Creative Team

Producers: Akpik Theatre & Theaturtle

Director: Reneltta Arluk

Music Director: Carmen Braden

Writers: Reneltta Arluk, Rawdna Carita Eira, Alon Nashman

Dramaturgy: Christopher Morris

Cultural Envoy: Rawdna Carita Eira

Performers: Julia Ulayok Davis, Salik Lennert, Elin Oskal

Choreographer: Fia Grogono

Stage Management: Ashley Rees

Lighting Design: Itai Erdal

Costume & Props Design: Jay Havens

Composer | Sound Designer: Carmen Braden

Set Design | Illustrator: Hailey Verbonac

Video Design: Chimerik 似不像

Digital Content: Davis Heslep & Barry Bilinsky

Video Dramaturgy: Barry Bilinsky

Collaborating Filmmakers: Riddle Films & Cabin Productions

Image Design: Rise Frequency Intuitive Graphic Design

Dr. Reneltta Arluk Writer/Director/Producer

Reneltta is an Inuvialuk, Denesuline, Gwich’in, Cree mom from the Northwest Territories. She is founder of Akpik Theatre. Raised by her grandparents on the trap-line until school age, this nomadic environment gave Reneltta the skills to become the multi-disciplined artist she is now. For nearly two decades, Reneltta has taken part in or initiated the creation of Indigenous Theatre across Canada and overseas. Under Akpik Theatre, Reneltta has written, produced, and performed various works creating space for Indigenous led voices. Reneltta is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to graduate from the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program and is the first Inuk and first Indigenous woman to direct at renowned The Stratford Festival. There she was awarded the Tyrone Guthrie – Derek F. Mitchell Artistic Director’s Award for her direction of Governor Award winning playwright, Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole. She also directed The Breathing Hole at Canada’s National Arts Centre. She co-directed award winning Messiah/Complex with Against the Grain Theatre, with soloists from every region of Canada, including many Indigenous performers singing in their language. In 2024, Reneltta received an Honourary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Alberta for her commitment to decolonial change.

Alon Nashman
Writer/Producer

Alon is a performer, director, creator, and producer of theatre. Selected acting credits include: The Breathing Hole (National Arts Centre), Birds of a Kind, Hirsch (Stratford Festival), I send you this cadmium red (Art of Time Ensemble), Much Ado About Nothing, Forests, Scorched, Democracy, Remnants, Alias Godot (Tarragon Theatre), Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well, Botticelli in the Fire/Sunday in Sodom, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, THIS (Canadian Stage), The Wild Duck (Soulpepper), Hedda Gabler (Volcano/Buddies in Bad Times), If Jesus Met Nanabush (De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre), and Tales of Two Cities (Tafelmusik). Alon established Theaturtle in 1999 to create essential, ecstatic theatre that touches the earth and agitates the soul. With Theaturtle, Alon has been involved with the creation and touring of numerous theatre pieces, such as Adam Nashman’s The Song, Wajdi Mouawad’s Alphonse, Kafka and Son developed with Mark Cassidy of Threshold Theatre, and The Snow Queen, scored for string quartet and narrator by Patrick Cardy. Alon wrote the libretto for Charlotte: A Tri-coloured Play with Music which premiered at Toronto’s Luminato Festival and has toured to Taiwan, Israel and Europe, including the Czech National Opera.

Rawdna Carita Eira
Writer/Cultural Envoy

Rawdna is a Sami/Norwegian writer and playwright, born in Elverum and raised in Brønnøysund. She writes in Norwegian and Northern Sami. As a playwright, Eira debuted with the monologue Elle muitalus / Elens historie in 2003, where she played the lead role. She has since written several plays for the Sami National Theater Beaivváš. In 2012, her play Guohcanuori šuvva / Sangen fra Rotsundet, was staged at Beaivváš Theater. The play was nominated for the Ibsen Prize. Eira now lives in Guovdageaidnu and works as a director at Beaivváš Sami National Theater. Eira is also a lyricist and vocalist in the band Circus Polaria with musicians Roger Ludvigsen and Kjetil Dalland. Eira has written the text in the Sami part of the opera Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin / Gállabártnit. In 2020, the opera was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding Opera Production” and was awarded the prize for “Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble”.

Julia Ulayok Davis
Performer

Julia (she/her) is an Inuk singer/actress, currently residing in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She recently completed her second year of study with the Village Conservatory for Music Theatre and premiered her piece, Aqqaq (Northern Lights), at the year-end showcase. Julia also holds a Bachelor of Music (Vocal Performance) from the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba. Julia has worked with theatre, opera and film companies around Winnipeg, such as Manitoba Underground Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Winnipeg, MTYP, Sarasvàti and Eagle Vision.

Salik Lennert
Performer

Salik is from Sisimiut, Greenland and is a graduate student at the National Theatre School of Greenland. He is twenty-eight years old and has a Greenlandic mother and a Greenlandic father with Scandivanian roots. Salik discovered his interest in acting when he was cast as the lead character in a contemporary theatre play back in high school in 2014. Prior to studying acting, he was living and working in Ireland, providing computer technical support. Salik is passionate about performing, creating his own projects, and dabbles with piano and guitar.

Elin Kristina Oskal
Performer

Elin is a Sami actress and singer. She has, among other things, participated in several songs together with Jon Henrik Fjällgren. She has also played the lead role Plupp in the theater play Plupp – en joikkikal and lent her voice to Anna in the Sami version of Frozen 2. In 2024, she played the lead role as Elsa in the film Stöld.

