Welcome to Red River Routes
Red River Routes seeks to achieve well-being for Aboriginal by promoting traditional and contemporary aboriginal culture through dance and music.
Red River Routes tells the story of the first peoples utilizing the Red River as a main highway. It will honor the Red people at the beginning of the fur trade and also celebrate Métis culture as it developed after contact, into the great fur trade, and continuing to contemporary times through music, culture, and dance. By sharing the rich cultural history of the Red River from its journey connecting Hudson Bay down to the twin cities of what was then the territory of Mni Sota Makoce, we will promote our province as a prime tourist attraction.
This project will instill pride for the Aboriginal peoples in Manitoba at global events such as WOMEX. All the history shared in the project “Red River Routes” will connect back to and zero in on the Red River that serves as a huge landmark to our province and country. We hope that this project will enrich the image of the Native peoples of their region by highlighting the Red River. It is easier to draw global attention to the Red River as a landmark than it is by promoting individual towns, cities, or provinces.
The greater vision of this project is to develop the site at South Point at The Forks. The “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah project will serve as a spring board for developing a larger cultural tourism project at The Forks for future economic development. As the “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah develops, it will create more and more employment for cultural singers, dancers, and contemporary musicians. The showcase will be built in modules and can grow and be interchangeable with whoever is available to perform in the cast at different times and tours, and for multiple application. Once the core program is built, rehearsed, and refined, many other participants can be trained to intersperse with the core line-up. Creating a world class professionally trained troupe of performers, and providing them with the unique opportunity to collaborate and perform as ambassadors of their country and culture, will instill pride, and encourage youth by giving them something to aspire to.
Program Criteria
The “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah project is a cultural/musical expression based on the Red River and its significance to the Native peoples, Métis and the mainstream people who came to share the wealth that was created by the fur trade and the spin off commerce that was accommodated by the main highway at the time the Red River or River Rouge as it came to be known as by the local Métchief.
Healthy Community and Prevention Impacts
The “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah project will become a vehicle for attracting traditional singers/dancers and contemporary musicians as they emerge from community schools and youth training facility.
The project and the greater vision project for South Point at The Forks will become a lighthouse for youth to strive to become active participants in the pride of culture and music of our people on a global stage.
Projected Outcome
The first phase of “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah will define and prepare a cultural/musical troupe that will function and perform on a global venue/stage at WOMEX.
The troupe will be built in modules that will be capable of performance individually as well as a whole.
The project will establish a historical account of the Red River settlement to present day and will articulate this history through cultural dance, singing, and contemporary performance that will include narrative.
Our first contact was made, during our attendance at WOMEX 2012, with Global participants and promoters of ethnic world music and dance, as mentioned in our submitted report. The Womex conference and possible showcase offers us a global window to promote our local culture and landmark- The Red River in Manitoba, Canada.
“Red River Routes” Manitou-bah can definitely be an ongoing project that leads into the greater vision of South Point at The Forks being the destination of the Red River Route where it meets the Assiniboine.
Included in the vision is an educational component that includes cultural programs for craft- beading, creating regalia, music- hand drums, big drums, learning songs and dance. It can be introduced in independent workshops and in schools becoming a grassroots development theatre to produce global cultural product that can be showcased annually at the South Point Arbor and grounds at The Forks between May Long weekend and September long weekend where the world will be invited to come, enjoy, and share.
The greater vision includes a National partnership with other urban cultural sites across Canada to create a Mall of Aboriginal Cultural Experience. The Mall of Aboriginal Cultural experience can then partner with Canada to market to global target countries to come and experience “The Canadian Aboriginal Experience”. In my experiences abroad, I’ve always been aware of the keen global interest in Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Europe and other target countries will be excited to come and experience Canada’s local culture.
This national partnership of the Aboriginal community and Canada will finally create reconciliation that can be truly measured and finally established.
The economic spin off of this kind of partnership to create global tourism will be a highly profitable tourist attraction. We have a unique, rich and attractive culture here in the province of Manitoba that only needs to be made professional, seamless, and tourist ready to share with the world.
The professional development of the “Red River Routes” showcase will be the beginning of this approach to attract the global attention to this part of the world via the landmark importance of the Red River that ran through the hub of the Fur Trade and served the historical development of our land and its peoples.
A mockup of the greater vision of the development of South Point will accompany this proposal for the first year of a five year vision. We hope that “Red River Routes” will become the legacy project of the Summer Games, 2017. We also hope that the site and grounds at The Forks will be ready for the celebration of the 150 years of confederation that will also occur in 2017.
Note: A cultural/music non prophet organization called “Red River Routes” Manitou-bah, will be registered with the Province the week of August 12 to 17/2013. An office and rehearsal space will be established at a later date.