“Summer snagging, happened so fast, summer snagging, had me a blast.” Just over three years ago, Crystle Lightning and her husband MC RedCloud sang this to each other on the couch as they watched the hit musical Grease on TV. In that moment, an idea sparked – to create an Indigenous version of Grease to celebrate their identity and culture.
“Growing up, I didn’t see people like me in popular culture,” Lightning said. “We created this show as a way to celebrate our identity and have some fun with one of our favourite musicals.” Bear Grease is an all-Indigenous production that blends the 1978 original hit with adding cultural elements through fashion, music and humour.
The musical blends 1950s sound with traditional drumming, flute and hip-hop elements. This includes skirts with bears and ribbons on them, beadwork fashion and adding Indigenous artwork on leather jackets, Lightning said. But this version of Grease is a bit different, showing a “parallel universe” if colonization never happened and creating opportunities for Indigenous actors.
“Our reality for Indigenous people in the '50s and '60s was a lot different than John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John,” Lightning said. “We didn’t have those types of opportunities.” But Lightning also wanted to create a musical that isn’t trauma based, showing the positive and fun side of Indigenous identity.
The production originally was meant to be a one-time show at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 2021, b.