À propos
It is with great sadness to hear about Neil Benson passing on. Neil was a great writer of poetry and as well he was a playwright. He gave me permission in 1990 to utilize his poems and play in conjunction to my writings of poems and plays. His unique style of writing showed his fluency in Gitxsan language where he had to translate Gitxsan to English to create his works. He had a distinct rhythm and style. His style was unique as opposed to my western understanding of English whereupon, my writings were from an assimilated background while his was from the traditional upbringing of his people. I first worked with Neil with the Chief Dan George Foundation video program 1986. A great experience and time with various Individuals from the Salish Area and beyond. Randy Fred, Ronald Joseph, Joey Aleck, the late Stacy Elkins, Neil Benson, and myself. Lenard George's A Journey to Strength video directed by Phil Lucas was part of the denouement of that training program. All of us as trainees worked on the video, and learned video and television production from a great set of people of the time. Blair Harvey was the Project Manager, a good man, funny, bright and good with administration and brain storming. After the training program, I continued with my university courses. I took film theory at SFU during the Chief Dan George Program, and my inter-disciplinary studies continued towards an euro centric direction, deliverance. Neil and I would go for a couple drinks and we would have dialogues dissecting the English language in all its colonial manifestations. Here we were two Indigenous writers discussing the impact of colonialism on who were are as a people, two different literacies, Neil the literacy of a 10,000 year history, Me, the literacy of foster homes, orphanages and ultra white upbringing (My degree) far removed from the "Indian" He wrote: "Colonialism is the dirtiest word in the English language!" I could not agree more, that phrase was always at the tip of my tongue quoting Neil immediately. The juxtaposition of Neil's words and my words were the early development of the multimedia performance event Indians and Dogs with Jimy Sidlar and myself, directed by moi (91, 92, and theatrically directed by the late Lisa Sazama in 1994). So sorry to hear about Neil moving on. :-(
