From the website: In 1974, the late James Buller founded Native Theatre School. This original four-week program was created based on his belief that with a viable Aboriginal theatre school in place, Aboriginal actors, playwrights and directors would have a forum for exploration and exchange, and that the results of this exchange would have a measurable impact on the Aboriginal Theatre community.
Today, the Centre for Indigenous Theatre has expanded, offering a three year full-time program, as well as two Summer Programs in Peterborough, Ontario and Lethbridge, Alberta. The Centre embraces the spirit, energy and inspiration derived from the culture, values and traditions of Indigenous people. From these roots, we seek to elaborate a contemporary Indigenous performance culture through training and professional development opportunities for emerging and established Native theatre artists.
The purpose of the program is to develop contemporary performance skills from a distinctively Indigenous cultural foundation. The curriculum integrates training in acting, voice and movement with Indigenous cultural classes in dance, song and oral history. It also offers a professional development component, which allows students and working actors to train together, adding the all important mentoring component to the curriculum. To gain practical performance experience, students are given the opportunity to publicly perform through community showcase events, story creation projects and the year-end production which features senior students.
