A Full Circle First Nations Performance production. At the Scotiabank Dance Centre and the Ironworks on Saturday, February 16. No remaining performances

At a number of recent PuSh International Performing Arts Festival shows, audiences walked away dazzled by the brilliance of the lights, sound, and staging, but were decidedly underwhelmed by the content of what they’d just seen. Working with fewer technological and financial resources, the First Nations artists of the Talking Stick Festival turned that equation on its head: they’re telling vital and important stories, but the resulting pieces are sometimes aesthetically tepid.

Still, content trumps form more often than not.

Of the three offerings at Talking Stick’s Words & Rhythm showcase, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on February 16, Byron Chief-Moon’s Blood Alley was the most visually compelling. That’s primarily because of Chief-Moon’s dancing, which in this piece is not so much elegant as forceful. In a choreographic telling of his grandfather’s descent into and eventual emergence from the urban underground, he begins as a black-clad pool of misery. At times he looks as if he’s going to topple over; hunkered down in his grief, he exerts the gravitational pull of a collapsing star. By the end, however, he’s up and dancing proudly, supported by his own strength and the creation myths of his people.

Alex Hamilton-Brown and Chief-Moon’s projected photographs of architectural details from the Downtown Eastside provide an elegant context for Chief-Moon’s dance. Unfortunately, Alex Tssiserev’s electronic score doesn’t function at the same level as the rest of this dark and disturbing meditation.

Live music, on the other hand, is the driving force behind dancer-choreographer Melina Laboucan-Massimo and Tai-ze’s Manât’siwin. Tai-ze, which means three hearts in the Slavey language, is a new trio anchored by Yellowknife-raised Leela Gilday, a rising star in the world of aboriginal music and a future pop icon as well. Whether singing traditional melodies or soulful folk songs, her strong voice dominated this piece, despite an effective performance from Laboucan-Massimo, whose work incorporates aspects of prairie powwow dancing, West Coast ceremonial movement, and ballet. In a particularly touching nod to the family celebrations depicted in the vintage photographs that served as this work’s visual component—and as recognition of the bond between audience and entertainers—many viewers joined in for a gentle round dance midway through their piece.

Janet Rogers’s combination of spoken word and performance art included a quietly eloquent ritual of obvious personal significance, but the Victoria-based writer’s hip-hop soundtrack was distractingly generic.

The late-night Ab-Original Cabaret at the Ironworks provided further evidence of the strength of Canada’s Native artists, and of the need for Talking Stick to up its production values. Carmen Moore and Tinsel Korey, for instance, provided an excerpt from Claudia Dey’s play Trout Stanley that suggested the work would only gain resonance in a First Nations setting—but the two actors were often inaudible. The same problem also dulled the impact of the sweet but over-long Betty Rebel’s Medicine Show sketch by filmmaker Cease Wyss and songwriter Iffer, but didn’t impede the cabaret-closing antics of the Coyote Brothers, four young thespians who sent up muggers, drag queens, and hockey goons with totally over-the-top abandon. Everyone left smiling.