Kiuryaq

"I saw the Northern Lights once, but this play took me deeper.... “Kiuryaq” was at its most captivating when it directly tackled the tension between Indigenous Arctic life and philosophy, and Western culture." 

The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2025

Kiuryaq is a circumpolar performance exploring our relationship with the Northern Lights, created through collaboration among Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from Canada, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), and Sápmi (Norway).

The Northern Lights have always carried stories—frightening, spiritual, epic, and playful. The overarching story of Kiuryaq centres on two siblings born in the North: one raised beneath the Aurora with their grandparents, the other adopted south and unaware of their origins. Through ancestral connection, choices are made that alter both their worlds.

Blending theatre, live music, and video design, Kiuryaq weaves northern stories into a landscape of light, memory, and cosmology. A performance of transformation and return, Kiuryaq is an invitation into the wisdom, warnings, and worldview of the circumpolar region.Akpik Theatre is a professional, Indigenous-led theatre company founded in the Northwest Territories in 2008 by Reneltta Arluk. The company focuses on developing and producing professional theatre based on circumpolar stories, including Indigenous oral traditions and contemporary themes, for northern, national, and international audiences.

Theaturtle was established by Alon Nashman in 1999 to create essential, ecstatic theatre that touches the earth and ignites the soul. We develop music and image-infused work collaboratively with other companies and tour it throughout Canada and internationally.