 Hey, so hi, welcome. I'm so excited. We can keep talking. We will keep talking. We're going to make you keep talking. I'm trying to find my notes. So my three flights this morning were delayed. We're, like, canceled and delayed and canceled. So I'm a little out of sorts because I literally walked in the building. So I apologize. Hi, and I'm Larissa Fast Horse. Thank you. Larissa Fast Horse and Kitah Sullivan. And we are co-facilitating this. And I'm supposed to do the first thing, which is why I'm trying to find our notes. Got it. All right. So hi, welcome to Instead of Red Face, a very ally welcome room, as well as quite a few indigenous folks in the room. It grows every year. We're so excited. The first time I did this, there was, like, I don't know, three of us? The first time I came, there was, like, three or four of us indigenous folks in the room. There's quite a few today, which is great. So one thing we just want to talk about real quick is protocols. So in indigenous spaces, one, we tend to sit in circles. We like to see each other. And we like to all be part of one collective group. So that's hence why we're in a circle, not just because it's nice, but it's actually intentional. Another thing that's really important that we just like to discuss is elders. And this is not, this is making pan-Indian generalizations, which I will tell you later and ever to do. But I'm going to do one. I get to. I got a card. I got the biggest, like, Wonder Woman turquoise bracelet. So one of the things that is fairly common is our respect for elders. And for the space they have earned and the honor it is for us to get to listen to them. So it's not just, like, oh, they get to talk because they're old. It's that we get to have the honor of listening to what they have to share. And that's a fantastic thing. So we try to honor that here. If elders have to speak, you're always, it's your floor first always. The other thing we often then do, there's two things. So the indigenous way of listening is really lovely because what it does is it frees you. Now it's going to be hard for some folks, I understand. But if you just listen when someone is speaking, don't think about what's coming next. Don't think about what you want to say. Just listen. And then we will all take a breath in between and have a moment of silence for reflection. That is a common indigenous way of listening so that you get to listen fully and not have to worry about yourself but just worry about the person who you're giving the attention to. So once someone speaks, finishes speaking, ready for practice now. Yeah, it didn't hurt. We all take a breath. And we just have a moment of silence to, like, consider what we want to say to allow our elders to not have to fight for space if they want it. And then the next person speaks. So we would ask you to respect that protocol as well. I will now turn it over to Kita who will probably come up with all the things I forgot. I'm starting something we're going to do sooner but we didn't have our paper yet. I'm starting a sample list of things to celebrate. This is no way a full list and we'll discuss it. This is for you guys to add to. So I'm just throwing out some things that I know about. And here we go. So before we go on, I'd like to, as Ty said, as we started to thank the original inhabitants, the original caretakers of this land and particularly the Kanoi Piscata Nation who I actually reached out to, to explain why we were here and get their blessings on us being in this land. So I would like to say thank you to them and to allow us to be in this space. And one of the things that I want to say about that is that I am on target. I am from New York. I don't know the people in this land but the way to find the answer to that and this is really important for those who have said oh I can't find an Indigenous actor is to ask. I reached out first to a friend at the Baltimore Indian Center who of course would know who's here and she put me in contact with you. So that's the first thing I'd like to say is that we don't know everything. There are at least five different nations in this room and we don't know each other's traditions. We don't know each other's language but the way to get around that is to ask. If you don't ask, you don't learn and if you don't ask, you can't change. So that's part of what I would like. That's part of what I would like to hear. So we're going to do a round of introductions and we're going to ask that you keep it short. However, we have three things that we really do want to know from each of you. Your name and where you're from. Why you're here and what is your definition of red face? So those are three things and we do want to keep it quickly because there are a lot of us in this room probably more than we thought but we're very interested in learning what is your definition of red face as well as why you're here. So I will start. Good afternoon, thanks for having me. My name is Ryan Conorow. I come from my parents, Pat and Jeannie Conorow who are originally from Atlanta, Georgia. I have lived for about 14 years based in Nome and Juno, Alaska and now I'm in New York City with Ping Chong and Company and still maintaining residence in Juno as well and Ping Chong and Company we are working on a piece sharing stories set in Alaska including some Alaska Native stories Alaska Native histories which is part of my interest in being here today. My definition of red face I'm continuing to learn and I would define it right now as including embodying representation of indigenous people by non-envisionist people but also representing stories of indigenous people and perspectives of indigenous people without the participation of those people throughout the process. My name is Heather Henson. I currently am living in New York but my ancestry comes from Scandinavia and England and Ireland and Germany but been here about five generations. I'm here in this room because I think theater, gathering under indigenous centric thinking is the necessary component for this world. So I think it is really important that we get the, we'll have to not get into the, okay, so and then red face I think is also is about non-informed, what you're just saying, we're going to hear the same answer probably in time, but non-native representation from a non-informed place. Randy Reinholz. I'm the artistic director of Native Voices at the Autry. I'm an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. I'm here because I love this conversation and I like the leaders of our conversation thank you for being on that task and red face is for me, it's a propagation of hurtful war images and it's a country that forgets that our people have been at war for hundreds of years and using those images drag up all of that history and people do it in a very course deliberate purple way. I'm Claudie Fisher. I grew up in Colorado, New Mexico and I'm now based in Portland, Oregon and usually my first definition of red face is a non-native person playing a native character on stage. I'm Elizabeth Heffern. I'm a playwright. I live in Seattle. And I, you know, I'm here partly because I've been doing quite a bit of work on environmental plays, nuclear issues as the current one. And the thing I come up to all the time as I'm actually doing the research is it's the tribes that are protecting everybody in the country. I mean, without the 1855 western trees basically there's no say in the stuff. I mean, and I feel like the culture is a non-profit mode of one and I'm just here