The second annual multicultural Dance for Life! event will be held Saturday, November 25, at 7pm in Immaculata Auditorium on the StFX University campus. The evening will begin with a healing ceremony in which we will renew our commitment to Peace and Friendship between the M’ikmaq and our ever-expanding multicultural community. This will be followed by an evening of traditional and modern dance performances featuring our many cultures, closing with a One World Dance led by our Coady participants
As a very special follow-up, dancer and choreographer Liliona Quarmyne will holding an Art & Activism workshop on Sunday, November 26 at 2pm, also in Immaculata Auditorium, featuring her vital work in Ghana
Video clips from Dance for Life, 2016
The Saturday evening program will begin at 7:00 p.m. with a healing ceremony of Re-Commitment to Peace and Friendship.
Renewal Commitment to Peace and Friendship
I/we commit to creating a new understanding and awareness between and amongst First Nations and non-Indigenous people of all cultures. Many generations before us have passed on without reconciling the past. Now, we as the children of those ancestors who signed the Peace and Friendship Treaties (Mi’kmaq, Malisset, Passamaquoddy and non-Indigenous) accept the unique role, responsibility and opportunity to re-establish peaceful relationships with one another so that the atrocities of the past will not be repeated, overtly or covertly.
I/We commit to healing the wounds of our shared history by entering into Nation-to-Nation dialogue. We will hold to the highest standard those who currently and/or one day will create policy — social, political, educational, judicial, environmental, and economic, encompassing all aspects of healthcare, arts, culture and heritage — to ensure that no cultural group will be left out of policy development and discussions at any level.
We invite you to sign the Commitment to Peace and Friendship by adding your name and any comment in the comment box below.
As the son of a Scots dad and Welsh mum, and of course myself a colonist, I am very happy to make this commitment of Peace and Friendship between all Indigenous and on-Indigenous peoples of our own and everyone else’s community!
I am half-Acadian, half-English, and as I learned this summer, 1/18th Innu! I fully support this timely commitment to Peace and Friendship in our joint society.
https://www.academia.edu/10089896/Treaties_of_Peace_and_Friendship_The_Mikmaw_Perspective_of_the_Treaties_with_the_British_Crown_1725-1761?auto=download
If you need to brush up on the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1725 before you sign the 2017 Parchment of Re-Commitment to Peace and Friendship based on values of Truth and Reconciliation, you might read this article.
Despite their policy of written treaties, it can be argued that the British conceptions of their binding nature were not the same as their Mi’kmaw counterparts. Borrows argues, “in almost every treaty negotiation one can detect dishonesty, trickery, deception, fraud, prevarication, and unconscionable behaviour on the part of the Crown.”
This suggests that the Crown did not want coexistence, but rather to be the main benefactor of the conditions in these treaties, and would stop at nothing to achieve this. In some circumstances the British attempted to shift the blame onto the treachery of the Mi‟kmaq to hide their political ambitions.
https://www.academia.edu/10089896/Treaties_of_Peace_and_Friendship_The_Mikmaw_Perspective_of_the_Treaties_with_the_British_Crown_1725-1761?auto=download
If you need to brush up on the Treaty of 1725 before you sign the 2017 Parchment of Re-Commitment to Peace and Friendship based on values of Truth and Reconciliation, you might read this article.
Despite their policy of written treaties, it can be argued that the British conceptions of their binding nature were not the same as their Mi’kmaw counterparts. Borrows argues, “in almost every treaty negotiation one can detect dishonesty, trickery, deception, fraud, prevarication, and unconscionable behaviour on the part of the Crown.”
This suggests that the Crown did not want coexistence, but rather to be the main benefactor of the conditions in these treaties, and would stop at nothing to achieve this. In some circumstances the British attempted to shift the blame onto the treachery of the Mi‟kmaq to hide their political ambitions.