Modern Approaches to Traditional Storytelling: Field Discussion Transcript

Field Discussion
Modern Approaches To Traditional Storytelling
November 13, 2008, 10am
Moderator: Jennifer Podemski
Panel: Doug Bedard, Tamara Podemski, and Dianne Yeahquo Reyner

Jennifer: The title of the panel basically came-- was discovered through several discussions over the year. In the summer we met on the phone on a conference call and discussed all of the different kinds of perspectives we wanted to bring to the festival this year, and some of the things we felt that need to be discussed is we wanted to open up to discussion with audience like yourself. I’d like to suggest that we will maybe not focus too much on the word traditional specifically, because I just--in the title itself it has a few other back allies that we can take a stroll down. Let’s discuss some other, maybe meanings and I’d like to specifically say community as well—modern community—from a Native perspective. So our panel today is really quite diverse, we have Tamara Podemski, actor, singer, dancer, producer. Doug Bedard, hip hop artist, producer, has a national Aboriginal radio show in Canada. Both great artists and very much in the mainstream. Dianne Reyner, who I’m just meeting for the first time, we think, from Haskell University, and is directing an original project called Re-Generations: A Celebration of our Journey and Transformation; which is pretty much what this panel is about. So I’m really happy to have everyone here. I’m going to read out their bios before we get really here we go: (please see bios on on-line journal). Please give a warm round of applause to our panelists this morning. All right, so obviously this panel is meant to encourage discussion, so everyone on this panel knows that this is about engaging with you and perhaps creating some dialogue and perhaps coming up with some brilliant ideas that will lead us into the future, and possibly lead to another panel next year. But to start off, I would like to ask our panelists what this specific title means to them and how you’re able to bring traditional or aboriginal first Nations community perspectives to your work in, obviously, the mainstream. So the title of the panel is, once again, Modern Approaches to Traditional Story Telling. So what’s your opinion on it and how do you bring it to your work. Let’s start with Dianne.

Dianne Reyner: So, my name is Dianne Yeahquo Reyner and I’ve been working in Native theater since 1974, when I became a student at Haskell Indian Nations University, which is one of two governing universities, but it is one of two that you have to be a card carrying member to attend the university. And we started that particular university theater program when there really wasn’t another one in the country. There was one starting at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, there were other small companies that were happening across the country, but there really wasn’t another one that was a cooperative program; we were also doing it alone, and out there and doing it for our communities. Now Haskell is unique in that is has, in its student population, anywhere from 140 to 150 different tribal entities at the same time at the school. So one of the first things that happened was getting to know one another and getting to know that our issues were global. Things that were affecting a South East tribe were affecting a North East tribe, things that were affecting an East Coast tribe was also affecting a Southern tribe, and I think that coming together created a huge explosion because we found out that often, for the first time, that we weren’t alone. And we found out that our particular Nation, and mine was the Kiowa of Oklahoma, wasn’t the only Indigenous culture out there because we’re so isolated when we grow up and we learn about our culture, and we know that other people are out there but you don’t—in 1974 you didn’t read about 'em, you didn’t hear about ‘em. I think there were a couple of pages in my history text books when I was attending public school that referred to Native Americans, and it was only that they were in the way when people were moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. So things have changed. We began presenting raven stories, coyote stories and things that incorporated stories, songs and dance. And in its development we began creating our own works and writing our own plays and presenting them to our own communities. Now since that time there has been a Native American explosion in the Theatrical community, if you can call it that, maybe it’s still a bubble and I think we are largely doing that because I think we are isolated and we continue to be isolated. And I am mentioning this because things like The Public Theater are so important because they are bringing us together and help us realize that we aren’t working out there in isolation. Going back to traditional storytelling, the, and I also, when I left Haskell, and I’m no longer at Haskell-- I’m with the American Indian Repertory in Kansas, and we’d been producing work for the last two years and when we left Haskell there was a group of us that started a theater, so if you want to submit work to us that’s great, and we want to use Native actors and we have big dreams.

