 name's Alyssa Macy and I'm a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and I'll be moderating for an opportunity to hear from these lovely ladies here. I want to read something that I picked up in the artist's repertory theater yesterday when we went to see a show. And I was really very happy when I read this and they actually read it on stage but it's an acknowledgement that their theater rests on the traditional lands of the Multnomah, Wasville, Cowlitz, Clackamas, bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Califoya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. Really, I think touching to be in a theater space and actually have a non-indigenous space start out in that way. It just made me pause and say, I want to definitely come back to this theater so I wanted to read this because it's on their wall. They also have it posted in their brochure. So I have the great honor of being able to moderate tonight's panel put on by the artist's repertory theater with Naya and in sponsorship by Grand Lawn, And we're here tonight to talk about responsibility to represent. These ladies are going to share a little bit about their own responsibilities to their community and how their community inspires, empowers, and helps them in the work that they do for the future generations of their own people and also Indigenous artists. So I wanted to start out by asking you each to introduce me and how their community inspires, empowers, and helps them in the work that they do for the future generations of their own people and also Indigenous artists. So I wanted to start out by asking you each to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about where you're from. Okay. Good evening. My name is Mary Catherine Nagel. I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and I was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas. I now live on the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma and I'm a playwright and also a partner at a small law firm called Pipestem Law. And we do a lot of work representing tribes and tribal citizens. Our mission statement I think says something to the effect of we work to restore tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction, and we have a specific focus. We do a lot of work around domestic violence and sexual assault, and specifically with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013 with the tribal jurisdiction provision. So that's me in a nutshell. Osil, Dadawadil, Dallanage, Dian, Carol, Chuen, Studi, Kaywood, Chi, Chalagi, Aya, Oklahoma. Hi, my name is Delina Studi. I'm a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation from Oklahoma. Wadom, thank you for letting me be here tonight. It's really an honor. My story is I'm an actor and that's basically how I got started and I got tired of waiting for someone to write me a good role, so I decided to write my own. I also serve as the chair of the SAG After National Native Americans Committee, and I used to be the former chair of the Diversity Committee there as well. So basically my whole life has been dedicated to creating more roles for our people and to create more contemporary portrayals of our people. And once, like Mary Catherine, I grew up in Oklahoma from a very, very tiny little town. And like Mary Catherine, our family goes way back into a lot of Cherokee politics. If you study anything about the trail of tears or the removal, you'll find our family names there. And so everything I do is, I do it in the spirit of God-Dugi, which is a Cherokee word that means the coming together of a people to celebrate, promote, and support each other. And so I just want to say thank you for being here tonight because you are participating in that spirit of God-Dugi. So Wadom. We're the Fast Wars. I'm a member of the Sochangu Lakota Nation, and I just got really emotional. Give me a second. It's just so great to be here with these ladies. I want to also personally just acknowledge the ancestors that were here and acknowledge our elders. We have elders that have been here like twice today. It's amazing. Thank you for being here. It's an honor to have all the elders here today. It's our honor to be with you, so thank you. And yeah, so I'm a playwright. I've been doing it for a long time. I'm really fortunate. It's my day job. And then I also have a consulting company called Indigenous Direction with Ty DeFoe. He was your speaker last year here for the high school. So he and I have a company where we help different organizations engage with Indigenous art audiences and arts and kind of help bridge that often really difficult cultural divide because people don't realize that we are completely different cultures. And so that's the other work I do in addition to, I guess, we've created a day job in addition to playwriting and stuff. Thank you. I wanted to start out with just a question for you. I know that when I first stepped into theater was not until I left the reservation. I grew up in Warm Springs and there was no such thing as theater. We did a lot of acting. Sort of acting crazy. We had a couple of ladies in play. I was a rabbit at one time. I was a Christian player at one time. But anyway, so what was the first time that you actually went into a theater proper? And what was that experience like for you? At what time, you know, age were you? And then how did you feel? How did that make you feel? Well, I remember I was in middle school. I went to a middle school kind of in a rural area. And my mom, we had moved to Kansas after my parents divorced. And she got tickets to Phantom of the Opera. It was on tour in Kansas City and like downtown Kansas City. So we like drove in and like went to Phantom of the Opera. And I just remember sitting there and watching and the show was so epic and so big and so huge. And I was so caught up in it. And I just wanted to... I still do that on occasion. And so I was always kind of like a theater kid. Mostly just because to get my mother a break from having to put up with me. But the first play I saw when I was seven years old, my dad and my mom decided that we should go back to the original homeland. So we went back to Gadua, North Carolina. So we went back to Cherokee, North Carolina. And I saw into these hills. And what's funny is Larissa actually worked on that later on. Not the production I saw because... Yes. But anyway. I remember going when she was seven. But my father thought it was very important that we see our native storytellers doing a theater about our history. And my father always impressed upon me at a young age that, you know, we're native. So we're the original storytellers. And so that's kind of our job is to keep the stories going. And then when I was 12 years old, I became really shy. I have severe social anxiety. I'm a big introvert. But I can, as an actor, I can pretend that I'm not. And so when I was a freshman in high school, my father picked out all my electives. I was doing speech and debate and drama. And I hated it. And then I too went to a theater camp that the Cherokee Nation actually put me through, which was wonderful. And it was then that I really loved it to the point when I came back my sophomore year. I was qualifying in all this speech and debate rounds. Like, there were 13 events and you can only qualify for 11. So I qualified for all 11. But I was so addicted to it, I loved it so much that I would show up to get on the bus and pray that one of my teammates wouldn't show up and then I could pretend to be them. And then I'd qualify under their name. So in fact, to this day, I still have the most qualifications. Like, there's a plaque with all the stuff I've qualified for, both under my name and all the names that I used. So that's my story. We moved to the big city when I was in first grade. We had a Walmart and a Kmart. I know, it's huge. Going one for, you know, 150 miles. But yeah, so I lived in the