Donnie MacDonald works with his hands. That might be the easiest way to describe the headline act coming to this year’s Indigenous Awareness Centre for the 2019 Pow Wow Days.
Bringing any one of his eight hand-puppets to life — including Emery Burningrass —with stories from his own life’s tales — and a few things he picks up here and there — MacDonald infuses humour with culture, education with art and past mistakes with learning opportunities into his popular performances.
Sitting on a stage as he and his hand-puppets tell his humourous stories is the latest highlight for the man of many talents.
From Onion Lake, Sask, MacDonald is a talented powwow dancer who handcrafts his own regalia. He’s also a well-known Indigenous artist, selling crafts, from painted rocks and antler carvings to miniature replica powwow dancers from his Onion Lake-based store 1876 Trading Post. In recent years, however it’s been his handheld creations more than his handcrafted ones that have kept him busy.
“The puppets ... it’s been busy. People like to listen and laugh. It’s good to share the laughter and humour with people, especially if people are hurt or down,” he told the POST last week as he was heading along the prairie powwow circuit with his regalia and his puppets.
Touring Western Canada, with as many as 100 shows a year, MacDonald and Emery Burningrass have made a name for themselves as traditional entertainers who say it like it is.
Donnie McDonald brings his puppet-based humour to Pow Wow Days for a Saturday night adult-themed show.
Treating the pair — the man and the puppet — as two separate entertainers is easy to do after watching any of the weekly videos posted on Emery’s facebook page (that’s right, the puppet has a facebook page).
“I’ve given each of the puppets a different personality,” MacDonald said. “They have their own names and their own ways, their own behaviours and characters.”
There’s a dramatic one, a laid-back one ... there’s also grandpa — who just got out of the penitentiary and is trying to “come back home and straighten things out.”
While some of the topics MacDonald chooses to focus on can be serious, he doesn’t let that get in the way of trying to get the audience to laugh — not only at his puppets, but also at themselves.
“We can all get too serious. We might get in a stupid argument with someone, but you need to look back on those past experiences sometimes to show how stupid the argument actually was,” he said.
Dancing, joking and skating
The comedian and artist says he and his entourage will have some local material for the Lac La Biche area audience as he is no stranger to the community. He’s danced in the region at powwows, and spent a few winters in the community as one of the Lac La Biche Junior B Clippers in the 1990s when the team first began.
The Emery Burningrass Comedy Show takes over the old Curling Rink on the Lac La Biche Recreation Grounds on Saturday, July 13 from 6-8 pm. Tickets are $5 and will be available at the Grounds.
The adult-content show is licensed, and sponsored by Lac La Biche’s Royal Canadian Legion.
For more information on the show, contact the Lac La Biche Pow Wow Association by email at [email protected] or go to their facebook page.
Music and dance on Sunday
The Indigenous Awareness Centre at the old curling rink will also feature Aboriginal Music Award winner Winston Wuttunee, a returning favourite from last year’s Pow Wow Days event with his all-genre singing and his humourous storytelling.
Jingle dancer Randi Lynn Candline is also back to perform and educate visitors about the Indigenous dances and culture.
The Indigenous Awareness Centre will run on Sunday only from Noon to 4 pm.
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