for that. I think red face I agree with everybody so far. I mean, it's like putting a non-native person into some kind of role but also using those stories without permission or without because the stories have a life and they shouldn't, I mean, doing that as well. My name is Stan Floyd. I'm from Portland, Oregon. I'm the Artistic Director of Oregon Children's Theater. I'm here specifically because ten years ago I had the opportunity to direct six natives on stage in a show of 13 people so the majority of the cast was Native American and it was a huge learning experience, a huge growth experience and I still have fills my soul with stuff. Never heard red face until I saw this but I want that experience and in search of another project that does that. I'm at Delta Pollack and I'm from Connecticut. Yeah, also New York and Pittsburgh and Ohio. And I am here because I've been just really interested in this discussion and what everyone has to say and what is part of it, I don't know. And I'm also collaborating with some people who are in business and I want to know more just about everyone that I'm working with and then also a greater community at large. And red face just sounds like a racist cultural construction to me. So, I don't know what else. Oh, let's do it. So, I'm here to learn. Bonjour, c'est goulis, thai, indigenous cause, indigenous cause, niche money to walk. I am here because I'm really excited. I also love the facilitators in this room because they are indigenous women who are leading this conversation. You know, so that's like a nuance. I'm interested in protocols and how that can take a national effect in theaters so that these things can just be woven throughout because we are from many different nations. I think red face is something that's, you know, appropriating indigenous native identity that's both intentional and both unintentional and political. I think all of these things, so it's a very complicated thing to talk about both on and off stages, both within design concepts that we see on national television, in theater, day-to-day microaggressions in the offices, the way you handle and deal things when you do introductions, maybe, if you're theater seasons. I mean, all of these kinds of things have a hinge and sprinkle of red face in them because we here are in the United States are operating under this, you know, scope of a national identity. So hopefully, folks, this conversation can continue into the sovereignty conversation on Saturday, which will provide a more in-depth context to also why we're talking about red face. Hi, I'm Pam Joyce. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm here today because there was this play, Assimilation, written by Native American Jack Dalton. And we, at the university where I work, we had agreed to do the play because I suggested it. And then I got some really strong resistance. And ultimately, we did not do the play. There's just something unresolved about that. I didn't expect to encounter that resistance. And then in terms of red face, I agree with everything that's been said. I think the only thing I would add to it is the first thing that pops into my mind is really stereotypical kind of physical embodiment of what kids play when they would do something like How Boys and Indians in the 50s. Hi, I'm Marcia Douglas. And I teach at the University of Maine. I live in Bangor, Maine. I've done a number of plays with some Native people in our community and have an ongoing interest in that. In our neighborhood, it's almost as if the Native people are invisible, which always puzzles me. So the idea of red face is doubly strange. And as soon as I hear the term, all I can think of is lies, false face. That's what I think of. Hi, everyone. My name is Kala. I'm from Maine. I haven't been to Bangor before, but I'm working in the South. I'm here with Dog and Pony, D.C. And I work as a deaf artist here and I collaborate with other people in the deaf community as well as in the hearing community. I'm really here to support as an ally and to learn about this community. I mean, I really feel like the word red face is a little bit new to me, but what I really understand it to be is when someone is sort of taking on that identity and they aren't someone who is a part of that group and it is from misinformation and just falsity that is spread. I'm Greg Johnson. I'm the artistic director of the Montana Repertory Theater and professional theater residents at the University of Montana. And in Montana, there are seven nations. So it would be if you choose us to have a dialogue, continue artistic dialogue with the Indigenous population, which we have done. And that's why I'm here to listen to the dialogue and to be part of the dialogue because of our interest in the Native American stories. And red face to me is everything everybody said. I'm an East Coastaner, so when I hear red face, I immediately think of black face and then I wonder what the difference is. I'm so under there. I'm taking my breath. My name is Lauren Stevens. I'm a Broadway producer and I grew up in New Jersey, married someone from Milwaukee, lived in Milwaukee, Chicago, and now I'm back in New York. I've been doing Broadway since 07. I've done everything from August Wilson's as a co-producer from Radio Golf to Arthur Miller's All My Sons to Ragtime the Musical to Rocky the Musical, to the upcoming musical that I'm very proud to be a part of called Come From Away, which... Oh, good. Can you explain it? How do you explain that musical? 9-Eleven. See, we don't want to start with that. A bunch of planes landed in Canada. This is a commercial production. And there was 7,000 people on the 8th of town. There were 38 planes. On 9-Eleven, planes were diverted to this teeny-weeny little town in New Finland called Gander. They literally had less people in the town than the 7,000 that came off the 38 planes from all over the world. And for five days, this community went all out in ways that are humorous, are touching, loving, everything you can imagine. So this is a musical that, you know, for me as a commercial producer, they don't come around very often. I mean, I'd love to be Hamilton, but we're not. But, you know, it's so meaningful right now with what's going on in our world to show that people can have the best of humanity in the worst of times. And it's actually going to be at the Ford's Theater here. It was at La Jolla, Seattle. Ford's in the fall for 9-Eleven and to show you how corporations like Home Depot are buying out a whole show for the first responders to the Pentagon and it's just really, really cool. So hopefully we'll make it we'll make it in the commercial world, but we just feel it's a great musical. To get off that plug, prior to this, I produced commercials for many years and had a film company and one of our clients was K-Gun in Tucson, Arizona. We were shooting a spot called Call in Home Tucson. And we wanted to shoot on a Native American Reservation and the poppagos are there in Arizona, near Tucson and the station didn't want us to shoot there. And I don't know what was going on in 1985, but they didn't want us to go and that's when we were shooting. But somehow I convinced them and please don't be offended that we would shoot in some beautiful tribal dance, kind of don't worry about it. You know, we won't show anything to you. And we went to the Reservation and, you know, Karma and all that. All the children wanted to do break dancing. That's all they wanted to do for us, because Michael Jackson was gay, but