NEWS
Native American Theater
Smoke a staged reading of a new play by Vickie Ramirez. Directed by Steve Elm. Cast:
DJ Albert, Dylan Carusona, Joe Cross, Jake Hart, Nancy McDoniel, Jennifer Rice, Myrton Running
Wolf, Danielle Soames and reading stage directions Kim Snyder. Friday 8:00pm
May 30th 2008 at The Public Theater. 425 Lafayette Street (Just Below Astor Place) Directions:
R or W train to 8th Street Station or #6 Train to Astor Place Station. No Charge. Please RSVP at
amerinda@amerinda.org or 212.598.0968.
RSVP >>
This past December The Public Theatre brought Native theatre professionals from around the U.S. and Canada for a series of readings and discussions to New York City as part of its Native Theater Festival.
The audience was introduced to the series of readings with In a World Created by a Drunken God by Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibway), directed by Kennetch Charlette (Cree). Post show discussion guests included playwright Terry Gomez, actor/ writer/ producer Jennifer Podemski, and Randy Reinholz, the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry/Interim Director, School of Theatre, Television and Film at San Diego State University.
The first evening culminated at Joe’s Pub with a live performance from writer Joy Harjo and her Arrow Dynamics Band, featuring the talents of Larry Mitchell, Keith Golden, Alex Alexander and Robert Muller.
Salvage, written by Diane Glancy (Cherokee), directed by Sheila Tousey (Menominee and Stocckbridge-Munsee) featured actors Jake Hart and Wes Studi, along with a post-show discussion with playwright/poet Daniel David Moses and Randy Reinholz.
William S. Yellow Robe, Jr’s (Assiniboine) A Stray Dog, directed by The Public’s Resident Director Peter Dubois, included actors Steve Elm, Dylan Carusona, Dawn Jemison, Donna Couteau and Robert Fall. Afterwards the post discussions continued with Hanay Geiogamah (Director of Project HOOP at UCLA), Terry Gomez and Yvette Nolan (Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts)
Joy Harjo’s (Muskoke/Creek) first piece written for the theater, Wings of the Night Sky, Wings of the Morning Light, was read under the direction of Lisa Peterson. Hanay Geiogamah was once again in house for the post-show discussion joined by Daniel David Moses.
The Native Theater Festival closed with a performance Darrel Dennis’ (Secwepemc) Tales of an Urban Indian. A huge hit in Canada, this solo piece was followed by discussion with guests Hanay Geiogamah and Yvette Nolan, Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts.
Along with the performances The Public hosted several roundtables of Native artists and academics taking part in the Festival. Among those representing Native theatre people in New York City were Diane Fraher, director of AMERINDA, Inc; Steve Elm, actor, writer and editor of Talking Stick: Native Arts Quarterly; writer/playwright Vickie Ramirez, Spiderwoman Theater’s Gloria Miguel, and actor/writer Murielle Borst.
This event was both inspiring and galvanizing for the Native theater community, and hopefully, for the theatre community in general. The Public Theater’s Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis, long an advocate for Native theatre, has brought his belief in the power of our words to what is arguably the most important theatrical institution in New York City, if not the nation. Further, the tireless efforts and outreach of Associate Artistic Director Mandy Hackett, and Literary Associate Liz Frankel, assured that the local community would be involved and informed of this event. Amerinda is honored to have been a part of the festival, and we look forward to collaborating and creating with Public Theater in the future. In fact, Amerinda will be presenting two evenings of staged readings at the Public, one in May and the other in the early Fall. More information on these events will be available on the web site shortly.
- Steve Elm (Editor, Talking Stick)
I have egg on my face. After writing a vociferous article condemning the lack of activity on the Native Theater scene in New York City recently, Oskar Eustis and the Public Theater had to go and prove me wrong. This December they hosted the Native Theater Festival, leading Native playwrights and artists from across the U.S. and Canada. There were also a series of roundtables discussing the issues facing Native writers and performers, including all the festival participants as well as some of the pioneers in Native Theater. The Public very kindly invited Talking Stick to host a round table, and I got the opportunity to go to the source regarding this topic.
It was an overwhelming experience. I was sitting alongside William S. Yellowrobe Jr., Drew Hayden Taylor, Joy Harjo, Randy Reinholz (Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autrey), and Kennetch Charlette. A lively discussion ensued, touching on topics including tradition, expanding horizons and commercial viability.
Familiar questions to any ethnic group involved in theater, but I think especially relevant to our situation. The Indian Voice is so varied, whether it’s the poetic beauty of a Joy Harjo, the cutting wit of Drew Hayden Taylor, or the visceral roar of a William Yellowrobe, but the questions of identity and truth always seem to come to the fore.
The next issue of Talking Stick will feature the roundtable discussion and perspectives from all the luminaries involved. Amerinda and Talking Stick especially thank Mandy Hackett, Associate Artistic Director, and Liz Frankel, Literary Associate, for giving the community a voice in this important event. - Vickie Ramirez
We are sad to announce that Rolando Reyes owner of The Common Ground Gallery Inc. passed
away June 3, 2008. Reyes has been a generous supporter of the American Indian Community
and it is an honor to have known him. Our deepest sympathies go out to his family.
