Julian Brave NoiseCat
We Survived the Night: A Coyote Story in Four Parts
World premiere
Theatre
Across his genre-defying work, Julian Brave NoiseCat often turns to the narrative arts of his people who tell stories about mythic ancestors like the trickster Coyote to make sense of the world and themselves, cutting through colonial fictions while pushing the boundaries of nonfiction to illuminate vital truths. The “Coyote Story,” an artform once practiced by Indigenous peoples from Central America to Western Canada, is one of the oldest and most significant oral traditions in human history. In this one-man show, NoiseCat brings this dying art off the page and onto the stage through song, dance, and oratory.
Julian Brave NoiseCat—writer, filmmaker, and champion powwow dancer, is a multi-hyphenate storyteller and artist from the Secwépemc and St’at’imc nations. His documentary, Sugarcane, directed alongside Emily Kassie was nominated for an Oscar in 2025. NoiseCat’s best selling book, We Survived the Night, grounds and is the source for this work.
The Dark: PS21’s fearless winter festival of live performance radiating across Columbia County
The Dark is a new annual festival from PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance that celebrates and elevates the depths of winter. Taking place February 16–22, 2026, the festival will unfold at PS21 and across Columbia County—in theatres, restaurants, libraries, saunas, and outdoor public spaces. Featuring more than 60 international artists and over 80 performances, The Dark offers a packed week of world-class contemporary performance, installation, music, dance, and theatre—all exploring winter as a time of community and solitude, fire and ice, darkness and light. A major new attraction for the region, the festival positions Columbia County as a year-round cultural destination—not just a summer one.
It is a light in the dark—and The Dark is the light.
Secure your Festival Pass to The Dark now which includes tickets to every performance along with a complimentary sauna and ice skating session!
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer and student of Salish art and history.
His first documentary, Sugarcane, directed alongside Emily Kassie, follows an investigation into abuse and missing children at the Indian residential school NoiseCat’s family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. Sugarcane premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition. The film was recognized with dozens of awards including Best Documentary from the National Board of Review and was nominated for an Academy Award. A proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, NoiseCat’s first book, We Survived the Night, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House Canada, and Profile Books in October 2025 and was an instant national bestseller in Canada with translations forthcoming from Albin Michel in France, Aufbau Verlag in Germany, Iperborea in Italy, and Libros del Asteroide in Spain.
NoiseCat’s journalism has appeared in dozens of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker and has been recognized with many awards including the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which honors “excellence in long-form, narrative or deep reporting on stories about underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in the present American landscape.” In 2021, NoiseCat was named to the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders alongside the starting point guard of his fantasy basketball team, Luka Doncic.
While this performance does not have reserved seating, we are happy to accommodate any specific accessibility needs.
Please reach out to Adriana at boxoffice@ps21chatham.org, and she will coordinate with our front-of-house team to ensure your experience is comfortable and enjoyable.
