Cikilaxwm: Controlled Burn, choreographed by Cameron Fraser-Monroe (pictured in black turtleneck).Abigail Sawchuk/Supplied
In the world of ballet, Cameron Fraser-Monroe is something of a unicorn. A member of Tla’amin First Nation, he grew up in Vernon, B.C., and while his classical dance credits are extensive – he’s a choreographer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, an artistic associate at Ballet Kelowna and has performed around the world – he’s also steeped in the world of theatre.
An artist-in-residence at the National Theatre School in Montreal, Fraser-Monroe seeks to create new work that has a robust understanding of its own dramaturgy. To that end, unlike many of his contemporaries, he’s as interested in telling a cogent story as he is in cultivating an atmosphere using dance.
Cikilaxwm: Controlled Burn, produced by Ballet Kelowna and set to play May 1 and 2 at Kelowna Community Theatre, is just one example of Fraser-Monroe’s more theatrical work. The piece, set in a dystopian future, responds to devastating wildfires in Canada by highlighting Indigenous controlled burns as a possible solution: “It brings together this beautiful cultural knowledge and the science that’s now catching up to it,” he says.
The ballet follows a young Indigenous firefighter, in a world where wildfire season lasts the whole year. A chance encounter soon teaches him the value of cultural fires – and the healing that can happen when they’re allowed to burn.
Fraser-Monroe cites two “sparks” that led to the creation of the full-length ballet. The first was Cree cellist and composer Cris Derksen’s Controlled Burn, a 12-minute commission for Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain that uses percussion to approximate the crackles of a fire. “She shared it with me and I knew I had to choreograph to it,” says Fraser-Monroe. (Derksen’s composition has been extended for the ballet.)
The next “spark” was attending a National Indigenous Fire Gathering in Penticton, B.C., where experts discussed how controlled burns might help to reduce the levels of methane in the atmosphere which contribute to climate change.
“That gathering was what made me think this could be a different kind of dystopian story,” says Fraser-Monroe. “There’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a solution.”
Fraser-Monroe says he appreciates working with Ballet Kelowna for the ability to cast Indigenous dancers in Indigenous roles.Abigail Sawchuk/Supplied
As far as creating the work, Fraser-Monroe cites such hybrid theatre-dance artists as Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young as inspirations – but underlines that his dual formal training in both theatre and classical dance remains relatively uncommon in Canada. “Being able to bring in the intellectualism of text-based work is something I’m really interested in,” he says, adding that his understanding of how stories work on a dramatic level has led to him being able to blend aesthetics – ballet and traditional Indigenous dance, mostly – relatively seamlessly.
“My style is a braiding of the classical, traditional and contemporary dances I’ve performed professionally,” he says. “When I’m working with traditional dance, I’m working from an oral history that is millennia old – I’m sharing it with dancers the way it was shared with me, slowly and face-to-face, with time for us to observe each other. When we flip over to classical and contemporary styles, I’m much more collaborative – dancers make offers, I accept offers, we pose questions and challenges to find solutions together.”
Simone Orlando, artistic director and CEO of Ballet Kelowna, deeply appreciates Fraser-Monroe’s hyphenated approach to dance: His early training in the Okanagan and then at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School made him a dancer who could shift easily between genres, with a choreographic style instantly recognizable as his.
“He understands so many different kinds of dance,” she says. “The physicality and the movement vocabulary he brings forth as a dancer and choreographer is very, very intelligent – it’s something I don’t think audiences have seen before, with very strong scenework and narrative arcs. It’s instinctual for him.”
For Fraser-Monroe, that blending of styles isn’t just a creative flourish: It’s a cultural imperative. He appreciates working with Ballet Kelowna for the ability to cast Indigenous dancers in Indigenous roles. “This story reflects a unique perspective of the world,” he says. “I’m lucky that I can lean into a First Nations vocabulary, because I have Indigenous artists to help me tell these stories. A lot of how I choreograph is based on characters – what’s their inner life? What have they gone through? What are they facing? I’m lucky here that I can work with Indigenous artists to augment that vocabulary.”
To that end, Fraser-Monroe works with Indigenous composers and designers whenever possible. (One of Cikilaxwm: Controlled Burn’s production designers, Andy Moro, for instance, is a frequent collaborator.) “Narrative sovereignty is really important to me, and making sure that Indigenous peoples are telling our own stories,” he says.
“I create because I think these First Nations stories and worldviews deserve to be told at a grand scale, on national stages,” he continues. “First Nations artists should not be stuck into one particular time period. We should be allowed to evolve and change and create with the resources that are available to us. That’s why I use ballet – it allows me to reach many different people and to tell the stories I’m interested in telling.”