Text & Photos : Ninka North
Black Bear is a very popular drumming group in North America. The band has been following the pow wow circuit since the 2000s and has been releasing albums inspired by traditional music in the purest northern style since 2011.
The band’s name was inspired by the experience of Josephine Moar, a little Atikamekw girl who was taken in by a bear after getting lost in the forest.
Every time I went to powwows where they were performing, I recognized their specific beats and the great energy that characterizes them.
Daveen Moar is the leader of the group. He began his initiation with his father Gilles Moar, in Manawan, inspired by the healing process that his father experienced.
Several members of the group are from their families, with young people from the community joining over time.
I always seen Daveen behind his glasses when he played the drum. He was “the man with the mirrored eyes”, as I used to call him, before I met him. Standing two meters from the drum, in the heart of the space where the drummers were evolving, I probed my questioning in the reflection of his lenses, as I perceived the breath of the Earth…
Team members rotate according to their availability. There are Daveen, Gordie et Dickie Moar, Kent Nequado, Léo Dubé, Charles, Eddy, Nicolas et Keith Michel Flamand, et Pierre-Marc, Ghislain et Jim-Vincent Ottawa.
Talking about drums is not a trivial matter. It is a story of transmission and pride, one of these sacred traditions dear to the natives, all the more essential as it represents the heritage of an ancestral knowledge that colonization did not succeed in eradicating.
The drum is one of the pillars of the tradition… He’s not an object in the Western sense,, but a being in its own right that gives its teaching, treated with the greatest respect
because it transmits the heartbeat of the Mother, our Sacred Earth. Accompanying the dances and ceremonies, the drum invites the dancers, along with the prayer song of the singers, to join in the center of the pow wow arena for healing.
As such, it is considered medicine in the heart of communities, as crucial to the Elders as it is to the young.
“The drum must be honored”, and that’s precisely what the members of this group do with formidable power. With each pow wow, their hypnotic tempo and honoring beats clatter with gravity, spreading their vibrations into the space with gusto. And what happens here is not only festive, but spiritual…
The Black Bear also participate in traditional powwows and annual inter-tribal competitions. They won the Juno Award in 2016 for best Aboriginal music album and have performed with Canadian Aboriginal electronic music group “A Tribe Called Red”, among others.
Leurs albums sur Spotify :
Radio Black Bear sur Spotify :
Albums :
- Out of Hibernation (2011) ,
- Spring Medicine (2012),
- Rez Road (2013)
- Come and Get Your Love (2014)
- Notcimik (2017)
Prix :
- Out of Hibernation : prix du meilleur album de pow wow à la sixième édition du Indigenous Music Awards 2011.
- Come and Get your Love : the tribe Session, nominé au prix Juno 2016
Site web :