the experience of being able to be there and the love combined with the heartbreak of seeing how this Reservation was, was to me amazing. And I feel red face to me, I don't relate to it, but I have to tell you, there is a restaurant in northern Wisconsin we're shooting a documentary called The Red Band and they have a teepee that you can eat in. So it still exists and, but to me indigenous to me is spirituality and beauty and just feel a natural ability to bring that to the arts. My name is Hannah Holman. I'm from the Twin Cities, Minnesota. As you might know, Minnesota has a very deep native community and many stories. And I think often those stories are erased by the also deep Scandinavian history that happens there, but definitely, definitely not as deep. And so we are we're a small collaborative theater company interested in telling stories about our community and as we started digging into some of those histories we found out that we are not the ones to tell those stories and that we need to find people to tell those that's why we're interested in that. And for me, red face is the telling of those stories without having people who are identifying as needed to be in leadership positions in artistic leadership. Laura left from the cave. I'm also from the Twin Cities as our theater companies, so those are the same reasons that I'm here. And yeah, I would just echo everything people have said so far about red faces in terms of misappropriation sort of on a really large level not just in terms of performance, but in terms of like everyday life. Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Banks. I'm the outgoing chair of performing arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Me, red face, has to do with, as you said, appropriation, violence and traumatization. Tanshi, I bring greetings from the north part of Turtle Island. My name is Cole Elvis. I'm proud of my mentee, Irish Heritage from the Turtle Mountains in Manitoba. And I have the privilege of being the leader of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance. We're a service organization based in Takaranto, and we claim space for all Indigenous performing artists which is a huge mandate and so I've been following Thai and Native voices of the Autry and Jack Dalton as well from afar and I feel very privileged to get to be in the circle with you and to see and learn about the experience within what is now called Up There and Down There. And red face for me is anytime where, particularly within the performing arts, Indigenous stories and cultures are being communicated or handled by non-Indigenous people and in Canada, there's a lot of momentum coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that has great attention to the residential school legacy, the colonial legacy and with that comes funding in Canada and so a concern that I have is how can we be pointing to best practices around shared leadership even within a reconciliatory or a conciliatory project where there's an Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaborator how do we be ensuring that there's agency for those Indigenous artists and communities in how these stories are being told? I'm Gabe Cohn, I'm the editorial intern for American Theatre and I am a recent graduate of Skidmore College in the state of New York. I'm here technically speaking to represent PCG and I hope you guys have if you need anything but I'm glad that I'm assigned to this particular session. I think it's a very important topic and one that I haven't been involved in many conversations about. That being said I guess my sense of red face yet has been more a physical representation and so yeah thinking about expanding the boundaries of that and also the conversation is particularly interesting to me because I know that there are situations where people will be doing it with not with bad intentions necessarily so I think there's hope in that conversation about it and educating people where they can be better and be smarter and make sure those representations happen in the right way and be educated. Thank you. My name is Francesca Sorenti I was born in Italy, came here in 2016 but my mom's Anglo-American so I'm this Mongol mixture. I come from the world of cinema I'm now in the world of theater as a projection designer but the reason I'm particularly interested in this discussion is a number of years ago as I wrote a script about a historical character the queen of the monkey but it was mixed in with King Lear and it was not a good script it was a film script but she won't let me go into that story and I'm here to hopefully not engage in red face behavior, writing, whatever so I need to learn. My name is Fernando Calzadilla and I grew up in Venezuela and I'm here with Miami Theater Center so I'm coming from Miami and I'm here to learn and red face for me it's a racist remnant of colonial period it's a racist term to describe Native Americans in the United States in particular and like there are many other similar terms in South America for example I'm here to learn how to get past that I'm Stacy Myers I grew up in Kansas I work at Kansas City Rep I'm excited to be here because we produce some of Larissa's work and she's going to be working with us a lot this year so we're excited for her to be with us and what she has to teach red face always meant to me racism Hi I'm Larissa Wolfe and I currently live in Kansas City I'm the director of New Works at Kansas City Rep and I am also here because Laura's Fast Horse is such a badass and I've had a deep, deep pleasure and privilege of collaborating with her over the last few years and I'm so excited to welcome her beautiful play What Would Crazy Horse Do to Kansas City Rep for its premiere in this coming season and yeah I need to just keep being open and learning and supporting Larissa, but of course the advocacy and all of the exciting native voices that we have yet to connect with I'm Jeanette Harrison with Altar Theater Ensemble in San Rafael, California My blood is on Ndaga My mother's mother's parents were both on Ndaga My great-grandfather was part of the boarding school system He was from Six Nations My great-grandmother was from New York, just south of Syracuse and then I have a grandpa by marriage who's from Conquijote, Southern Ute and to me Red Face is anything that interrupts the healing that my family is doing from generational trauma and that makes my nieces and nephews ashamed of who they are I'm Ronnie Pinoy I'm a DC based I'm the creative producer for both the Wilders Playwrights Collective as well as associate producer for Octopus Theatricals in New York and my dad's side of the family is Liubin and Pueblo and Cherokee My mom's side of the family is Polish and my dad was raised on the Jeanette-Raphael Reservation Sorry and I was raised in Pittsburgh so one of the things I grew up with having a very close relationship with my dad is that distance from that background and he also feels that same kind of sense of distance so when I'm not wearing my producing hat I'm also a musical theater composer and I've been working on a musical about Carlisle Indian School my great grandfather attended Carlisle Indian School and later taught there so I had a positive experience at the school so something that I now see kind of grappling with and for me Red Face I think I feel strongly this way kind of wearing my background invisibly to many people is from it's the propagation of white ideas of Indian symbolism so Indian is mystical as connection to nature as part