FIRST NATIONS DIALOGUES
First Nations Dialogues is a three year Australian and North American pilot program to establish a Global Indigenous touring network and platforms for the presentation of Indigenous performance work. Led in Australia by BlakDance, in partnership with a global Indigenous performing arts consortium, First Nations Dialogues has been initiated and led by Indigenous artists and organisers from the US, Canada and Australia. It is designed to create new opportunities for production and dissemination of work internationally, to overcome the historic under-representation of work and renew support for artistic exchange between Indigenous communities globally.
We build on four years of convening and conversation within formal and informal networks in the Indigenous and non-indigenous performance sectors. We build on forty years of vibrant dialogue between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations North American contemporary theatre and dance leaders.
First Nations Dialogues Lenapehoking New York, 5 - 12 January 2019
a series of Indigenous led performances, discussions, workshops and ceremony. First Nations Dialogues 2019 kick-started the development of the groundbreaking Global First Nations Performance Network (GFNPN), a three year pilot initiative focused on cultural change through commissioning, touring and presenting Indigenous performance, building demand and capacity for the presenting sector.
Led by a transnational consortium including: Emily Johnson/Catalyst (USA), Vallejo Gantner (USA), BlakDance (Australia), Jacob Boehme (Australia), ILBIJERRI Theatre Company (Australia), Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (Canada).
Organised by; Emily Johnson, Vallejo Gantner and BlakDance.
The First Nations Dialogues 2019 partners include: The Lenape Center, Amerinda, American Indian Community House, Abrons Arts Center, American Realness, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, La MaMa, Performance Space New York, Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective, Under the Radar, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), and the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA).
Muriel Miguel, image credit Annie Tritt for The New York Times 2019
Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel of Spiderwoman Theater and Diane Fraher of Amerinda
Tëmikèkw: An honouring and welcome gathering hosted by First Nations Dialogues with The Lenape Center
Danspace Project
131 East 10th St.
New York, NY 10003
5 January 2019, 12:30pm - 4:00pm
Hosted by First Nations Dialogues with The Lenape Center, presented at Danspace Project. First Nations Dialogues commences in Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland; through protocol and ceremony, welcoming global First Nations leaders, artists and our allies.
The afternoon honours leaders and grandmothers of Indigenous theatre: Muriel Miguel and Gloria Miguel of Spiderwoman Theater and Diane Fraher (Osage/Cherokee) of Amerinda. The SilverCloud Singers will be led by Kevin Tarrant of the Hopi and HoChunk Nations; with performances by Laura Ortman of the Apache Nation; fancy shawl dancer, Anatasia McAllister of the Colville Confederated Tribes and Hopi Nation; Brent Michael Davids of the Stockbridge Munsee community; round-dance led by Lenape drummer George Stonefish. Feast generously prepared by Anne Apparu.
The First Nations Dialogues acknowledges with great gratitude the naming of this gathering, Tëmikèkw. We pay respect, offering gratitude and solidarity to Lenape people, elders, and ancestors past, present and future.
Global First Nations Performance Network (GFNPN) - Workshop and Discussions
Abrons Art Center
466 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
6, 7, 8 January 2019
The GFNPN will develop institutional and audience demand for Indigenous live performance and the commissioning, presentation and development of those artists.
The GFNPN will create a new pillar of much-needed infrastructure providing:
artist-directed commissioning, presentation and touring support (based on collaboration and demand) with presenting organisations;
compulsory protocols & education for presenting organisations around the cultural specificity of collaborating with Indigenous artists and communities;
partner organisations will work toward decolonizing their internal structures, curatorial processes, and programming;
brokerage and information services between artists and institutions.
By invitation only. Closed work sessions for presenters in the GFNPN, First Nations Artists and stakeholders.
KIN
Performance Space New York
150 1st Ave
New York, NY 10009
5 - 10 January 2019
KIN curated by Emily Johnson is produced by Performance Space New York in partnership with First Nations Dialogues, BlakDance, Global First Nations Performance Network, and American Realness. Supported by the Barragga Bay Fund with additional support by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
KIN centres radical forms of care, consent, reciprocity, and love. For KIN, Johnson invites five First Nation Australian artists and local NYC-based elder Muriel Miguel from the Kuna and Rappahannock Nations to share performance works and related conversations, engaging practices of kinship and power. These artists and their Indigenous knowledge systems work through generosity and acknowledgment of present and past to transmute injustice and grief. They offer a commitment and ask for participation toward a shared, healing future.
Featuring Mariaa Randall, Genevieve Grieves, Paola Balla, Emily Johnson, Muriel Miguel, Joshua Pether, and S.J Norman.
