Sisiyutł & The Balance Between Dark & Light: A Kwakwaka'wakw Cabaret

Event Date: August 15th, 2025

Time: 6:30pm-9pm (doors at 6)

Location: 510 Fort Street

Entry: Free and by donation (limited capacity, come early)

Curated by Alex Taylor-McCallum

Performances by Krystal Cook, Ne’nagwas Naomi Triebwasser, Zero Whonnock and Killed Instantly, PINDN and the Nation of Creation

The sisiyutł, in the Kwak'wala language, translates to the Two-Headed Sea Serpent, a great, powerful supernatural being which bears a more human-like face in the middle and can turn a person to stone with a peering glance of it's eyes and can bestow people with a great supernatural strength and abilities.

Metaphorically, my Gram-Mama, Liz Taylor, taught me that sisiyutł can also represent the balance which we need to maintain with the many choices we make in life between the good and the bad, the dark and the light, and so on and so forth. A balance between war and peace, ying and yang, love and hate, and so much more. A teaching commonly taught in the Namgis Treatment Centre to those of our people in recovery from addictions, trauma and the various many intergenerational effects of colonization, assimilation and the genocide of Indigenous people along the West Coast of B.C and beyond. 

With this creative, unique, fun and wild, yet sometimes sweet and wholesome variety, Alex Taylor-McCallum hopes to highlight urban Indigenous Kwakwaka’wakw artists, storytellers, younger up and coming artists who will, in their own ways, share songs, stories and acts which explore this idea of balance with songs of love and honouring, but also bluesy ballads and an uproar of resistance as we collectively and surely rise above, despite oppression and the depression and anxieties caused by colonialism and its aftermath.