big city. So we had a community theater there. Winner didn't have any theater. Pine Ridge, I mean, Rosebud didn't have any theater. We had none of that. But when I got to Peer, we had community theater. We didn't get, like, touring shows or anything like that. But I actually, though, I wasn't a theater girl at all. I was a classical ballet dancer for the first 10 years of my professional career. And so I was pretty much on my own out there alone in South Dakota trying to be a ballet dancer. There's a whole play coming about that. My children's theater company named Minneapolis. I'm working on a CHAU right now. But yeah, so I wasn't really into theater, so I'd go. My parents were really into the arts. They both played musical instruments. I was terrible at musical instruments. I sang inquiries and things and did all that. But I was never into theater, so I'm still not a theater kid. I won't go to a play unless I absolutely have to. I'd rather go to a ballet. I'd rather go to see here music. I'd rather see art, fine art. That's what I do. I'd rather go to... I'd rather go to... I've been a pow-wow here in the back. But I hadn't ever been to... I've never been to a play here. It's kind of horrible on all my trips here. I'd rather do that. But that's our form, right? That's what we do as Indigenous people. We have our own forms of performance that we've had for thousands of years. And that's theater. And that's the thing for me that constantly makes me crazy. There is no difference. And I'm always going on. I work with a lot of youth, you know, saying, you are already doing theater. You don't have to change. You do what you do. And I will just help you make it into whatever it is you want it to be. I will help you make it into that. If you want to keep it with the community, I will just help you work in the community. If you want to put it on a stage, I'll show you how to put it on a stage without sacrificing who you are and what we bring as Indigenous people. And that's really what I try to do with other people in theater. And then my job is to write plays, so whatever. Which is great, too. That's fine. Well, there were a couple of really interesting points, Delaney, you had mentioned that we are the original storytellers. You know, that's something that our people have been doing for a really long time. And I'd like you guys to expand on that. You know, as playwrights, you are writing stories. You're writing stories about your communities, about our experiences as Indigenous people. You're writing for our own people, but you're also writing for different communities and cultures. And so, you know, I went to play yesterday, and I was the person from the commentary at the end. I appreciate you doing that. But I, you know, it just really kind of, there was a moment in the play that made me really uncomfortable. And I was like, I'm uncomfortable as a Native person in this play. And then I'm turning around and I'm looking at all of the non-Indian people, and I'm like, I really hope you guys are as uncomfortable as I am. It was one of those experiences where you're a part of this experience, and it just sort of makes you stop. And there's some real power in that for a Native person, I think, sitting in there to feel that. And I'm looking to talk about that particular piece and just kind of, I think, pushing the boundaries not only for our own community but for other communities. Yeah, that was actually my play, Thanksgiving play. Yeah, there's one scene. So the unofficial, well actually now it's official because William Met Weekly quoted me saying it. So the unofficial tagline that I give to this play is that I make fun of white people for 90 minutes, actually 80 minutes, but when people laugh it's 90 minutes. So that's really what it is. So I just, it's crazy. So it's a bunch of white folks being ridiculous. Well-meaning liberal white people. Oh, hey man, it's the baby. Hi. So many people I know now here, it's so great. So anyway, so that's basically what the play is. But within that, these well-meaning white folks are trying to create a play that is about Thanksgiving, Native American Heritage Munch, politically correct, but they are doing it without the native people and still trying to be correct about it. So there is a scene in it where they reenact an actual historical event and it's something that happened and it's very horrific and gruesome and it's unfortunately true. And I personally really pushed hard and with my director here, who's here, Luanne, we pushed really hard to make it as graphic as possible within the confines of the show, which is people making something up in a room, what can they make from this room that makes it as graphic as possible. And the reason for that is really what you're talking about, right? It's amazing how many people still have no clue like how horrific genocide is. It's no joke, right? We all know that. And yet they really don't know. And so I do use it, so my play is both comedy and satire. So that's part of the satire, right? It seems like a comedic moment as we started this kind of depicting this horror and they're doing it to show the horrors of what we did and we're facing our reality. And then the satire of it, generally, and the gentleman that's here spoke about this earlier, you laugh in the moment because these characters are kind of ridiculous even though they're more ridiculous because you know them and you run into them in Portland every day. But also a lot of folks have said to me afterwards, like, whoa, then I have to be careful when the laughing stops, right? And once it's a laughter stop, they're like, wow, what was I laughing at and should I be laughing at that and how real is that and what does this mean and what does it mean for the person next to me? And it's been lovely because last week we had so many Indigenous folks coming into the play, it was really great. And it's funny because I had people saying, I had a white guy next to me that was like, do you want to know if I laugh at this? They're like checking in with the Native people and the Native folks were laughing. But it's something that I really use humor to disarm from folks and then kind of once they've kind of disarmed and use the mirror to look at yourself and think about why you're laughing at these things. Oh, goodness. So yes, I mean, similar to what Larissa does, my show is a nice blend of unpacking the history behind the Trail of Tears and also telling it from a modern-day perspective. And I've had so many people that have seen the show and would say, oh, my gosh, I didn't think the Trail of Tears could be that funny. Or that we didn't expect to laugh so much. And I feel like as Native people, if you only see us on TV or in the films, we're always very stoic. They don't really know that we have a sense of humor. And I think that's how we survive for as long as we have. It was so much intact as we can find the humor in things. We find the reason to laugh. We find that motivation to keep going. And it's wonderful. I think one of my favorite things is whenever I'm doing my show because I'm also performing my show. So not only did I write it, I'm also the only person on the stage doing it. And so I can hear the audience, which is a lot of fun for me. So a lot of times, the non-Natives in the group will be like, wait, what did she say? Did that really happen? And it's just that you hear them reacting. And that's a lot of fun for me because we're trying to unpack a lot of history that a lot of people don't know. And how do we make it entertaining? And also how do we get the point across? And I feel that's one of the great things about theater instead of film and television is it's a wonderful educational tool that's also entertaining. And because people see a real-life human being on the stage, it's easier for them to relate to us because we're not separated by that glass. And I think that's one