Jennifer: I have a question actually for you. Is there something you need to focus on? Maybe while you’re choosing? Are you looking to speak to a Native audience? Are you looking to speak to a Non-Native audience? Are you looking for something that has a mainstream approach? Are you looking for something that comes from a more traditional storytelling? Or is it all of the above and you’re trying to satisfy every appetite?

Dianne: Well it’s all of the above. Lawrence is a very diverse community, it’s a university town so there’s a lot of experimental theater that goes on, so the appetites within that particular community can embrace everything. We are looking to present works that...I think when we do Native Plays we have to look at how it expresses us as Native people, because that’s where it comes from, that’s where the art comes from and if we’re true to that than I think it continues and flows to our audience members, and our audience members in Lawrence where we’re building different plays, are receptive to any presentation. And I love it when they come out of a particular play and it was not what they were expecting. People continue to expect that we are going to do traditional stories, that we are going to do raven stories, and we’re going to do coyote stories, and we’re going to have a drum on stage, and we’re going to have a fancy dancer on stage. So when they come and we’re going to do a Native presentation, a Native viewpoint that comes from that particular artist, from that particular playwright’s experienced, I think it’s probably the most tremendous gift that they can give to our audience and they’re community. It has to speak to Native people, because its Native artists—like it or not, that’s who we represent. And when one of us stands up front and says I’m a Native artist and I am a representative of my Nation, than we have an enormous responsibility to tell it accurately, and to have it be recognized to our communities and to other Native people and if it’s not recognized to other communities and other Native people than we’ll know that we’ve really done our job and can call ourselves a Native artist.

Jennifer: Thank you for that. I think last you, some of you were here, I think we discussed trying to define Native theater and I think it took five days to figure out that we really couldn’t agree on one thing. There were so many great ideas that came out of it, concepts and perspectives, and I think what you just said sort of encapsulated the experience last year; that’s kind of it in a nutshell.

Now I suppose my question, going back to traditional, is that you’re saying to present a piece from a Native perspective, as a writer, as a performer, as an actor, as a dancer, the medium is: we have a responsibility to our communities to reflect accurately what that community is experiencing. A traditional story or a modern day event or circumstance. Now both of you guys (Tamara and Doug) work closely with Modern day situations. Whether it’s training youth, and the long term effects of residential schools, or the loss of a culture, the loss of language, using theater and music as perhaps the platform to address some of these issues. So, maybe I’ll ask you first Tamara, what do you find is the biggest challenge. Obviously there’s a gap, in telling these stories, so who is your audience and how do you bridge that gap and how do you make it …to everybody, so that everybody learns something.

