Jeremy Dutcher is a member of the Tobique First Nation, and a two-spirited composer, performer, and anthropologist whose work on Wolastoq culture & language preservation, water & land politics, and anti-pipeline activism is at the forefront of his musical practice. His debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (2018) created a cross-generational and ancestral dialogue at the intersection of opera, electro-pop, jazz, and traditional Wolastoq songs, which Dutcher transcribed and arranged from wax cylinder recordings.
Dutcher’s artistic practice is strongly informed by his experience as a two-spirited artist and he is vocal about re-vitalizing teachings around the acceptance of gender and sexuality diversity through a decolonial lens. Often speaking about the lost indigenous teachings about how gender and sexuality are understood, Dutcher describes two-spiritedness as the balance of spirit, a powerful perspective of duality that can contribute to the necessary “unlearning” of practices and understandings of gender and sexuality under settler colonialism. Dutcher approaches climate change through an artistic practice that demonstrates how gender and climate justice are indelibly linked in efforts to combat climate change through land repatriation, sustainability, and community organizing.
Join ethnomusicologist Lee Veeraraghavan for a conversation with Jeremy before the performance at 7.30pm ET.