Live on the Waterfront, presented by Ontario Power Generation, is Thunder Bay’s premier performing arts series, showcasing the best local talent alongside some of North America’s finest artists. Presentations run from 6pm to 9pm on eight consecutive Wednesdays through the summer.

Performers: Jeremy Dutcher, nêhiyawak ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐊᐧᐠ, Robin Ranger
Time: 6pm – 9pm
Venue: Marina Park

Jeremy Dutcher
8pm
Jeremy Dutcher is a classically-trained Canadian Indigenous tenor, composer, musicologist, performer and activist, who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. He became widely known for his first album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which won the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and the Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 Juno Awards. Dutcher identifies as two-spirit, a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe aboriginal people fulfilling a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial cultural role in their community.

nêhiyawak ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐊᐧᐠ
7pm
nêhiyawak hails from amiskwaciy in Treaty 6 Territory. The trio of Indigenous Canadian artists – Kris Harper (vocals, guitars), Marek Tyler (drums), and Matthew Cardinal (synths, bass) – transcends a new intersection of contemporary sound and the traditional storytelling of their ancestry. Their music is a resonant expression of indigeneity in the modern world. Following the release of two singles – the intricately textured “somnambulist” and the liquid narrative arc of “page” (featuring spoken word by poet Marilyn Dumont) – nêhiyawak announces the starlight EP: a collection of five songs that reflect the vast range of a band emboldened with the powerful inflection of its rich cultural connection. “starlight shines a torch into the shadows of colonial ideologies,” says Harper. “What is erasure? What are the depths man will go to to extinguish culture? Recognition of and education on the forms and techniques that impact indigenous, POC, LGBTQ, and our mothers, sisters and daughters assist in the reformation and reparations sought by survivors in our day.”

Robin Ranger
6pm
Robin Ranger is a contemporary artist and jazz musician from Thunder Bay.

Visit www.thunderbay.ca/live to see Live on the Waterfront's summer line-up!