Medical student turned comedian finds medicine in laughter - Action News
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Indigenous

Medical student turned comedian finds medicine in laughter

Sage Daniels, a First Nations comedian in Winnipeg, is using laughter to connect not only with his audience, but with his culture and himself.
Sage Daniels is from Long Plains First Nation. "Laughter is a really big part of our community and culture," he said. "When I was a kid, there was an elder that told me 'If you tell a story and if people don't laugh, you've failed as a story teller.'" (Chris Hearn)

When Sage Daniels was 17, he tackled hisfirst standup at a local comedy show.That night,he was booed off stage.

"I cried my eyes out when I went home that night, because it was a dream I had and people laughed at it in the wrong way," herecalled.

Being the honour roll student he was, Daniels had a few other options. His teachers encouraged him to pursue medicine, and that's what he decided to do.

But the goal of becoming a doctor didn't quite goas planned. First of all,he discovered he didn't really like blood. Then, in his third year of pre-med,he lost a number of family and friends within the span of a few months.

He fell into a deep depression. And when he quit laughing,he lost something else.

"Laughter is a really big part of our community and culture," saidDaniels, who is from Long Plains First Nation and lives in Winnipeg.

"When I was a kid, there was an elder that told me, 'If you tell a story and if people don't laugh,you've failed as a storyteller.'

"So being a sarcastic kid, being aboriginal, having my culturehave a very strong basis in laughter, when I became sad and depressed I was disconnected from a very large part of myself."

Daniels left pre-med studies.

"On top of losing my goal, my dream job, I lost my apartment and I lost my friends," he said."So that piles up and I lost myself for a very long time."

But two years ago, Danielsbraved the stage once again, on a whim. He had rewritten and revised the same jokes he had told at his first comedy show.

"People laughed at me and I was laughing and we were laughing together," he said.

"It was a spiritual Zen that just [was] awoken in meand I found myself again.I found the piece of me that was missing for a long time."

Daniels said there are seven sacred healings in Native American culture, and one of those is laughter.

"I would have been a different person if I was a doctor.I'd have been a lot more cynical.I probably wouldn't smile as much as I do right now."

Now,laughter is Sage Daniels'snew medicine.

With files from CBC Radio