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Traveling the territory with Ko Ke Storytelling Festival Tuesday September 22 2015 9 ARTS CULTURE STORYTELLING NWT Literacy Week Contact your school or follow us on Facebook for more information about this weeks events. How are you Im fine Good Thank you in Slavey Chipewyan and Cree September 20-26 This year staff and students are celebrating Aboriginal languages by learning how to say... By DALI CARMICHAEL The small chapel in Mission Parks historic church was packed Sept. 14 as Fort Smith lo- cals took in the offerings from this years Ko Ke Storytelling Festival. It was a rare opportunity for live perfor- mance in the small town as for the rst time theNorthernArtandCulturalCentresNACC annual autumn celebration of spoken word traveledtocommunitiesoutsideofYellowknife. Former CBC reporter Patti-Kay Hamilton opened the show passionately telling stories passed down from her in-laws. Radiating an excited energy she engaged the crowd getting them to participate as she acted out packs of men running through the forest and broke ta- boos asking her audience to smack their legs and whistle out to the northern lights. Next was Reneltta Arluk an actress who counts Fort Smith as one of her homes. Arluk described her summer as months of listening to cassette tapes curled up with a blanketandsometea.Thetapescontainedsto- ries from her recently deceased grandfather Archie Larocque which she decided to share. Loud applause and roars of laughter fol- lowed each of the tales from Larocques life as a trapper prospector and guard for the RCMP. Between Larocques sense of humour and the petit Arluks gruff impressions there was plenty of fodder for moments that were at once touching and comical. She nished her set with an audible con- tribution from Larocque a rendition of the country classic Green Green Grass of Home over an old acoustic guitar. Arluk followed up with her own rendition. Last but certainly not least was Quantum Tangle made up of Yellowknife-based artists Greyson Gritt and Tiffany Ayalik who closed out the show with a set that was truly a fu- sion of the traditional and the contemporary. Together the duo mixed Inuit throat sing- ing and legends with looping pedals and harmonic riffs from Gritts electric guitar. Quantum Tangle managed to take the crowd onanemotional rollercoasteras they explored plights of the modern Indigenous person from substance abuse issues to shallow questions about living cultures often using charm and comedy to bring the message home. Its always important to empower the voices of people that dont often get heard Gritt said in an interview with the Journal. I think any time that were giving a megaphone or a platform to folks that normally dont have a say or normally arent in the public eye or anything like that it just leads to more diver- sity it leads to understanding it leads to more sharing it means were taking steps towards equality and I always think thats important. Following the Fort Smith show performers headed to Norman Wells and Inuvik while a separate contingent of artists brought their talents to Fort Simpson. PhotoDonJaque Greyson Gritt Tiffany Ayalik Patti-Kay Hamilton and Reneltta Arluk told stories in Fort Smith on Sept. 14.