 Hello everyone, thanks for joining us today. My name is Sarah and I'm the EDI Initiatives Associate at TCG. I'm a mixed Asian woman with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. I'm here to say welcome on behalf of TCG and to go over a few quick housekeeping items. This session has captioning and ASL interpretation available and we'll be dropping instructions for how to take advantage of those resources in the chat. If you are having Zoom trouble or have any questions, feel free to message me or just follow me privately. I also want to let everyone know that TCG is supporting this session and that it ends, that it's being streamed to HowlRound. I'm calling in today from the lands of the Conarsea and Matsunipak and I'd like to invite folks to place their own personal or organizational land acknowledgements in the chat. Landing acknowledgements are important but we must also take action in support of need of blood movements for justice. In the chat we'll share some information about land-back movement to connect to coordinate resource and amplify land-back movements across Turtle Island or what is colonnally known as the United States. Please also share your own opportunities for action in the chat. It's also important to recognize and support the vibrant expanse of contemporary need of theater and so with that in mind I'd like to introduce Emily Price. Howe. Taline, thank you so much Sarah for that. Howe and hello everyone. My name is Emily Price. I'm a proud citizen of the Osage Nation. I use she, her pronouns and I am a white-skinned person with dark brown hair and brown eyes, a round face, a black shirt on and these flower earrings that once belonged to my grandmother. Currently I am calling in from the upper east side in Manhattan or Manahara lands traditionally stewarded by the Wappinger Manzi Lenape and Manzi Lenape people. I'm an actor, a writer, a performer, producer and I'm learning to be more of an organizer but most of all I am very excited to be here and about to have this conversation with this amazing group of young native theater makers and artists. I'll let them each introduce themselves but before we begin I want to preface this conversation by stating that this is meant to be an open discussion between a handful of talented young native theater makers. This is not a presentation on native theater nor is it a series of opinions and truths held by all native and indigenous folks working in this industry. I hope rather than providing certitude this discussion can spark curiosity that will lead to further dialogue, dialogue between staff members at your institutions, dialogue between your organization and the indigenous communities on whose territory you reside and work on as well as conversations between native creatives and your organizations. I also want to say that when we were creating this I wanted to include a variety of voices because we're not an amorphous people, we're not all one, we are made up of a variety of tribes and experiences. So I just want to say Thaline thank you to all of you for joining and listening. Thaline thank you to Sarah for helping me organize into TCG for hosting this session and finally Thaline a huge thank you to these wonderful panelists for agreeing to have this conversation with me and with that I'd like to pass it on to Hii Ilani to introduce herself. Mahalo Sarah, oh sorry, Mahalo Emily or the wrong name. Aloha, I am a Lilly Hii Ilani, Kim Delacruz Okimura. I am Kanaka Maoli or native Hawaiian. My pronouns are she, her, hers and for visual description I am a mixed indigenous and Asian woman with brown skin, brown curly hair past my shoulders and brown eyes. I am wearing a black and gray flannel and I am calling from and I am from the island of Oahu in Kauawaipai Aina or the Hawaiian Archipelago. I reside in Kauaipu Haku or also known as St. Louis Heights renamed after white Americans who settled and forcibly annexed the islands into what is called now the United States of America. I am a second year graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the MFA track for Hawaiian theater. I am also the producing director of the late night theater company of the Department of Theater and Dance at UH Manoa. I want to say Mahalo to TCG, Sarah, Emily, all the panelists for this amazing opportunity and to be able to talk to you folks about indigenizing theater. Mahalo. Thank you so much and now I'd like to invite Montana to introduce herself as well. Hi, everyone. I am Montana Adams. This is my government name and my pronouns are she, her. I am in Mohawk woman, indigenous woman with light skin and brown hair that goes to my shoulders that's slightly wavy kind of straight in front. I'm wearing a brown shirt and my background is the back of my kitchen. Currently I am from, not currently, I've always been from Aqua Zasne. Aqua Zasne sits on the corners of Ontario, Quebec and New York State. We are a nation that is very divided by outside authorities. Currently I am a theater maker, a graduate student at the University of Ottawa. I've spent most of my theater career in Ottawa and I'm currently back home due to just wanting to be home, wanting to be near my homeland. And then the pandemic kept me here. So I just want to say, and I won't go off for inviting me over here and really excited to start talking. Yes, thank you. And I'd like to ask Emery to introduce himself as well. Hello. My name is Emery Barrera. I am a student at Central New Mexico Community College. My pronouns are he, him. I am a light-skinned Native American with long brown hair and black eyes. I am currently wearing a white shirt with a floral pattern on it. I am a proud member of the Klamath tribe and I am also based in the Lakota people. I am currently calling in from Rio Rancho, New Mexico, which is on Santa Ana Pueblo lands. I want to say thank you to TCG for allowing me to be with all these other incredible panelists and just raising our voices up. Yeah. Thank you. And last but certainly not least, I'd like to ask Jamie to introduce herself. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jamelyn Ebelacker. I am from Santa Clara Pueblo. My pronouns are she and her. For visual, I am a light brown-skinned woman wearing a white striped shirt and a maroon undershirt. I am coming to live today from my ancestral homelands, my grandparents' kitchen, Tehuah lands here up in northern New Mexico. I am an independent producer. I work a lot with indigenous organizations as well as BIPOC organizations on various arts productions. And I'm honored to be here today. