About Us

MICHELE PERPAUL

Community, sharing, tradition, and truth are all words that have been used to describe the work of accomplished singer, hand drummer and workshop facilitator Michele Perpaul. Michele has brought people together through her work with song-sharing circles, storytelling, drumming and Anishnawebek traditions for more than a decade.

Michele's love for the drum has grown over the years. It started at the Women's Community Drum Group at Anishnawbe Health Toronto. She learned the fundamentals of carrying and taking care of a personal drum with these women. Together they had the opportunity to sing during feasts, memorials, socials, and pow wows.

The drum pulls women together. It provides a community that reaches all shores of Turtle Island allowing women to receive teaching from other Native Nations. Michele has met and sat with many women that carry a hand drum.

Michele is honoured to have the privilege of being mentored by the elder, Maggie Paul, singer, song-carrier and traditional teacher. Maggie is a strong, humble and powerful person and has been bringing songs to Toronto for 18 years. The most beautiful gift that Maggie shared was the responsibility to pray, while we sing. Each song is a prayer. With this understanding, we keep ourselves as strong and healthy as we can, to assist The Drum in doing its work.

In 1992, when women started singing on a more regular basis, there was a misunderstanding by some of the community that the women wanted to take back The Drum. This was far from the truth. With the help of women, such as Joni Shawana and Danielle Roy, who were respected by the male drummers, women gained support. Michele had the opportunity to stand with these women in their new work as community hand drummers and singers, during this time.

Today, Michele encourage the women drummers she stands with, to aspire to this high caliber of singing.

MICHELE'S SINGING & DRUMMING HISTORY

My journey, singing in the community, began in October of 1998. I attended a Pow Wow that was put on by Native Child and Family Service. There was a women's drum group there and the sounds moved me. I approached one of the singers and she told me that I could learn to sing at one of the organizations in Toronto on Tuesdays. Six months later I was asked to sing with the woman I had first met, and we sang together for two years. She taught me to let my voice be heard and sing right out loud.

In the fall of 2000 I was asked to sing with the group which was singing out of the University of Toronto. The name gifted to the group was Songs of the Rainbow (Singing Rainbow). I sang with them for two years. With great sadness Songs of the Rainbow disbanded.

On First Nations Day 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 the groups that I sang with were asked to sing with Sweetgrass City Singers, a group that had been singing in Toronto for a number of years.

I have been singing with Spirit Wind since 2001 when they were putting out their Breathing the Wind CD. They wanted an extra voice and asked me to join them. When they had their CD launch they asked me to join them again. Slowly I was invited to sing with them at more events. I was asked to sing with Spirit Wind full time in 2003.

Singing with Spirit Wind, I have seen many people opening up emotionally. Music has a way of unlocking the doors to our emotions that are stuck in all the parts of our body. It is the key to our freedom of expression which solidifies our love for ourselves. When we open up emotions we have the choice to work it through or let it control us. We will always end up in the same place in life if we don't change what we are doing to the positive.

ABOUT ME

I am a mother of four great boys. They are there for me and I am there for them. I have lived my whole life in Toronto where my mother and father were also born. My mother's family is from the island of St. Catherine's in the Caribbean. My father's family is from the island of Martinique and his family was slaved in the Seminole Nation.

My late father, Joseph Louis Perpaul, grew up in foster care in Orillia with a great family, who we still visit. He was an athlete in high school and played football for Central Tech. He was the first black manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Toronto. When I was very young, my dad who had Sickle Cell Anemia, passed away. Always knowing that he suffered from a fatal illness, my dad made sure that my mother learned how to drive and encouraged her to be a strong woman.

I am who I am because of the support that I received from my mother. My mother taught me to walk in a good way and be respectful to my elders. I was taught that it is important to have supportive peers and to hold your family close. Now my mother didn't tell me these things, she mirrored them for me. I love you mom!

I came to the Native Community of Toronto when my oldest son started school at the First Nations School of Toronto in 1993. I joined the parent council and started to learn a bit about my responsibilities around teaching my boys about their culture.

I grew up in Toronto and never took in what was offered to me about black heritage. I did not take the time to learn and I didn't want my sons to have to search for their identity, the way I will have to soon.

My sons know a little bit about their native ancestry, a lot about native history but most importantly, they know about the Earth that they live on and the lesson She shares.

The love and support that I receive in the community helps me to be strong and stand up for myself and be there for others.

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