of this disappearing West and the land things that are kind of these associations that come from this fascination from a white point of view as opposed to the actual lived experiences of Indians and I think for me that really falls into kind of a I mean well and didn't mean to place so that's that to me is I think what's most dangerous is not really grappling with a lived history but this idea of Indianness My name is Ilaisa Elisabe I'm representing here Miami Theater Center and Oriina from Venezuela Red Face for me is a racist word phrase listening to many nations as you name them in one salon Venezuela our tribes live in the borders you have if you want to meet a tribe or you want to know about you have to go to the south of Venezuela or to the borders or to the Atlantic or to the Colombian border they were used so they live in the border of the country and here at least the states have the nations inside we don't so I'm here also to learn and to share our experience to collaborate with you My name is Mallory Pierce I'm an enrolled member of Cherokee Nation the director of marketing at the Oriina Shakespeare Festival Red Face is very complicated it feels like a theft serves to impose a white construct so my name is Agony Ok I'm from HowlRound and I'm live streaming this session um you guys can see me but the folks at home can't um so we actually did a series a while ago called instead of Red Face on HowlRound and um one of the reasons why I specifically said like I want to live stream this session is because I feel like Red Face along with Black Face and Yellow Face are um not only um appropriation forms of appropriation but also damaging and hurtful and I'm just really interested to be a fly on the wall and hear this conversation We're moderating more from this My name is Ella What was the assignment? I mean I think I have the hang of it or what does that mean um my name is Ella I'm the senior program officer for arts and cultural heritage at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and so uh the cultural heritage part well the arts and culture you get the idea I'm very interested in cultural heritage um but I'm more sort of where the personal and professional meet for me is that when I was very young and I learned about Native Americans in school which is not called Native American or Indigenous people or anything like that as you know although I don't know what the kids are learning now actually but um to me from the get go actually it was taught monstrously poorly and for whatever reason I just became curious and when I was I was born and raised in New York City I moved to New Mexico and there as an outsider I learned a great deal and I became interested in the art and all of the entire cultural idea of that particular part of the United States and it was a great learning experience for me and like being in another country where one is the other to have the experience of being the other when I was with people who were Native Americans was extraordinarily valuable in other places in the world because at that time it was really like going to another country I mean it was so I'm very interested in sort of continuing really my appreciation for and my understanding of and it's while I was at UC Berkeley I had the privilege of going to Krober Hall and some of you may know the story of Ishii who was kept in Krober Hall the last of his people and this and other stories but Ishii in particular was one of the saddest stories I ever heard and I've never gotten over it I will never get over it no one should get over it and I think those were the kinds of experiences that engaged me in my interest in this particular culture and cultures within that culture and so thank you my name is Tom Pruitt I'm artistic director of WSC we're a classically based theater company based in Arlington, Virginia and about a year ago we applied the Jamestown Yorktown foundation to submit a proposal for some sort of site specific production which sounded very exciting and we did a site visit and toured all that stuff the production was specifically around the fact that as probably most of you know the SeaVenture was a resupply ship that was headed towards Jamestown and had a shipwreck ran into a storm and shipwreck and that became the inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest and so and then the supply ships they were rebuilt and eventually made it to Jamestown so we were asked to do some sort of site specific theater production that had something to do with Shakespeare's The Tempest it became abundantly clear to me when we were there that we could not do such a production without engaging with the Native American tribes and so forth that were part of that whole story and still live there and are very much part of the exhibits and the curating of the exhibits at the foundation so in any case I'm here to learn and to explore ideas and for Redface it's a very it's a very racist term I'm particularly interested in the conversation about cultural appropriation and casting in terms of theater production in general I'm Barry Newport I'm producing artistic director of Penobscot Theater Company a year ago I sat in a similar forum and was trying to figure out how to build a bridge between this theater company that has long ago appropriated the name of the people who now live 11 miles up the road but for whatever reason Penobscot Theater Company and the Penobscot Nation had never worked together right Marcia unbelievable unbelievable and when it came for my interview for this job I asked what does Penobscot refer to what does it mean and nobody on the board or staff could tell me it really really bugged me and I made one of my list of like top three things that I wanted to accomplish in my tenure at Penobscot Theater Company but I wasn't sure how and it wasn't until Acadia National Park reached out well over a year ago now like 18 months ago asking if this theater company would do something for the National Park Centennial in the park and I said have you reached out to the Penobscot Nation yet and they said they hadn't okay now's the time and I reached out to Larissa because I really was unsure of how to build the bridge and I'm just so happy to report that we really spent the last year learning some sort of common vocabulary and beginning a practice of trust and we've been working every month and now every week with Penobscot artists and I don't even know if these people would call themselves would have called themselves artists a year ago but they do now we've been able to pay everybody and thank you in eight weeks in eight weeks we will be performing something called Transformer Toils which are traditional Penobscot creation stories with 40 kids elders indicating National Park at the Blackwoods Amphitheater we've also partnered with the Abbey Museum on this project once on Indian Island which is where the Penobscot Nation is now based and twice at the Bangor Opera House which is our home so it really was based a lot in me sitting in a similar circle last year and I really have to thank you for the guidance you helped me and it's continued work I mean it's not a one-off but we will also be working to have a drama club in the Indian Island School for the first time and we've been spending portions of every month in the school giving or helping to give voice some of these young people just haven't had an opportunity to create their own stories a red face to me I honestly have never said those words together the first thing that comes to mind