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So just so everyone knows, we're going to jump into some discussion questions. We'll speak to them and then if there's time at the end, we can answer questions from the audience as well. But to start us off, I want to name some guiding questions. So in general, I, as a theater maker and consumer, am excited about what the future of native theater looks like. What does the future of native activists and artists, maybe artivists in theater look like? And what could it be or how do we envision it? And what does theater need to be? What is crucial for us and our communities and our needs? So the first question I want to start off with is what does it mean to decolonize the theater space, theater as a whole or the theater process? I'll let that kind of ruminate if anyone has an answer. There are a thought they want to give. Is there a way to define decolonization? Is there a way that this could be displaced by another concept such as indigenization? Yeah, I don't know if I need to raise my hand or not. No, just jump right in. Great, great question. I work a lot with various organizations and then with different theaters. And what I am most proud of is being able to work with an institution that is, you know, predominantly non-indigenous and express needs of the community. And I think it starts there with a conversation because there is, you know, so much learning to do and so much growth to do in so many different theaters and so many different organizations. To me, decolonizing looks like indigenous people being able to be involved in the process from day one. From planning to building out a project, you really have to have that input, that support and that education, that knowledge base along the way, which I think is very often lost in theater companies is that, you know, that is not the case. Yeah, absolutely. Helani. I want to echo that and I wanted to share, so my Kumu, my teacher for the Hawaiian Theater Program that I'm in, she's the program that I'm in was like established in 2015, but she's been doing the work at my university since like the 90s, like making Hawaiian language theater productions for our community. And I think we're and we're trying to make this program strong and make it the forefront of our university. So I wanted to echo that and say, yes, putting in indigenous theater, putting in indigenous voices. I think that's an important process for decolonizing theater and indigenizing theater. I think when we say indigenizing theater, I think that could be part of decolonization, although I will say that there are indigenous cultures that were colonized, but I mean, non-indigenous cultures that were colonized as well. But I also think it's important for the place that you're in, because a lot of places don't heavily focus on indigenous theater until now, thanks to us, thanks to our teachers, thanks to our community leaders. So putting in that work is very important. Absolutely. Yeah, you bring up an amazing, oh yeah, Montana, would you like to add something? Yeah, like all that, yes. And also one of the things that I find like through productions that I've been involved in working with other indigenous people and also working with people who are non-indigenous, there's something very at the baseline of like the kind of values that they place upon putting on shows is that a lot of it is really profit-driven and a lot of it is, there's not enough time given for the amount of conversation that needs to happen before something is put on. There's like honestly like the workshop way of doing things where you workshop things for like almost years before something is able to kindly come to fruition. That whole style is more relatable to kind of indigenous worldviews than say a production that needs to be put on in six weeks, you know, like the English theater way, like anytime there is like a timeline put on these people, it always ends up coming out rushed because people they want to be respectful, they want to be respectful of everybody, but also they have to get things done, but that also also doesn't like take in account like mental stability of like some people who do have problems, you know, who have who struggle with those things. And a lot of these things can just be solved by having more time in order to put on these productions is what I find, you know, and then end the end. And at the end of that, you know, I find that a lot of the times whenever there are productions that are like okay, well we'll give you two extra months, we'll give you two extra months to, you know, put on your show and we'll give you that much time, but then it's still not enough. And what happens is then the show is kind of put on to audiences who aren't familiar with, you know, indigenous ideas, and the audience is suddenly taken aback, you know what I mean, like they're suddenly like, oh, well we didn't, this isn't what we expected, because there wasn't enough time for us to process how to really show to an audience of non-indigenous people. Like the one of the things that came to mind was at the NAC up in Ottawa, I worked there as an intern for a very brief time. And there was a production of The Unnatural and Accidental Woman by Marie Clamont, which was directed by Mirio Miguel. And there was a lot of people who I saw the process behind it, like I saw what happened and how much it was beneficial for the actors to kind of be able to have these discussions, because the play is about like missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. I saw the process of what went behind that, but whenever it was presented, there was a lot of backlash that was not necessarily understanding of the small intricate details and like almost ceremony like aspects that went behind it. So there wasn't enough discussion kind of had with the audience who was non-indigenous. So, you know, there needs to be that amount of time for there to be like a communication in between the artist, the Indigenous artist, and the non-indigenous audience, because that kind of leaves it up to like there could be violence, shit. You know what I mean? Like there could be violent words spoken that just you know, it's almost like you're too afraid almost to speak what you're really trying to say. So you're kind of you kind of hold yourself back because you know that you only have a certain amount of time to say something so big that an audience just wouldn't understand you know something so big that we have as an Indigenous people that we just know instinctively between each other. You know, like we can share that we can look at each other and we have this understanding between each other. However, whenever it comes to sharing it with other audiences there needs to be more time in order to gain that amount of communication. Yeah, you bring up some amazing points. I mean all of you have I think what I think about often is there's a we're in a place right now culturally as a society in these place settler colonial places where you know we're living in this world that has been colonized for so long and and these structures continue to exist. And now there is an economic demand for Indigenous stories and performance without an understanding of what it means to to perform that in a way that is that is indigenous, you know what I mean? That in a way that fights against the colonial structures that already exist. So you bring up this very important point about the process and this idea of time. And so to me the the question of decolonization is twofold. It's how do you dismantle those structures? How do you take away the the economic value placed on a performance that like of outsiders watching an