About the Play:

Annie Mae's Movement is a full-length drama by Yvette Nolan. Inspired by the life of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Mi'qmak woman from Nova Scotia who went to the U.S. to join the American Indian Movement, to work for her people, for all Aboriginal people. She rose in the ranks, became a leader, a lover, a warrior. On a cold day in February, 1976, her body was found at the foot of a bluff on the Pine Ridge Reservation. What happened to Annie Mae?

Annie Mae's Movement explores what it must have been like to be Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a female activist in the male-dominated American Indian Movement (AIM), a Canadian in America, an Aboriginal in a white-dominant culture at a time when it felt like Aboriginal peoples could really change the world. Dying under mysterious circumstances, it is still not clear whether she was killed by the FBI or by members of AIM. What really happened to Anna Mae back in the late 1970's cannot be truly known. Facts are lost in disinformation and denial, in misinformation and memory. Instead of recounting cold facts, this important and powerful play looks for the truth by examining the life and death of this remarkable Aboriginal woman.

Annie Mae's Movement was first produced in 1998 by Hardly Act Theatre in Whitehorse, Yukon. The Toronto premiere was in 2001 by Native Earth Performing Arts at the Native Canadian Centre.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"The story of Anna Mae Aquash is huge. It's as important to Canadian, US, and First Nations cultures as those of Louis Riel, Sitting Bull, Sir John A., or any of our 'leading men.' Yvette Nolan … has taken on this story with courage and conviction in a powerful presentation in which politics, gender, commitment, and betrayal loom large. It's a must-see." — Rick Knowles, Editor – Canadian Theatre Review

About the Playwright:

Yvette Nolan is a playwright, director, dramaturg and educator. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to an Algonquin mother and an Irish immigrant father, raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she lived in the Yukon and Nova Scotia before moving to Toronto to take the helm at Native Earth Performing Arts where she served from 2003-2011. A prominent figure in Canadian Aboriginal theatre, her best-known and most-produced play is Annie Mae's Movement.