2RMX Water Women Winter Solstice

Indigenous Artists for this Event!

• Amanda Nahanee

  Amanda Nahanee

  [Squamish - Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw]

  Amanda Nahanee offers cultural advising including: facilitating Aboriginal engagement; corporate Aboriginal training for tourism, education, relationship building and cross- cultural relationships; and acting as a liaison for Aboriginal business.

  Our services include: major event planning, coordination, presentations workshop, and major event facilitation.

  Amanda Nahanee works as a history educator, and engages in curriculum development, research, analysis, and reporting. As a Performing artist she is an actor, model, First Nations storyteller, First Nations singer, and dancer.

  URL https://www.nahanee.com/amanda-nahanee.html

  [Squamish - Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw]

• Carsen Gray

  Carsen Gray

  [Haida]

  50 miles off the coast of mainland British Columbia, you’ll find Haida Gwaii. This collection of islands serves as home to just shy of 5,000 residents who all contribute to its quiet magic. Seemingly removed from the rest of the world, yet intrinsically connected to its rawest essence, Carsen Gray calls this place home. Born of Haida Indigenous and mixed descent, the award-winning singer and songwriter commutes the peace of her surroundings into a soulful sound spiked with R&B energy, pop universality, and a twist of local spirit. After making waves across Canada, she introduces herself to the world on her 2022 debut EP for Nettwerk Music Group.
  “It’s very chill, beautiful, laidback, and peaceful,” she says of her home. “The people are nice and welcoming. We all support one another and cheer each other on. Because of where I’m from, I feel like I was able to come out with such a warm project. We’re in a safe little place up here. I’m proud of my heritage, where I come from, and the land I live on.”

  URL https://www.carsengray.com/

  [Haida]

• DAWN MORRISON

  DAWN MORRISON

  [Secwepemc]

  Dawn Morrison is of the Secwepemc Nation and Director of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (WGIFS). Dawn is the Founder, Chair and Coordinator of the B.C. Food Systems Networking Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty. In the years away from her ancestral Secwepemc (Shuswap) community, Dawn’s work in various capacities throughout her 20 year long career in Horticulture has literally kept her in touch with her Indigenous roots through applying an ecological approach to studying and working with plants. Her Secwepemc heritage along with her technical and practical background in horticulture and ethonobotany, as well as her passion for environmental and cultural revitalization lead her to a long lasting career in Aboriginal adult education and community self-development.

  [Secwepemc]

• DJ Kookum

  DJ Kookum

  [Alexis Nakota Sioux]

  Kookum is an Indigenous DJ and videographer from the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, and Cold Lake First Nations, their maternal Denesuline traditional territory. Based out of Vancouver BC, Kookum has been making a name for their self across the country and is no stranger in the community.

  Kookum is an open format DJ but grew up listing to EDM and Hip Hop music. This diverse mix diva slays on the decks and always keeps it hype, fresh, and unpredictable.

  [Alexis Nakota Sioux]

• Edzi'u

  Edzi'u

  [Tahltan/Tlingit]

  Edzi’u is a 2S Tahltan and inland Tlingit sound artist, songwriter, composer. They were born in the Yukon and raised in Whitehorse, YT, spending a large part of that time in their traditional territory of Dease Lake, BC. They received a Degree in Music Composition at Vancouver Community College in 2019. Edzi’u has been performing nationally for the better part of ten years, in festivals, galleries and living rooms. Their roles in performance life have ranged from solo performer, to choir soprano, actor, and concert coordinator. Currently their art practice centers on weaving electronic soundscapes with audio manipulation, while drawing on classical songwriting elements. Their sound installations have been shown in Tkaronto’s film festival imagineNATIVE 2018 as well as 2019, while debuting internationally in 2019 at the Document Film Festival in Glasgow, Scotland.

  [Tahltan/Tlingit]

• Hexy

  Hexy

  [Haida]

  Hexy is a multi-instrumentalist, song writer and singer. Haida and German descent, non binary punk rocker / Emo rapper. Pronouns she/her.

  [Haida]

• Melissa Frost

  Melissa Frost

  [Chʼichyàa]

  Nagoohiindaak, Melissa Frost, is a descendent of Shirlee Frost, her mother Alice Frost and her mother Joanne Njootli. She comes from Wolf clan/Chʼichyàa from the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation of Old Crow, Yukon. Melissa is an aunty and a cousin who works for mother earth and our future generations. She has forged a career out of her passion for the arts and community work with youth. Melissa tries to channel traditional teachings and positive, hopeful messages when writing or performing.

  [Chʼichyàa]

• Miss Christie Lee

  Miss Christie Lee

  [Musqueam]

  Musqueam hip-hop artist Christie Lee Charles is Vancouver’s first Indigenous poet laureate. She raps as Miss Christie Lee, and champions poetry, language and arts, and elevating the role of Host Nation and urban Indigenous poetry and cultural practices.

