The Conferences and Fieldwide Learning team is in the thick of planning the 2020 TCG National Conference: Phoenix, and we will soon share specifics on which sessions you will see at the convening. In the meantime we are thrilled to announce the Closing Plenary session: NATIVE NATION.
In partnership with Cornerstone Theater Company, TCG will remount an adapted version of Larissa FastHorse and Michael John Garcés' Native Nation to celebrate the end of our industry-wide convening. Originally a co-production between Cornerstone Theater Company and Arizona State University Gammage in 2019, Native Nation is a collaboration “with the local Indigenous communities to create a unique immersive experience, part marketplace, cultural performance, community gathering and theater.” We are excited to be able to partner with these artmakers in Phoenix, and look forward to sharing their work with you!
Arizona is home to one of the largest populations of Indigenous people in the United States today, and yet there is still widespread erasure of these communities. In an article released by Phoenix New Times Kenny Ramos, member of the Barona Band of Mission Indians, actor in the original production of Native Nation, and a TCG Fox Foundation Fellow with Cornerstone shared, “I never saw any theater piece growing up that depicted American Indians in a truthful and contemporary way..” In many ways, the work of Native Nation was (and is) to collect the histories of the Indigenous people of the land that is now Arizona and New Mexico and share it with others. The article explains, “Native Nation was developed through talking circles with Indigenous people...The conversations included military veterans, activists, members of tribal governments, and people from urban and rural settings.” With the attentive and intentional dramaturgical hand of FastHorse and director Michael John Garcés, the stories of the people first on these lands are collaboratively uplifted and celebrated not as history, but as a living archive and documentation of humans in the here and now.
“[Native Nation is] creating space now in American theater for Native people to tell our stories and for us to not just share our truths and our perspectives ... but when we do this, we are empowering our community because Native people that will come to the play will see contemporary, truthful, honest depictions of themselves onstage.” - Kenny Ramos
We are thrilled to be highlighting this work at the National Conference, and look forward to having conversations about the role and responsibility the theatrical form and theatre institutions hold in uplifting the stories of indigenous communities.
Read the full Phoenix New Times article here.
And learn more about the April 2019 version of Native Nation on these episodes of the “Inclusive Activism” podcast.
Inclusive Activism: Update on Native Nation Project p. 1
Inclusive Activism: Update on Native Nation Project p. 2