Native American Performance and Representation

298 Pages·2011·1.979 MB·English

by  S. E. Wilmer

Native American Performance
and Representation

Native American Performance
and Representation
S. E. WilmEr, Editor
The University of Arizona Press Tucson
The University of Arizona Press
© 2009 The Arizona Board of Regents
First issued as a University of Arizona Press paperback, 2011.
All rights reserved
www.uapress.arizona.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Native American performance and representation / S. E.
Wilmer, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8165-0240-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. American drama—Indian authors—History and criticism.
2. American drama—20th century—History and criticism.
3. Canadian drama—Indian authors—History and criticism.
4. Canadian drama—20th century–History and criticism.
5. Indian theater—United States—History—20th century.
6. Indian dance—North America. 7. Indians of North
America—Intellectual life. 8. Indians in literature.
9. Indians in motion pictures. I. Wilmer, S. E.
PS153.I52N377 2009
791.089'97—dc22 2008055274
Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free,
archival-quality paper and processed chlorine free.
14 13 12 13 12 11 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Part I Reframing Dance, Performance, and Traditional
Stories for a Postmodern Era
1 Inventing Native Modern Dance: A Tough Trip
through Paradise
Daystar/Rosalie Jones 19
2 Old Spirits in a New World: Pacific Northwest Performance:
Identity, Authenticity, Theatricality
Sarah Bryant-Bertail 40
3 Owners of the Past: Readbacks or Tradition
in Mi’kmaq Narratives
Anne-Christine Hornborg 61
4 The Pocahontas Myth and Its Deconstruction in Monique
Mojica’s Play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots
Maria Lyytinen 78
Part II The Native Body in Performance
5 Stories from the Body: Blood Memory and Organic Texts
Monique Mojica 97
6 Acts of Transfer: The 1975 and 1976 Productions of Raven
and Body Indian by Red Earth Performing Arts Company
Julie Pearson-Little Thunder 110
vi Contents
7 Embodiment as a Healing Process: Native American Women
and Performance
Shelley Scott 123
8 The Hearts of Its Women: Rape, (Residential Schools),
and Re-membering
Ric Knowles 136
Part III Native Representation in Drama
9 “People with Strong Hearts”: Staging Communitism
in Hanay Geiogamah’s Plays Body Indian and 49
Jaye T. Darby 155
10 Coming-of-Age on the Rez: William S. Yellow Robe’s
The Independence of Eddie Rose as Native American
Bildungsdrama
David Krasner 171
11 Feathers, Flutes, and Drums: Images of the Indigenous
Americans in Chicano Drama
Jorge Huerta 182
12 Metamora’s Revenge
Bruce McConachie 193
Part IV Challenging Stereotypes through Film
13 Performance and “Trickster Aesthetics” in the Work of Mohawk
Filmmaker Shelley Niro
Kristin L. Dowell 207
14 Speaking Lives, Filming Lives:
George Burdeau and Victor Masayesva
Annie Kirby-Singh 222
Notes 235
About the Contributors 271
Index 279
Preface
This book evolved out of a meeting of the 23rd American Indian Work-
shop on the theme of “Ritual and Performance” that I was asked to host at
Trinity College Dublin in March 2002. Often papers from this conference
are printed in the European Review of Native American Studies or Acta
Americana, but I thought it would be appropriate to edit a collection of
some of these papers into a book and commission additional ones, since
so little has been published about modern Native performance. Although
a non-Native, I have been encouraged by Native as well as non-Native
scholars to pursue this project, and I would like to express my thanks
to Christian Feest, Gerald Vizenor, and Ann Haugo for their advice in
developing the material for this book. I also want to thank Denis Salter,
Edward Little, and Ric Knowles for permission to reprint the essay by
Monique Mojica, “Stories from the Body: Blood Memory and Organic
Texts,” which appeared in alt. theatre: cultural diversity and the stage 4,
nos. 2 and 3 (May 2006): 16–20. Thanks also go to Holly Maples, Mary
Caulfield, and Aoife Lucey for assistance in preparing the manuscript.

Native American Performance
and Representation