For tickets to KIN, visit Performance Space New York HERE >>
*Tickets to KIN (all performances, conversations, and workshops) are free for First Nations people. Please RSVP in the above link - LIMITED CAPACITY
Karyn Recollet, photo by Ian Douglas
Karyn Recollet - Care, Kinship, and the Realness of Lands' Overflows into the Celestial
Gibney - The Theatre
280 Broadway
Enter at 53A Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
6 January 2019, 12:00pm
For the 2019 Discourse series, American Realness and the Yale journal Theater have co-commissioned five original lecture performances addressing questions of creative practice and protest. Curated by Tom Sellar, the collection of lecture performances titled Bodies on the Gears will be published in a forthcoming edition of Theater. The artists and writers include Dr. des. Nana Adusei-Poku, Noah Fischer, Madison Moore, Jackson Polys, and Karyn Recollet. Co-commissioned by American Realness and Yale's Theater Magazine, presented by Gibney, in partnership with First Nations Dialogues and Global First Nations Performance Network.
This gathering activates ‘kinstillatory’ as an ethic and mode of survivance for Indigenous gathering that evokes futurist gesture of embodying dark matter (our own between spaces) that are the building blocks for kin-in-the-making. What are the desired intentions, ethics, practices and forms of a kinstillatory gathering in Lenape territory? What are the connecting tissues (the dark matter) of an alternative land pedagogy based upon urban Indigenous folx land relations. We explore the practices and protocols of kin-ing, land-ing and involved in the conceptualisation of ‘Choreographies of the fall’ (Recollet, 2018). This experience provides an opportunity to share and exchange knowledges and vocabularies (gestural, movement based and other arts informed practices) for the celestial in the body; and in our gatherings.
Dance Classes
Gibney
280 Broadway
Enter at 53A Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
Katina Olsen: 7 January 2019, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Vicki van Hout: 9 January 2019, 10:00am - 12:00pm
Thomas E.S. Kelly: 9 January 2019, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Gibney dance classes offered in partnership with First Nations Dialogues and Global First Nations Performance Network.
THE SAVAGE PHILOSOPHY OF ENDLESS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, Whitney Museum June 13, 2018. Performer Jeremy Pheiffer. Photo by Paula Court.
Jackson Polys - Manifest X
Gibney - The Black Box
280 Broadway
Enter at 53A Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
8 January 2019, 4:00pm
For the 2019 Discourse series, American Realness and the Yale journal Theater have co-commissioned five original lecture performances addressing questions of creative practice and protest. Curated by Tom Sellar, the collection of lecture performances titled Bodies on the Gears will be published in a forthcoming edition of Theater. The artists and writers include Dr. des. Nana Adusei-Poku, Noah Fischer, Madison Moore, Jackson Polys, and Karyn Recollet. Co-commissioned by American Realness and Yale's Theater Magazine, presented by Gibney, in partnership with First Nations Dialogues and Global First Nations Performance Network.
Given our readymade settler colonialism as a public secret, that when probed, amplifies the proliferation of attendant fears that create sites of paralysis — quagmires of cultural appropriation, occlusion, imposter syndrome, inappropriate speech and empathic overreach — what routes for the production of movements can escape impinging on Indigenous bodies and their accomplices? Summoning red flags, Jackson Polys, supported by a host of proxies in a multimedia lecture performance, targets the aporias formed by desiring indigeneity.
Muriel Miguel. Photo from Material Witness at La MaMa
Reflections of Native Voices
La MaMa
Great Jones Hall
47 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10012
8, 9 January 2019, 6:00pm and 9:00pm
Curated by Murielle Borst-Tarrant (Kuna, Rappahanock)
Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club through La MaMa’s Indigenous Initiative Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective; with First Nations Dialogues.
An informal reading of plays by First Nations artists including legendary Spiderwoman Theater led by Muriel Miguel and Glorial Miguel of the Kuna and Rappahannock Nations; poet, playwright, and scholar Carolyn Dunn who is of Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Cajun, French Creole, and Tunica-Biloxi descent; Ed Bourgeois, who is French and Mohawk, managing director of PA'I Foundation, a Honolulu-based hālau hula and co-creator of Raven's Radio Hour and Alaska Native Playwrights Project; Kuna/Rappahannock/Hopi/HoChunk artist, actor, singer and songwriter Henu Josephine Tarrant; Australian actor, narrator and director Rachael Maza Artistic Director of ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Yidinji from North Queensland and Meriam from the Torres Strait Island of Mer; and Choctaw/Creek/Delaware playwright Nicholson Billey.
FREE (donations welcomed) For more information, visit La MaMa HERE >>
Serpentine by Daina Ashbee
La MaMa
The Downstairs. 66 East 4th St.
New York, NY 10003
9, 10 January, 10:00pm
11 January, 1:00pm
Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and American Realness in partnership with First Nations Dialogues, Global First Nations Performance Network and supported by the Council for Arts and Letters of Quebec, the Canada Council for the Arts.
Serpentine vibrates the essence of Daina Ashbee’s dark and feminine choreographic practice. Exploring the occupation of space, time and attention, the cathartic work is based on repetition and instance. With simple imagery, slow and sensual movement and a disturbing and powerful original electric organ composition by Jean-Francois Blouin, Serpentine creates a haunting juxtaposition that escalates in its violence. Performed by Areli Moran.