of the ways that we kind of re-humanize who Native people are, especially to non-Native people who have never met any of us. It's not uncommon for me to do a project and I'm the only Native in the room. And then they expect me to be the ambassador of all things Native, which is always kind of fun for me. And so sometimes I joke around with people and I lie to them. Like, oh, no, no, yeah, that's how we... Yeah, if you lie, we have to cut off that finger. No, really. And they're like, oh, okay. I mean, it's just fun just to watch them think you're serious. But I got that from my father. But it's, you know, it's... I feel like every minority has that responsibility and it's also a burden of always having to educate. You know, we always have to educate the dominant society about who we are and it starts weighing on you. And so I think that's one of the great things I had fun with with my show is I actually kind of address that. And I kind of, you know, we show it to them. We shine the light back on you and all of a sudden we make the people in the audience uncomfortable. I think a good piece of theater or any kind of art makes you question your privilege. And we all have privilege in some way, shape, or form, but anytime that it makes you uncomfortable then we're doing a good job. That's what we're supposed to do. Me? Oh, okay. What can I add? Yeah, I completely agree. It is interesting. I had sovereignty this last couple of months ago in D.C. and then Manhattan just opened at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and I've had numerous people come up to me and say, wow, your play hat was funny. And you know, and I'm like, well, what'd you expect it to be? It's a piece of theater, you know? Like, yeah, but there's shocks that they laughed. And I think they think a native play, it's going to be super serious, you know, and it's not going to be funny. And I think, you know, completely agree, you have to open people's hearts and minds because there's a reason our stories have been silenced. There's a reason they're not, you know, this time not being told in history books and on the American stage, right? I mean, if you bring us out of the past and into the present, that kind of jars the American manifest destiny we deserve to be here, we're the most successful nation in the world, yay democracy, all of that, right? So, you know, if you can make people laugh and invite them in that way, then I think people are much more open to hearing the ultimate message you have to share. And then I think there's a question to share that message. And I don't have all the answers. I'm still learning because you learn from your audience when you craft the story. And I will say, in Manhattan, there is a scene where a scalping takes place. And I really talked to the actors in the show and said, I don't know if this should be in here. I mean, it happens, but maybe we don't need to see it on stage. You know, and it's in the early 1600s when the Dutch just started massacring the Lenape on the Manhattan Island. And I really felt like, you know, because, yes, I want to educate the non-natives who are going to come and who maybe didn't even know the Lenape ever existed or that Manhattan is named after their own word for the island, their home, that they were forcibly removed from after lots of violence. You know, so I want to confront non-natives with that reality, but I also don't want to harm my own people. I don't want my own people to come inside the theater and have to watch something that triggers them because we all carry that historical trauma. Even if we don't consciously think about it, it's inside us because, you know, we're here today because at some point someone that we descend from survived, right? Survived what has been one of the most successful genocides in the history of mankind. So, you know, I want to be very aware of how my play impacts the native people who come see it. I don't want to cause more harm. I don't want to trigger people. But then I can't back away from showing the past and showing me what's happened. And so that was a conversation and I don't know that the play has the right balance right now. I think I have to constantly ask that question and I have to ask people how they react to it when they see it. How does this make you feel? Does this trigger you? Does this hurt? You know, but the interesting thing was is that all the native actors in the show, and they're the ones, you know, I want to really listen to because they're on stage doing it. And that's a whole other energy too to have to show that violence on their bodies, right, with their voices. And they said, no, this has to be in here. We can't just have it happen off stage and then find out about it later through a character telling us, because this is what our ancestors survived, we have to show this. And that was the conversation we had and that was the decision that was made, but these are tough decisions and I think with everything you have to think about your audience is native and non-natives and what does that mean for the story that you're sharing and how you share it? Well, you always have to go back to community, right? I mean, that's something, I like I'm doing a play about the Dakota War of 1862 and they, the Dakota community said, don't depict the hanging. So I was like, great, I'm not going to depict the hangings. Like, you know, I mean, everything just happened with the Walker. It's a hugely traumatizing event right now. And so they said, yeah, we don't want that done and I think that's what we all very much respond to is, you know, going back to community, figuring out what doesn't want to be, what they don't want to see on stage and then saying, great, so what is it you do want to see on stage because it's their story, it's not mine. I'm in Dakota, I'm not Dakota. And so asking them what is their, what do they want to see and then what do you want to teach to white folks and then my job is to translate all that into western theater and make sense to white people. So thank you. One of the things that I am hearing from all of you is just about the power of theater in general. You know, we often talk about art as being this incredible catalyst to create changing communities. On the Oregon Arts Commission, one of the things that we get to do is read a lot of grants and you really start to see how art becomes this tool to have difficult conversations with a lot of communities, you know, to create a space to actually do that. You guys work with Native Youth and I know that in my own community of Warm Springs 50% of our tribal membership is under the age of 30 and so that's like 50% of our tribal membership. It blows my mind when I think about how young our community is and how you're starting to see these really kind of cool, well I'm not cool anymore, I'm not at the cool age according to the young people. I've heard some good feelings to know this but so you know they're doing these really cool edgy projects and we, many of us I think have been doing different art with young people and I'm curious to know what sort of art it fits in the theater or other types of art that you're doing in your own communities and other communities, especially with youth and what you're seeing in that type of space with young people. I'm starting. I love it when I see both of you looking at me. We did that to you last talk. Hey, yeah I work with youth a lot but there's so many different ways that I work with youth. I tie the phone and I do a lot of workshops helping youth bring out their own voices in whatever way they want to do that but additionally I think what I'll talk about for a second is for instance what we're doing here at the theater at Artist Repertory Theater I have two requirements of every theater company I work with. I cannot be the only indigenous art in that season and I cannot be the only indigenous person paid in that season