insider to get a different perspective? How do you take away the economic value placed on the time it takes to make that? How do you take away all of these elements? But a mentor of mine named Yaguli Hene Oaks, a former executive director of the American Indian Community House in New York City, she said something once she said you know you can decolonize but that's an act of taking away and what you're left with is a vessel, an open vessel and the question becomes what do you put inside that vessel? And I think that I think that is what's being spoken about right now. I think Jamie you made an amazing point that that that openness is where relationships and community conversations should go where Montana as you said like we should oh yeah Emery would you like to add a little something? Yeah I think one of the main things that we can do to put in there is to make sure that native storytellers and writers, producers, directors are also highlighted because a lot of what's talked about lately is like boosting up native actors and as a native actor like that's great but we also need to make sure that the people who are writing these stories are native too. That their stories are being told and told in truth because oftentimes I mean I'm pretty sure some of us have experienced this where you work on a project and you can tell it's written by someone who's never stepped into our skin and it's like this is a little weird right here so a lot of decolonization also means putting worth into native stories I think. Absolutely absolutely I think yeah I think that idea of storytelling as not just a product or like a performance but rather a long road in which there are lots of people giving and and being in conversation and that at each of those steps there needs to be a diverse group of people not just indigenous and not indigenous but a diverse group of people who are ready to be in communion with those stories that's personally how I feel. I feel like he, Lonnie, you brought up an amazing point of yes and also there are many people who have been doing this for a long time. There are many mentors and there's a long history of incredible native theater and I think as the grow in demand economically for indigenous storytelling and for indigenous performance grows we have to learn how to navigate the two directions that that are being pulled in one that is like performance or performative and one that is true storytelling in in the way that it's a communal it's a communal thing. You bring up you know the economic factor a lot the money factor a lot and I know that is such a big issue and I I personally have a hard time seeing you know that ever being you know divested from the act of theater making unfortunately it's such a part of the structure that is you know western theater and performance that it's it is hard to see a world where you know money isn't a big factor but I also like to to look at the reverse side and say okay if the money isn't going away how are we making sure that it is equitably being distributed and I I look I look at money in projects as a form of of reparations almost. I feel like if if organizations artists producers creators are all being upfront and transparent having that dialogue of where the money is going and making sure that that every indigenous creator is being fairly paid for their time and their skills and their expertise that is one way to sort of reconcile with that with that big factor. Yeah absolutely and yeah I feel like it is it is kind of the easier road to point out all these issues and say it's the economics of it but you're absolutely right there's there's no way I can walk in this world and say you know I'm not going to engage in that because it's true it's a system and and I think you're absolutely right that it can be approached as reparation that it can be approached as a giving a fair giving back of resources. I think that's I mean this is not necessarily related but I think oftentimes when I see land acknowledgements from PWIs or from organizations that are not in conversation with indigenous communities it makes me upset because I know that there's an economic thing happening behind it you know if if money isn't if resources aren't being shared then what's the point of those acknowledgements. Yeah and I think this is where we as theater makers young people can really push back I mean in all aspects of indigenous life we we have to push back and this is particularly one of the areas where you know we have this wonderful collective voice of incredibly talented indigenous folks in this field and by saying you know holding organizations accountable and there are some really great organizations out there doing that kind of work indigenous direction for once for one is is one of those organizations that is working with organizations to help hold them accountable so that it's not an empty land acknowledgement there is there is more going on in terms of support for Native artists and Native communities and I think that that is that is a big that's a big point here is is that we we have a lot of the power to have this conversation and not be stuck in this well this is just the way it is kind of mentality. Yeah I kind of want to add on to the whole economic thing you know I think one of the big issues with a lot of mainstream and like wealth theater where the theater wealth comes from it's from audiences but I know that especially even growing up I had some issues seeing live theater and especially live theater in the capacity that I wanted to see live theater and so I think an important thing that we can do going forward is making sure that young Native kids are seeing what we make and you know they're getting our they're getting our stories they're able to see our stories they're able to see that Native people are out here making theater because that would have been completely life-changing for me if I had seen it at like sex it would have blown my mind so I think that's a really important thing to make sure we continue to do going forward. I totally agree Emery when I was little I I think we all grew up watching like western theater and just western style shows and even though I've always wanted to be an actress and that was fun but I never felt represented in theater and like never was there a character that looked like me that had the same experiences as me like how do I fit into this world that I want to be part of and that's why indigenous theater and funding these indigenous theaters is so important and I will say people want to watch it people will watch it you'd be surprised at how many people come to watch indigenous theater like the community is waiting for it and I can definitely speak for when we put on our second Hawaiian language show at our department we were sold out every night every single night and people came twice three times to watch the show and of course some people at my university thought oh this is surprising how did this happen well because the community wants to watch it and clearly we can put the funds to it and we can get it back so there's no excuses nun can I saw that you unmuted