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Writer, poet, American Indian scholar Puala Gunn Allen (Laguna Pueblo-Metis, Lebanese) passed away
May 29, 2008 at her home in Ft Bragg, CA after a long battle with cancer. Born Paula Marie Francis, 1939 in Cubero,
New Mexico, the daughter of former Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico Elias Lee Francis and Ethel Francis.
She recieved her Ph.D from the University of New Mexico and spent many years teaching
at colleges and universities in the southwest and California as a leader in Native American Studies and
Writing. Allen was awarded post doctorial fellowships from The Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lannan
Foundation. She has been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur,
Diplomat, an American Book Award for Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and
Contemporary Writing, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writer's Circle of the Americas.
Paula Gunn Allen has published six volumes of her poetry and numerous anthologies including Studies
in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs which laid the foundation
for studies in Native American Literature.
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of Interest
Ghosthorse - KSA featuring musicians (Tiokasin Ghosthorse,
Charley Buckland & Dan Grigsby) has been nominated for 10 Native American Music Association "Awards" for the year
2008. Tiokasin would like to ask you to vote either as "the public vote" or become a member of the Native American
Music Association and have your favorite Native/Indigenous music artists finally win for all the hard work as host
of First Voices Indigenous Radio on WBAI New York 99.5 FM. Tiokasin has volunteered tirelessly for 16 years, since
1992, to bring Native American/Indigenous thinking to the airwaves.
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We are proud to announce that Michelle Dawn Schenandoah is graduating Sunday May 18, 2008 with her Doctorate of Law degree from the New York University of Law. She has worked really hard and has done an amazing job. Her mother Diane Schenandoah could not be more proud of her. As equally if not even more exciting is that she is expecting a son on September 15th. Congratulations!
More than a quarter-century after his death and 56 years after he single-handedly took out three enemy machine-gun nests in the Korean War, Army Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble (Whapeton Sioux) was awarded the Medal of Honor March 3rd 2008 - the first Sioux to receive the United States' top decoration for bravery in battle.
On Oct. 20, 1951, Keeble led three platoons against Chinese soldiers who controlled a steep and fortified hill that protected an enemy supply line near the Kumsong River in North Korea. Armed only with hand grenades and a Browning automatic rifle, Keeble eliminated three machine-gun nests while the bulk of the enemy fire was directed at him.
"As Woody first started off," Bush said during the ceremony, "someone saw him and remarked, 'Either he's the best soldier I have ever met, or he's crazy.' " By the time Keeble was through, the president continued, "all 16 enemy soldiers were dead, the hill was taken, and the Allies won the day."
NAAR artist Alan Hayton
as an Aleut 'Othelo' on tour through February. Read review "An 'Othello' for Alaska
Making tragic hero an Aleut fits neatly with Shakespeare's lines" By Sarah Henning.
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Congratulations to NAAR artist Dylan Carusona
for his role in the Sundance top film award winner Frozen River.
Frozen River is writer/director Courtney Hunt's first full length drama, and won the Grand Jury Prize
Dramatic Feature this January at the Sundance independent film festival in Utah. The film has been
picked up by Sony Pictures Classic for wide distribution.
On January 22, 2008 an honoring was held for Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Snipe Clan-Onondaga Nation) North American
Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2008 - 2011. Tonya is President
and founder of the American Indian Law Alliance in New York, a lawyer and activist, whose academic and professional
life has been devoted to the pursuit of human rights for Indigenous peoples.
The works of five prominent American Indian artists soon will be on display at U.S. embassies worldwide, introducing foreign audiences to the richness and variety of contemporary American Indian art. Norman Akers (Osage), Mario Martinez (Yaqui), Larry McNeil (Tlingit), Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Flathead Salish) and Marie Watt (Seneca) -- artists who often utilize traditional American Indian motifs in unexpected ways -- were selected by the U.S. State Department and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian to have their work showcased overseas. The embassy-bound artworks, which were commissioned for the State Department’s ART in Embassies program, were unveiled in Washington at a November 14 reception attended by the artists, first lady Laura Bush and other dignitaries. More >>
"The Other Side of Hip Hop-The Sixth Element" a film on Ernie Paniccioli's
life, art, politics and photography has been awarded Best Documentary in the
2007 Big Apple Film Festival.
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Congratulations to United States Artists 2007 Fellows Virgil Ortiz, Tommy Joseph, Susie Silook and Chris Eyre .
Virgil Ortiz USA Target Fellow, Crafts and Traditional Arts.
Totem pole carver Tommy Joseph received the USA Kippy Stroud Fellow, Crafts and Traditional Arts.
Writer, carver, and sculptor Susie Silook recipient of USA Rasmuson Fellow, Crafts and Traditional Arts.
Filmmaker Chris Eyre recognized with a 2007 Rockefeller Fellow in Media.
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The Lannan Foundation honors Paula Gunn Allen with a 2007 Writing Fellowship. Paula Gunn Allen is a contributing author
of Genocide of the Mind released November 2007. Congratulations for recognition of her
continued work as a literary critic, poet, and novelist, and a noted scholar of Native American literature.
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For the month of November 2006, Amerinda was featured on WNYC’s Salute The Arts, or STAR. Mentions could be heard on 93.9 FM and AM 820.
WNYC's Salute The Arts Initiative is a free program that profiles 36 small, cultural, non-profit organizations in the New York Metropolitan area over a 12-month period, through on-air promotional announcements and free website support. www.wnyc.org
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