The Squaw Hall Project
An urban ink/Twin Fish Williams Lake Community Play
Collaborating Artists: Rosemary Georgeson, Nicola Harwood, Diane Roberts, Bessie Wapp, Cease Wyss(advisor), Terry Haines, Tracey Elkins.
The Squaw Hall Community Arts Project, a two-year video/performance project led by urban ink and Twin Fish (Nelson) theatre collective artists, is preparing to get underway in Williams Lake. The project begins April 11, where seven local youth will be trained as videographers to interview elders and seniors in their community. The focus will be on the three First Nations communities of the Chilcotin-Cariboo, the Secwepemc, Tsilhqot’in and Dakelh, whose territories border on the Williams Lake area.
Squaw Hall was an “Indian dance hall” during the Williams Lake Stampede, built in 1947 for Aboriginal people, who at that time were not allowed to enter places where alcohol was served. Stampede days were an important time of year for Aboriginal families to gather from afar and visit, compete and celebrate. Families prepared for weeks to travel by horse and cart, setting up a spectacular array of tents on the slopes surrounding the Stampede.
Over the years Squaw Hall developed a reputation for wildness, attracting Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people from far afield as the place “to do whatever your morals will allow you to do”. Famous for no roof and empty bottles thrown into the air, Squaw Hall was closed in 1975 and later burned to the ground.
Stories collected in April/May of 2010, will lead to the creation of a performance, to be created and presented in July 2011 in Williams Lake.
While in residence for six weeks, April 11 – May 20, the artist team will hold free open studios and writing clinics, to share the techniques used in their practice.
Men’s and Women’s drop-in Creative Writing Groups in Williams Lake, April 14 – May 19.
Family Performing Arts Workshops, April 23, 30, May 7, 14.
The Squaw Hall Community Arts Project is an opportunity for a community to reflect on 30 years of Stampede days, with the colourful Squaw Hall as a jumping off point; and to commemorate and honour the past and the present through an arts-based collaboration between professional and community artists, youth and elders.
Downloads:
Outreach Coord Job Posting 2010-2011
Youth Video Internship Program, April 11 – May 20 (PDF)
Biographies of Artist Team (PDF)
I was just delighted to see this project underway! I remember Squaw Hall in the 70’s. I have a tee-shirt that says “Custer had it easy. Squaw Hall 1974″. I had many good dances in that hall. I was 15 – 16 years old but they let me in to dance, anyway. It was fun dancing on all that broken glass, seeing those electric light bulbs strung across the top gave it a par-tee feel! Nothing compares to that Squaw Hall dance party. It truly was dancing until the stars came down from the rafters, yes, we danced until we dropped! (to use that famous quote from who-knows-where…)
Hey I do remember the Squaw Hall back when i was a teen-ager n that was a rough place to be
whenever there was a dance on Saturday Nights. Used to sit in the blechers watching people dance, the fights and beer bottles being thrown over the walls. It was a happening place before it got torn down or dismantled or burnt; that i am not sure of. So that is my story and those of my age group who would also remember those days.
getting back in touch