At the BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE

WALKING THROUGH THE FIRE is an Indigenous collaborations featuring Sultans of String, Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, Marc Meriläinen (Nadjiwan), and Shannon Thunderbird. It’s a multimedia extravaganza highlighting Northern Cree, Duke Redbird, Inuit singers and more!

This performance brings the magic of collaboration to the stage, with award-winning First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists from across Turtle Island / Canada joined by BILLBOARD charting three time JUNO Award nominees and three time CFMA winners Sultans of String!

From Métis fiddling to an East Coast Kitchen Party, from Rumba to Rock, to the drumming of the Pacific Northwest, experience the beauty and diversity of musicians onstage with Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk of the Métis Fiddler Quartet, Ojibwe/Finnish Singer-Songwriter Marc Meriläinen (Nadjiwan), and Coast Tsm’syen Elder and Singer-Songwriter Shannon Thunderbird, as well as virtual guests on the big screen, including Dr. Duke Redbird, the Northern Cree Pow Wow group, and more!

The songs beautifully reveal the depths of contemporary Indigenous experience and music, expressed in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people work together as an opportunity to show a path forward.

“The very fact that you’re doing this tells me that you believe in the validity of our language, you believe in the validity of our art and our music, and that you want to help to bring it out. And that’s really what’s important, is for people to have faith that we can do this… That’s really good”
– Honourable Murray Sinclair – Ojibwe Elder – former chair of the TRC

“We are opening doors for each other, as Indigenous peoples, as settler peoples. It’s just about further creating more openings and more connections through being a conduit… and through creating more spaces.”
– Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk – violist -Métis Fiddler Quartet

Many thanks for the support of non-Indigenous funding streams of the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this project.