The star of Crave's 'Shoresy' talks artistry and how she stays grounded.
Keilani Elizabeth Rose is a quadruple threat. The actor, dancer, filmmaker and DJlives between Vancouver and Los Angeles, but recently she'sspent a lot of timeinSudbury, Ontario filmingthe CraveoriginalShoresy, the sequel to Canadian cult-favourite Letterkenny.
Now that the show is fully released andthe initial reviews are starting to roll inshe sharesthat it's all"pretty surreal."
The six-episodehockey comedy follows in Letterkenny'sfoul-mouthed chirp-serving footsteps but with arepresentative script thatportrays the diversity ofsmall-town Canada without placing theweight of representation on just one character. As Rose puts it, the show puts Indigenous charactersat centre ice.
Rose has intersectional Indigenous ancestry fromLheidli T’enneh (The People Where the Two Rivers Flow Together), and Kānaka
Mamao (Native Hawai’ian diaspora) and playsMiigwan, one of the two protégéeswho shadow the GM of the Bulldogs team, Nat. Her counterpart Ziigwan is played by Blair Lamora.
"I'm really grateful," Rose tells Vancouver Is Awesome."It was such a ride and such a journey with the cast and the crew, it's really wonderful to see the work come out and see people receiving it well."
"I can come to the table in our artistic community as a leader"
The role in Shoresy is one of her largest to date but Rose has been honing her skills on deeply meaningful short films and working with her friends since she started acting in 2013. One of her recent shorts Within the Silence, which took home two awards at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival forBest Fantasy and
Best Choreography,was particularly dear toRose because it was written and directed by her friend Jade Tailor and gaveRosethe opportunity to learn and grow as a multifacetedartist.
"It was really amazing to be part of it, because not only was I able to act in it, but she also trusted me with choreographing it," says Rose."She really took me under her wing.
I got exposed to so much more than just the acting side, it was really eye-opening to see what we can do and what we can make and how I can come to the table in our artistic community as a leader and really dabble in all aspects of what we do, from acting to choreographing, to writing to producing and shadowing her as a director as well," she recalls.
Within the Silencetells the story of a deaf protagonist (although that isn't revealed right away)and hasno dialogue. Instead, other senses are explored and the cast was given the opportunity to learn American Sign Language.Both Tailor and Rose caredabout inclusion and representation andendeavoured to doright by the disabled community. Rose says theaccolades that the project received was "a magical push to keep going" and told her she was on the right path.
"We used to see Indigenous culture represented so one-dimensionallyin Hollywood"
She continued on her path with thelessons she learned on the set in her back pocket. "I think a lot of what I get to carry forward from Within the Silence into the rest of my journey is looking at how material represents us and making sure that I engage in a way that feels like it's coming from a place of integrity," she explains.
Her classical dance background also allows her to tap into another form of communication that isinseparable from acting."[Dance]allows me to access different types of body language in a way that becomes so useful when I'm acting. And vice versa," she says. "Understanding super clearly what the story is that you want to tell from an acting andwriting perspective, translating that into movement when I'm dancing, it just goes hand in hand."
As projects and acting opportunities start to find Rose, she is noticing that many of them are tackling heavy topics such as racism in the healthcare system (in the case of her upcoming CBC/Paramount showSkymed)but that they are increasinglytalking about representation among indigenous communities in a much more robust way. "It's nice to not be put inside a box anymore," she says."We used to see Indigenous culture represented so one-dimensionallyin Hollywood, you know, like Indian in the Cupboard, or Pocahontas, that was really all we had."
Nowadays she feels that Indigenous representation is being explored in a more fulsome way with characters being given more vibrance and complexity. She references Reservation Dogs and adds that "exciting things that I love watching are making waves in the industry right now."
She can't revealtoo much about her future projects but Rose does share that a few really special auditions have come her way recently thatare touching on topics such as missing and murdered Indigenous women, the fight for justice,land sovereignty and theland back movement.
"Filmmaking, I feel like is a modern-day version of ceremony"
She touches on similar themes in her own filmmaking. As the founder and executive director of Two Rivers and a Rose Filmworks,Rose is engagingwith her identity and culture in a contemporary medium."Filmmaking, I feel like is a modern-day version of ceremony," she says. "In indigenous culture,dance, music and storytelling are very sacred because that is how we passed down knowledge. That is how we pass down culture. That is how we pass down history."
She says she ishonoured to be a filmmaker but also feels a huge sense of responsibility. "In Hawaiian, the word for responsibility is kuleana andI carry that with me every day when I'm working."
Much of Rose's approach to her art,is reflective, thankful, and full of grace. She finds herself going inward a lot to acknowledgethe importance and impact of her work, theresponsibility that each of her projects holdsand honours where they comefrom. And sometimes when things get too heavy she turns to the land to help keep her grounded.
She uses the app Whose Land as a tool to reconnect and perpetuate reconciliation, "so that I know that I'm honouring the relationship with those people in those lands no matter where I am," she says.
"Carrying that gratitude and that idea of reciprocity, and just that importance of these relationships to our lands. It's really grounding no matter where I am, if I'm working on set in Sudbury, versus if I'm working in L.A., just kind of checking in with myself, checking in with the territory that I'm on to give thanks for that relationship."