Tamara Podemski: I never go into it trying to make it relevant to everybody because I don’t know if I can satisfy that. I interpret on a modern approach, I interpreted the title actually as a Modern approach of a traditional story telling. I know that we come from a people and we grew up and we learned about ourselves—we’re sisters by the way, that’s why I’m saying that—but we did that from hearing the stories from our grandparents and our parents and passed down to us, so that’s just something that’s taught me to tell my own stories. The modern approach that I bring to that is the responsibility of reflecting what the modern reality is. I know that if one project comes that it’s going to teach kids dance in a really remote community and it’s under the umbrella of the government of Canada, under the health money that we get, I have to bring art and dance to that, but the modern approach I feel is that I look at those kids, I have to know that the only music they listen to is hip-hop, and how can I—it would be impossible for me to go in there and teach them fancy dancing. They’re just six to twelve, they don’t care, I want to be able to walk in there and affect them. And I find that the homework and the research and the responsibility as an artist to find out how to tap them into some place of empowerment, that they can get something from it and yet still have it be unique to what their Native experience is. So that changes with every group that I work with. I use the hip-hop one because that was the one that threw me into: yes, you might be an expert on this style of dance, and yes you may have studied here, but when you walk into a group of Cree speaking students they don’t give a shit. They need to see that they’re looking to you, to open up the world, it’s a flying community and they’ve never gone beyond that. It’s also my responsibility to bring them the things that might empower them, so I use hip-hop when necessary—I use hip-hop when necessary!—to lure them in. But once I get them, once I’ve kind of proven myself as cool and on their level, that’s when I can talk about dance, and how it was the first thing that we did when we came out, and how we hear the rhythm, and how you hear that hip-hop beat, and I can do some choreography as hip-hop and then I go right into fancy dance, to show that this beat is pulsing in us and that’s what our body knows, and it sounds like a different kind of drum—Doug and I were talking about this the other day because we work together with our music—but we both kind of like a hundred beats per minute, when we write music, because it resembles a powwow drum and it’s the easiest thing to fancy dance to. So I kind of manipulate the situation by bringing music in that I can easily—exactly what Martha Redbone did last night with that hand drum song and the segue into when the band kicked in—I love that subliminal “you don’t even know what’s going on, you’re getting the culture, and then you’re getting to see how it can thrive and actually complement what’s going on. So I find that I’ve had to, instead of try to go in with the intention of cultural accuracy and that heavy responsibility of instilling pride and accuracy into these kids, I have to kind of flip it around and ask—where are they at, what is there experience, and then find a way to get to it from there. And I think that’s what I also had to do as an actress, because when I got into acting, it was generally the time that, I don’t know if you guys use it down here, but the Red Renaissance? In film and television it was like the early nineties where it was really cool to be Indian, where you could get a job somewhere, in some hall mark movie, by putting on some buckskin—or some good films as well, but the problem was, when you go it with light skin, even though you can’t book the non-Native roles because they see your eyes, and they see that something’s different about you so we couldn’t really every dress up in the buckskin because we were half breeds, and okay so where do we go? And so I find that I always go back to Turtle Gals’ performance, with Monique Mojica and Michelle St. John, and—and I can’t even remember the name.

Monique Mojica: Scrubbing Project.

Tamara: Scrubbing Project! So it was this amazing piece of theater, I don’t even know how long ago it was.

Monique: 2002 and 2005.

Tamara: Okay, so that was probably when I saw it first. And that was the first time I understood that the only way to tell this story and understand my place in the world is to WRITE IT MYSELF. And to speak my experience. I could never represent what the 500 nations that we’re responsible to represent in Canada, and that was kind of the kick in the ass that I needed, and I consider that a modern approach. The understanding that we have to deal with the reality today, and I think the only reason why my art has continued to thrive is because I’m constantly dealing with, or seeing,what the state of things are today. And I think at that time, I think right after my first album came out and I wrote a half-breed anthem, and it was in Hebrew and Ojibwa and English, and that to me was, represented to me, my attempt at understanding my place in the world and understanding that no one would understand that, and then all of a sudden half breeds are writing in from everywhere around the world —my god I’m a Jewish Indian too, or I’m a Ukrainian this, and then there was a power, when you realize that you’re not the only one and that it’s okay to, I guess when you own up to what you are and stop trying to fit in, that’s kind of been my best force or attack to get through things.

Jennifer: Thank you. You mentioned something that actually provides me with a good segue Doug, which is almost moving backwards from taking the platform and seeing where those kids are at. Because I think that so many of us—so many of us—I think all of us take training very seriously, and working with youth very seriously to help encourage them to bring that voice forward to encourage these people to bring that voice forward or encourage them give us employment when we’re no longer around. So I think the important thing to understand is that hip-hop, for example, and a lot of these discussions around this particular panel came about because there is a really strong desire, and a personal desire with a lot of other people to get a big show on Broadway. Like an In the Heights show, and originally I thought it would be great to have someone from In the Heights to talk about how they got this show up there and that it’s relevant to a mainstream audience, and it’s in a language that youth understand. It’s culturally relevant and really profound and educational. It’s like a hip-hop spoken word musical that’s on Broadway right now. So in terms of bringing the, bridging the gap between the platforms, on which you teach young people, on teaching hip hop, and brings the way in. That brings me to an introduction to Doug. I mean, you work with pretty much every Native hip-hop artist, around the world, on your show, the PLEX show. And what I’d like to talk about is how do you see that community, young Aboriginal, First Nation Indigenous hip-hop artists expressing their culture, their community perspective through hip hop, and how have you seen it grow in the past 10 years? That’s a lot of questions.