briefly did you want to add something or uh yeah I had a lot of thoughts and then she said that and I was thinking about that um I feel that yeah so yeah no I totally agree it's like the one thing that I get like caught up in and like um it's just kind of uh whenever we're forced to bend our stories and what we actually want to say whenever we're forced to censor ourselves and I think that's where I come from whenever I say like the economic factor and it's profit driven you know because everyone's really scared to lose their sponsors or everyone's really scared to lose funding you know so there's a lot of uh it's like it's maybe it's getting better but I've seen a lot of instances where people are still afraid to you know um basically hire the angry Indian you know like they don't want they don't want to see that and they don't want they're so scared to um you know say what a lot of people are really thinking in communities you know and I think that's what I mean whenever I say like the profit driven part of it is kind of silencing the voices that don't necessarily it paints this um this picture of indigenous people that's very pan-indigenous you know like we're all one we're all um peaceful we're all um you know like well like I guess for the most part we are but like I don't know I'm Mohawk and I know my people have done some messed up stuff you know like like just coming from you know knowing my own stuff you know like even those stories like I want to be able to tell those you know in order to kind of have a self-reflection on what our values really come from you know how we've learned our values up until now and kind of that's the kind of story that I would like to explore you know um so I think like that's where I come from whenever I start criticizing like profit driven stuff um because I've seen it happen you know I've seen it happen where people were indigenous people are asked to step aside because they're too outspoken you know and yeah I I'm very careful of that but the thing is is that a lot of that outspokenness comes from miscommunication so I think that's why I mean what it also it all connects together you know everything is a circle you know like uh it comes from that miscommunication that happens because we don't have enough time to have these conversations and so I don't know I'm just like I'm also running in circles here but that's kind of well I feel like that's what's necessary in these kinds of conversations is to try and hold all these things that are almost impossible to hold at the same time um and yet we do at he and Ani did you want to add something oh yeah I just want to say you bring up an excellent point Montana and that is something that's really hard about feeling like we have or we have to censor ourselves because these theater companies or these um producers don't want to hear our stories even if it makes them uncomfortable and even if it's like dark like history but I think that's also a very important step of decolonization is making yourself uncomfortable we don't learn by being comfortable and by say we I'm like talking to like non-indigenous audiences um I don't know why I said we I'm indigenous but um I think non-indigenous audiences non-indigenous theater um producers directors you know they they need to be uncomfortable and they need to hear these stories you don't learn from just being in your comfortable bubble of ignorance and I hope that we can challenge um these issues you know very soon about producing these indigenous works that talk about our truths ourselves by us because also emory brings up um a great point about how often indigenous theater gets told by non-indigenous people and it paints a very different picture of who we really are and our history definitely yeah yes to everything that's being said um it's it's it's such a difficult question to to live through as I assume you all know it's one thing to discuss it but I feel like to experience it is another I want to add another question to this conversation but again feel free to come back to any tangents that um you are inspired to speak to um my next question is a very broad and purposefully so and that's what is native theater um or my sub questions should we even have to define it um exactly that does does that spark anybody's curiosity mind um I just think about in Canada back in like uh whenever radio was first starting out um they got really scared about how Americans were going to infiltrate um Canadian identity so they were really quick to be like okay well the amount of percentage of Canadian content has to be on radios it cannot be American and so they were super concerned about that and then I think about that I'm like well if mostly um the production is you know indigenous led then it is an indigenous production you know but then I'm also like but that also kind of sounds like blood quantum and that's gross you know like I don't know it's that's why that's why I think I mean like if it's if it's like a collective indigenous led project like that's what I would say is an indigenous is native theater um or do you mean like uh how would you say it in like 10 words or less you know like what's the definition if we were to look it up in a dictionary is that we yeah I mean yes to all of that I my background sadly enough no I I'm thankful for it is a lot in academia which has its own issues and there's this whole question for myself of do I fight and push to get more of a presence uh of native theater and courses and syllabuses in academia do I push to to document the legacy of native theater um that so many people have already done um but continue to push for that recognition from these kind of uh outward institutions and if so then do we have to define it and allow it to be dissected in a way or uh on the other side of that part of me feels like lived experience of native theater the way I would define it is relationships um because I feel like uh opposite from my experiences in like western theater american theater is that when I engage in native theater I meet people and those people I continue to have relationships with again and again stronger than perhaps in other situations those are some of the things that I've been been ruminating on if you will sorry so I come from a line of a long line of um native artists on my pueblo and I used to get often asked the question what makes native art native art and uh this is you know there seems to be to me an obvious answer um but there's the there's the two options there is it art about native people is it is it productions about native cultures and indigenous indigenous stories or does it come from native and indigenous people and stories and to me I I believe it's I believe it's the latter and while you know there is such a rich history of what is native theater you know um going back to the to the 1990s at the institute of american indian arts where you know native theater and performance art was such a big part of the curriculum and part of the artistry that was happening there and you see the branches out to you know spider home and theater and um you know the native voices