and every theater company that works with me has to be down with that and thus far they've done great. For instance, since we're talking about Warm Springs, Art Theater Company Artist Rep they didn't have any grants, they didn't have anything for this but they said these are the things we have are you interested in any of these things and we've spent the past year going out into the community talking to native folks saying what are you interested in and what we've ended up with was a lot of youth doing this amazing stuff like we've had Scott Kalama from and his whole crew came down doing hip hop in the lobby and that's obviously one of the big ones that we're seeing again in the end and figuring so they've came out that whole crew from Warm Springs came out and performed in the lobby we've had Strick Nine and Fish Martinez came out and who else West Coast Black Bear all these amazing young men who are trying to be positive role models in the community and doing their own art forms and it's been really great because I feel like it's important that there's actually an audience for you here in the theater in what you think of as a bunch of old white people Strick Nine the other night had all these old white ladies with their hands in the air and they were just having such a great time it was amazing so it was great I don't know if they've ever I don't know if they even knew why but they were like okay he told me to do it they were just having such a good time and I think it's important talking to these young folks about their own river I just said your last name sorry but you know that works too but having all these young folks coming in and doing the work they do doing spoken word poetry showing them that there is a place for them in theater and if they want to work in bars and whatever that's great but if they want to work in theater there are places and there are ways then to take that work that these ladies would love to come to because they had such a great time in the lobby but I think it's really for me it's always about with our youth meeting them where they are what are they interested in what are they doing, what are they talented at already and then how can I help them translate that if they want to onto a stage or just into the lobby it's fine whatever that is or back home with their people and really support them in their writing process and also performing and doing things back to their people in different venues so for me growing up in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma no one ever came to my school to validate my culture which is really kind of funny considering I lived right in the heart of the Cherokee Nation no one ever came to my school and said there were creative career options you know if you were lucky in my small town you get to work at the chicken plant or the factory or maybe if you're really lucky you get to be a teacher and those were your options and for my family you know we have if you go to the Cherokee Nation the head of the genealogy is my Auntie Liza the head of the language department is John Ross and David Crawler and those are my family that's my family so we have made it John Ross John Ross is descended from Andrew Ross yeah signed the same treaty as my grandfather history is complicated wow so I knew my family was active in the culture but no one ever told me that and no one ever told the other Native youth at my school and my school was mostly Native and so it was very important to me that I go out and I talk about that and so I've been very lucky that when I first moved to Los Angeles I had to partner up with the National Conference for Community and Justice Christopher Sipas right back there and he designed the first set of my first equity play which was a one person show called Kick that explores the power of mascots and the power of images and I came on board when it was just a rough outline of what they wanted and it was with Peter Howard from Cornerstone as well he had written it and so they wanted to make the character Cherokee so I was able to introduce the language I was able to introduce songs and at the end one of the things I told to Peter it's very important to me that Grace the character I'm playing doesn't win because I want her to still find the ability to get up and keep fighting because as you know especially if you're a Native person and you're fighting any kind of issue you know treaty rights, mascots, representation you're not going to win you have to keep getting up every day with the NCCJ that I was also able to be a counselor for the brotherhood sisterhood camp and so that was a week long camp where we took oh gosh about 200 youth from across Los Angeles and we talked about all the isms you know we unpacked everything and then it was through them that I was able to work with City of Peace where we take inner city kids and we create musicals and then I also did some Native playwriting programs and mentor artists playwriting programs and Young Native Voices I'm a company for the American Indian Film Institute and I mentored Native kids because it's very important especially you know once again this is me coming from me and knowing that no one ever told me my voice was important or that my story had value and not ever seeing myself represented on television or film it's very lonely it's very isolating especially to our young people when you think about it we have the highest suicide rates and the highest dropout rates so how do we build up this self-esteem how do we make them be proud of who they are and how do we restore that and let them know that they're important so I think one of the most powerful things I was able to do is through all these programs I was able to teach playwriting to these young incarcerated Native men and in California you know it's the three strikes rule and so these are poor Native young men under the age of 18 who are in prison because of petty theft or drug abuse and yet three times instead of getting the help they need they're sent to a prison and because most of them come from reservations that are very poverty-stricken they didn't have family to see them and so you go and you help them tell their story and I think it's a vital part of who we are once you own that story once you tell the story in your own words then it doesn't have power over you you have power over it and so that was the one thing that was very important to me is how do we take our power back and how do we start telling our own stories from our own perspectives and how do we reignite that flame inside of us because we're proud people we're a resilient people and by God we're still here and so that's one of the things that I like to do with the Native youth I've been very lucky and fortunate back into the organization so right now working with Portland Center Stage we're creating a curriculum to go with the show and I'm teaching a bunch of workshops in fact every day I keep getting more and more workshops to work with the Native youth and also non-Native youth which I think is equally important because they need to know how to have these difficult conversations and how do we start bridging that gap and it was so funny because my father gave me my name is Delana Gay Estude and I didn't figure this out until later in life and if my dad made fun of me he's like I was wondering how long I'm going to take you to figure that out but my name means Golden Gate and I was supposed to be a bridge and so that was what my father has given to me and I've taken that on that's what I'm trying to do is how do we bridge that gap how do we make it accessible how do we start having these difficult conversations and how as Native people do we start claiming our own stories and taking back our power what she said um I really don't have much else to add to that um I mean I will I will say I just I agree with everything they just both Larissa and Delana just