NAC play examines effects of mining development on Indigenous culture in Colombian rainforest

The National Arts Centre’s 2025-2026 Indigenous theatre series got underway this month with a production that contrasts the peaceful Indigenous ecosystem of the Amazonian Rainforest with the devastating effects of mining development. Set in the rainforests of Colombia, Nigamon/Tunai is an interactive play by Anishinaabe Canadian artist Émilie Monnet and Inga Nation Colombian artist Waira Nina. Nigamon in Anishinaabemowin and Tunai in Inga both mean “song.” The play highlights the irony between Indigenous peoples peacefully using copper as part of their traditional culture and Canadian mining companies disrupting the environment to extract the mineral for profit. Monnet and Nina take the audience through a tapestry of sounds, including water running through copper tubing, rain droplets falling into copper bowls and rainforest birds singing. Overshadowed by the loud noises of machinery approaching from outside the forest. “The idea is to generate a different sense of listening,” Monnet said in an interview with APTN News. “An acute sense of listening to the sounds that we don’t really pay attention to. “The songs of the rocks, of the trees, of the water and perhaps it is that state of acute listening that we can hear the words of activists and land defenders and people that we have interviewed.” Nina added that Indigenous activists in Colombia put themselves at considerable risk if they speak out politically against development. “People are really at threat over there,” she said. “They make people disappear when they speak up against extraction and people get displaced as well. But it’s also affecting all the animals – the birds, the fish and the water.” For this reason, Monnet said Indigenous people in the north must stand united with their brothers and sisters in the south. “Indigenous land defenders are being persecuted everywhere but in Colombia if you speak against the government or for the protection of your territory – you get death threats or you get killed,” said Monnet. “There’s a lot of Indigenous leaders being killed at the moment. So, this piece was a way to think of solidarity or to think of friendship in terms of solidarity.” The NAC’s Indigenous Theatre’s Days of Truth and Reconciliation programming runs until June 2026, with a number of other plays and workshops. Continue Reading