Talk | New Chapter: Frétillant et Agile

Born in 1991, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine is an Innu poet, performer, actor, visual artist, and activist for Indigenous and environmental rights from Pessamit in Côte-Nord. Now based in Montreal, she is one of the province’s most influential voices. 

Her debut poetry collection, N’entre pas dans mon âme avec tes chaussures (Mémoire d’encrier, 2012), which explores early questions of identity, was critically acclaimed and earned her the 2013 Prix d’excellence from the Société des écrivains francophones d’Amérique. Her second collection, Manifeste Assi (Mémoire d’encrier, 2014) was a finalist for the Prix Émile-Nelligan and gives voice to a land suffocating under natural resource exploitation, including Alberta’s oil sands. In 2016, she published Bleuets et abricots (Mémoire d’encrier), a third collection that carries “the voice of the Indigenous woman who returns to life to overturn history.” 

Translated into English by Howard Scott, Do not enter my soul in your shoes (2015) and Assi Manifesto (2016) have now enchanted audiences across Canada and internationally. 

Natasha Kanapé Fontaine later co-authored Kuei, je te salue (Écosociété), an exchange of letters with Deni Ellis Béchard exploring racism between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. An especially timely dialogue, given the current events of the last year. 

Part of a broader resurgence of Indigenous youth, she served as spokesperson for Quebec’s branch of the pan-Canadian Idle No More movement. Her artistic and philosophical work explores what she calls a “poetics of relationship to the land.” Natasha Kanapé Fontaine has also been invited as a guest poet in Belgium, Haiti, France, Germany and Scotland. In 2017, she represented the Innu and Quebec at the Ethnic Minorities Festival in Tibet. 

Through dialogue, exchange and shared values, her practice seeks to bring people together, metaphorically “tanning hides” to strip away the rough edges of thought and consciousness. Through poetry, she engages in a process of healing with the environment, while speaking out against racism, discrimination and colonial mindsets, leaving a lasting imprint for future generations in the ongoing work of decolonization. 

A seeker of stories, creator and community-builder, Jocelyn is a founding member of the Belzébrute theatre collective and the OUF! Festival Off Casteliers dedicated to emerging puppetry artists. One of the very few Indigenous puppeteers in Quebec, he is an author, designer and performer whose work has been presented across Canada and in France. His distinctive artistic approach has earned him numerous accolades, including the Grand Jury Prize at the OFF/Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Mézières for Shavirez in 2013. 

Published in 2020 by Les Éditions Hannenorak, Mononk Jules marked his first foray into literature. The documentary stage adaptation of the same name won the Accès Culture award at Bourse Rideau 2021 and has since toured widely across Canada. 

In 2022, he premiered Frétillant et Agile, published by Hannenorak, which revives the story of Auhaïtsic. Created with two musicians, a sand artist and a shadow puppeteer, the production is currently touring across Canada. 

In 2024, he launched his first audio experience, SKAWANOTI, tracing the history of the last Indigenous village along the river in Montreal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough. 

In September 2025, he published the novel Poisson d’eau douce, a continuation of Frétillant et Agile, followed by a youth novel, Tête pleine de feuilles. 

Blending genres and influences, and infused with humour and imagination, his work, beneath its deceptively light tone, explores origins and collective memory, seeking to piece together a history long left untold.

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