said I think that one thing I've learned too in working with youth is you know you know I think when I first started doing anything with youth I thought okay how do I change what I'm doing to work and you don't have to change anything you don't have to do it different you know kids are so smart they're so smart and so I think that was one major epiphany for me it was like oh in some ways they're smarter than adults right because they don't have all those filters that adults have by the time we're adults we've put up all these walls and these barriers and I actually feel like the you know the work that I have been able to do with youth I've taken away more probably than what I've been able to give them and I think I think there's a lot of power in theater specifically when you take when you do it with youth because you know our kids aren't allowed to share their stories and they don't get to see themselves and I one of our one of the plays I've been taking around the country that actually Delana's been in a few times is Silver or Full Moon and it's really cool because sometimes we'll take it to a community and we'll work with their high school students to see in the play and the number of times I've had kids come up and say I've never seen one of my people on stage before and you're just like you know but I remember that feeling personally I still feel that way can I just see Native people on stage like but yeah well there were a couple of things that I heard from you that I had talked about you know writing a story you know it doesn't have power over you and you sort of take that back and Mary Kay you mentioned earlier when you were talking about the law firm that you recently joined the work that they've done on the reauthorization of VAWA and I just kind of want to turn this a little bit to talk about women, Native women in general because there really has been this really interesting sort of me too movement happening when it comes to Indian Country and just watching what's out there but then also knowing we have a mutual friend so we were kind of chatting about that earlier but just these conversations with other Native women about the incredible levels of sexual assault and things that women are experiencing and how silent those stories actually are in Indian Country like we don't want to talk about it because it's really ugly and uncomfortable but the reality is that it's everywhere it's literally everywhere I mean all the Native women that I'm friends with have all been a victim of sexual assault and when I lived in Minneapolis going to graduate school we had done a production of the vagina monologues which was interesting to be on stage talking about your vagina but also just you know kind of one of those things where it wasn't written by indigenous peoples so it was kind of it was a different experience but I'm kind of waiting now for the stories like when when and how do we start having these conversations it may be through you know sort of creating a place that's not as uncomfortable where we can laugh about it but also really start to have some of those hard conversations and dialogues in our communities about how women are treated the high levels of sexual assault so I'm just curious to know from you because you guys are writing these type of stories you're putting these stories out here it's powerful the work you do how do we begin to have those conversations through a medium of theater and through art well I very much believe in theater and art as I think one of the most effective ways to have these conversations and that's one of my problems with the Me Too movement I think it's very important I'm glad it's happened I think we're now kind of at this place where it was disruptive in a very helpful way but now if the conversations can't leave social media and happen in rooms like this then what are we doing with it right and so I feel like it's just a hashtag right now and I'm not sure how much of an in-depth conversation we're really having but I think that's yet to be seen and I think we can still have that conversation but I have a play called Silver of Full Moon actually we brought it out to Umatilla last year you were in it it was like a year ago she was the star and she was an amazing actress in addition to being phenomenal playwright and you know I don't think it's a coincidence there's about three women up here and I think about and you know and you know Cherokee culture is very matrilineal but we think and a lot of different I don't want to be super general over general and Pan Indian but a lot of our tribal cultures uphold that you know the women are the foundation of sovereignty we literally wouldn't have citizens of our nations if it weren't for women right we are the life bearers we give life and I think it's also not a coincidence that one of the biggest victories in the history of the United States for tribal nations came from women the violence against women act in 2013 congress and the president restored a piece of the tribal criminal jurisdiction that the United States Supreme Court took away so we've got all these hundreds of years of United States history of the three branches of federal government taking our sovereignty away taking our jurisdiction away and all of a sudden the piece of it gets restored why because native women leaders and survivors went to DC met with congress and told their stories like Lisa Bruner from the White Earth Nation or Diane Millich from Southern New and they told their stories in the New York Times they told their stories in congressional hearings and I think again it just goes back to the power of storytelling and what happens when silence voices speak up right and so Slippery Full Moon celebrates that victory celebrates the restoration of tribal criminal jurisdiction over Don Indians in Val 2013 and it's been a real blessing to take it around the country we've taken it to from Umatilla we took it to Fort Berthold and did it with NHA Nation we took it to Eastern Band and did it in Cherokee, North Carolina it's been a huge blessing and I think it's also been powerful because it when we bring it into a community there have just been inevitably people will come up afterwards and the women share their stories I mean if they can make it and in writing the play I did interviews with survivors and they're invited to literally share their story on stage if they can't make it or they don't want to then we'll hire a very talented actress to play them but they have that opportunity so often times when they do the play you know you're listening Diane Millich is sharing her story right Lisa Brunner is sharing Billie Joe Rich and I think that is even another level of theater of storytelling where you can't separate yourself you can't say well this is just a story that this fancy playwright made up but no it's very real and someone's giving testimony right now to what they've survived what I've heard from some of the tribal communities where we've gone to is that afterwards the conversation continues and people start saying well who in our community has survived this and who's perpetrated it because that's the unfortunate thing yes the Department of Justice shows and we know our women face the highest rates of sexual assault, murder and rape in the country and the majority of those crimes the Department of Justice reports are committed by non-Indians we also know we have people in our own communities our uncles, our fathers our grandfathers, our neighbors and it's not just you know man on women it's women on men and women on women and those are the conversations that I think are really hard to have in our community so I think theater again offers this unique environment in which these conversations can start in a way that it's not going to happen in a tribal council meeting or other settings and so that's where I think the power of theater as a creating a space