For more than two decades, internationally recognized dancer and choreographer Santee Smith has helped create space for Indigenous stories on stages across Canada and around the world.
On Wednesday, October 14, Smith’s Kaha:wi Dance Theatre will present Blood Water Earth at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough to open Public Energy Performing Arts’ 2026-27 season, with Curve Lake First Nation singer-songwriter Missy Knott performing a musical set to open the 7:30 p.m. show.
A multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka (Mohawk) Nation, Turtle Clan, at Six Nations of the Grand River, Smith has built a career bringing Indigenous knowledge, identity, and perspectives into contemporary performance.
Blood Water Earth combines dance, projected imagery, and live music in a work exploring renewal, ancestral knowledge, and the sacred feminine.
Drawing on the shared experiences of Indigenous women across continents, the performance evokes women as warriors, matriarchs, life-givers, and a connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.
The production’s international collaboration is central to that exploration. Smith worked with video and dance artist Louise Potiki Bryant of Ngai Tahu, the main Maori iwi (tribe) of Te Waipounamu (the South Island) of Aotearoa (New Zealand), to bring together imagery from Six Nations of the Grand River and Aotearoa.
VIDEO: “Blood, Water, Earth” trailer
Blood Water Earth premiered at the Onkwehon:we Festival at the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford in June 2018, with its New Zealand premiere at the Auckland Arts Festival at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery the following March.
For the Peterborough presentation, live vocals by Binne Kwe Elijah will accompany the performance. The production also features music composed by Cris Derksen, lighting design by Andy Moro, and costume design by Adriana Fulop.
Blood Water Earth draws from Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s trilogy Re-Quickening, Blood Tides, and Skén:nen, which explores the awakening of the sacred feminine. Reworked into a solo performance, Blood Water Earth brings movement, music, and cinematic imagery together in a journey through ancestral, natural, and dream worlds.
For Smith, creating and presenting her work has involved challenging assumptions about Indigenous dance performance.
“When we come on stage and do a show, it often looks nothing like people’s preconceived notions of what a traditional Indigenous dance looks like and the audience is sort of caught off guard — in a good way,” she said in an 2022 interview with TO Live.
“Kaha:wi Dance Theatre and collaborators are breaking down those Hollywood stereotypes and opening up and expanding what the range of Indigenous expression can be.”
Smith’s own path to dance began early in life. Before she was five years old, she broke both of her legs — one after she was hit by a vehicle, and the other in a cycling accident. She began dancing as a form of physical therapy and, at age 11, was accepted into Canada’s National Ballet School, where she trained for six years.
She later earned degrees in physical education and psychology from McMaster University and a master’s degree in dance from York University. Returning to dance as a choreographer in 1996, she spent six years developing her first production, Kaha:wi, a family creation story.
In 2005, Smith founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre to explore Indigenous and contemporary performance, develop international Indigenous collaborations, and provide training. Her work has since toured nationally and internationally, with commissions including choreography for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, and North American Indigenous Games.
A member of the Order of Canada, Smith also served for six years as McMaster University’s chancellor, concluding her time in the role in January 2026.
Her creative practice extends beyond the stage. Continuing her family’s pottery tradition, Smith recently recreated a vessel by her father, Steve Smith, for the replica Oval Office at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The original piece had been displayed in the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Peterborough audiences may remember Smith and Kaha:wi Dance Theatre from Public Energy’s 2019 presentation of The Mush Hole at Market Hall. That performance explored the devastating experiences of children forced to attend the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford.
VIDEO: “Happy in the Sun” – Missy Knott (2015)
Prior to Kaha:wi Dance Theatre taking to the Market Hall stage on October 14, Missy Knott of Curve Lake First Nation will entertain the audience with her guitar-driven pop-folk sound.
The award-winning singer-songwriter, media personality, and music executive has worked with Juno award-winning artist Crystal Shawanda and has opened for performers including Sass Jordan, Tomson Highway, and William Prince.
Her recordings include her debut album For No Reason At All…, the EP Runaway, and singles including “Our Song” and “My Sister’s Heart.”
Blood Water Earth will be performed for one night only at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 14 at the Market Hall, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets are priced on a sliding scale from $20 to $50 and are available online at www.tixr.com/groups/markethall/events/blood-water-earth-208267.
For more information about Public Energy Performing Arts and its 2026-27 season, visit publicenergy.ca.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a longtime media sponsor of Public Energy Performing Arts.