is a cartoon a two dimensional cartoon thank you all there's a part of me that's very western trained I'm actually an attorney and so I have to go and actually look up the definition of red face to try and find a definition of red face that's the first thing is to try and find a definition of red face most of the definitions I found in the context of black face which is entirely appropriate but what I found was red face refers to the creation and propagation of racist American Indian stereotypes and caricatures it also describes the systematic bias against hiring real Native Americans to play Native American roles shown by white producers, directors and others who control the depiction of Native Americans in popular culture through casting decisions which is in part why we're here we are at a theater conference in my own life we have had I have instances of what you would call red face throughout my life and I think many of us here have experienced that personally in my case I worked at a black theater company and the reason I worked at a black theater company was because there was no Native theater company and if I had said to someone oh I want to start a Native theater company the first words out of their mouth would have been oh how much Indian are you whereas I could go to a black theater company and say oh I'm part black and they would say okay fine it was never going to be a question and so that is that is how it plays out in part in our everyday lives and so when we were talking about this we really don't want this to be a gripe session about red face it's very clear everything that you have said in this room yes and it is also a lazy way of addressing the perpetuating red face a lazy way of addressing the persistent discrimination racism against peoples in this country it is when people say oh I can't find an Indian I went out on the street I went out on the street and I didn't see any or you don't look like an Indian or it's just going to be too hard I just need to do this so that's really how it plays out within the theater world so and I'm going to turn this over to Larissa one of the things that has been a response that has been the instead of red face and thank you to HowlRound for the opportunity I mean if you haven't read a series of writings they are amazing they are very clear and they are inspiring in so many ways and many of those people are in this room today so I would encourage you to go there go there and read just to inform yourself and also just to be thrilled by how smart and how vibrant and how dedicated our community is okay thank you Kida we're almost done talking and then I promise us guys so just for a quick honoring of the hashtag so there's a hashtag instead of red face that is out in the world unfortunately Mary Catherine Nagel who started this could not be here in DC in Oklahoma doing the work she's a playwright but her name is on here a few times already and she's a playwright but she's also an attorney who works for Indigenous issues in law so she's out doing the work so I just had a chance to speak with her in LA so to get the background of this for you all she was really interested a lot of us have been speaking for a while about having sort of like Kilroy's I can't say the word but Kilroy's like list of Indigenous playwrights because we hear all again you can't find one and so we can actually wipe out like half of the Indigenous theatre artists in America anyway I was just looking around and I was like wow I'll just have to erase this and just be Mary Catherine Nagel so she was like I really want to create this she couldn't find time finding she couldn't find resources for a website building she couldn't get anyone to she didn't know how I didn't know how I really couldn't get people to donate time or money or whatever we needed to start something like this and she just was having a really hard time she worked at it for probably about a year she was I think working on this and just couldn't get the logistical support she needed so when howl around High Urban about the American Indian Indigenous theatrical experience in this area this geographic area she said aha hashtags so she started the hashtag instead of redface and added that to all of the series and then has continued to grow and live in the world so what that means is without any of us having to do any structural work and websites I think there's a lot to do you can both on Twitter and on Facebook you can look up the hashtag instead of redface and find news on all the Indigenous theater that's going on in this country on Indigenous performers and where they're working on Indigenous writers on all the different programs that are happening so I'm terrible I never hashtag my stuff but fortunately I have smart actors that do so some of us are terrible about this so that's where the idea came from and that's all Mary Catherine Nagel and she's and it's been she's done a lovely she's given us a lovely gift all of us a wonderful gift that we now can't say I can't find one I don't know what to do I don't know where to go all these different artists are hashtagging their work and hashtagging what they're seeing and hashtagging work that they're developing and doing that there so you can go there and it's a start it's of course not everything but it's a start with a lot of writers a lot of directors and a lot of actors they're all Indigenous know that that's there for you and that's why we wanted to do this what was really exciting to me about this session I've been a co-facilitator for like 3-4 years now is that we really wanted to be a celebration of the things that happened in the past year since Mary Catherine did that hashtag since we've been having these sessions that was one of the things I was about to write on my list was Penobscot and the growth that we're seeing just by having these sessions and by being in these rooms together and connecting with each other there's been so much that's going on I mean so I'm just starting as I told you because I got the plan around the room I just started writing things I will have all my ERs and REs wrong I'm sorry so just get over it except the you know the spirit of the list so I'm starting a list we're going to set it somewhere I could add to this what's fantastic is I could keep adding to this for at least another page and a half theater companies and organizations and that are doing Indigenous work working with Indigenous actors, writers, directors and are supporting Indigenous works through their funding so I could keep going just from the people I know for a good another page and a half here several of you companies are in the room that are working with me and that seems very self-serving but you know if you want to mention yourselves go for it and I celebrate you and so I just want to throw that out there about how that is and how you can help find actors, find writers, find directors find Indigenous projects that are happening all over the island right now I didn't say and I apologize to my elders I did not say I'm from the Sikonju Lakota Nation I was again thrown from running off the plane so I'm from the Sikonju Lakota Nation in South Dakota that's where my people are that's where I grew up I'm still home even though I live in California now and I just had to say that for my elders apologies so now we're going to break out and do some talking and brainstorming and discussions because we want to leave with positive things you want to talk about this? so we really do want to come up with things