Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance: Indigenous Spaces (Critical Companions)

281 Pages·2020·2.86 MB·English

by  Jaye T. Darby, Courtney Elkin Mohler, Christy Stanlake

CRITICAL COMPANION TO NATIVE
AMERICAN AND FIRST NATIONS
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Jaye T. Darby is Co-Director of Project HOOP and a Lecturer in the
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of
California, Los Angeles, USA. She has published widely in Native theatre
and transformative studies. With Hanay Geiogamah, she co- edited American
Indian Performing Arts: Critical Directions (2010) and two other volumes
on Native performance. She is also co- editor of the collection K eepers of the
Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women’s Th eater with Stephanie
Fitzgerald.

Courtney Elkin Mohler (Santa Barbara Chumash) is an Assistant Professor
of Th eatre at Butler University in Indianapolis, USA, where she directs for
the department and teaches courses in Th eatre Studies and Social Justice
and Diversity. She has published widely in the area of Native American and
Latinx Th eatre and Th eatre as Social Justice, and has worked as a director
and dramaturge for Native Voices at the Autry.

Christy Stanlake is a Professor of English at the United States Naval
Academy, USA. Her various publications include N ative American Drama:
A Critical Perspective (2009), and her directing credits include the national
production of JudyLee Oliva’s T e Ata (2012).
i
Also available in the C ritical Companions series from Methuen Drama:
BRITISH MUSICAL THEATRE SINCE 1950
by Robert Gordon, Olaf Jubin and Millie Taylor
BRITISH THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE 1900–1950
by Rebecca D’Mont é
A CRITICAL COMPANION TO THE AMERICAN STAGE
MUSICAL
by Elizabeth L. Wollman
DISABILITY THEATRE AND MODERN DRAMA: RECASTING
MODERNISM
by Kirsty Johnston
MODERN ASIAN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE 1900–2000
by Kevin J. Wetmore, Siyuan Liu and Erin B. Mee
THE PLAYS OF SAMUEL BECKETT
by Katherine Weiss
THE THEATRE OF ANTHONY NEILSON
by Trish Reid
THE THEATRE OF EUGENE O’NEILL: AMERICAN MODERNISM
ON THE WORLD STAGE
by Kurt Eisen
THE THEATRE OF TOM MURPHY: PLAYWRIGHT
ADVENTURER
by Nicholas Grene
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
by Brenda Murphy
VERSE DRAMA IN ENGLAND, 1900–2015: ART, MODERNITY
AND THE NATIONAL STAGE
by Irene Morra
For a full listing, please visit www.bloomsbury.com/series/critical- companions/
ii
CRITICAL COMPANION TO NATIVE
AMERICAN AND FIRST NATIONS
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
INDIGENOUS SPACES
Jaye T. Darby, Courtney Elkin Mohler, and Christy Stanlake
iii
METHUEN DRAMA
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First published in Great Britain 2020

Copyright © Jaye T. Darby, Courtney Elkin Mohler, and Christy Stanlake, 2020

Jaye T. Darby, Courtney Elkin Mohler, and Christy Stanlake have asserted their right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as the authors
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iv
To the Vision of Paula Gunn Allen
Th e Ancestors who Guide us All
&
Th e Voices of Storytellers Yet to Come
v
vi
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations viii
Foreword Hanay Geiogamah ix
Acknowledgments xi
Part One Setting the Stage
1 Th e Circle of Indigenous Spaces 3
2 Incursions into Performance Cultures 15
Part Two Reclaiming the Stage
3 Culture Bearers: Th e Grandmothers of Native Th eatre and
Performance 41
4 Homeland Yearnings across Settings 63
Part Th ree Revolutionizing the Stage
5 Activating the Stage 89
6 Advancing the Stage 111
7 Th e Heart of the Matter: Indigenous Performance and
Community 131
Part Four Transforming the Stage
8 Transforming Production Process 155
9 Being and Becoming 179
10 Widening the Circle with Future Generations 207
Notes 233
Bibliography 239
Index 257
vii
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Ceremony, Song, Legend, and Sacred Stories, 2017. 8
2 Elements of Contemporary Native Th eatre, 2017. 10
3 Te Ata’s program for professional performances, circa 1930. 44
4 Molly Spotted Elk, as she appeared in Texas Guinan’s Clubs, 1928. 58
5 Kuruks Pahitu accompanying Te Ata in her show, circa 1940s. 79
6 Reverb- ber-ber- rations : Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel
Miguel. 102
7 Material Witness : Penny Couchie, Donna Couteau, Gloria Miguel,
Cherish Violet Blood, and Ange Loft , 2016. 138
8 “Ribbons of Corn”: JudyLee Oliva’s T e Ata , 2012. 165
9 Th e Dene See- er from Marie Clements’s B urning Vision,  2012. 172
10 Promotional fl yer for B urning Vision and symposium, Santa Clara
University, 2012. 175
11 Andrew Roa and Kyla Garc í a in Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty ,
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Th eater, 2018. 184
12 Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of  Off the Rails  by Randy
Reinholz, 2017. 192
13 Miss Chief as Vaudeville Performer : Kent Monkman with
photographer Chris Chapman, 2006. 197
viii
FOREWORD
At all times during the forty- fi ve years and counting that I’ve been working
in Native American theatre, I’ve been keenly alert to the need to document,
record, chronicle, and evaluate by various methods the steadily accumulating
body of work, as many aspects of it as could be managed. Th is awareness
arose from my strong belief that a managed and consistent account of all the
work that was being attempted and successfully completed would be helpful
in any number of ways as the movement progressed: for seeking funding, for
numerous possible applications in education, for establishing acceptance
and legitimacy for American Indians in the theatre, and for making Indian
people aware of the presence of and the creative output and intentions of a
small cadre of artists who were striving to bring the performing arts into the
lives and cultural agenda of American Indian people.
Th e need for this work—writing histories, analyses of plays and
productions, applying critical theories and assessments, and also studying
the lives and thoughts and techniques of the artists creating the work—
continues to this day. Th ankfully, a capable and industrious group of scholars
have dedicated themselves and their intellectual skills and research agendas
to writing and publishing books, essays, articles, interviews, reviews, and
evaluations of the creative output of American Indian theatre artists.
Th is volume is the newest and, in many ways, most impressive achievement
in the scholarly fi eld of American Indian theatre critical studies and research.
Th e overall approach the authors have taken—one that emphasizes Native
critical and dramaturgical frameworks rather than the Western notions of
theatre and performance that have long been imposed on scholarly readings
of Native theatre—enlarges and, in my view, enriches the body of scholarship
available for use by college students, academics, theatre artists, and tribal
educators and community builders. C ritical Companion to Native American
and First Nations Th eatre and Performance: Indigenous Spaces also off ers a
most welcome opportunity to explore and understand the creative processes
of individual and collective tribal artists that are refl ective of the core
components of traditional ceremonial performance techniques, beliefs, and
practices.
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