Jules Koostachin

Jules Arita Koostachin graduated from Concordia University's Theatre Program with a B.F.A. There she honed her skills to direct, act, design, stage-manage, produce and write theatrical productions. She spent three years at Concordia, then transferred to Carleton University as a visiting arts, literature and science student. Her exposure to social issues through the completion of the Assaulted Women's & Children's Counseling & Advocacy Program at George Brown College in 1998, heightened her awareness of the value of communication through the expressive arts to address and dismantle the struggles of oppression.

Her career includes work as an actor for Native Earth Performing Arts, Toronto Casting Agency, Koostachin Productions, Access Modeling Agency, Brook talent and independently earning credits that range from live theatre to radio to television productions such as CBC News, and Pulse News.

The founder of Koostachin Productions, her company has created: The Creation Story (1992), Earth Whispers (1993), The Spider and the Fly (1993), The White Spider Womyn (1994), and Asivak's Creation Story (1995). (The Miami University's Native Woman's Archives have published her children’s play, Asivak's Creation Story, in their first anthology.) Her screenplay, The Passing of the Souls, co-written with Gerry Mendoza in February of 1997, was selected by the AngelCiti Screenplay competition in Los Angeles, fall 2000. Registered with the Writer's Guild of Canada, this screenplay has been requested for submission by Sundance Film Festival's Aboriginal Writer's Workshop in California and Voice and Vision in the Field in New York City.

Her work has been published in the Women's Press, in Every Woman's Almanac (1997), in the Every Woman's Almanac (1999), Pow Wow Newspaper (1997), and in Aboriginal Voices Magazine (1997). Currently Jules is compiling a collection of poems entitled, Reclaiming Matriarchy: Red Path, which are dedicated to her Cree Grandparents.