that can be accomplished within the next year you can see what can happen in a year Penobscot is an amazing story and there are we thought we might break this into Indigenous and non-Indigenous so Indigenous and allies if it means that you come up with more questions that's good too because that gives us a place to start from and we're back to start thinking about how do we build this I'm excited to see Cole here because we started a conversation about a year ago about an Indigenous performance network somewhat modeled a little bit after theirs so these ideas will also help feed into how maybe model some of that and maybe work across that political border which is not a real border for us it is 3.59 minutes until 4.30 so I think 15 minutes of just conversation in two groups, three groups and if we could do it as Indigenous and as allies that would be great because I think there are different action steps we all need to take and I think we do want to make a concrete something we can do together or individually in a year so let's do and you don't have to Indigenous folks you can choose to go elsewhere but we want to offer that space so let's say Indigenous folks if you'd like to speak here talk about action steps we as Indigenous people can take within the theatre field in the next year so that we can report back success in Portland as Barry just did sorry, gosh my brain, sorry anyway, yes in anger and then if we could have maybe all our allies kind of self-split yourself into two groups because there's just a lot of you, yay and we can come up with like two action steps that your organizations or yourselves in your organizations can do in the next year to help us eliminate red face and promote instead of red face and what you can do to make that a larger movement by next year in Portland when we all reconvene, does that make sense? I'm sorry, I'm hearing issues I don't think either one of you introduced yourselves and oh, I did in the beginning, sorry I'm a playwright and that's why I'm here okay, my name is Keith O'Sullivan I'm the manager of the National Theatre Project at New England Foundation for the Arts so I support theatre nationally, I am thrilled that last year we actually supported our first Indigenous project and then over the last few years we have actually seen an increase we have other who have made it to the finalist so this makes my heart sing I don't get to vote on who gets the grant but I have my favorites but I love working with artists and I especially love when Indigenous so, yes should we talk about what we actually are doing or should this be focused on brainstorming? brainstorming, things to be done to report out as a group so maybe think someone is doing that the group wants to say we wanted to all do that and we also we're going to leave this here so that as you are thinking of other positive things that have been happening add it on here perhaps we need to be here but I think there are other things that are going on I think the recreation of a performance I was going to say it's minor right now a performance minor at IAA is a big big prayer 15 minutes to talk but should we maybe this should we just help yeah, let's do that let's do it interested in what you're saying happy to have groups just got your thoughts yeah get your group are you guys good? 3 is fine 3 is awesome 3 is a great 4 is the safe number for all you guys go to the group Yeah, so brainstorming is definitely a type of thing. The rest of the individual years are over. I'm up to 17. And we have started our study. We'll be just getting over the virtual part of it right now. We'll have to actually do a performance in the future. This is my first one. Is there any need? I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. She's getting a big cramp. Where is this being screened? Is this being recorded? I didn't realize that. I just wanted to say right now. I just want to say right now. Can I do it? I'm actually a little free. I just wanted to say, not just like, hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But of course, what you're learning about you can be done. No, I don't know. Can I do some muscle fun? Larissa's next workshop. I'm excited. And how can we engage the students? How can we do this? So that's going to be a question. I don't know what we're going to do. But I'm excited. I'm excited to have Larissa. I feel like she's just kicking the butt behind us to really think about it. She's going to do a real reaction to every thing that she had to do. She's just kicking the butt behind us to think about it. But I think we have a real relation to everything here having students. Here, how could you do that? You have to be fair to all of us. You have to be fair to each and every other. You have to be fair to each and every other. She's such a super colorful student. Everyone has their own sort of background. And you know, if that's the thing, she contacted and, did she support the development Yeah, and I know that's a relationship that's been investigated before, but I think it's very large. I do those are very large and like nine or eight members in the lecture, so I'm waiting for a chance to talk about it. Oh, that's your theory about me and the students, I'm going to say. You know what I mean? I think it should be very helpful. So, uh, the cause of the student experience, I'm just going to take these tools for engagement. It might be a question of which is how leading the way is, where are those people to go to the next lecture? So, uh, because the component is not only reading the text, but you also have to give some kind of control. I mean, the other thing is to go to the play as well. So, um, I'm a class student. I mean, I'm just going to be going on for 20 years as well as I started actually doing a tremendous amount of programming. I think we don't need to have that kind of experience currently. But it's called a simulation, and it's about the learning process. That's what I'm talking about here. He was a doctor and he went and asked people to come down and watch him, because he was a seriously human. He went into the mother box. And so he did a lot of research and the doctor tried to come on to him. This is about Alaska. Don't play. What's the parent information? I was wondering. Tell them, you know, try to get a picture. Ooh, yeah. That was awesome. I'm just going to put the point at the text. I never got to, like here in the school. And it's not his. You know. And it is probably vegetarians. Yeah, that would be good for our allies. It's good for us. It's good for us. Joining them, programming series, and I'm happy to share with you the work on our campus. We're also a tribal college, so. I think that's what I'm thinking about doing within the next two months, probably. I work with a low rent school. an entry to production under some wild theater. So it's a piece of making theater and it's entirely out of doors in the woods. And it's like, I don't know, it's a work under. So we made sure to make sure to save some careful on that level. And for the kids, we have free range to have for us. We create things from natural objects. We make sure to have like puppets and also create things from like forest or conch. Based on the tarana for us. So what we're interested in, what I'm interested in doing is integrating two elders from our local community into the project because I really love this concept of multi-generational theater and zylog and also just honoring the land that we are on and really paying respect to the history of