THE PLAYWRIGHT

Artist's statement:

'My name is Daniel David Moses. I am the son of David Nelson Moses and Blanche Ruth Jamieson Moses. Deborah Blanche Moses is my sister. I grew up on a farm on the Six Nations lands on the Grand River in southern Ontario . Through my father's line and in the band registry, I'm Delaware . Through my mother's line, I've got relations among the Tuscarora. I also claim sisters and brothers among two-spirited people. I'm a writer of plays, poems, and only occasionally essays and fictions. I distrust the illusions of prose. Those of spoken language, I follow into emotion and/or stories, into an understanding of my home at the centre of the world. 'Breath is the one body' if I dare quote one of my own poems. Someday I will be a storyteller. Meanwhile, I live in Toronto .'

"I write to try to figure out an answer to a question and to stretch my mind in a writer's way." Daniel David Moses.

"We are living in a culture that wants us to think in the now and in the material world..(But our) imagination allows us to go to places that may not be real, but are probably necessary for our humanity. I hope that I'm getting in contact with some of that." Daniel David Moses (interview with Elizabeth Yates, The Expositor , Ohsweken August 2002)

The Globe and Mail 's Ray Conologue said Moses 'writes with a poetic suggestiveness that recalls Tennessee Williams: he is operating as an artist, not as an explainer or apologist for his people.'

Kate Taylor of The Globe and Mail wrote 'Moses is..a coroner of the theatre who slices open the human heart to reveal the fear, hatred and love that have eaten away at it. His dark play..can leave its audience shaking with emotion.'

The Toronto Star 's Susan Walker interviewed Moses and his director Colin Taylor at the opening of The Indian Medicine Shows (January 4, 1996). She writes '.Moses' plays are full of stage directions calling for the kind of violent or bizarre behavior more usually associated with dreams. He is a poet in the Shakespearean tradition of theatre, where the lines get refined so words are richly suggestive of emotions unspoken.'

"Daniel David Moses is a writer of exceptional vigor. A substantial intellectual, a fountainhead of essential stories, a natural-born poet and a giddily inventive creator, he has provided readers and audiences fortunate enough to experience his work with indelible artistic and emotional experiences over the last two decades. Daniel writes with wisdom and in love, telling tales that must be told. He is the kind of writer who reaffirms your faith in the possibilities of the theatre, and his amazing adventures upon the stage have only just begun. In a nation at the beginning of its own self-narration, Mr. Moses looms large. Find a weightier or more meaningful chronicling of the knotty complexities of the European and First Nations encounter, so free of bathos and sentimentality, so drenched in poetic power and human grace and dignity, so informed by wit and whimsy, and so utterly unforgettable. He is to my mind the most promising playwright in the country."

by Colin Taylor, Artistic Producer, (Theatre) WUM (May 2001)

"An artist of awesome imaginative scope and a Shakespearean richness of emotion and invention, Mr. Moses is the best-kept secret of Canadian drama of the last two decades. A writer free of political cant and pulpit aesthetics, and one of the most respected poets in the country, Mr. Moses has created a body of work for the theatre that is remarkable in its linguistic verve and energy, its stylistic diversity, its thematic ambition and its conceptual boldness. A genuinely original, distinctive voice, Mr. Moses has brought his powerful imagination to bear on a wide range of subjects and settings, from a tragic love story set in contemporary Toronto ( Coyote City ), to a fiercely beautiful tale of kissing cowboys in nineteenth century New Mexico ( The Indian Medicine Shows ) and a startlingly intense, panoramic epic of European and Native collision in 17 th century Ontario ( Brebeuf's Ghost). With his unerring instinct for compelling stories, his great skill in creating living, vibrant, wholly credible characters, his expansive social vision informed by a wide-ranging intellect and deeply held personal convictions, and his immense poetic gifts, Mr. Moses extends the possibilities of dramatic writing.

