Meet the team behind NDNs on the Airwaves, a new web series set at a radio station on the rez

Patti Jones dreamed of leaving the rez for the big city to work in fashion.

Instead, she is thrust into the world of community radio at her family's station, after promising her dying grandfather she'd keep the station going.

The fictional story is at the heart of NDNs on the Airwaves, a web comedy series launching this month. The series is the brainchild of Six Nations-based visual artist and poet January Marie Rogers.

Rogers, who has worked throughout her career in radio, says this is her first time producing a web series and she wanted to keep the episodes short, while still being able to tell an impactful story. Each of the 10 episodes run approximately 10 minutes.

Although the station and reserve are fictitious, the show confronts some very real issues facing Indigenous people today with humour and absurdity. Rogers says her characters are composites of people who actually exist in First Nations communities. 

"Everybody knows an Auntie Brenda," she says." Everybody knows the character that's on the rez, feels like they're stuck on the rez and wants to get off the rez."

One episode is a loose portrayal of what happened in Six Nations when the community decided to close its borders to non-residents to protect the community's elderly and vulnerable population during the pandemic.

In the episode, DJ Wiias, the station's "Outside Guy," does a live report on his cell phone from a community checkpoint. 

The audience can hear a disgruntled man who is asked for proof of residency upon trying to enter the reserve to buy gas. After being turned away, he replies that he "wouldn't live on the reserve if you paid me to" and that it's racist not to let him enter when, he said, "You Indians can come into our town for Dairy Queen or Micky D's, you fat pigs, and we can't come into your rez. How is that reconciliation?" he asks. 

DJ Wiias asks him to identify himself while providing his licence plate number for the listeners. 

Signing off on his segment, DJ Wiias says: "It's only 9:30 in the a.m. and the townsfolk are already getting racist… I mean restless."

Rogers says these kinds of interactions have happened.

"Those story lines, like the blockades and closing down the rez during COVID, and the interactions that take place there, are going to sound far-fetched but I was drawing from actual dialogue that took place at those checkpoints. That stuff was really said," she said.

Dark humour and the reclamation of these stereotypes within the series provide a platform for Indigenous people to overcome racism. 

Six Nations singer and now actor Lacey Hill, who plays Patti Jones in the series, hopes that her community is able to come together and to laugh as a result of the series. 

Hill is performing at a free event marking the launch of the series Friday at the Gathering Place by the Grand in Six Nations, starting at 7 p.m. The event also includes a screening, performances by series co-star Jace Martin and Juno-nominated artist Jai King-Green and a Q&A with the cast and crew. 

Humour "is a part of our resilience," says Hill. "It's a part of our coping mechanism. It's a part of our generational healing."

Of her character, Hill says: "You can see what she's got to deal with and the other characters coming in and out of the station and how she interacts with certain people. The bonds and the relationships with those certain people in those episodes makes it funny," she said. 

As a singer songwriter, Hill is more accustomed to live performances that offer no second takes. She said she appreciated being able to take direction to get it right. 

Joseph Owl plays Randy, a conspiracy theorist and fancy dancer. Owl brings his radio background to the series and has worked with some of the cast before. He ran the Sunday morning radio show for three years out of Serpent River First Nation in northern Ontario.

"I was big on promoting local talent and local artists and Jace Martin was one of the talents that I promoted on the show," he said. 

The series, which has been supported by Canada Council for the Arts and Six Nations Development Corporation, is available online via YouTube.