Learn about the journey of The Culture Den Society, an Indigenous organization, as they navigate non-profit legislation without sacrificing the integrity of their methodology which is grounded in a circle way.

The Culture Den Society

The Culture Den Society was formed with the shared sacred vision of creating a gathering space to promote, support and amplify Indigenous contemporary arts and culture. The vision was birthed after the Covid-19 pandemic prevented Lindsay Delaronde’s third Indigenous performance, ‘Vision Quest’, from becoming a live reality. A month into the pandemic, it was suggested that the performers continue to meet and dance outside after the initial health restrictions were lifted. It was through these weekly dance rehearsals that Lindsay and Jody realized they shared the same vision of creating a cultural performance centre; a place where people could gather in a culturally safe way and appreciate Indigenous multidisciplinary arts and culture.

Visions are something of the spirit world. They are carefully held and nurtured by those that can dream. It’s also the knowledge and the experience gained from working within the physical world that help visions become reality. The Culture Den society initially came together in the fall of 2020. Lindsay gathered us around the fire on her property and asked us to share our vision for a creative space. It was the beginning of a journey that would take us to the depth of our emotions, challenge us to grow in ways that we never imagined possible. The women of the Culture Den met over Zoom every month for three hours. It was during these meetings that we chatted about how to become a registered non-profit in British Columbia. The BC societies Act is a very specific piece of legislation that defines how to become incorporated as a non-profit. However, like most legislation, it was created without the consideration of Indigenous rights holders in BC. It sets forth very clear guidelines that must be met to become incorporated and a lot of the language that it used supports a hierarchal paradigm that reinforces the same authority that Indigenous people have experienced since the beginning of colonization. Our greatest challenge as a newly formed organization was how to become incorporated without sacrificing the integrity of our methodology which is grounded in a circle way.

After months of meeting and deliberations the Culture Den approved the bylaws and constitution that we co-created. It was decided and embedded within our written bylaws that we uphold the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in BC. We use the formalities of the BC Societies Act only to define more clearly who we are as an Indigenous organization.

The Culture Den incorporated in March 2021. In June 2021 we received our first grant from the Capital Regional District, this grant was an incubation grant that allowed us to hire a videographer to film ten performances we had developed on the land during the pandemic. This film is titled “MOTHER: Embodied Earth Performance”. The film was shown to the public at the Belfry on October 17, 2021. In July 2021 we received another grant from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, which maintained the gestation of our Culture Den Society, helping us produce our first live performance, “Bury the Hatchet” in June 2022. In the fall of 2021, we were also grateful to receive a grant from The Circle Way. This grant allowed us to hire facilitators and artists, Yvette Noland and Reneltta Arluk, to help inform the circle-based governance of the Culture Den Society which is the embodiment of matriarchy.

How we work together is very much rooted in kindness, respect, generosity, reciprocity, accountability, and transparency. These values are intentional and are shared amongst our diverse Indigenous backgrounds and they continue to emerge through the work that we do together. There have been moments where we’ve had to hold people and organizations accountable for their racism and this has always been done through kindness and respect, offering opportunities to work in circle. We also acknowledge and support our Indigenous ways of knowing and being, honouring each other’s intuition and spirituality, recognizing that this is becoming strengthened as we work collectively. We are also beginning to fully embody shared leadership. There is no one person that makes all the decisions although we equally acknowledge that we bring unique strengths and talents to the group and each one of us can step forward, when needed, to become a leader. The Culture Den Society is constantly evolving alongside our individual journeys. The greatest gift we have as a collective is time and unfortunately there is not a lot of that as most of us have full-time jobs in addition to the work we do with the Culture Den Society. We are looking forward to future creative endeavors while we deliberate how we will grow as a collective.

Lindsay Delaronde, Stephanie Papik, Sarah Rhude, Briana Bear, Jody Bauche and Rebecca Hass