at the atri in two worlds theater in albuquerque and these purposeful intentional indigenous companies are creating content through an indigenous lens um to me that feels a lot like native theater and it feels like something that does need to be defined um I think because we are coming from an unfortunate situation where redface in theater is still very prominent in you know and a lot of unfortunate arts organizations um I feel like they're for now until we're we're able to you know find a happy place as indigenous artists we do need to define ourselves as as this is this is this was written by a native artist this was produced by an indigenous person these are all native actors and I think that is that's something that right now is is kind of important absolutely yeah you bring up an amazing point which is this long legacy um and I want to point back I'm ready to what you what you brought up earlier because you know as a kid I wish I would have learned more about teata and about um I wish I had read like a bill yellow robe play I wish someone had told me about spider woman theater and instead of reading the same plays over and over again you know instead of reading Shakespeare again and instead of reading um you know this long canon of white theater um and I think that's something that that you bring up that's incredibly important that that perhaps defining ourselves is is part of that um part of creating that opportunity yeah I'm gonna say for for me I think native theater goes back so far to just how our ancestors told stories you know that to me is native theater and that has continued on and on and on you know I think about when my father would tell me stories about you know you know any um stories that he had and that came from his dad or his mom and in their parents so I think native theater is just it is always existed and it will always continue to exist and it's just that we are now just putting it on stage we are now putting ourselves and our stories and our grandparents stories on stage and people are ready to listen you know um and so I think it's just important to keep saying like we are here we have been here and people are going to listen eventually they will listen at some point I totally agree emory and in our um Hawaiian theater program as well we do tell the stories of our ancestors of our kupuna our even our gods as well I think like spiritual stories are also like extremely important part of native theater um and then what um Jamie said earlier about native theater that's by native people produced by native people with native people in it in the creative process like from the back of the house to the front of the house to the actors on stage I think that's very important when it comes to native theater um I also want to say that not just um stories from our ancestors but even like contemporary stories about relevant issues maybe about like you know climate change or um what was mentioned before the missing and murdered indigenous women children to spirit people as well I think those are also part of native theater because they happen you know to native people and they're relevant to our stories oh and I also I love this I love this oh my god uh uh no because I what it was I was teasing about earlier was that I was thinking about like well I mean like us native people we kind of claim things we reclaim things because the first thing that came to my head was like baby Yoda oh my god like baby Yoda is native okay like 100 yeah that's what everyone decided you know like it's it's like a collective thing that we decide to do you know we decide to bring forward to our narrative um which kind of connects to you know I don't know just like the past and the present and like what we choose to bring forward and I don't know it just made me so happy I don't um don't forget about uncle Bernie yeah oh my gosh uh and I was gonna say something else but then I started laughing about baby Yoda so I forgot so maybe I'll get back around to it yeah no worries what a good thing to add though to be honest I will say this is not a part of my answering the question but I was very nervous and um kind of like being in this session because these are questions that are so important to me but I'm also so scared about you know um I don't know the answer is what I'm trying to say so I'm so glad that this is happening and I'm so glad that you brought that baby Yoda moment of levity so thank you Montana for that um just so we keep going along I'm gonna drop in the next question but again feel free to go back um and forth I think the whole idea of like going one two three and sticking to it is colonial so um number three what do we as native actors and theater makers and play rights and producers and etc etc need from the theater um how can it be used to serve our communities how can it be used as activism and also uh what do we need from these these uh established theater organizations as well well I think going back to um what Montana said but honoring our um processes and giving time for example like time for you know rehearsals and debriefings and talking about these um whatever that we're trying to produce on this theater like our stories because it's not just like a western like Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams stories where it's like here's your script memorize your lines this is your character biography go it's like the stories that we're telling are our stories there are ancestor story there are god stories there are stories that are relevant that are happening to our communities to these days so it needs a longer process so I think just honoring that these stories aren't like they're plays but they're not plays like in the traditional sense we're trying to send a message we're trying to share a piece of our of us so I think and I'm not sure because I'm not you know a super producer or like involved in like the marketing side of theater but I would love to see like honoring these processes and respecting our stories in a different way and giving us more time and more care for us to tell them also I think I wanted to add to that was uh also kind of dismantling um I mean like I guess it doesn't directly answer your question but like I have the thought of like trying to dismantle those toxic traits within theater of like pitting people against one another because all it does is create individualism and um we need to be a community everything works so much better whenever things are like we work towards building community especially in places um which is something I read in a bit Yvette Nolan book where she talks about creating community and especially like urbanized spaces for indigenous people but I feel like there's a lot of and I see it within my own community and this is why I kind of bring it up is there's this competitiveness especially because we have so little you know places for indigenous people to be um in this you know this um industry um where there's only few spaces open for actors producers um dramaturgs playwrights anything there becomes this sense of competitiveness so it's almost like we need to constantly