A concert and a conversation, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools is the meeting place of two people, and the North and South of our country. Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and queer theatre-maker Evalyn Parry met on an Arctic expedition from Iqaluit to Greenland. Now sharing a stage, these two powerful storytellers map new territory together in a work that gives voice and body to the histories, culture, and climate we’ve inherited, and asks how we reckon with these sharp tools.

When Indigenous farmer Arthur Copper begins planting wild rice to reclaim lakeshores, the seeds bloom into a funny-yet-fiery exchange between the farmer and a white cottager, Maureen Poole. The confrontation traces issues of ownership and community.

Lila is a Black former police officer whose career ended after she shot an unarmed Black youth. Her story is fictionalized by Tim, a white playwright whose play about the shooting takes liberties with the facts. Now there’s talk of a film, and Tim visits Lila to discuss. What unfolds is a raucous struggle on the subjects of responsibility and representation, framed by Kat Sandler’s trademark wit.