Kinstillatory Mappings in Light and Dark Matter
Abrons Art Center
466 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
9 January 2019, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Presented by Abrons Art Center in partnership with First Nations Dialogues, Global First Nations Performance Network and International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA).
A ceremonial fire outdoors in the amphitheater at Abrons Art Center centering Indigenous protocol and knowledge. Sit by the fire and welcome the evening with neighbors, stories, song, dance, and food (bring some to share). The fire for First Nations Dialogues includes performances by Allison Akootchook Warden, an Iñupiaq new genre artist; Brent Michael Davids, Lenape composer; Dåkot-ta Alcantara-camacho whose work spans ritual activation, performance art, installation, contemporary indigenous movement, and cultural responsibility; and Thomas E.S. Kelly, a Bundjalung-Yugambeh/Wiradjuri/Ni-Vanuatu multi-disciplinary artist and choreographer. Food generously prepared by Quentin Glabus, Frog Lake Cree First Nations from Alberta, Canada and member of I-Collective. Emily Johnson gratefully acknowledges Karyn Recollet's work in the concept of kinstillatory.
This is a free event open to the public. Read More HERE >>
Ktalëmskahëmòch, closed protocol ceremony
Bear Mountain State Park
11-12 January 2019
Hosted by First Nations Dialogues with The Lenape Center at Bear Mountain.
Invitation to all First Nations Dialogues delegates, ceremony conducted by representatives from The Lenape Center.
Invitation only, closed protocol ceremony
FIRST NATIONS DELEGATES
USA Delegates
Allison Akootchook Warden
Anthony Hudson
Christopher Morgan
Dåkot-ta Alcantara-camacho - iMovingLab
Deborah Ratelle - Spiderwoman Theater
Diane Fraher - Amerinda
Elia Arce - Usekra: Center for Creative Investigacion
Emily Johnson - Catalyst Dance
Gloria Miguel - Spiderwoman Theater
Hadrien Coumans - Lenape Center
Jeremy Dennis
Joan Henry - Two Wolf Walking Arts
Larissa Fasthorse
Maria Firmino-Castillo
Maura Garcia
Murielle Borst-Tarrant
Muriel Miguel - Spiderwoman Theater
Rick Chavolla - American Indian Community House
Roberto Badoya
Ruben Tomás Roqueñi - Native Arts and Cultures
Rulan Tangen - Dancing Earth
Santee Smith - Kaha:wi Dance Theatre
Thea Hopkins - Tribe
Tohil Fidel Brito Bernal
CANADIAN Delegates
Cynthia Lickers-Sage - Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance (IPAA)
Denise Bolduc
Keith Barker - Native Earth
Kevin Loring - National Arts Center
Reneltta Arluk - Banff Center
Joyce Rosario - PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
Daina Ashbee - Independent Artist
Kim Senklip Harvey
Margaret Grenier - Dancers of Damelahamid
Margo Kane - Full Circle Productions
Ryan Cunningham
NEW ZEALAND Delegates
Dolina Wehipeihana - Auckland Arts Festival
Jack Gray - Atamira Dance Company
Tanemahuta Gray - Taki Rua
AUSTRALIAN Delegates
Angela Flynn - BlakDance
Ben Graetz - Party Passport
Carly Sheppard - Independent Artist
Genevieve Grieves - Independent Artist
Emily Wells - BlakDance
Erica McCalman - Next Wave Festival
Kate ten Buuren - Independent Artist
Katina Olsen - Independent Artist
Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin - Australia Council for the Arts
Mariaa Randall - Independent Artist
Marilyn Miller - Independent Artist
Merindi Schrieber - Miriki Performing Arts
Nancy Bamaga - Black Drum Productions & BlakDance
Ngioka Bunda-Heath - Independent Artist
Paola Balla - Independent Artist
Pauline Lampton - Miriki Performing Arts
Rachael Maza - ILBIJERRI Theatre Company
Rita Pryce - Pryce Centre
Sinsa Mansell - Independent Artist
S.J Norman - Independent Artist
Taree Sansbury - Karul Projects
Thomas E.S. Kelly - Karul Projects
Vicki van Hout - Independent Artist
GLOBAL FIRST NATIONS PERFORMANCE NETWORK (GFNPN) PILOT PRESENTERS
Kevin Loring - National Arts Center
Reneltta Arluk - Banff Center
Felix Preval - Darwin Festival
Louisa Norman - Country Arts SA
Simon Hinton - Merrigong Theatre Company
Zohar Spatz - Horizon Festival
Ali Rosa-Salas - Abrons Arts Center
Ben Johnson - City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
Craig Peterson - Abrons Arts Center
Erin Doughton - Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA)
Ron Berry - Fusebox Festival
Joyce Rosario - PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
First Nations Dialogues New York January 2019 has received funding support from;
Barragga Bay Fund; BlakDance; Australia Council for the Arts; Arts Queensland; Creative Victoria; Native Arts and Cultures Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Amerinda; Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Consulate General of Canada in New York, Map Fund supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.