Carmen Braden
Music Director
Composition | Sound Design

Carmen is a versatile, genre-jumping musician from the Canadian sub-Arctic. Winner of the 2019 and 2020 Western Canadian Music Award for Classical Composer of the Year, Carmen is a composer/performer based in her hometown of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Hailed as “a talented, bold musician” (Up Here Magazine), Carmen is a life-long Northerner whose music has been described as “drop-dead gorgeous” (Ottawa Citizen). Carmen’s second studio album Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars (2019) was nominated for an East Coast Music Award for Classical Album of the Year. Her debut studio album Ravens was released in 2017 – both albums are on the Centrediscs label.

Hailey Verbonac
Set Design | Illustrator

Hailey is an Afro-Indigenous (Red River Métis) artist and theatre designer. Originally from Inuvik, NWT (on Inuvialuit and Gwich’in land), he trained at the National Theatre School of Canada in production design and technical arts. Lighting, video, watercolour, and digital artwork are his preferred media for storytelling. His primary passion is to support the development of Indigenous stories in Canada. He has been lucky enough to be involved with projects such as Hush by Sylvia Cloutier (2020, NTS), Lovesong for the Thunderbirds by Summer Bralette (2021, Grand Theatre), The Herd by Kenneth Williams (2022, Citadel/Tarragon), Echoes of the Homesick Heart by Laura Michel (2022, WCT), Feather Gardens by Jimmy Blais (2022, Hudson Village Theatre), and Bentboy by Herbie Barnes (2022, YPT). Wiyaatikosiw eeako ooma ohci aacimowinis ekwa otaacimowak. Kinanaskomitin.

Itai Erdal
Lighting Design

An award winning lighting designer, photographer, writer and performer, Itai is the founder of The Elbow Theatre in Vancouver. Itai has designed over 350 shows for theatre, dance and opera companies in 44 cities around the world. Some of the companies he worked with include: Arts Club Theatre (16 shows), The Stratford Festival (11 shows), New Victory (Off Broadway), The Vancouver Opera, Vancouver Playhouse, Bard on the Beach, The Electric Company, National Arts Centre, Soulpepper, Tarragon, Factory, The Citadel, MTC, The Segal Centre, The Jerusalem Lab, Haifa Theatre, Tamasha, Box Clever and Teatro Villa Velha in Salvador, Brazil. Itai has won six Jessie Richardson Awards, a Dora Mavor Moore Award, a Winnipeg Theatre Award, the Jack King Award, a Guthrie Award, Victoria’s Spotlight Choice Award and the Design Award at the 2008 Dublin Fringe Festival. He was shortlisted to the Siminovitch Prize in 2018 and 2024. 

Jay Havens
Costume & Props Design

Jay Havens is a multi-media 2Spirit artist, educator, and collaborator of Kanien’keha:ka (Haudenosaunee) and Scottish Canadian ancestry. Havens was born on lands known as the Haldimand Tract and raised on Unceded Sto:lo and Musqueam lands close to Vancouver, Canada. They are a scenographer with experience in site-specific performance and installation, murals, projection and mixed media artworks for galleries, museums, and public spaces. Havens’ practice embraces re-learning the ways of Onkwehon:we (original peoples) and their research has focused on Indigenous Methods of Knowledge-building applied to creative and logistical processes of scenography. Jay has a BFA from the University of British Columbia, Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing and MFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Jay can be found collaborating to design sets and costumes for professional stage companies such as Caravan Farm, Centaur or Axis Theatre, and joined the University of Waterloo’ Department of Communication Arts as Assistant Professor teaching scenography and design thinking courses. Havens is a member of The Associated Designers of Canada (IATSE 659) and CARFAC. He is a proud citizen of the Mohawk, Bear Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River. 

Barry Bilinsky
Digital Content | Video Dramaturge

Akpik Theatre’s Associate Director, Barry Bilinsky is a professional theatre creator of Metis, Cree and Ukrainian heritage. Based in Alberta, he has worked as a director, curator, performing artist, stage manager, and technical/production manager across Canada with projects centred primarily around the proliferation of Indigenous arts, artists, and collaborations. He has studied Drama and English at the University of Alberta, attaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2012. Barry is an Artistic Associate with Dreamspeakers Indigenous Film Festival as well as having been involved in many capacities with: Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts; The Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society; Iiniistsi Treaty Arts Society (REDx Talks); Fool Spectrum Theatre; among others.

Barry is committed to developing honest, respectful, and purposefully compassion creations that challenge the overarching cultural assumptions we often face in the performing arts community.

Christopher Morris
Dramaturge

Christopher is an actor, playwright and director and the artistic director of the Toronto-based theatre company Human Cargo. Some recent acting credits include The Runner (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Magnus Theatre); Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Hedda Gabler, Botticelli in the Fire (Canadian Stage); A Doll's House, Noises Off (Soulpepper); Oedipus Rex, Diary of Anne Frank (Stratford Festival); The Importance of Being Earnest, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Stuff Happens (NAC). Past TV Credits include Orphan Black, Frankie Drake, The Girlfriend Experience, Murdoch Mysteries, In Contempt. Upcoming - Painkiller (Netflix), Beyond Black Beauty (Amazon). Christopher wrote and directed Night which premiered at the NAC in 2009 and is currently creating a VR film with Miali Buscemi about Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook.

Fia Grogono
Choreographer

Fia Grogono grew up in Yellowknife’s dance community before pursuing a degree in contemporary dance at Concordia University in Montreal. Working with the city’s dance collective YKDC, Grogono is trying to build more opportunities for dancers. Grogono is currently working with Bella Dance.

Riddle Films
Collaborators

Riddle Films is a Canadian award-winning production company dedicated to capturing the world of the performing arts and culture and making it accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Helmed by producers Jason Charters and Liam Romalis, their work has aired on television screens, online and at film festivals around the world, including CBC, Bravo, PBS, ARTE, BBC, NRK, and the Toronto International Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.