Daniel David Moses is a true poet of the theatre. His images haunt the imagination long after the theatrical event. In his ongoing exploration of the multiple traumas and possibilities that have characterized the encounter of First Nations and European peoples on this continent, the motif of haunting runs throughout his canon. Coyote City identifies the contemporary urban landscape as a place populated by the ghosts of Native peoples. This haunted, haunting landscape also figures prominently in The Indian Medicine Shows , two companion plays that offer a searing look at the psychological consequences of Native genocide in the 19 th century American Southwest. Brebeuf's Ghost , set in the frozen winter terrain of 1649 Ontario , deals with the conflict between the Iroquois and the Jesuit missionaries during a period that laid the early foundations for our nation. Other plays, including Almighty Voice and his Wife, Big Buck City, Kyotopolis, The Dreaming Beauty and De Winter's Tale deal with the metaphoric landscape of language and media images in which characters are rendered ghostly by cultural stereotypes, noxious cliches and reductive representations. In these works, Mr. Moses proves himself a potently historical writer, capturing with masterful accuracy not only the atmosphere and mores, but also the rhythms and cadences of speech appropriate to the period. He is a writer of exquisite craft, precision and accuracy.

The growth of Mr. Moses' art has been gradual but persistent. As any art form tends toward abstraction, toward the perfection of music, so is Mr. Moses' theatre literally tending. His use of occasional songs in early works will flower in his work currently in development. . Songs of Love and Medicine is a work of theatre that has grown from its initial creative impulses to include music, although its still maintains its roots in a specific history and stories. Since Mr. Moses' work tends toward the spiritual, his use of music serves as a bridging of the distance between the knowable and the unknowable, which provides the emotional sinew of the creations, and which also allows for the specifics of his "Indian" plays to be even clearer examples of his universalist impulse. His artistic growth is exciting, and needs to be seen and supported.

Daniel David Moses' work, with productions in both professional theatres and educational institutions, meets the needs of the country at a point in its history where the First Nations can no longer be ignored. He is unique in his position as a First Nations playwright with a body of work of consistent and superior quality who has made a strong commitment to both the development of his art form by the braiding of cultures and to the telling of the stories that created this country - a trajectory that is not always commercial, but has become essential in educational contexts. His play Almighty Voice and His Wife is an important example of the interest in and vitality of his work. Of interest both as a revisioning of history and as a bold formal experiment, the play was originally produced in 1991 and 1992. The published version of the play sold out its first edition, was resurrected as the first of Playwrights Canada's chapbooks, and has now been re-issued by the press as a full fledged book (2001). It continues to sell well in schools and books stores.

Alongside his dramatic writing, he has written a full length screenplay inspired by the life of Native poet Pauline Johnson ( West Wind ), three acclaimed books of poetry, co-edited an anthology of Native Canadian writing, and sat on numerous Boards and Advisories, including Cahoots Theatre Projects and most importantly, Native Earth Performing Arts. He has been a Writer in Residence at the University of Western Ontario , McMaster University , the University of Windsor and Concordia University , assisting young writers, with openness and generosity, in exploring their burgeoning creativity and honing their tentative craft. He is in high demand on the reading circuit as both an accomplished writer and gifted reader of his work. His warmth and professionalism are known to all, and his tremendous artistic and intellectual influence has been felt throughout Canada . Mr. Moses' work and status have raised the bar on indigenous playwrighting and have been instrumental in paving the way for a daring new generation of playwrights.

Beyond his thematic preoccupations and the reliable presence of keenly observed, elegantly sculptured, witty, poetic dialogue, Mr. Moses' plays strenuously resist easy categorization. It is difficult to think of another playwright in Canada , or beyond, who exhibits a broader stylistic range. The tropes of contemporary tragedy, historical epic, domestic farce, science fiction, romance, minstrelsy and the western are all present in his body of work. It is also thrillingly clear that he is still in the early stages of exploring an enviably rich font of stories. At mid-career, Mr. Moses is -as he has always been- at work on multiple artistic and intellectual projects, constantly diversifying his output.

Daniel David Moses' exceptional artistry, demonstrated commitment, and ongoing creative growth serve to elevate the art form. His is a healing, exciting, historical and vitally necessary voice in Canadian theatre. Audiences and readers have just begun to experience the dazzling theatrical adventures he has to offer."

By Nadine Sivak, Ph.D., University of Toronto (May 2001)