Ever Sick

Dance channels ancestral memories to heal ourselves and others. The jingle dress dance, also known as the healing dance, is performed across Turtle Island. "Ever Sick" extends this act of healing to the broader disabled community. The work is a projected interactive installation that creates a space inclusive of community members with disabilities, chronic disease and invisible illnesses. Live jingle dress performers will open the installation circle. Throughout the evening, visitors are invited to enter and move through the circle in whatever ways their bodies allow, activating the sound of jingle cones and shaping the projection animation that traces their movement. The closing ceremony will include a prayer from an Elder and a round dance. "Ever Sick" seeks to create a space where disabled and chronically ill Indigenous people can participate in powwow and social dance without fear of judgement—where their presence, movement, and ways of being are fully welcomed.