for healing and testimonials is really at its height thank you so one of my favorite stories my father told me when I was a little girl when I was four so if you know anything about the Cherokee history in 1763 we were considered a world power in fact we were sending people we were sending emissaries of peace over to London to negotiate with the kings and queens you know we were working we were traveling we were getting the message out we were considered a world power and my favorite story growing up so most people you know you have bedtime stories my mom would come in and tell me like the three little pigs and wonder what would make an appearance in their Scooby-Doo, right my dad would come in and be like okay so in the 1770s Chief Otakashkala was invited to talk to the British Treaty Party and he was told to bring his council so Chief Otakashkala showed up with his beloved men and women and when they walked in they looked around and the first thing Chief Otakashkala says is when he sees all these you know men with the powdered wigs and the red coats where are your women right and so and of course the British delegation said oh our women we don't involve them in matters of state and Chief Otakashkala turns back to our people and says we can't trust them they're only thinking with half of their brains and that was my bedtime story and so and so my father I always joke that I didn't grow up with gender roles because work was work if you were available and you could do the work you could do the work so sometimes I was helping whoever was cooking in the kitchen or sometimes working on the car the rule in my family's house was if you cooked then you didn't have to clean right so you had one of the two jobs and so and my parents would delegate that duty and so I grew up knowing that women were powerful that women were sacred and that women were honored and if you look at the history of the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee Nation one of the ways they got us was they started saying that the Cherokee Nation were a petticoat government actually had that was a big part of my play I cut it because my play is already two hours long and the first draft was six hours and I can't do that to myself or to you and so but it's a lot of history but it was that was one of the ways they got us by his way of saying you know oh you're a petticoat government so and then what happened was the removal happened and we get to Oklahoma and they drafted a new constitution which was actually drafted by my fourth great-granduncle George Lowry and he purposely left out women's rights so our constitution changed once it got to Oklahoma and even though it wasn't written down it was it was still implied that we had rights but it was one of those little silent agreements because they might try to move us again we gotta make sure we play by the rules or at least appear like we are and so you know I grew up with all these stories knowing about that and my father was always good about having the most awkward conversations with me in regards to like gender and sex and everything and so you know I do think exactly what Mary Catherine was saying we have this wonderful ability especially with theater because once again it's a real person on a stage it's a real feelings and the people in the audience feel that right well most people don't realize the audience is the other character in a show and what you give to us we feel and we take it in and it really impacts our performance and so and there have been studies that have shown that if you're in an audience your heart beats sync up to each other it's a very communal event and you know I've been very lucky with most of the plays I do they're very social justice plays and most of them actually have a facilitated dialogue afterwards we actually have a facilitated dialogue before and then we do the performance and we unpack it afterwards but it's creating that safe space to have those conversations and you know if you look at the history of assimilation and you know almost my father is a boarding school survivor where he was forcibly removed sent to a boarding school where he had the Indian beaten out of him and they actually tried to enforce the gender roles and to me it's not to give people excuses but it's no wonder that even though elder abuse and domestic abuse there wasn't something we really dealt with back in the day but it's something we learned and it happens today because that abuse it's a cycle and so whenever you take a child from their parents you put them in a military type school where they're not receiving any love or affection and whenever they get out of that school and they have children that's what they're going to show that's how they're going to treat their kids because they don't know any better because that's what they learned and so we have to unbreak that cycle and the best way to do that is by having these difficult conversations and my father he was a boarding school survivor and he has moments and so we actually had to have several conversations talking about you know abuse and mistreatment and you know they're not fun conversations to have but until you start having them you're not going to be able to move forward and so that's one of the great things that I think theater is a wonderful tool because you do have that community experience you're all watching it together and hopefully you saw it with somebody that's a friend and then when you leave you could unpack it or talk about it more but I think it's I think it's a great way to start the dialogue and start having those difficult conversations and and I think that's why it's very important for indigenous people to start telling our stories now because so much has been taken from us and it's time that we start rebuilding and restoring what has been lost Yeah, yeah, I'm now Mary Catherine Yeah, exactly Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean that's what I have to say, I'm a theater activist so my social justice work is theater I can show you dozens of reviews over the years are annoyed with me because I do not teach them enough and I do not answer the questions I ask in my plays I always say the second act of my play happens afterwards if I've done my job as a dramatist I leave you with more questions than answers and I leave you with a lot of things you've never thought about and I leave you with a lot of things that you have to figure out later and you have to probably do some work Sorry, you're going to have to look things up you're going to have to do some research you're going to have to talk to a native person Yikes! And so that's intentional and every review of every play I've had hates that it's fine my plays do what I want them to do and I think we all use our work in that way and that's what theater can do I think the other thing that's important though is that we all use women as our central characters all my plays have the main characters of women in every play I've ever written I think I think so and I believe that's the same play I've seen of yours, I'm pretty sure, right? I have one play where I was like you know what, I'm going to challenge myself and make the main character in the end and then I gave him a girlfriend that had an even more powerful voice and then one play I was like who's play is this? She was awesome Delana's play is her although my father's character is still that's really important, right? is that we do, whether or not we're dealing specifically with the topic of violence against women it's important that our native women and all women see strong native women at the center having their voice told their voice heard or other women mine particular play this one the main character is a white woman but we're supposed to laugh at hers, that's okay but it's really important that we all use that so even if we're not talking about that topic we're going though a different path for a woman a different way to move through the world Thank you we are at a point so we don't get to stay together all night I know this might disappoint some of us but we're at a point where we wanted to open up for some questions from the audience for these ladies so I'd like to honor that time and allow you as audience members to ask some questions Sure, yeah I come from South Dakota we have a lot of people without electricity without internet without heat it makes me crazy, there's so much funding for these film programs to go out there and teach people filmmaking and what are they going to do with A, they can't have $6,000 camera in their home they can't charge the thing C, they have no internet to upload the thing it's just ridiculous it just makes me crazy yeah, they brought through all these film programs to teach us about filmmaking yep and they go away and everyone felt good about themselves and they spent all this money and they had this great time teaching about filmmaking to a bunch of people that can't make films because they don't have electricity, for goodness sake did you not notice there was no electricity it just makes me insane, sorry I got a little nuts with that but the one thing that is beautiful and that I constantly am pushing hard is theater our native people can make theater anywhere, our native people the three of us can make a play here right now and perform it done and it can change people's lives give us 10 minutes, we could write that and so that's the thing about theater it's beautiful, we already know how to perform as native people we already have been doing theater for thousands of years but because it has not been codified and written down by academia is not considered legitimate theater like western theater like theater in the Far East these different forms are considered legitimate theater because they're studied in schools and have been written down through academia and studied in that way, ours have not been and therefore people don't consider it theater but we do so many amazing completely different theatrical forms so all we have to do is just do what we do right so the example I was used is back home actually at Milks Camp, I was talking to someone earlier from Milks Camp from Milks Camp in Rosebud these children they have funding for alcohol and drug prevention abuse prevention and so they had a little bit of money so they found a perfect little amphitheater with these prairie hillsides that came down to this bowl and so it's a perfect backdrop it's acoustically beautiful they built little wooden benches themselves and they made all these little benches and they made a darling little wooden stage someone ran an extension cord out there and so then they also put up a little white wall so that they can show films on there when they don't have theater to watch and they just make plays out there in the prairie it's the most beautiful theater I've ever been to I remember the first time they brought me out there the cicadas are going at night and the sunsets in South Dakota are 360 degrees like they're all the way around you and the full moon was coming up over the hill and the horses are coming down and grazing behind you I mean it's just magical and these kids are out there making theater they brought me out to in a weekend we took these children some little people I was telling them earlier about there's two women that came they're teenage girls raising 10 children none of whom are theirs and they're raising them alone without any adults and they just brought all the kids we put them in sleeping bags in the garage and we spent a weekend learning how to write plays taught them dialogue, taught them how to do scenes they sent them out, made them interview all their elders and come back and wrote the plays that the elders told us and they performed this little show it was like 30 minutes long it was the first time we did this I worked with them, teach them how to do this how to act and do all this and it was a 30 minute show it took us like a week I mean it's crazy and these kids had this amazing piece of theater that connected them to their elders connected their community to their to the land they had to like add shows because it was so popular because you know what there's nothing else to do out there except, you know, Powwow was over they kind of left so it was like, it was the entertainment in town, it's amazing and so our people can be doing that I work at Red Cloud Indian School a lot and they talk constantly about this beautiful theater program they used to have I'm like guys, let's just go do it and so we went back, you know, the theater's there I'm like let's go do it and we went we did a play there, you know, it's like it took us three days, we wrote a play you know, it's something native people can be doing everywhere they are, you don't need electricity you don't need internet, you don't need fancy equipment you don't need anything but yourselves and I'm constantly pushing for Indian country to get behind theater it's amazing, it's beautiful and violist music and dancing and storytelling and all the things we already do so I really, I'm a big advocate I was just bugging people with some funders here today like, support native theater we need it, but we don't have funding for it it's a constant, constant battle to get funding, you know, if I had the money I'd just go out there myself, I'm an artist I don't have enough money but I could be doing native theater workshops year round with our youth if I could just get the funding to do it Any other questions? Well originally my show was not about it was not going to be about me or my father it was about the people we met along the way and so we had all these interviews even though I'm Cherokee Nation from Oklahoma we have three federally recognized tribes there's Cherokee Nation from Oklahoma there's Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Cherokee North Carolina and the United Katua Band also of Oklahoma and so even though we're Cherokee in order for me to tell the stories I went and presented from a tribal council I met with the elders I took a year to build up a relationship with Eastern Band, you know, Cherokee just because they're not, we're different and so so the interviews that we collected were supposed to be for the play and they still are, you know, I still use them but we actually donated them back to all the tribal museums so anyone that we met with along the way and also to the Trail of Tears Association you know we wanted the footage I wanted to do it mostly so I could for the writing purposes because like I said my original thought was the play was not going to be about me or my father it was going to be about the people we met along the way and then my directors like but people are interested about what was it like to retrace your family's footsteps along the Trail of Tears with your dad and I was like oh yeah that's, no we don't talk about that so they made me go a little further so the whole idea of having the documentary if you watch the footage what's funny about it is there are no interviews with me and my father because we weren't supposed to be in the play and but then in order to it was my director, it was her idea she said if they see that if you go out there and you become personally vulnerable and you share your story then people are going to be able to relate to it more than you sharing the stories of other people and that's your obligation to your people and my director is a white lady well-intentioned, we actually call her the yo-nag with good intentions yo-nag is a Cherokee word for a white person and so my yo-nag with good intentions that's why I ended up happening she forced me to tell the deeper story and I kind of went kicking and screaming into it and then you and your hair, I know thank you so that's how it happened but all the interviews are with it's