Do You Dig It? Stone and Bone Spectacular Arrives at Centaur Theatre
By Michael Martini
October 14, 2025
You may be expecting a grim, ominous, devastating story. A horror story even.
Beneath the theatres, the towers, the condos, and the department stores of Montréal, there is a land that has seen dark chapters of history, chapters recounting the disenfranchisement and displacement of people indigenous to the land itself. These are dark chapters that continue to unfurl in our present day. Of this there is no doubt. It’s an ongoing history. But could there also be a story to be told with a wink, perhaps even with a two-step and a dash of glitter? Pageantry and profundity are not mutually exclusive. Humour and levity aren’t to be underestimated as creative devices. They can lead us safely to places we might not be prepared to go otherwise. They can also serve as survival techniques: ways to endure, to overcome, and to nourish each other. It reminds me of the other day when I was killing time in a bookshop. A customer was commiserating with the bookseller over some bad news. The bookseller said: well, if you’re going to cry, you might as well laugh too.
Dylan Thomas-Bouchier
Showmanship is a strong current throughout Kanien'kehá:ka Mohawk culture. There is a joy and importance in coming together through song, dance, costume, humour, and yes, glitz and glamour. This juxtaposition of pleasure, inventiveness, and good ol’ fashioned fun with a history that undoubtedly includes pain, injustice, and erasure is the juxtaposition that theatre-maker Ange Loft invites us to witness through Stone and Bone Spectacular. In this Centaur Theatre production, we’ll get to the heart of what “unceded” really means when we talk about the lands we walk upon or take the metro through today. We’ll see how land was stolen — through what mechanisms, through what betrayals. We’ll get to the heart of what “erasure” really means. But we might also see a burlesque number done in a beaver costume. We might also get to see some country music waltzes. Telling a serious story and sticking to the facts are not a compromise for entertainment. Ange Loft’s new piece is not afraid to entertain its audience, nor its creators themselves.
Ange Loft is an interdisciplinary performance artist from Kahnawà:ke Kanien'kehá:ka Territory with a keen interest in research, wearable sculpture, and theatrical co-creation. Alongside choreographer Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo and performer Iehente Foote, co-creators of the piece, she is bringing Stone and Bone Spectacular to the Centaur Theatre. With “stone and bone,” referring to archaeological research, and “spectacular,” referring to the creation’s flamboyant fairground influence, the show is the culmination of explorations into the very land Centaur Theatre is built upon. This is the land known as Montréal on a world map, or Tioh’tià:ke by the Kanien'kehá:ka Mohawk people who have occupied it since time immemorial — and continue to occupy it — alongside other First Nations.
From left to right: Dylan Thomas-Bouchier, Wahsontiio Kirby and Veronik Picard
The show is told through a series of vignettes dabbling in different vaudevillian aesthetics, all with the through-line of a mythical romance between “Ramrock,” a Kanien'kehá:ka man, and “Two Dogs,” a Wendat woman. The entirely Indigenous cast and design team bring together different talents, leading to an assemblage of magic, fortune-telling, and even impersonations of explorers like Jacques Cartier.
Original music with early 20th-century and country influence appears throughout the show as well, created in collaboration between Loft and sound designer Olivia Shortt. Many Indigenous musicians hold a special appreciation for country music, perhaps in part due to the genre’s general balancing act of themes and moods through storytelling. The country music catalogue is known to juxtapose legends of disenfranchisement, heartbreak, and vulnerability with festivity, flirtation, and tenderness. This is the balancing act we see in a show like Stone and Bone Spectacular. In fact, for those who want an extra bit of toe-tapping, an evening with Brian Moon is scheduled after the show's October 25th performance. Moon is an Indigenous country musician active and celebrated since the 1980s who runs Kahnawà:ke’s country radio station and cites Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and George Jones as influences.
From left to right: Iehente Foote and Veronik Picard
The flights of fancy depart from the solid ground of serious research. Ange Loft and co-creators Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo and Iehente Foote are the recipients of Centaur Theatre’s inaugural Indigenous Arts Residency. Stone and Bone Spectacular has emerged from a multi-year process involving creative workshops, community consultation, and historical research. Interviews with community members have led to verbatim text included in the show, reflecting the importance of oral history in Kanien'kehá:ka culture.
It is not typical for the Centaur Theatre to invest in the multi-year support of new creations, and it is particularly new that the theatre expressly invests in Indigenous-led creation. During the pandemic, the Centaur’s team reflected on blind spots in its programming. Which stories were not being told? Which artists were not being uplifted? Realizing that the Centaur had not directly featured an Indigenous-authored project in its mainstage season since Drew Hayden Taylor in 1992, the Indigenous Arts Residency was duly conceived. Stone and Bone Spectacular is the residency’s first-ever outcome.
Artistically experimental, larger-than-life, and straying far from the familiarity of a “straight play,” Ange Loft’s creation is a step in a new direction for the Centaur Theatre. The tendency to blend styles, to bring together fact and fiction, and to test the limits of interdisciplinarity is not necessarily new for Montréal theatre, and in many theatrical institutions is a given in itself, but it represents a risk for the Centaur. It’s a risk the Centaur is willing to take in order to centre an artist they believe in.
If you go to the theatre fairly often, you’re likely to have heard a familiar phrase that starts like: “this theatre is situated on unceded Indigenous territory.” In Montréal, you are likely to hear that “the land we know as Montréal is known as Tioh’tià:ke by the Kanien'kehá:ka nation, and that it has served as a meeting ground since time immemorial for various nations, including the Huron-Wendat, the Anishinaabe, and the Abénaki.” That information in itself tells a story. What is that story? What does unceded really mean? What does a meeting ground really mean? And how does this story live in your bones?
Stone Bone Spectacular runs October 15–October 26, 2025. An artist talk with Ange Loft will be scheduled, in addition to talkbacks after several performances. A musical evening with Brian Moon is scheduled after the show’s October 25th performance.
Stone and Bone Spectacular
By Centaur Theatre
Running October 15-26, 2025
At Centaur Theatre