Doug Bedard: I only speak Canadian so bare with me. I find, on a personal basis I’ve been writing for over a decade and I find that, like I’m indirectly affected by residential schools. So there is a lot of pain, there’s a million other Canadians that deal with it as well and over the years I spoke about my pains and a lot of Aboriginal youth related to it, but it never really elevated into a mainstream thing until I started to speak of how I dealt with those pains. You know, before it was I’d be complaining of a lot of stuff, and now I’ve elevated it to a point where—

Jennifer: It’s like empowerment music that you do.

Doug: Yeah, it’s more empowerment like how do I deal with it. Like, even with the theme of my label, New Leaf, you know it’s about coming from a less privileged background.

Jennifer: A ruff (SIC)

Doug: A ruff. And kind of bringing out the positive side of it. And I feel like there’s a thin line between heart and art and like, some of the more talented artists who can appeal to the main stream their music really doesn’t have a lot of substance, but they can write those catchy tunes and then the ones who really put their emotions into it fail to get heard because people really aren’t as interested in—as much. But lately I find that people are bridging that gap and it’s easier for me these days than it would have been 10 years ago hosting an Aboriginal radio show because now there is that bridge and people are relating to those issues in song and also kind of bobbing their head to it at the same time; that really works for me. Can you…

Jennifer: There was another question, but I’m onto something else now because you’re inspiring me to think about…is that how I’m supposed to be moderating?

Sheila Tousey: Yeah, you go with the flow.

Jennifer: Thank you Doug. And, what you said I think brought up an interesting point and that is the question that I would like to give to the audience. I guess heart and art—is there a way for our stories to get to the main stream and do you think it’s even important. Because I think that is something that we all deal with…is, like, it’s really good, and what you saying is culturally responsible and culturally relevant and your imagery that you’re using—like something we saw on the performance the other night, on the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, was a hip-hop tune to a drum. A lot of heart—personally I think, on a bigger level, just didn’t work; but the heart was there. But bring that to a mainstream audience and it just wouldn’t fly. It looked like patchwork; someone trying to get all those elements together. But valiant effort! You just wanted to praise the guy for doing it and trying to bring that to the forefront. But is it possible, can we do it, is it important and does it even matter? That’s my question. Did you have anything else to say?

Doug: No.

Jennifer: Okay. Can we open that out to the audience and start a little bit of a discussion. And the rules of discussion, I guess, is let’s try and do a back and forth.

Rose Stella: I think the important thing about heard and art is not that heart is art, is that art must have heart for it to be meaningful. Art that, art is relative, for someone who has heart might now be what I think is art. But for me, no matter what it is it demands it has to have heart in it. It has to have, for that artist, a heart felt meaning for them because it has to touch people.

Jennifer: So on that, Rose, that is important so you say touch people—so how do you ensure that there is an audience.

Rose: I believe, that whether I like the art or not, but if the artist created his art for love and heart—it will touch people. Whether it’s not me—I might not like it but it’s touched me—although, oh I don’t like that, I thought how to respond. But other people will respond to it different than me. What I’m saying is if it’s not created with heart it isn’t anything. And it’s the same with someone going up and doing a stage performance, who just goes up and does the actions, but they haven’t invested in any heart in the work—it’s across the board whether it’s a piece of sculpture, a piece of poetry, hip-hop, it doesn’t matter what it is—if it isn’t created with heart it doesn’t matter to me. And I think that’s the trick with any kind of art. If it isn’t created with a sense of emotional and heartfelt ways, than it isn’t going to mean anything. And there’s a lot of art that is created without heart, it’s created with dollar signs around it, music, some theater, it’s like it’s an ambition, it’s a dollar sign, it’s this it’s that, and people come away thinking: what the hell was that? And people will do that across the board, it’s like- "Woo—what was that?" And it just makes people a little confused because they don’t know—because it lacks the heart—what their trying to say.

