Achieving a breakthrough - includes related articles on winners of Canadian National Aboriginal Achievement Awards - Cover Story

When the 1995 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards take place at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre on March 31st, the attention of Canada's native community will be focused on the outstanding non-political achievements made by their peers.

Created in 1993 in recognition of the United Nations' International Year of Indigenous Peoples, the awards ceremony was held for the first time last year. 1994 achievers included singing sensation Susan Aglukark, Haida artist Bill Reid and filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. Any aboriginal Canadian can be nominated by a Canadian citizen and members of a 21-member jury select 14 recipients (12 plus one lifetime achievement recipient and one youth award).

Mohawk conductor and composer John Kim Bell, from the Kahnawake Reserve near Montreal, is the man behind it all. As founder and chairman of the Canadian Native Arts Foundation which is dedicated to providing arts scholarships for aboriginal youth, the NAAA are Bell's latest undertaking in an impressive list of accomplishments.

Bell, pictured above, is a student of the piano, violin and saxophone and made a name for himself by conducting Broadway musicals in New York City at the age of 18. Conductor of the Toronto Symphony in 1980-81, Bell later co-wrote the first-ever aboriginal ballet, In the Land of the Spirits., which included 20 native ballet dancers.

Before Bell came up with the idea for an awards show, the possibility for a large Canadian commemoration of the U.N. celebration seemed somewhat bleak. "There were not substantive funds identified and nothing was happening on a national basis that would appropriately reflect Canada's tribute," he said. Because of this, the federal government asked Bell to attend special meeting at the National Arts Centre in May, 1993 to discuss funding projects. Someone asked for his opinion on what Canada should do for natives in recognition of the U.N.'s celebration. He confided that he didn't give it much thought at first until, as he puts it, "a little light went on." He realized that since Canada's entertainment industry is saturated in awards shows and the Jewish community has the B'nai Brith Awards to recognize achievements made by Jews, "maybe the government of Canada should have been looking into something like this," he told federal officials. He compared it to the Black American Achievement Awards which have been a huge success in breaking stereotypes of black Americans.

The bureaucrats liked Bell's idea and asked him if he would be willing to organize an awards show to recognize achievements made by aboriginal Canadians. "That was like hurling the gauntlet at me, and being Mohawk we take up the challenge," he joked. But there were problems. Three big issues facing him were: would a national network broadcast it? Would anybody give him the money" And, would the sometimes divisive aboriginal community support it? To make matters more difficult, 1993 was already halfway over. He began contacting non-political aboriginal leaders of the arts. sports and business communities for their reaction. To his surprise, the idea for an awards show had been talked about for over 20 years. "I guess nobody picked up the axe to make it happen," says Bell with a laugh.

A jury of representatives from Metis, First Nations and Inuit communities was formed with employment sectors from every region of Canada. The CIBC and Air Canada pledged financial support. This proved the catalyst for gaining further money. "The support of those two private corporations leveraged funds and support from 17 federal departments and agencies," according to Bell.

With financial support assured, Bell's next obstacle was to secure CBC broadcast time. The CBC's initial interest was to have an aboriginal variety show since native performing artists have recently gained popularity in the North American mainstream. But Bell wanted an awards show, so a compromise was reached. "We did an awards show where performing artists paid tribute to the recipients. With native performing artists, the ratings would stay high. So I got what I wanted and they [the CBC] got what they wanted," he admitted.

As it turned out, the inaugural show was a huge success beyond any expectation and reached two million viewers - the predictions were for only 200,000 viewers. With only one million native people in Canada, the NAAA is the largest aboriginal project in the country. "What this means," says Bell, "is that there are quite a few non-aboriginal people who are interested in watching the show and there is something positive about that."

"It's a huge breakthrough for aboriginal people in this country," he says. "This shocked the CBC and we were shocked as well, but were pleasantly surprised. We had no advertising budget at all."

Bell also feels that it is important for aboriginal youth, who statistically are highly suicidal, to take notice of the awards and realize that they can achieve their goals and they can be a success in life. "They need all the boost they can get and to see something like this has a huge emotional affect on the community as a whole, and a particular benefit to the youth."

"I would say the aboriginal community is uniformly behind the Achievement Awards and we're getting political leaders, who never supported us before, that love it. This is an ideal for which we must strive. Achievement is important for everybody. Not only should the NAAA help to create pride among aboriginal youth, Bell hopes that it will also create unity and erase the negative stereotypes commonly associated with native Canadians.

"We have always needed more unity in the aboriginal community," says Bell adding that with approximately 57 different aboriginal languages, 2000 different communities and many cultural differences, the task is exhausting at best. "This creates a means of unification." As well, he hopes that national corporations will also take notice and will invest further in the native community. "We need capital investment in our communities and in our own jobs. Businesses don't come out to reserves and say, `How can we help you?' but they are looking to expand market opportunities."

He attributes much of the negative stereotyping to the print media, which rarely covers the positive side of aboriginal life. "Last year, we did get some very positive press but we found that The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star had no interest in the awards - even though it represented a huge breakthrough for the aboriginal community." "All the problems which affect aboriginal people get reported on daily," says Bell. "But you never see Douglas Cardinal, Robert Davidson or Bill Reid in the press for their great work or some of the people who are doing great health care work. You don't see the champions, the heros or the highly educated. The press isn't interested - and this [the awards] combats that."

Instead of bringing aboriginals closer to Canada, Bell hopes that the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards will bring the other citizens of Canada closer to aboriginals. The gala will air on CBC April 6th.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Performing Arts and Entertainment in Canada
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