Location: Golden Civic Centre

Axis Theatre is renowned for its children’s theatre, and their new show brings the history of the Métis vividly to life with lively music and inspired onstage creativity.

Live Kicks has an impressive track record when it comes to presenting top quality children’s theatre, and we are particularly excited to be offering Where Have All The Buffalo Gone?, a new show by the acclaimed Axis Theatre. Inspired by the actual history of the Métis peoples, this original play explores key events featuring the Métis of Treaty 6 in what is now Alberta. Central to this story is their kinship with the buffalo, and the narrative follows two Métis spirits, Marie and Jean, via a quartet of love stories in four distinct periods of Métis history. As the play unfolds we see various Métis nations appear across the plains, followed by the lucrative fur trade that proved to be an irresistible magnet for the forces of colonization. Later, the once limitless herds of buffalo vanish from the land, causing the Métis Association of Alberta to eventually rise up in political protest. Buffalo’s playwright is Tai Amy Grauman, an award-winning writer of Métis, Cree, and Haudenosaunee descent. Grauman is drawn to women’s issues and based some of her narrative on the journals of Victoria Belcourt Callihoo, a Métis historian who was born in 1861 and went on her first buffalo hunt at age 13. Late in her life, Callihoo picked up a pen and wrote many autobiographical articles for the Alberta Historical Review. Her memories are vividly brought to life by the incorporation of fiddle music, jigging, and a life-size buffalo puppet – exactly the sort of inspiring entertainment and award-winning onstage creativity that has been the hallmark of Axis Theatre for nearly 50 years. Buffalo is a unique Canadian story presented with a passion and imagination that audiences won’t soon forget. 

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