  Christie Lee Charles, 33, who incorporates traditional knowledge, stories and ancient Musqueam dialect into her music, is the daughter of Henry Charles, a well-known Musqueam elder and storyteller who died last year, and during her speech to council Tuesday she highlighted her father’s work as the elder for the DUDES Club, a support group for men in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

  Her project is to connect the greater Vancouver poetic scene and the public to this history of local Indigenous communities, language and lands we live on today,” said Charles. “It will create new relationships and help elevate the beautiful and cultural understandings of my people. This will empower the young people from Indigenous communities and give them a path for creative expression.”

  “I started off with poetry in elementary and high school, and then it kind of just turned into rapping, and now it’s back into poetry, it’s all the same style,” she said. “Rapping and studying our language and our culture, that’s the most exciting thing for me.”

  [Musqueam]

• Ms.PANIK

  Ms.PANIK

  [Haida]

  Lyrical Wisdom, Looped Melodies & Rhythm.
  Turn up your inner Freq* with Award-nominated Haida loop-poet, interdisciplinary artist & producer Ms.PAN!K. Experimental loop-pedal-driven soundscapes merge and mix vocal elements, traditional drum, guitar, and percussion all overlaid with poignant lyrics to satiate and meditate on. Haida wisdom is woven with multiple genres; PAN!K explores live PA and production tangling indie and folk roots with elements of hip hop, spoken word & Indigenous soul.
  2019 Western Canadian Music Award Nominee for “Spiritual Artist of the Year.”
  Ms.PAN!K is originally from the unceded territory of her Xaayda Ancestors on Haida Gwaii she is of the K̲aayahl ‘Laanaas Clan. PAN!K works, lives, plays and writes tunes on the unceded ancestral territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht & Nuu-chah-nulth Nations.

  URL https://www.panikdanyk-music.com/epk-media

  [Haida]

• MzShellz

  MzShellz

  [Cree]

  Michelle Lee Runns AKA MzShellz is an emerging Cree Hip Hop artist and owner of “Native by Nature” Apparel hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan. Since relocating to British Columbia, the mother of 4 has been rocking stages from Vancouver all the way to Albuquerque, NM. MzShellz has taken her new platform through her music to send messages of strength to the Youth and seeks to empower Women & girls around the world to know that anything is possible if you truly believe in yourself. She hopes to further these goals with her next album, “Boss Lady”, currently in progress.

  [Cree]

• Sandy Scofield

  Sandy Scofield

  [Cree/Metis/Dene]

  Sandy Scofield is a multi-award winning composer, musician and singer. She has studied classical, jazz, African, Indonesian gamelan and electro-acoustic music. A Metis from the Saulteaux and Cree Nations, she hails from four generations of fiddlers, singers and musicians. Among her four recordings to date, she has won five Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, a Canadian Folk Music Award, an Indian Summer Music Award (U.S.A.), a Western Canadian Music Award and received three consecutive Juno nominations.

  Over the years, she has mentored innumerable First Nations singers and songwriters in the way of rudimentary music theory, vocal techniques, songwriting craft and music-industry protocol. She has toured to festivals on five continents with the the International Rainforest World Music Festival in Borneo, 2011 making the fifth.

  She has composed for dance, film, television and theatre, with the Aboriginal Welcoming Song for the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, the highlight to date.It’s a long way from playing Cajun party music to a capella vocal arrangements of First Nations songs to composing music for theatre and for our own Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver.

  Sandy Scofield has invested a tremendous spirit, navigating and negotiating through a life dedicated to music, sometimes on her own, and sometimes with collaborators. She studied full-time at Vancouver Community College taking their two-year jazz music program. She completed her degree at the esteemed Simon Fraser University School for Contemporary Arts, studying composition under the likes of Owen Underhill and electroacoustic music with Barry Truax.

  Her passion for electro-acoustic music and sound design is not new for Scofield, who has been playing with sounds for a long time. In a feature in SOCAN’s Words & Music magazine in 2001, Alexander Varty talked to her about using noisemakers or toys, such as the toy piano on “Get High”, each time she embarked on a recording project.She has taken the tool box that she has enhanced as a touring musician, through her composition work at SFU, and from the young musicians she mentors and applied them to her sense of melody, harmony and rhythm, resulting in what writer Phil Paine described as “a high-level synthesis of jazz, blues, rock and pop” with First Nations traditions. “Her music is original, refined and intelligent.”

  [Cree/Metis/Dene]

• Viviane Sandy

  Viviane Sandy

  [Secwepemc]

  [Secwepemc]