Tzinquaw: A Site of Postcolonial Performance in British Columbia

By James Hoffman

Abstract of a Paper for the BC Studies Conference,
University of British Columbia, May 2003

    In November 1950, what the newspapers called  “the first native Opera,”1 Tzinquaw, opened in Duncan to packed houses, numerous curtain calls, and wide acclaim. Shortly afterwards, it toured Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo, and Alberni  and was broadcast on CBC radio. With revivals in the 1960s and 70s, there were calls that it become an ongoing local event, “an Indian Oberammergau,”2 and that it play in London, England, “for a minimum of 12 months.”3 The opera was written and directed by non-aboriginals, Frank Morrison and Cecil West (who had recently worked with Montreal Repertory Theatre), in collaboration with the Cowichan Band who contributed songs, dances, and originary story of the Thunderbird (Tzinquaw) and the Killer Whale (Quannis). Tzinquaw was performed entirely by members of the Cowichan Band. Although there is, so far, no academic study of the work and little mention on record (it is only briefly noted in the History of Music in British Columbia 1850-1950), I believe the opera is significant in the performance history of the province.
    In this paper, using slides and audiotape, I will demonstrate aspects of this production and make the case for a significant moment of transcultural performance. I will examine Tzinquaw as an important stage in the development of  postcolonial performance in British Columbia, drawing upon the notion of hybridity as a productive site of exploration. With its perspectives on “the mobility and cross-overs of ideas and identities generated by colonialism,”5 hybridity is applicable to both the invader-settler situation of this province generally and the local realities of the Cowichan area. Working in a middle ground of creation within a changing postcolonial matrix, the collective authors of Tzinquaw, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, created a powerful work of cultural interdependence. Within the framework of Bhabha’s notion of colonial ambivalence, I will consider the opera as a work that both replicates and undermines colonial authority, thus “presag[ing] powerful cultural change.”6  More particularly, I will discuss the differing strategies of the creators, the varying uses of language in the opera, as well as some of the apparent results of the production—as reflected in interviews, reviews, programs, and feature newspaper articles over several decades.