kȃ-nîmihitocik: They Who Are Dancing

Featuring Cellist and Composer Cris Derksen, the Andromeda Trio and premiering works by Cris Derksen and Karen Sunabacka

Held during the Indigenous Mennonite Encounters in Time and Place conference, attendees and the broader community are invited to attend this free concert, held at the Threate of the Arts, at the University of Waterloo.

Registration for the concert is required. Admission to the concert is free. We invite pay-as-you-can cash donations at the door to help cover expenses.

REGISTER: https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/ka-nimihitocik-they-who-are-dancing

About Chris Derksen:
"Juno nominated Cris Derksen is an Internationally respected Indigenous Cellist and Composer. In a world where almost everything — people, music, cultures — get labelled and slotted into simple categories, Cris Derksen represents a challenge. Originally from Northern Alberta she comes from a line of chiefs from NorthTall Cree Reserve on her father’s side and a line of strong Mennonite homesteaders on her mother’s. Derksen braids the traditional and contemporary, weaving her classical background and her Indigenous ancestry together with new school electronics to create genre-defying music"

The concert will feature Derksen’s premiere of a composition for choir titled kȃ-nîmihitocik: They Who Are Dancing, commissioned by Conrad Grebel University College with support from the Henry A. and Anna Schultz Memorial Fund. The choir is conducted by Dr. Mark Vuorinen, Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Department at Conrad Grebel.

Derksen will talk about the piece in a Q&A style. Derksen will also offer a solo cello and electronics performance with dancer.

The Andromeda Trio will premiere a newly commissioned piece by composer Dr. Karen Sunabacka, Associate Professor of Music at Conrad Grebel. The piece explores the relationships between Mennonites and Métis in Treaty 1 Territory. Miriam Stewart-Kroeker, the cellist in the trio, is a descendent of one of the first Mennonites in Manitoba in the 1870s and Karen Sunabacka is of English Métis descent and had an ancestor elected to the Council of Forty who worked with Louis Riel to negotiate the terms for Métis in the Manitoba Act in 1869.


Thank you to our generous concert sponsors:

Menno S. Martin Contractor

Leis Pet Distributing INC.

Josselin Insurance

Eby Financial