Where the Blood Mixes
Journey Inside Where the Blood Mixes
To Jade
Acknowledgements
It takes an army to bring a play to the stage. The playwright would like to acknowledge the artful militia who helped make this one the success it has been. Many thanks to the following people and organizations for their support and inspiration:
Margo Kane, Glynis Leyshon, Marie Clements, Sharon Pollock, John Lazarus, Jovanni Sy, Rachel Ditor, Ken Cameron, Jody-Kay Marklew, Carl Stromquist, Stuart Pierre, Bronwyn Bowlby, Jason Burnstick, Gary Farmer, Kathryn Shaw, Tantoo Cardinal, Rob Lewis, Chelsea McPeake, Meredith Elliott, David Ross, Ben Cardinal, Quelemia Sparrow, Itai Urdal, Carol Chrisjohn, Lori Marchand, David McNally, the Lytton First Nation, Chief Byron Spinks, Raymond Philips, the Canada Council for the Arts, Studio 58, Freda Loring and Guy Neufeld, Floyd Adams, the British Columbia Arts Council, Arts Partners for Creative Development, Luminato, Toronto’s Festival of Arts and Creativity, Magnetic North Theatre Festival, Don Shipley, Tom McBeath, Joy Coghill, the City of Vancouver, urban ink, the Kay Meek Centre, Spirit of BC Arts Fund, the Hamber Foundation and the Playhouse Theatre Company.
Production History
Where the Blood Mixes premiered June 7, 2008 at the Factory Theatre, as part of Luminato, Toronto’s Festival of Arts and Creativity, with the following cast and crew:
| MOOCH | Ben Cardinal |
| JUNE | Margo Kane |
| FLOYD | Billy Merasty |
| GEORGE | Tom McBeath |
| CHRISTINE | Quelemia Sparrow |
| MUSICIAN / COMPOSER | Jason Burnstick |
| Director | Glynis Leyshon |
| Set Design | Robert Lewis |
| Costume Design | Patricia Smith |
| Lighting Design | Itai Erdal |
| Visual Design | Carl Stromquist |
| Projection Design | Jamie Nesbitt |
| Stage Manager | Carol Chrisjohn |
| Apprentice Stage Manager | Bronwyn Bowlby |
| Technical Director | Kelvin Bonneau |
Characters
| FLOYD | a native man, middle-age |
| MOOCH | a native man, middle-age |
| JUNE, | a native woman, middle-age |
| CHRISTINE | Floyd’s daughter, twenties |
| GEORGE | a Caucasian man, bartender, middle-age |
| CHORUS | the voices of the children lost in the system |
| MUSICIAN |
N’laka’pamuxtsn Notes
oolh shkeeyAydn quequshtAyp ta.sh pan’’t woo.Aya wa TLK emchEEn whee.Kt zogw’’z0gw’t tash nahdeep ta.sh wOOmahh. quequshchAmwh.
[O salmon, thank you for returning to Lytton (Kumsheen), we will be strong now that you have given us your life. Thank you.]
Periods (.) represent glottal stops within a word.
Upper case vowels are enunciated more fully than lower case vowels. For example, if you break the word shkeeyAydn, which means salmon, into its syllables, shkeey-Aydn, the emphasis in the pronunciation is on Ay.
The ee of shkeey is the same as in English (as in seed).
When two vowels appear together, it means the vowel sound is extended, as in shkeeyAydn and wOOmahh.
This doubling and the differing emphasis between upper and lower case letters are indicators of the tonal qualities of the language.
The 0 in zogw’’z0gw’t is a fuller o sound that is articulated in the middle of the soft palate.
Upper case consonants denote hard consonant sounds. The double hh in wOOmahh indicates an extended h sound.
The OO in wOOmahh is pronounced as an open oh. The double vowel is held twice a long as a single vowel.
In TLK emchEEn, the word for Lytton, or Kumsheen, the letters TLK are, in fact, sounded together as though they are one consonant.
One of the difficulties that English speakers encounter with our language is that many of its sounds are articulated further back in the soft and hard palates, rather than at the front of the mouth as in English. Also, the relationship between consonants and vowels is quite strange to an English speaker. It is important, therefore, to sound out, as best as possible, the words as they appear, bearing in mind that trying to articulate them with the front of your mouth and lips alone will prove difficult.
When a fluent speaker speaks the language, it flows together quite beautifully, and has an almost song-like quality that rises and falls in tone, as indicated by the emphasis on the upper case, extended vowels, which are broken by glottal stops and consonants. The words should flow easily into each other. This quality is quite difficult to achieve at first, but with practice the sounds of the language start to make sense.
It is important to remember that this language has only recently been transcribed into a written form; there have been many attempts, and revisions, to accurately describe these sounds using symbols and letters that are, in fact, quite alien to this very complex language.