After the SLAV controversy, Quebec theatre director Robert Lepage has had to cancel one of his productions in the wake of a similar controversy.
Kanata will no longer go ahead.
Lepage had been accused of cultural appropriation and not including indigenous actors in the play about indigenous peoples.
"I'm thrilled," said Nakuset, executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal.
"And it gives hope - it gives hope for any other issue that we have to do that if we work together we can make a change."
Nakuset said she didn't hold out much hope after the meeting a week ago between Lepage and indigenous groups and community leaders.
"Everyone is giving themselves their truth and they're trying to persuade him and he's not seeing it and they are in tears because of their frustration so I left," said Nakuset in an interview with CJAD 800.
In a statement, Lepage's company Ex Machina says they had to cancel because co-producers pulled out along with their funding following what it called "an infinitely complex and often aggressive controversy."
"Beyond this troubling situation, sooner or later we will need to try to understand-calmly and together-what cultural appropriation and the right to free artistic expression fundamentally are," said the statement.
Nakuset said she doesn't mind that the show wasn't cancelled because Lepage saw the light.
"it either affects you and you live it or it's like water off a duck's back and I think that's what it is for him, that's what I think. So if it's the funder from North American that says no and that's why he's cancelling it, well, you know, at the end of the day, that's good enough for us," said Nakuset.
"Whether or not he was a change of heart, that's his karma, right?"
Lepage's show SLAV was cancelled following similar allegations of cultural appropriation - the show featured a white woman singing black slave songs.
Ex Machina statement: