 Good evening, everyone. My name is Muriel Bors-Tarrant. We're the Safe Harbors Ensemble Repertory Theater Company, and we're doing a panel today with HowlRound called Native Theater, Where Are We Now? I am, as I said, Muriel Bors, and my nations are Rappahannock and Kuna, and I am your moderator for this evening. I would like to introduce our guest, Danielle Soames. She's an actor and playwright. She's from the Mohawk Tribe. I would like to introduce Nicholson Billy. He's our dance choreographer. He's from the Choctaw and the Deliwood Tribe. Amber Ball, she's a producer and director, and she's from the Sealitz Tribe, and Sir Curtis Kirby, the third she is. Anishinaabe, he's a director, and Jasmine Goodspeed, Nipmunk, actor, and cosplay professional, and special guest this evening. Aiden Trihio? Triola, but it's fine. It's Italian. Oh, okay, okay. Aiden Triola, Sicilian, Indigenous Theater Historian, and Vegan Professional. And I'd like to welcome everyone to the panel this evening. This panel that we're all on, we're at our quarantine residency in Safe Harbors, New York City, and it's our housing called the Turtle Island Sacred Hoop, located on 14th Sutton Place South, and we got this. This was all generously donated by Anderson Cooper and his family, my old roommate. So let's say hi to Anderson, and we have a doorman because it's the luxury apartment, and his name is Raymond, and we like to call him Ray for short, so everyone give a shout out to Ray. Thank God for Ray. He opens the doors. He gets all of our stuff. I don't know what we would do without him, but I'd like to do now is Safe Harbors Land Acknowledgement. Manhattan has always been a gathering and trading place for many Indigenous peoples. Where nations intersected from all four directions since time immemorial, it was a place to gather and sometimes to seek refuge during times of conflict and struggle. Today, we respect to all of their ancestors past, present, to their future generations. We acknowledge that our work is situated on the island of Manhattan, Manhattan, on the island. Traditional lands of the Munsee Lenape, the Canarsie, the Ankhachank, the Matinacoc, the Shinacoc, and the Hedishoni Confederacy. We respect that many Indigenous peoples continue to live and work on this island and acknowledge their ongoing contributions to this area. Thank you. We are here today to talk about diversity and equal equity in sovereign decolonized Indigenous spaces against white supremacy. Thank you, my elder, for allowing me to speak. Respectfully, before I begin, I would just like to gently acknowledge the ancestral land we stand upon, Lenape Hoking, traditional homelands of the Lenape. I thought I just said that. Thank you, Muriel. I would just like to acknowledge the immigrant experience of Manhattan. My ancestor, Pevia, a well-known milkman from the small village of Anatevka, gifted me this song after my family's displacement and relocation. This is the song of our own, Buona. Excuse me respectfully that just hit every single one of my auras and now I would also like to contribute to the immigrant experience. Italian, be Italian, take a chance and try to steal a fiery kiss. Be Italian, be Italian, don't just hold me but hold me. Thank you very much Aiden for that wonderful interpretation of the immigrant experience here in New York City and thank you Danielle for always sharing your colorful songs with us about your immigrant heritage. So to get back on track here I would like to call on Jasmine who is from the Nipmon tribe and she's an actress and a cosplay expert and professional. Jasmine, could we get your perspective on diversity equal equity in sovereign decolonized indigenous spaces against white supremacy? So um diversity and equal equity in sovereign decolonized indigenous spaces against white supremacy is like what I'm not understanding Jasmine is how this dressing up in your halloween costumes as wizards or elves or hobbits has anything to do with professional theater? Well I believe it has everything to do with professional theater. Is that not what we do? Do we feel a few band of brothers? What does western dance forms have to do with decolonizing theta? The colonizer's gaze of the indigenous peoples is often the only critical reviewer dance institutions appreciate. For example, I too was once part of this violent manipulation within the western framework. I remember waking up at 5 a.m every morning to an ice bath and my mother sucked hard boiled eggs as she massaged me to prepare for the Lincoln Center residency. I pirouetted in front of the mirror on the hard wood floors and my toes shes over and over again until I broke every little finger toe in my shoe. I was chosen to play the black swan. I thought I was the black swan. I thought I murdered a company member who I thought was having an affair with a dressing room. Apparently none of this happened including the Lincoln Center residency. You tell me Please the process. You remember you pirouetted as the black swan was in a movie. I don't know. You girls knock that shit off. Nikki knock that shit off. Please people. This is about unity in brown hands touching other brown hands and brown hands. Uh-oh. Respectfully. I have to use the bathroom. Okay. So next we want to move on to our next topic and it's called creating resolutions to theater genocide with indigenous collaborators. Curtis if you could enlighten us on that subject. Uh-oh. Thank you Mariel. Creating resolutions to create theater genocide with an indigenous collaboration is what I believe is a true essence in empowerment and self determination as indigenous men and female. Amber and I recently had the chance to collaborate during our quarantine stay at the Turtle Island sacred who I could try to describe my experience but I feel our work speaks to our experience best. Um if you excuse me I do have a group close problem and I'm going to eat my dinner