Doug: I agree with a lot of what you’re saying too. And it wasn’t even evident to me that the whole heart issue really, until I started seeing that, in the creation of my album, I had a lot of different artists, and I always feel that I bring out the best in other artists. And you can really obviously tell, if you listen to it from start to finish, who is there and really writing from their experiences and their emotions, and who is really just there for the money grab. You know, “oh, so this guy is doing an album, oh 200 bucks, yeah sure I’ll feature on it!” And I’m not really too sure how theater and music are the same, and I think that there’s different variables involved, like you were saying, someone put out a solid performance, or put their heart into it. Sometimes there are other things that are factoring in it as well, because it’s more of a team effort in something like that. If somebody else wrote it, you know, this person did the most outstanding performance they’ve ever done, but they’ve also got to rely on a good story as well. You know with music, I find that I mean, it’s all up to me basically. I have the final say, and you know, a lot of it too is its recording. And it’s not the same as theater because a lot of it’s live, with my music, and I have the opportunity to fix my mistakes.

Jennifer: But I think what’s common, and I’ll go to you in a second—Rose is the Artistic Director for the Center for Indigenous Theater in Toronto, talking about how, you know, a lot of heart will touch people. And you mentioned, yeah this is great, but where’s the audience who’s going to listen to this. So I guess, I would like to know from your perspective, Rose, that’s great, but what are you teaching your students at CIT in terms of reaching an audience that is actually going to, or reaching a wider audience, and I don’t want touch on Randy’s panel.

Rose Stella: Reaching an audience is later on for us. I need to have them reach themselves. And this is what you guys are talking about. I mean how many years were you in the business already before you looked at this questions and went, wo---

Jennifer: A Long time.

Rose: The first step is to reach yourself and to know how meaningful you are to yourself. My experience is if you do something with heart, people are going to listen because they can’t help it. Because you have broken through a barrier that um—there are barriers everywhere because people are protecting themselves. And once you do something with an emotional viability, people go, that was brave. Or oh, I feel that way. People might not get that taking aback, but they’ll go away and think about it; whether they like it or not. I just think its really important to begin with what’s meaningful to an individual and I know that we’re talking about how do you get to Broadway, how do you get into the mainstream, but you really have to begin with your own story. What is it? Approaches to traditional, you know modern approaches, you have to begin there. It’s meaningful so that you can make it meaningful outside there. You will find a way. I mean scrubbing project found a way. And you’re finding your way, and you find your way, we’re all finding a way to make it meaningful out there, I think it’s to break in the mainstream, have heart, because most of it lacks heart. Then you have an explosion and you go who, and you walk out of that mainstream theater and go, well that was different. And I feel good walking out of there. I don’t feel like somebody has just tried to sell me a product, you know, and there’s so much of that going on. You want to go away feeling inspired. So, I think it really begins, you have to touch upon you. You know we have such amazing young people at the school, and some of them are pretty broken and you talk about, you know, having to deal with the residential school everyday and it’s a very important, trying to help those young people understand that they are valued. And that their story is valued. And they can tell that story, it’s valuable.

Jennifer: Thank you Rose. Sorry, just have one question.

Kim Snyder: Hi my name is Kim Snyder and I’m an actress first, and playwright, and I definitely think you have to have heart and art, or what are we doing! And I think the way we get to mainstream is to really have a universal message. If you’re dealing with art in an honest way, in an organic and honest manner, and that is where the development begins, you will reach people—you will. It is a given because it is honest. And that, everybody relates to on a universal level. So, how do we get to mainstream? We really have to break down all the walls, and..I want to say Chachkas—coming from the Jewish end here, and really get down to what’s important. What is the message, what are we saying? Where are we going with it? And who do I reach? And that is how we get to mainstream. With honesty and truth because, everyone will relate to that. The key is to work as an artist, and I’m from theater so I will speak it from a theatrical point of view, but in music as well, how do I get there? How do I get to that place of truth? Right? And what is really going on? That’s when they’ll respond, that’s when we’ll be in the forefront. I loved everything we’re hearing here from the panel. You’ve just opened so many doors in my head that I had questions too, as far as bringing traditional and contemporary together and that is so important. And you’re right . We have to talk to people, where they are now, and respect where we came from. And honor that. But it’s about today. And so where are we as artists today. What’s going on in the world? What’s going on in your neighborhood? That’s what we have to write about. Not something that happened—and yes we can write about history, of course, and we honor it and respect it—but it’s now, it’s the present. And that’s how we reach people. That’s how we get to the mainstream. And that’s how they connect.

