Children’s series inspired by Cree lessons during pandemic

A pandemic educational journey has blossomed into the latest project for Vancouver filmmaker April Johnson.

A member of Muskoday First Nation in Saskatchewan, Johnson has produced a children’s series titled Kokum & Dot.

The TELUS series will have its broadcast debut on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day.

Kokum & Dot features acclaimed Peguis First Nation actor/musician Renae Morriseau, who plays Dorothy. Her granddaughter Dot is a puppet voiced by Kellie Haines.

Season one of the series features eight episodes, 11 minutes each. It has already been greenlit for a second season even though the first episode has yet to air.

Each episode begins with Dorothy asking her granddaughter how her day is going. New Cree words are introduced in every episode.

And themes for each episode are based on the seven guiding principles of Cree culture—love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility and truth.

Johnson said the inspiration for the series started with Dorothy Visser, a Cree Elder living in Vancouver.

“During COVID, when we were all locked down and not doing too much, I was taking Cree classes online,” Johnson said. “And she was leading those classes.”

Johnson said what she really appreciated about Visser is that when she would talk about teaching children Cree or Cree culture, she would just light up.

“And she showed us her puppets that she uses when she's teaching kids,” she said. “It was just the cutest thing in the world.”

That’s when Johnson felt a children’s series inspired by Visser’s work was something she wanted to pursue.

“I really wanted to kind of honour her dedication to language and cultural preservation,” Johnson said.

Having experience in film and television development at a corporate production company was a plus. 

“I kind of had a sense of how we could get a project off the ground,” she said. “I know it's a big heavy lift and a lot of things don't happen. But, we were able to get some development funding and I guess it started from there.”

Jules Koostachin, a member of Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario, also now living in Vancouver, wrote all of the episodes for the first season of Kokum & Dot. She recommended that Morriseau, who has an extensive acting career including regular appearances in the hit TV show North of 60, be cast as Kokum Dorothy.

At first, Johnson thought Morriseau, who was born in 1965, was too young to play a grandmother. But after meeting with her, Morriseau told Johnson she was, indeed, a grandmother. Johnson was also thrilled to get Haines to play Dot.

“She's a local ventriloquist and puppeteer,” Johnson said. “But she's a super, super pro union performer and has been doing this for decades. When I approached her, she said ‘yes’ immediately.” 

Morriseau had never been involved with a children’s program before, but she jumped at the opportunity to be the lead on Kokum & Dot.

“I think anything to do with the language is always a good place to start in terms of activating cultural consciousness,” she said.

Morriseau, who learned several Cree words herself during the production of the series, is glad an educational component is involved with the show.

“I think it's great,” she said. “It's a good experience to be involved with the language, especially when it comes to children and pre-school children. I think April did an amazing job in articulating our seven sacred teachings and embodying that.”

Morriseau is also pleased the series has been renewed for another season.

“That's quite surprising and so exciting too,” she said. “We get to go back into it in a couple weeks. It’s a great team of people, crew and cast.”

Morriseau had special praise for Haines.

“She is so amazing,” she said. “She's such an amazing lady in her approach.”

Like Morriseau, Johnson was amazed that the series got the nod for Season 2.

“Actually, we were really surprised,” she said. “The intention of Kokum & Dot was for it to be a limited series with every episode representing one of the Cree guiding principles and there's seven of them.

“As we were sending cuts to TELUS, they asked do you have any interest in a second season. And we were like, ‘yeah’. There's a lot we'd like to expand on. We learned so much as a crew and as a cast in the making of Season 1 that there's so many things that we know we can strengthen. And there's so many more stories that we'd like to tell.”

Johnson believes children are not the only ones who will enjoy the series.

“I think adults are really going to appreciate it,” she said. “And I think they'll see some nuance that kids wouldn't pick up on. I've been trying to tell people that I feel like the show is made for adults too. It's just packaged as a kid's show.”

For example, Dot, which is the short form for Dorothy, is representative of Kokum Dorothy and the curiosity and excitement that she had for her language and culture before she went to residential school. 

“There is some nuance that I hope parents will pick up on,” Johnson said. “But I think that learning language and learning about the seven sacred teachings, that's not just for kids. I feel like anybody could learn a thing or two about those things.”

Kokum & Dot will be shown on TELUS Optik TV Video on Demand and on the TELUS TV+ app with an Optik TV or Stream+ subscription.