at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian is at the Cherokee Heritage Center is also at the Museum of the Cherokee of the Sequoia birthplace and also with the Trail of Tears Association so they have all of our interviews and we had some really big ones like I got to interview our beloved man who just passed, Jerry Wolf Jerry Wolf was the first beloved man to have that title in over 200 years and he passed away my first week of rehearsal and we also were able to interview Dr. Amanda Swimmer who is a revered elder and she was recently named a beloved woman and I think that was probably my proudest moment is because she offered to do her interview in Cherokee and my father got to speak with one of the oldest living speakers of the Cherokee language and that for me that was what the Trail was all about any other questions? it's just the highest title that you could have bestowed on someone so it's so you know elder is a title and I always joke is like I'm not ever going to be an elder I'll just be old I'm not ever going to have that wisdom I'm just going to be an old person but elder, a beloved man and a beloved woman usually go to our most cherished and trusted culture bears like they've done enough in their life to keep the like once they're gone then we lose a part of the culture and so it's acknowledging how much they've given back to the community it's once again that word Godugi right how much they've given back how much they've in Jerry Wolfe's case he was a phenomenal human being he stormed the beaches of Normandy one of the only natives people to do that and survive and he would teach the language he was also one of our best storytellers he had the most stories so oral history the way it works is in a lot of cultures but especially in Cherokee if you can't tell the story the correct way then you're not allowed to tell the story and so you collect stories along the way now we also adapt stories and we're you know sometimes we'll tell a shortened version because our creation story takes like several days no one really had so you find a shorter way to saying it but you know you have to earn that right to shorten it you have to earn that right and so but Jerry had he had such a wealth of knowledge he had like in his my in his brain he had so many of our stories and he had the full length and short length and he masterfully tell those in fact after he retired he would go to the museum of the Cherokee Indian and during the lunch break all the tourists would come out and he would tell them stories and then eventually the museum was like oh this is a great we should hire him he's a great ambassador for the program and so then of course you get Dr. Amanda Swimmer who is also an old speaker which means Cherokee is her first language and but she's also one of our best potters and she still does her pottery the old way and so we were able to she showed us how she made her pots we were able to watch that and then she tried to teach me how to do some Cherokee finger weaving I'm not very good at that but terrible horrible it was I was like how so it's the beloved man and beloved woman those are titles but on people who are our culture bearers and they have such wealth of knowledge that once they're gone we lose a piece of ourselves and that's why we don't give out that title that often any other questions out there well this has just been a wonderful this isn't working again this has been a wonderful evening sweet grass and some sage and just a gift from the Indian community for you thank you again so before we let everybody go because I'm sure folks would like to mingle and ask questions and just chat I just want to remind folks that you've got three plays that are happening here in Oregon all at the same time which is really really great so before we check out I'd like to just ask you just a quick plug let us know where your play is when it's when it's going to run to maybe just a slight two sentence about what it is so that everyone here knows what you should be planning in the next couple of months and one of those things is a road trip to Ashland so yeah my play is Manahata and it's at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland Oregon right now through October 27th so you got time to figure out your trip down there and Manahata follows the story of Jane Snake who is a contemporary citizen of the Delaware Nation from Anadarko, Oklahoma and it is her journey back to Manahata her ancestral homeland where she works and gets a job at Lehman Brothers and works on Wall Street which is named Wall Street because that's where the Dutch built a wall to forcibly remove her people from their homelands in 1654 and so it goes back and forth in time as you see her reconnect with her ancestors and where she comes from so my play is called And So We Walked and it's at Portland Center Stage until May 13th although I just found out today it's selling really well so we might extend so get your tickets quickly because it's very exciting I mentioned earlier when I wrote the play I thought I would go to tribal institutions and tribal colleges I used to joke and say Portland Center Stage I would like to say it's a dream come true but honestly I never dreamed I would even get that far so it's more than a dream come true And So We Walked is basically it's me retelling retracing my family's footsteps along the northern route of the trail of tears with my father and our six weeks on the road and what came up for us along the way so if you want to know all my dirty secrets you should see the show and my play is the Thanksgiving play it's a comedy and satire so come to mind and just laugh a lot people tell me their face hurts and their stomach hurts when they're done so it's a bit of a workout be ready and it's an artist's repertory theater it's only until April 29th so you gotta go now get on it it's pretty quick and we have a code Keisha I think back here Thanksgiving 35 use that code you get $35 tickets to any show we also reserve tickets for elders every night so you will get in and so yeah Thanksgiving 35 just use that and get your discount tickets it's about all the white people you know in Portland that's what it's about and it's a lot of fun so just come and have fun okay thank you let's give these ladies another round of applause we'll have some time just to chat before we have to close up shop here I'll leave that to you to let us know when we gotta go alright thank you when I wrote the play I thought I would go to tribal institutions tribal colleges I used to joke and say Portland center stage I would like to say it's a dream come true but honestly I never dreamed I would even get that far I've never dreamed more than a dream come true but and so we walked is basically it's me retelling retracing my family's footsteps along the northern rail of the trail of tears with my father and our six weeks on the road and what came up for us along the way so if you want to know all my dirty secrets you should see the show and my play is the Thanksgiving play it's a comedy and satire so come to mind and just laugh a lot people tell me their face hurts and their stomach hurts when they're done so it's a bit of a workout be ready and it's an artist's repertory theater it's only until April 29th so you gotta go now get on it it's pretty quick and we have a code Keisha I think back here Thanksgiving 35 use that code you get $35 tickets to any show we also reserve tickets for elders every night so you will get in and so yeah Thanksgiving 35 and get your discount tickets it's about all the white people you know in Portland that's what it's about and it's a lot of fun and scoopy so just come and have fun okay thank you before we leave let's give these ladies another round of applause we'll have some time just to chat before we have to close up shop here I'll leave that to you to let us know when we gotta go alright thank you