Watch: Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation brothers produce COVID-19 healing song and performance – Westerly News
Apr. 14, 2021
Hjalmer Wenstob and Timmy Masso share dance and inspiration.
A pair of Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation brothers collaborated on a healing song and dance to document the COVID-19 pandemic and produced a video to share it worldwide.
Nuu-chah-nulth language advocate Timmy Masso and artist Hjalmer Wenstob came up with the idea to produce a healing song last summer and, thanks to funding from the Canada Council to the Arts’ Digital Originals Program, the project evolved into a dance the brothers have published online.
“Whenever there was a major event traditionally there would be a totem pole carved or a song written and a dance made for that amazing event or even a very tragic event that happened,” Masso told the Westerly News. “Hjalmer and I both noticed that a lot more recent times or modern times there has been so much of a lack of traditional ways continuing on. We wanted to talk about what’s happening right now, talk about COVID and how this is a story of now. I think that was really important as a way of resurgence of culture and our traditional ways.”
