Dear Friends,
Our film “Bearing Bloodlines: Ancestral Invocations” has been officially launched on Gabriola Island, in Vancouver and online this spring. The overwhelmingly positive audience response to our premiere screenings has been incredibly gratifying and surprising. We are truly humbled.
We are encouraged to share this film more widely by submitting it to film festivals and various organizations where it may be screened more publicly.
Some of the audience response and questions were recorded in the talkbacks, during which we, Barbara, Greg and I, offered more information about the process of creation. You can watch the talkbacks for the Vancouver and Gabriola screening by clicking on the links below. The Online talkback will follow.
If you have any questions about the film or are interested in offering a screening please contact me at tannisis@shaw.ca.
We send immense gratitude to all who engaged as witnesses and supporters of this project.
Tannis, Barbara and Greg
Screenings
Friday, April 10, 2026
Opening the Isle of the Arts Festival
Co-produced by Gabriola Arts Council – Island of the Arts Festival, and sponsored by Crimson Coast Dance, Studio M*
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Vancouver Premiere
Co-sponsored by the Gabriola Museum
Sunday, May 3rd
International Virtual Film Screening
Sponsored and produced by Crimson Coast Dance, and co-sponsored by Studio M*, Gabriola Museum
For more information about Barbara, and Gregory and this project, go to www.barbarabickel.ca and www.gregorywendt.com.
In this mystical, spirit-led film, two women, descendants of colonial settlers, enter a ritual, storytelling, embodied trance with giant ancestral puppets, to face the destructive legacy of their ancestors.
Enveloped by the brilliance of earth, sky, sea and forest, they journey towards healing and reconciliation. Filmed on beautiful Gabriola Island, BC at Drumbeg Park and on the McRae Lands at Gabriola Museum.
Barbara Bickel and Tannis Hugill are two Caucasian elder women artists who are committed to bringing healing to the legacy of the unprocessed trauma their ancestors brought to North America. Tragically, their ancestors’ worldview, distorted by trauma, contributed to the brutal treatment of the Indigenous peoples of this continent. In this performance Bickel and Hugill answer the call to come to know and to reconcile with their European ancestral lineages. Once also Indigenous, their European ancestors were brutally forced off their lands, with their beliefs and culture erased by conquering armies, again and again. Scarred by centuries of trauma, all these forebears knew was the fear-based belief ‘dominate or be dominated’.
How can we, the children of settler-immigrants to the Americas, create peace in the world if we carry unreconciled divisions in our own blood lines and our familial dead are not at peace within us? If we do not face the traumas and resulting colonial, cultural and ecological supremacist legacy of our ancestors, we will be unable to embark on effective personal and collective ancestral healing and colonial reconciliation work.
In Bearing Bloodlines: Ancestral Invocations, we the performers, are witnessed by two large puppets, each symbolizing an ancient, caring ancestral guide. While we enter the realms of our ancestors through embodied trance, their stories are told. Inviting compassion in this way, the restorative artworking process becomes a transformative, transpersonal, and healing experience for ourselves, our ancestors, and the audience. The performance offers a vulnerable teaching and invitational opening for those disconnected from their ancestors, and the original lands of their ancestors. This teaching offers the possibility of harmonization and reconciliation between colonial settler descendants, this land, and the Indigenous peoples of this land. It offers a connection to the vibrant source of creation that unites all humans and non-humans across time and space.
Map of North America with all the places Barbara and I and our ancestors have lived
The Ancestors Speak
We call to you from our ancient waiting houses.
We are the ones who tilled the land,
Who sowed the seed,
Who sang the songs.
This is the culmination of the magical time-space we felt during our actual video shoot in September. We were graced by master videographer Gregory Wendt and our generous support team, Diane Conrad, carol weaver, Joanie Wright, Odette Laramee, Janice Power and R. Michael Fisher. We are also grateful to Brenda Joy of the Gabriola Historical Museum who facilitated permission to work in the forest behind the museum. Our Ancestors infused every moment. We now are guided in the creative editing process supported by a strong foundation for the sacred, creative reconciliatory work we are doing.
Our work has been to radically trust in our hearts, minds and bodies that this magical, miraculous process is guided by our Ancestors, who in mysterious ways are demonstrating their commitment to support the crucial inter-generational healing this ritual performance video is intended to reveal.
Thank you for your support through Fundrazr.
With gratitude for your support,
Tannis & Barbara