Indigenous Artist

Montana is a theatre artist who has experience as a playwright, actor, dramaturge, producer, and director. Her art focuses on the narratives that have shaped her community and the investigation into how our community chooses to interact with one another. Montana's most recent project is as a playwright and is titled "As the Ice Floats By", which an excerpt of a workshop was shown at Native Earth Performing Arts' Weesageechak 36 as part of the Animikiig Creators Unit.

Currently she is a multimedia journalist at Akwesasne TV. With a focus on Akwesasne and community, she aids in bringing their stories to light through a lens of Indigenous Storytelling in the form of journalism reporting and video creation.

She has had experience within her own community of Akwesasne on both sides of the border. She has worked within the tribal and band council organizations, where she had the opportunity to learn about leadership and the operations of both the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe through internships and Youth Council initiatives.

During her time in Ottawa, she has had the opportunity to work for the National Arts Centre as a research assistant in Indigenous Theatre, and as a Student Indigenous Engagement Officer at SSHRC. Also while in Ottawa she was engaged in the independent theatre scene, and within the Ottawa theatre festival circuit, having worked in some capacity with or in Ottawa Fringe, Fresh Meat, Ottawa Children's Festival, TACTICS, and Undercurrents, producing, acting, writing, or providing dramaturgy. Her show she created for the 2019 Fringe Festival "My Good Friend Jay" was then selected for Undercurrents in 2022. It was also given a virtual staged reading for the American Indian Community House based out of New York City.

Recently her theatre engagements took her to Syracuse, New York, as an actor with Syracuse Stage in the solo show "Our Words Are Seeds" by Ty Dufoe, and as a playwright with New York Stage and Film's Native Voices Residency in Poughkeepsie, New York. And last spring she participated in the Indigenous Dramaturges Exchange at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta.

Her most recent project was as an actor in Favour the Brave Collective's "Heartless" by Genevieve Adam, in Toronto, playing Sheauga.

INDIGENOUS ANCESTRY

First Nations

SELF-IDENTIFICATION

Akwesasne Mohawk