Dianne Reyner: I was just going to say, talking about that combination, and honoring. The production that we just did is something that we’re sort of experimenting with and moving in other directions and looking at how theater can be used. We have a large Native population in our schools, and we have a partnership with the Indian education department and program in our school district. And so, some of the projects that we’re developing, right now, are going into the school system and taking the stories of these students and using them to create their story and present it to their community. And along that same line, I’m going to be working with an in-patient treatment facility for teenagers. And one, they’re going to do my play, which is a play that I have which is based on alcoholism within a family and governmental policies and how the family has gotten to this place and how they have to overcome it, it a real nutshell, but there will be counselors there and that can assist. And they’re going to be presenting it to their families. And they’re going to be the actors and they’re going to say the words, so I will teach them how to do a stage reading. And so once that develops, and going back into that treatment center, and taking their stories, getting their trust, having them feel good, you know, how did they get to be in this place? And how has their culture helped them, hurt them, assisted them, do they want to be white, do they want to be black, do they want to be Native, and who are they as people. And so using theater in those contexts, to help people tell their own story—RE-Generations—we took traditional stories for an Athabascan actor. We began with traditional stories, which was his journey, his personal journey—basically a one man show—taking those personal journeys from his ancestors and moving them through his experience as a native person. As someone who’s half white, and grew up in New York City I believe, and then moved back to Alaska, and how did that affect him, how did he reclaim that memory of his culture, and how did it move him onward to where he became a Shakespearean actor. And it was very important to me when I was structuring this particular piece, for him to do some Shakespeare, and he did some Shakespeare in Clinket, and for the audience to see that—hey, we’re native people, we can do Shakespeare, we can do other things, we can do hip-hop, we can do reggae, we can do rock-and-roll, we can do all of these things---but as a personal artist we blend those with who we are and where we came from. Now, I’m never going to get rich in theater, because that’s not my goal, when I act, I do it because the piece requires it. Because we need another actor. You know, I started off playing hookers and now I’m playing grandmothers. So, that’s kind of how...

Jennifer: Life of a Native actor.

Dianne: Life of a Native actor has happened, you know, so I’m no longer the spinster, I’m grandmother spider, or whatever is required from that. And one of the things, as personal, as a Native artist, you know I’m coming from my own stories, I’m coming from my own history, I’m coming from everything that I grew up with. And I grew up at a time when my grandparents were living on the Plains, you know, my grandparents were shooting buffalo. And it’s their stories that I hear in my head every time that I write. And not particularly personal, but it’s the power and the strength and the rhythm and the strength of these stories, because with each generation we continue to add our own and so the stories that I write are my stories that I see and that I experience on a daily basis, whether it be painful or joyous, and often times it’s extremely painful, and then joyous. I’m tired of seeing stories where we’re suffering, I’m tired of seeing plays that somebody is finger wagging, I’m tired of seeing plays that say “look what you did to us, aren’t you awful, don’t you feel bad”. And so, I think when you open a door and you open a window for somebody to experience the world, as you see it, as you look out your eyes and you catch them in that, you catch that audience, and it’s like oh my god I’ve never seen this way before. You know, that’s the power of what we do. And it’s one reason I’m never going to get rich. Because if I have to do these plays, from a church basement, or if I’m going to do it in a classroom, or if I’m going to do it to a bunch of fifth graders, you know, I’m not going to make a lot of money. So you know, personally, as an artist, you have to define what is your goal? Is your goal to get published? I’d love to get published, but nobody is going to publish me, because my stuff does not fit in mainstream.

Suzan-Lori Parks: Don’t say that. I’m sorry…You don’t need to go there. You don’t need to go there.