be creating our own safe space and building each other up as well in order to tell these stories more efficiently and more true more to truth there's a word that's better than that but I can't speak um absolutely and I I just want to point to this real quick Yvette Nolan yes yes I was just reading a piece by her called selling myself the value of an artist which I think is close to this conversation um so yeah I just wanted to say yeah um but I absolutely agree I think you bring up incredible points and I'm wondering Emery or Jamie if you guys had anything to add yeah yeah yeah go ahead Jamie are you sure all right thank you sir um I think that you know seeing the behind the scenes of native theater and productions as I do as a producer um what what I identify being a need um from theater companies and organizations and arts production companies is a commitment and a willingness to educate themselves uh it is not the responsibility of native artists or producers or creators to be the person that has to fill in that um knowledge gap for for these companies um it is it's it's really not fair to ask you know oh that person's native let's let's figure out um let's you know everything let's ask them all the questions it's really it's not fair position to put your native artists and creators in um so yeah I would say a commitment to to educate themselves and a commitment to really um scrutinize the the scaffolding around their organization that has persisted um you know in its history uh do their do their policies help or hinder um their you know native artists and people that they're trying to work with um does their you know does their financials or economic barriers keep natives from from interacting and being proud of their process so it really comes down to a responsibility at an organizational level to do the work and that's what I need that's what we need yeah I just want to note the amount of head nodding you saw on the screen because this is such a a crucial point that you brought up and that um you as you said you have this amazing perspective that you kind of see the other side of it as well um whereas like maybe an actor just walks into the room towards the end of the process um and I wanted to note this as well that when organizations make these commitments and say okay we're gonna hire BIPOC people but the only positions that are open are at the bottom most of the organization that that too is an issue because then what's being asked of them is to try and navigate um an organization that has fundamentally not changed um and yet is putting the the burden of of dismantling these structures on its newest uh kind of like smallest roles which I think is also an issue but yes yes the work of decolonizing as we've talked about it before does not belong to the one native person that you might have in the room that you might decide to hire um that is violent that's an act of violence um Emory did you want to add something yeah um I did just want to add to what Montana said about um pitting people against each other you know my dad works in the film industry and he has quite a few friends who have gone to direct or produce like massive things and he often gets the question of like well aren't you jealous of them and he always looks at them he's like no I'm not jealous they're out there doing the work I'm here to support them and it's just it's ridiculous and so I totally agree with what Montana said and then in terms of your question of what do native what does native theater need from more mainstream you know American theater and I think it's just it also is like that whole commitment that Jamie was saying but it's also just actually looking for native talent I found that a lot of um both in the theater and film industry they're like I can't find native people anywhere and it's like you're right there it's like take two more seconds to look you know I mean even in New Mexico I have trouble getting cast and anything and it's like I just can't find native people anywhere come on like you can do it we're right here it's okay hi we're here but then that's also like uh it's because it's because always they have this very narrow and they I say like they like the man you know like they have this very narrow understanding of like what natives look like and what they should sound like and you know it's there's not a lot of like my entire res we all have very light skin like there's there's not a lot of people that have like darker skin you know they don't look like the cigar store indian you see outside of like a smoke shop or something and like like if they get that out of their heads you know if they don't keep trying to like go by these standards of beauty that they're going by you know this like it just it's so funny because all these issues just branch out to all these other societal issues you know like we have like misogyny sexism white supremacy and just like all these things and it's just like all they creep into every single orifice of like every single little industry so but like just to point that out like yeah no they have this very narrow understanding of what being indigenous means and I apologize if anybody is offended by my use of indian um uh just because I know some people really don't like that word and it comes out whenever I get excited and because that's how I grew up so but yeah I apologize no worries I want to note that and say I fully understand and it's a complex issue I often take offense when I'm in spaces and I accidentally use the term indian when people silence me because that is how the government refers to us as american indians it's the bureau of indian affairs that we go through so um I acknowledge that and and that whole messy thing and if you don't know what we're talking about feel free to look it up um um and I'm sorry I almost cut you off you lani very good um just going off with what montana and mary said I don't know if anyone remembers but in 2015 there was this movie called aloha that had Emma stone in it and she played the quarter chinese quarter Hawaiian person and I've learned that she was also supposed to be based off of a real person as well which makes it even more oh my god but and their excuse of hiring her was we wanted someone who doesn't look like she's mixed Hawaiian and then I'm in my head thinking what does it mean to look indigenous as long as you're indigenous in here you're indigenous like and my sisters don't look like me either my older sister has like straight hair and my younger sister has white skin with green eyes and then they also had the excuse oh we couldn't find any um lighter skin green eyed Hawaiian Asian mixed women and then I thought well you filmed in Hawaii there's plenty of them here you had Hawaiian people as your background characters you couldn't hire a Hawaiian actress and there are we all come in different shades and hair colors and eye colors so it's just not an excuse and also that movie just was horrible anyways um bad reviews um very inaccurate like they were trying to say oh aloha spirit all of that nonsense so it was very cringe but yeah I that just I when you