on but I'm going to put it on mute so. I have a hypoglycemia. My check my check a whole a whole three in the room including you. Whole foods bag. White man stole my cab. Ain't nobody got time for that uh-huh. Blue eyes blonde hair patchouli wearing. On his hair down to the sides in my food. Uh-huh uh-huh. Mama ain't raised no food. Indigenous queen. Hey hey hey. Child bearing hips. Ecstasy. Fills lips. Crime has greased down my hips. Uh-huh. Planket has doors. Others who don't fight no more. Indigenous love. And white tears. We are the white man's fears. The white man in the back. His eyes seem black. We bury him in his blood. As we make love. Indigenous love. Side. J. A. N. O. S. I. D. E. Jet side. Uh-huh uh-huh. Respectfully. Respectfully. Chasing me. Oh. Respectfully. Let me in to see Kirby. What? She was helping me. What? She was helping me. What? Anything to him. We need an expertise on this is I think that we should um. This isn't the habit Jasmine. I'm aware of that Amber. It just seems to me that this happens in every horror movie that I've ever seen. Rule number one. You can't have sex. You can't drink or do drugs. Uh that's it for me. I'm dying. Three. Never. Under any circumstance. Say I'll be right back. I'll go pee. I'll be right back. What? What did she just say? Come back here. Nick. Okay I'm gonna go check the windows. Where do you think she is now? Harry Potter? Hermione? Specter Petronum. Guys. You think I found rage? So what? I was built in an Irish burial. I did read up on this place before we came here. The Gangs of New York was a true story. It said that yes this building was built on an actual burial site of Bill the Butcher cutting. Not Billy the Butcher? Yes Billy the Butcher and they they said that they never found his body and it said that on the fourth day of the fourth month of the fourth year he comes back to get the building. Oh it's good. Are you serious? I am serious, yes. What's scary? She didn't die before this. Guys, that's really good to be you. You are the one that is always leaving. You are the one that needs to send us source reactions. You are the only one to understand all of these weird ass scenarios and slash your ways. But if I hang up now you're gonna kill her anyways. Oh my god play the game. Do I like mysteries? They're your favorite. Yes they're my favorite. Egg of the Christie. What is the name of the killer in the novel The Murder Roger Ackroyd? Dr. Shepard. Dr. Shepard? Okay another one if I'm ready. What's the name of the novel that it said on Indian Island? And then there was none. Ten little indians. Ten little engines standing on a line. One went home. Then there were nine. Nine little engines swinging on a gate. One fell off. One fell asleep and then there were seven. Seven little engines cutting up their tricks. One broke his neck and then there were six. Six little engines. Six little engines kicking all about. Kicking all alive. One kicked the bucket and then there were five. Five. I don't want to have to kill you. Five little engines on a cellar door. One fell through. Then there were four. Four little engines out on a spree. One he got fuddled and then there were three. Three little engines out on a canoe. One tumbled overboard. Then there were two. Two little engines playing with the gun. One shot the other and there was one. Because I wanted to all right. I always wanted to kill something. I started with cats as a child but never a human until now. I killed Muriel that self-righteous. No talent. Stankin'. Dirty. Filthy. Hag. Because everybody kept saying that she was this goddamn genius. Wish she's not. She's lucky that's all. And she did all the right people. As were Danielle. I didn't kill her. I didn't have to. She choked on her own on a muffin with no help from me. That was a brilliant bonus because I didn't have to do anything. Aiden. Aiden the vegan. That was pure joy. Refreshing. Orgasmic. Killing a honky. The last panel that we were on together. He interrupted me with one of his goddamn stupid songs. He even stole from me a made for TV movie role. Like he could play crazy horse. They even said he looked more Indian than me. Than me. That's for Jasmine. Jasmine. She and her little slutty ways. Yeah. Yeah. I always wanted to be her because she was so pretty but too skinny. And nobody paid attention or really cared when I talked bad about her. So that made it so much easier for me to just get rid of her. And now that she's gone. I can go for that grant that I wanted that I know that she wanted and was up for but can't get now because she's dead. You ask why Kirby? Why Ember? Isn't it obvious? Kirby betrayed me. Kirby broke my heart. We were in love but he loved that that that that whore that whore called Ember more than me. Well now I have my reason. Did I get your attention? Do you think that this isn't real? We as Native people are dying every day this year. We have lost community and family members to COVID and one was someone I loved as a brother and a friend. We hear about the world but the world doesn't seem to want to hear or listen to what we have to say. Native people continue to fight for our land, our cultures, our realities, our futures, our everything. Native women continue to struggle to live. Native men struggle to be heard and seen and are now talking about the sexual abuses that occurred within the boarding school system that created and then pushed perpetrators into our families and communities and we as Native people we fight each other. We fight each other. Yes we do with this blind hope, this blind faith that we will get some solace, that we will get some power over each other as we cancel and erase each other. We are struggling to exist in this world to be seen and heard. We are being decimated by this pandemic. However, we as Native people will emerge and surge beyond resilience. There is only one solution and that is to fight the O.T.E. Vote!