Payette, composer, and director, uses his musical skill interweaving the contemporary with the traditional. Sedna features an original score by Payette, and additional new music by Inuk singer/songwriter Kelly Fraser. Payette, Arluk and McMahen collaborated for a number of years on the creation of this remarkable work to expand awareness that everyone is connected through water. And so we better protect it.

In the story of Sedna, an Indigenous woman named Selia, looking for work, wrestles with the pros and cons of an impending pipeline coming through her peoples' territory. On the day of the project's ground breaking ceremony a cataclysmic storm brings her face to face with Sedna, Goddess of the Arctic Sea, who opens her eyes to a wider perspective on the environment and all who depend on it.

Payette is the critically acclaimed composer and creator of Children of God, a musical about Oji-Cree children in residential schools, and Les Filles du Roi, created by Payette and Julie McIsaac, a trilingual musical film written in English, French and Kanien'Kéha (Mohawk) a story where Mohawk, French and English journeys collide, setting the stage for the Canada we know today. Payette was also a recipient of the inaugural British Columbia Reconciliation Award in 2021.

"We are so excited for our first live performance in over two years" states Melissa Tsang, Managing Director. "It's going to take a bit more time for us to bring the full-scale production of Sedna to life again, so to be able to celebrate the story through music makes this concert so much more meaningful."

The Guide My Way concert will feature an opening performance by the JUNO nominated singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson who won the CBC Searchlight contest in 2016. Her emotional music video, Meet You At The Light, won the award for best music video at the SXSW festival earlier this year.

Urban Ink's concert poster illustrations for Guide My Way were created by Jason Sikoak, a Nunatsiavut artist who designed a coin for the Royal Canadian Mint in 2021. The coin was part of a series celebrating Indigenous stories and gifting knowledge. Sikoak's coin design depicts an image of the sea goddess Sedna, reflecting his sharing of the legend.

Learn more at urbanink.ca.

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