guys were talking about that it made me think oh that movie um yeah well yeah um and I and I think now is a good time I have there are a lot of questions in the chat which I appreciate I'm gonna point to one right now because it's very connected with what we're speaking with uh someone asked what are your thoughts on the current trend of actors and other artists self identifying as indigenous without a clear connection to a tribal nation or community and then taking opportunities or resources meant for native people I'm gonna speak to this really quick and open it up a little more because I feel like that question as it stands it's kind of like that sounds like someone pretending to be native and taking opportunities um but at the same time I want to caution it because the way that people identify as native can vary a lot and I don't think that it's an easy answer because there are certain tribal communities that are federally recognized there are certain tribal communities that are state recognized there are certain uh tribal communities that are recognized by neither there are certain tribal community but it varies so much community by community who is enrolled officially and who's a part of the community um there are a lot of colonial structures still in place like uh quantum and all of this so I just wanted to open it up by first saying that that it's not an easy question and that it's easy to to yeah that's just how I wanted to open it but if anyone has any thoughts on that thank you Emily for for prefacing that because it is there is no easy way to answer this this question um for those non-indigenous folks in this session um the only things in the country that are quantified by blood there are bred dogs there are bred horses native americans so with that being said um it's it's very tough it's a very tough question um you know you want to sort of broach the gap between um you know just someone coming out and saying yeah I'm native to to fill a role to fill a part um which which has been done before it has been documented not just with native americans but other cultures as well um people feeling that they can get a step ahead a step ahead by by assuming you know an identity um and then you have the question of well I would rather not show my certificate degree of indian blood to qualify for this job position or to enter this indigenous art market um or to be heard or seen as an indian native indigenous brown person of color um so yeah there I will you know going back to to what you said Emily I don't know that there is a there is a good way to answer this question but I will say that it comes back to um the communication and the relationships that organizations need to develop with indigenous communities and with indigenous theater makers and um there are tons of resources out there um like like uh Halani and Montana and Emery were alluding to that that you can find these artists these indigenous artists if you're looking for them and you have to as an organization in a theater do the work do the work don't just take Emma Stone because she's beautiful and may fit into the role do the work to find someone who is in Hawaiian and is just as beautiful and talented like there's no excuse um but acknowledging it's a complicated it's a complicated topic really is yeah um I have so I am legally enrolled in the Klamath tribe but my father grew up on the Lakota reservation rosebud reservation and now I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico I'm all over the place I have grown up seeing you know Pueblo cultures like Pueblo powows all of that I have not been in contact with my tribe or my tribe's stories unless it's through my father so to answer this whole question of like how does someone identify as native is so hard to answer because only recently have I been really trying to go back to what it means for my culture and what it means to be you know enrolled as a Native American and then what does it mean for me as just a human being to be Native American and so to answer this whole question of like Native identity is just difficult you know I've had three Native tribes around me my whole life and I don't even exactly know where I fit and so that's such an interesting thing that the United States government has done because you know my grandfather was Lakota my grandmother is Klamath so they split up their kids in half so half of my family is Lakota the other half is Klamath we're even split up just within our family so to then come together and just bringing culture is such an interesting conversation and to ask of like you know it's all about communication and how you feel and do you connect with your culture I think the base issue is if you connect with your culture if you honor your culture if you honor your the struggle that your ancestors have gone through you know that kind of in my eyes helps me identify as Native American of like I can honor the stress and the horrors and the problems that all of my ancestors have gone through both on my father's and mother's side and that's really just what helps me solidify my Native identity but I'm going to say like if you are like totally white totally white like Irish white and you're just like I'm Native now it's a little weird try not to do that please just please yeah Montana um okay uh there was I I mean I'm trying to remember the person who wrote the article but there was an article written uh that really talked about this in depth with acknowledging that it's like because you have people I don't know if they didn't have it in America but in Canada there was the idea of like the 60s scoop and what that did was um in the 1960s they were they basically used like uh uh child and not uh they went into homes of Native Americans said they were unfit scooped their kids out and then put them in with uh christian baron white families so there was a huge displacement that happened in Canada and so whenever there's so these people they were then displaced into like more urban centered away from their reserve away from you know their homelands and you know those people like there's like uh it came into like another question of like people trying to attack them for claiming that they're Native when in reality it's like no that shouldn't be happening but um recently there was somebody who was outed as a pretendian um and there was an article really good article I I don't know how to share it with everybody but you get on cvc.ca or something you can look it up in the indigenous thing uh indigenous section um they said one of the things that I really it really resonated with me was if you have if you claim that you're native your need like you you have like validity if you have a community to claim you back in that community doesn't have to be uh reserve you know it is a community even within an urban space you know what I mean and you're giving back to that community in some aspect like there's a equal give and take there um between you yourself as an indigenous identifying person and the community that you identify with you know there has to be a relationship there um which is yeah and so