Hi pals,
I was reflecting on the conversation we had on how humour can be used both as armour when undergoing trauma and as an entry point into difficult themes or events. Another TC in my Aboriginal Education class remarked that she was surprised we hadn’t included more moments of humour and levity in our classes because her experience of the Indigenous cultures she has interacted with, is that humour is a large part of their different cultures. I think it can feel tricky to know how to include humour depending on your positionality. What kind of humour is respectful? What kind of humour is helpful?
There is a really great improv duo called Folk Lordz who bring together two different types of storytelling formats into their improv comedy. The improvisers, Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodestksy, combine both Cree-Blackfoot war stories/oral storytelling with Jewish fools tales from Yiddish lit as each come from these cultures. It turns into really fun cross-cultural comedy. They also make videos about Indigenous issues in Canada (including Boyden, Indian Status etc.). Here’s a video they made in response to the common complaint of “why do we have to learn about residential schools when they happened so long ago?” that I would definitely show to my class: