MAINSTAGE 2026-27
Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy (Just Breathe, Mother Earth)
Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy offers intimate groups of approximately 30 individuals (depending on space) a fully immersive journey exploring the concept of climate anxiety and cultural solution-making. With the support of a ‘tour guide’ for the 50-55 minute tour, audience-participants experience hope, deceit, folly and serenity, while also uncovering alternatives to a shocking fate.
Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy presents audience-participants with the opportunity to engage with climate change as a nexus where economics, ecology, health and Indigenous knowledge meet. Examining the deep inequalities and inadequate nature of dominant cultural responses to the climate crisis, as well as the cultural possibilities that exist in connecting to the land via Indigenous worldviews, Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy creates an opening for audiences to engage in honest and open dialogues about truth, reconciliation, climate change and cross-cultural futures. Using state-based and immersive ‘tasks’ for audience-participants, those joining the Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy journey enjoy the strategic intersection of satire, Indigenous hoop dance, meditation, and immersive and site-specific performance, which creates an emotional journey that turns an audience into a community.
Each Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy journey concludes with an hour-long debriefing session. These sessions, facilitated by BC-based clinical psychologist Dr. Camille Mori, help the audience examine the feelings that emerged during the immersive journey, as well as connect to others who may be feeling disempowered in the face of the climate emergency. Due to the smaller audience size, Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy is typically offered 2-3 times per day for an audience.
TRAction
photo Fifth Wall Media
TRAILER
ARTIST BIO
TRAction is an arts collective that engages the public in art-making to address issues of climate and social justice. TRAction is led by a team of interdisciplinary artists who facilitate and organize a range of experiences. From Indigenous learning workshops to live performances to online networking to citizen-led art activism, TRAction’s leadership team – including Cree artists Chantal Stormsong Chagnon and Sandra Yellowhorn Lamouche and settler artists Melanie Kloetzel and Kevin Jesuino – has expertise in dance, music, theatre, visual art and socially-engaged performance. TRAction’s projects – which have been presented locally, regionally, nationally and internationally – vary in orientation and scale, but always centre active engagement and community partnerships. National projects such as the Climate Art Web and 10 Ways to Fix the Planet invite cross-geographical connections, while more local projects like VINES, The Nature of Us, and Out of Wounds (as well as workshops in drum-making, hoop dance and/or embodied ecosomatic practices) prioritize community connections. Together, these initiatives demonstrate TRAction’s belief that access to art-making is critical for fostering cross-cultural and inter-species respect, understanding and healing. https://tractionplanet.com/
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
The 55-minute live immersive version of Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy has been presented over 20 times between 2023-2025. These presentations – for the Professional Series in 2023, 2024, and 2025 at the University of Calgary - happened for both the public as well as for individual classes at the University of Calgary. The project has also been shared as a 22-minute film and facilitation session (for ages 12 and up); the film/facilitation pairing has been shared in Edmonton, Regina and Calgary. A live 15-minute storytelling plus hoop dance excerpt plus 30-minute facilitation session has also been shared for multiple elementary school classrooms at the Mayor’s Environment Expo at the Calgary Public Library. The project will be shared in the coming year at the Banff Centre as part of the 2027 Outdoor Learning Conference as well as through various university and high school facilitation sessions in 2026-27.
Project Created by: Sandra Lamouche (Bigstone Cree First Nation) & Melanie Kloetzel (settler)
Key Artistic Collaborators: Camille Mori (psychologist and debrief session leader; creative advisor)
Performed by Joceyln Hoover & Sandra Lamouche
Cultural advising by Shelley Eli, Dustin Walter, Lowell Yellowhorn
Design by Calum Maunier & Katriona Dunn
Performance type: THIS WORK IS ADAPTABLE TO THEATRE OR OUTDOORS OR ALTERNATE VENUES /SPACES
How do you define this work: Immersive, Site-Adaptive, Cross-Cultural (Indigenous & Euro-diasporic), Dance/Theatre
Length of performance: 50-55 minutes with 50 minute debrief directly following
Audience type: General Audience
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 3
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 1
Availabilities: 2027/28 Season
Project Details
Community Engagement
General Technical Requirements: The performance requires EITHER a pipe and drape set-up of a tunnel and interior space (see uploaded image) OR access to multiple spaces within a building through which an audience tour can take place. This tour requires access to certain props (see list below - has some flexibility); the tour also benefits from going through an area where theatrical lighting/haze can be used. The performance requires access to a room (either the interior to the tunnel space or a space along the interior tour route) where the audience can engage in the meditation section (we have wireless headsets for this section, but there will need to be ability to link those headsets with the audio system). The indoor portion of the piece typically has sound throughout; this requirement does, however, have flexibility. But the areas where sound is definitely needed are in the meditation room and in the area adjacent to the door where the audience needs to exit to the outdoor area. The production needs access to an outdoor area for the final 15 minutes of the tour (audio and minimal lighting needed in this area – audio at all times and lighting for nighttime performances only). FInally, the performance also requires a room inside the building for the debrief session that follows the performance.
Required amount of time for tech set up: If using pipe-and-drape, the production requires 4-6 hours for the pipe-and-drape set up plus 3-4 hours for indoor and outdoor lighting and audio (this would likely be a 1.5-2 day setup). If the tour is throughout the building, the cast needs a minimum of 1.5-2 days to rehearse and prep for the tour route with the technical crew.
Alternative Venues: This production does not use a typical theatre set-up. As noted above, this production either uses pipe & drape to create a ‘tunnel’ and internal room on the stage space for the audience to move through (see attached image) OR the production uses the full building facility to create a tour for the audience through multiple spaces of the building (including the use of a ‘meditation room’). The production also requires an outdoor natural space directly adjacent to the theatre (there is some flexibility around this space).
TRAction’s projects typically centre community engagement, but as this would be a first offering through the Dance West Network, we believe that it may be better to start relationships with individual communities through outreach offerings to determine what may be best for community engagement in future projects. HOWEVER, the cast of the production would appreciate the involvement of 2-3 local dance and/or theatre artists for cameo roles in the production itself (to be arranged through community relations).
Other Details
As the live site-adaptive immersive performance is difficult to offer through film, we have included the link to the film version of Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy (also available for outreach activities). The film is a more direct rendering of how an audience would affectually experience the live immersive work.
Also, we would like to underline that this work is malleable as it is intended to adapt to indoor and outdoor spaces (not a typical theatre set-up).
Finally, although we could note only one option above, we do have potential availability between Spring 2026 and Spring 2029.
Outreach Activities
The creators of Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy are very willing to offer outreach activities. As noted above, Kloetzel and Lamouche can offer the 22-minute film version of Just Breathe, Okâwîmâwaskiy paired with a 30-minute facilitation session in high school classrooms or to other community groups; they can also offer a 45-minute live storytelling/hoop dance performance excerpt from the performance for elementary age children. In addition, they can offer keynote addresses to the community regarding the learning that can emerge from cross-cultural creation, in particular in dialogue with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Finally, the creators are able to offer community workshops on Hoop Dance (Lamouche) and ecosomatic or site-specific creation (Kloetzel). For more on TRAction’s offerings, see: https://tractionplanet.com/offerings/
Contact information
www.tractionplanet.com
@tractionplanet
@kloetzelandco
@hoopdancegoddess
www.kloetzelandco.com