this land because it's New England. The rocks are so old and they just go back. So, yeah, I just see the these sort of objects as a giant function is what you know. And just to think that somehow connect more with as far back as we possibly can with that land work up is fantastic. So, we do have some others in our community that might possibly also some other indigenous places or across the country. I was going to say that one thing. I'm so ready. I did a lot of research and I'm a theater organization and I'm a director and I talk a lot and I'm very talk about you know, the students. But yeah, in order to get to that section let me talk a lot. I'm Margo Lucas. I was going to say to you that there's like a couple of dollars there wanting to work out it and making the work out of it. I was going to say that's the best part about it. And I hope that from now we can take the next step. That's a lot of the best part. Our mission is to identify all of the places where we want to go. So, I will say I will say I'm not sure how lies and I don't see the process and that's a really nice conversation. I mean, it's different to add in a student that have to connect with an other person in their area at the same time. We have a little set of whether these allies are a community, It's really interesting. I'm sitting here thinking about a process ignorant. Let's create a workshop that will provide a bunch of ideas that I want to create. I recently had a recent, I don't know how it works. So, you know, we're in the process of I don't really have anything to say that I do depend on people of gender or gender depending on who they seriously are. And then I'm going to do a project so that they'll be doing it. I'm kind of interested in this. I'm thinking that when the sales go down to the audience and we're bringing people from what they want to try to do in the Brazilian Amazon for very close to people. I'm just wondering if sales in person look like we are presented. Every time you see people down to the other side. I've been very careful. I want to make sure that the we have to be very careful. I want to make sure that that would be repeated in the 1890s. I don't know if you want to expand into the property of New York. It's a very difficult road to Mexico. It's a very difficult path. I know. We don't want to talk about this. We can. Where I'm going to be going to be on time. So what are the barriers for the barriers Thank you. And then you should be in the conversation with the SPNG just then. So if you have any questions, please feel free to share your thoughts. There are, there are questions. How to prevent a listening group that's such a clear that you are struggling to be like a lay of folks in physical affairs. How to stop the use of the brain force to make clear the mandate that you seek to make. And so it's not sort of, not to repeat the entity on the top that was so beautiful and so thoughtful. Other institutions have been working on water and there was a bunch of animals there. And then what are the actual issues? Beyond the audience discussion, we should do more in that. What's the actual issue? There's a lot of issues. And then we're still working around that. I think we should do more in that. I think the rest of the organization should just follow us and all of us will be able to reach out for a seat. But if you have history, you know, Dan, Dan, Dan, and all of us in our lives should be able to follow us. I also have a question about your, what's the best way to make history in the community? Are you, we want to push a particular institution, a certain institution, a certain category of leadership, a two-minute speciality and then to come up with a couple of things on your water rights. How did you come up with that? Because I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I was trying to say for the first time in 2012 and Baron Susan Back was the secretary of the American Fair and Irina was the last one. I mean, I would love to have more things for room available to somehow bring in and really set other stories here where I am. I would love to do that for you. And then just a couple of months ago we finished our session and we did the two-carre play which is about a single which is the whole one. You know, as an ally, what did I do? I was able to stand up and act with them to have their voice heard and have their presence heard. Well, you know, how to describe it, whatever. Something I don't really know how to do. And, you know, we were also meeting like, you know, how could they be siblings from different parents? You know, yeah, also parents and maybe having an individual who is, like she said, they are a deaf being. And that would be a phase. But then, you know, I mean, we haven't produced that but we come to a show like this race which is about race and gender. And how did you do that? We fell in love to have our own or our own for the main can I put a white man and then the doesn't work? But I do think it's very, very different from this question of them because of the white cultural appropriations so I think it doesn't go both ways to put the color conscious casting of saying these women should be opened up to add to something professional just such a powerful and different thing. Like, right on top of them we know we'll take more time to figure it out if you don't know everyone who wants to come out. Thank you. 30 second call. Okay, I'll just finish this. It's alright, I don't have I was here to listen to what I had to say but as you would say I'm not saying I don't have 100 grams back in my slinges they're especially in Miami. Listen, I contacted the American and it was really important for me to be bilingual so I called out and I wonder how you actually the question and in a way you're bilingual you have to deal with that. Alright everybody it's an interesting time let's all wrap up and get back into our circle place. Circle circle Let's all get back into our large circle everybody here let's have another we're going to put more in the circle right take this take this take this take this let's just take this take this take this take this So which group would like to start? Volunteer group would like to start. Someone great, someone willing. I feel it. Indigenous folks will start. Yay! Go ahead and do this. But some of the things that we really talked about a lot were about toolboxes. And we are a small community and how do we amplify our voices and empower our allies. Also something that really stuck out to is asking our allies to tell the story of their previous engagement with Native artists and how do they want to engage with our communities. So putting the honest on our allies to identify how it is that they want to work with Native communities so that we can better identify who is engaging with us in what feels like a respectful and meaningful way. And you know just also Rihanna brought up this idea of how do we as Native artists who are coming into a community as a visiting artist how do we build relationships with the local Native community that is already there as opposed to being brought in as a token. We don't know what the relationship is that a local company has with the surrounding community and how do we build instead of be part of a problem. And then something that Ty brought up that I think we all feel very strongly about is that when larger theaters come to the Native community and in particular come to Native Voices of the Autry which is one of the premier databases of Native playwrights in America how can