Bringing First Nations teachings to life in a contemporary world

Last month I was blogging about stories and I mentioned sitting in on a teaching with Nuu-Chah-Nulth Elder Julia Lucas who was using traditional stories to talk about contemporary sexual awareness with First Nations youth. This happened at an Open Space meeting I facilitated last year.

My friend Crystal Sutherland, who was in that session, just phoned me to talk about an idea coming out of that gathering. She is musing about finding someone to produce these stories on video and use them to reach street kids and other kids at risk. We kicked around the idea of animating these stories and showing at the end how the Son of Raven story applies at this day and age to real life sexuality issues for First Nations kids.

So imagine this: a collection of five minute vignettes all done with world class computer animation of stories narrated by Elders and told with a contemporary moral. These stories would be beautiful to look at and listen to, engaging all of the senses that storytellers play with. They could run on TV, on networks like the Aboriginal People’s Television Network or Maori TV in New Zealand. They would find a home on the web of course.

Street Kids International does this kind of stuff, working with animation. Aboriginal kids would love to see their stories up there, not as a cultural artifact, and not as a preachy lecture, but offered to them in the way in which teachings have always been offered: as a gift.

So anyone know some world class Aboriginal animators and production companies who might want to be involved? I can think of Ian Taylor in New Zealand. Who is closer to home? Who can we mentor in this project? And who might be interested in underwriting something like this?

We start to put out the tendrils, and I have people in my network who can actually get the project off the ground in terms of working with Elders, framing the stories and getting them to air. If you’re reading this, can you think of some way of contributing?

Link to posting about Julia fixed