that to me I was like oh yeah that's it that's it you know like that for me that's it you know like I'm not saying like be all end all that's it um disclaimer but yeah I just want to echo that and say I was reading that article on the toilet actually uh because that's how I read my news um and I had to get up and call my mother and be like uh you gotta read this article because I feel like and you were talking about this earlier Montana I feel like there's this fear of identifying as native when you don't check all the boxes of what people expect natives to be um or at least for me I have a fear that I fight against but it's a fear of performing indigeneity the right way um and I think that article helped me fight that a little um and say no it's not about do I walk into a room and you know touch the earth and you know do whatever um no that's not what it's about at all so anyone who is thinking about so that's about that's not what it's about um hey Yaroni I hope I didn't cut you off did you want to add something no you're good I just unmuted myself so no you're all good um I'm a hollow Montana for sharing about the scoop I did not know anything about that and I'm glad that we have this space so where you can share this information with people that's really it's a horrible but like I want to do more research about that now but so thank you for sharing that for me um but yeah I I agree with everything that's been said here it's like if you're not native like you're just not why would you want to claim yourself as that like what do you benefit from that like what do you benefit in the long run you're taking roles away from native people you're claiming to be an identity that you're not and that you will never face and you will never have to experience and just what's the purpose behind it but I mean if you are if you like if you are indigenous and you are want to you want to make the effort to reconnect and reclaim that I will say please do the effort to do that I think being indigenous is more than just like what's said on your birth certificate or what's said it's not just like something that's on like a paper it's who you are it's our identity it's what we live through every day so I really encourage people especially people who are maybe you know reclaiming this and like learning that they are indigenous like to do the research and talk to the community members because trust me I think a lot of us would love to welcome you into our spaces and to teach you and to educate you um but yeah it's not it's not a trend it's not a fad it's who we are as people we're people yeah wow thank you and um I don't know if you've noticed but we're pretty close to end um I would love to have this conversation go on forever and ever and ever and I also want to speak quickly and say there are so many amazing young even if we're defining young as like under 30 native art theater artists um we are but a sprinkle of them there are so many um so I wish we could have a whole conference just on that I want to invite everyone to say a quick like one sentence little thing if you'd like to close us off and then I'll hand it over to Josh I can even start us by saying I'm so grateful for this I've learned so much from all of you and I I ask that we continue to have these conversations in a on a platform where other theater organizations can listen as well yeah I can go next um thank you to everyone here especially uh TCG and Emily for inviting me and just it's been an incredible experience I really love talking with all of you um I yeah I just again want to echo Emily of like we need to keep having these conversations with not only native artists but artists you know other minority artists you know LGBT artists black artists Hispanic artists we all need to have these conversations so keep reaching out to those communities mahalo anui everyone for your icae your wisdom and your experiences I've learned so much today and I've had such a wonderful time talking to each and every one of you and learning more things about the indigenous people of Turtle Island and I I wish we could have more of these conversations as well and I hope that our paths cross again in the near future maybe collaborations mahalo mahalo anui thank you for for the honor of of being here to be asked to the panel thank you Emily thank you TCG and my awesome co-panelists uh I think it's I think this kind of dialogue is so vitally important to how we're we're helping with the education and the evolution of native theater and indigenous artists and creators um moving forward into the future it's so necessary um thank you for including it in your in your panel this year um and to all of the theater people out there on this call um please continue to keep doing the work and and educating yourselves being open and admitting that there's more to learn and being generous with each other and hydrating don't forget to hydrate thank you all yeah darling darling again and I'll and with that I will pass it right on to josh I believe can I say color my I don't think oh it's okay don't worry about it well I'm gonna relive this all night okay no don't please don't do that um yeah don't I get it uh no uh this is so cool like I I really missed having these conversations with people like you you guys are all so cool and you guys get it like that's so like awesome and I think like especially whenever we do connect with like other indigenous people we have that sense of like oh yay okay that connection that we immediately have it's so great uh my heart's so full um but thank you so much for inviting me this has been awesome um and thank you so much for sharing everyone else like all your wisdom and everything um it's been great um and I can't wait to see what you guys are doing and whatever and I can't wait to connect again so and thank you everyone for listening darling again thank you Montana for um putting up with me and thank you again to all of you for actually agreeing to come on to this this was amazing I'm gonna be smiling all afternoon and this time for real I'm passing it on to you Josh thank you so much Emily really appreciate that um wow I'm just sitting with this amazing panel thank you all so much um I just want to you know come on and say that I encourage everyone to keep the conversation going on mighty networks um in the chat I've dropped a link to a feedback form where we encourage you to tell us what you thought of the session your feedback helps TCG program our events so please take a moment to fill this out if you can I also wanted to do a quick plug for TCG 60th anniversary our stories gala which is next Thursday uh sorry next Tuesday May 18 so you can find out more info on that in the chat and in closing I just want to say one big thank you again to the panelists um and I want to invite actually everyone who's on the zoom audience right now to please come off come on turn on your camera and microphone to show your gratitude for these amazing panelists thank you for your time and brilliance make some noise people thank you I am so oh phenomenal love it all right have a great night y'all or a great day