we get money and resources coming from the more well to do and more resource rich companies into our communities so that we are not constantly being asked to provide our skills in our context for free. A really simple thing which some companies do, Randy does this at every performance is honoring every single theater company in America should start off the night by honoring the original inhabitants of the land on which their theater is located and Randy has some language that he'll probably share with you. Yes, can I sleep? Sure. Now or later. Later he couldn't have told us. All right. How about this group that was sitting over here since I'm over here with you guys? Solidarity. This ally group, we talked about Daniel offered us a wonderful thing to think about in engaging with Native tribes, how to think about conversations that you are co-conceiving and co-creating a partnership so that there's not a landscape in which you're saying like, hey guys, here's what I'm going to do for you. So who's at the table and how does that work? And thinking about expanding a leadership so that it isn't just a question of like how do we white folks, how do we find Native actors but rather like who, again, who's at the table as part of the leadership team of that project or organization who can speak to that, who can really be part of that. And then there's also, I mentioned Haskell Indian University, which is near Asset Kansas City Recreatory Theater. We hope to collaborate with and ATHE is an organization that... The Association for Theory and Higher Education, which is the yearly conference for college theater educators and it has focus groups by discipline, but there's no Native American or Indigenous performance focus group and I think that really, since there is such strong leadership now from within contemporary Native performing arts that proposing to ATHE to now have a focus group that focuses in this area will disseminate more information, get more people interested and also ability to change and introduce protocols that are being used currently. This corner over here, I'd like to report some things. So we discussed about, we talked about reading lists and like within the university setting and school setting having integration of some Indigenous texts like assimilation was brought up as a play to be read by university students and then we were trying to figure out, well then from there, the issue of voice then comes in like how do we also then incorporate the local community and Indigenous voices who are present in the community and neighboring nations and that kind of thing and trying to figure that out by just making bridges and making connections and integrating especially the elders voices and everything. That's the idea of what you said earlier, Larissa, about we have the honor to listen to the elders. That's beautiful. And also making connections with other communities including the deaf community and how the deaf community could maybe somehow come together with the Indigenous allies as well. You know, we talked about two specific projects for most of the time about the strategies that inform how the projects came together. One's an international project and the other is a regional project and we talked about ideas of how to build advisory councils, coalitions, more community connections so that the leaders of the project don't feel this overwhelming sense of burden or fear, I think, of making mistakes. So how could groups form a council? And we talked about there are some nice examples within the Lord Theatre system of advisory councils that bring voices that might not necessarily be there. We also talked about the intention, what is the intention of the project for everybody involved and we talked about it in relation to what you brought up on environmental issues where it's a situation that will affect everybody like Miami currently and the nature of the Amazon or water rights in the western states. And also we talked about patience, I mean developing relationships with people over time and continuously. Our friend Kita here is going crazy on a list. I'd love to have before you go if you have time to add some things I'm going to hashtag instead of red face this list so you can all find it. Also if any of you want to continue to be on email, kind of make a little group here of allies and people we can kind of stay in touch. We have this list over here. I would say what's really interesting listening to you all, this is the first time we've done this where we let you all just talk by yourselves, which is great. Because you're so advanced and you can do that. What's really interesting is hearing, just in the few years I've been on the board of TCG some really TCG involved, but in the few years I've been involved in the indigenous work at TCG it's amazing how I've already seen an evolution of how we're looking, how we're seeing things how we're discussing them, the words we're using, the thoughtfulness and also the variety of viewpoints which is fantastic because that's what we are we're over 500 different individual nations living here in one overarching government that is a conquering government. It's fascinating to me, I've said this before, but if we look at Africa or Europe we get the concept completely different languages, different cultures for some reason we just don't get it here. And so even within our group there's a lot of things we don't agree on and you will find that with indigenous people you do it because we're not monoliths. And so I love that we're talking about a lot of varieties of things and varieties of ways of looking at things because that's what it takes to work with any foreign nation and that's what you're dealing with, it's a foreign nation and it's going to take time and it's going to take a variety of viewpoints a variety of entry points and you cannot do all of it, so do something though. Because that's my biggest issue as a Native American artist working in the American theater is people are so afraid of screwing up, so afraid of not being able to do it all so afraid of not doing it right that they do nothing. And I've had my place outright rejected on that literally bladed out like we're afraid we're going to screw it up so we're just not going to do it. And that's not going to get anyone's anywhere. So I appreciate you guys being brave and discussing and I'd love to stay in touch and keep adding things and let my friend keep that. So I want to say tabutni to all of you for coming, thank you. It is I think the first time we've sort of started to try and pull together some action steps and we will hashtag these, we'll get them out and hopefully we will see you all next year to talk about progress because I really think it is possible. There has been such an evolution. The fact that, you know, I'll go back to San Diego. The fact that there were so many of us there in San Diego and the wide variety of us who were there from so many nations out and the look on people's faces when they got to see us all stand together in that room. From that moment when there was a realization, I think on their part that we are here, we're not invisible and I think that there's just been so much, it fills my heart so much to have all of you in the room as allies, as folks who are moving forward with us. One of the things we did discuss is that for our allies, it's very important to have you speak and stand with us, not for us, but with us. And so I want to say thank you for being here. Okay, thank you. And that's our time.