Unsettling Actor: Reading the 94 Calls to Action Out Loud

In June 2015, Canadians received the Calls to Action, 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 2015c). Indigenous Studies scholar Paulette Regan (2010) calls for “socio-political actors in Canadian society” (p. 23) to commit to an unsettling pedagogy that creates “decolonizing space for Indigenous history—counter-narratives of diplomacy, law, and peacemaking practices—as told by Indigenous peoples themselves” (p. 6). My settler initiative takes Regan’s call literally, asking: What happens when actors read the 94 Calls to Action aloud in community? Enaction of the Calls remains underachieved; 13 (arguably 8) have been completed in 6 years. Following Métis artist/scholar David Garneau’s (2016) proposal of “irreconcilable spaces of aboriginality” (p. 26) this settler intervention reconceptualizes a familiar acting practice; we brought an Indigenous-led policy document to the rehearsal floor, relying on the actor’s embodied practice to dialogue with the story of the text. Rereading the Calls in the Zoom/studio, we lifted the text from the page to our listening body, speaking our discomfort, complicity, and hope. This exercise is prelude: an oral action to provoke unsettling conversation, to seed commitment to action, to prepare the playground for collaborative encounter with Indigenous colleagues (Call 83). Enaction is our responsibility. My research analysis takes two forms: a script (Chapter 4) and an academic inquiry (Chapter 5); both query reading aloud as oral resource for unsettling. We found evidence of settler inaction that underlies the story (and necessity) of the Calls. We named our complicity. As storying citizens, I argue theatre makers take responsibility for the politicising impact of our storying craft. Moments of mirth surprised us. We found evidence of decolonizing possibility in a pedagogy of play. I ask: is there a generative role for the actor’s practice of complicité (as playful collusion) and transgressive play in restorying relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples? We are called to reconsider; I name sites of reconsideration. In conclusion, I urge we continue reading the charge (including treaties) aloud in community to ignite and deepen our collective commitment to enaction of the Calls, as preparatory step toward respectful reciprocal (re)conciliation action in Canada.

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