Dianne: Well I am published, but…(laughter)

Suzan-Lori: Much better—thank you.

Dianne: But one of the things, the hurdle that you have to is, often times they don’t fit within the structure. But that’s one of the things we have to teach the students that we’re going to—they have to learn the structure. Audiences have to have some comfort zone, and that’s a definable structure that they are familiar with and once you give them that comfort zone, than you can break that comfort zone. I don’t know…it’s just the way I look at things.

Suzan-Lori: But the structure will also change.

Dianne: The structure does change. It changes from every story, every story is different.

Suzan-Lori: Exactly, so the structure is always changing, it’s alive, it’s a living thing. And we can profit from knowing that. That it’s not a set thing set in stone; it’s moving constantly.

Dianne: Agreed.

Tamara: and I also think that, somewhere we have to give ourselves permission to be able to be successful and sustainable and maybe even possibly make money from this.

Suzan-Lori: Yes! A lot of money from it.

Tamara: And I think because we hold on so much to the integrity and especially because your average artist is this valued principled, protective, valiant creative warrior, and then when you add the representation of their community, you know it becomes more of this I think, it has to be a struggle. And I’m so tired of it, that somewhere I learned from so many of the actors that I’ve grown up under, and that I’ve romanticized, you guys, heard you personal lives, watch your professional careers, and romanticize this struggle, and I don’t think it’s okay anymore. I don’t think that it has to be—or that it should be—and this thing that the only way that we have integrity and the only way that we can hold on and protect our art is that there is five people in the house, and if it’s in some avant-garde theater and that’s how we will always know that we’re doing the real art. We’re doing the real art with heart because it’s no mainstream. And maybe you just caught me in a week where I’m really pissed off about that, because, you have the moments when you’re looking at your bills and you’re wondering why. But the thing that is keeping you going is because you are fighting for something you believe in, but I don’t even want to…My friend Nicole, she’s here from Toronto, we’ve known each other for a very long time, we are both these artists with heart that wonder every time: why do we keep doing this. But I think we’re just entering our creative zone. Because when you become the creator than you can get your power back. But when you’re just the actors, it’s so fricken hard and your stripped from all your power and I think that’s why Scrubbing Project, I always go back to that, because that was the thing that showed me I can make something. And In the Heights, you know Jen and I went out on the curb after and we were like “what the fuck was that”? Excuse my language—but it blew our mind because, now it kind of affects the title: Modern Approaches to Telling our Stories. And somehow he managed to have a universal message for a diverse—he’s dealing with Latin people, like an umbrella of a huge people that are diverse, and he was able to get the Cuban Dominican, Columbian, Indian—all in one story. And that’s what Jen and I are always talking about because we always felt that the only way that we can move forward is to tell our specific story, because we can’t speak for the people, so all we can do is tell our unique story and we have to challenge our minds to: what is that bigger story and, I mean, we play around, we brainstorm these ideas but I have that same questions because, the power of seeing the little kids that went to the theater and them able to see all of those faces. And I remember when I was twelve and the first time I came to New York and I went to see A Chorus Line and Priscilla Lopez, who’s in—she’s like the Puerto Rican woman on stage—and I was like, that girl looks like me. And it was the first time I saw someone who didn’t look quite White, not totally white, but I didn’t know any Latin People, I’m from Toronto, we didn’t have really have…

Jennifer: --not quite White.

Tamara: Not quite White. And that changed my life. And the reason we keep going back to the community work, cause we haven’t found a way. It’s either community work or it’s our career work. And we haven’t found a way to reconcile the two, so that, I mean the ideal thing would be, that universal—and you know it’s not universal because there are a million different stories. That didn’t resolve anything, it just expressed my frustrations.

Jennifer: Mandy had a question a little while ago. Would you like to continue with that?

Mandy Hackett: I have another question for you Dianne, in terms of the other writers you are working with at the American Indian Repertory Theatre.

Dianne: The American Indian was a huge bone of contention but that was what we decided on.

Mandy: Oh really? That’s a whole other subject, which I would love to talk to you about, because we had similar issues around naming this festival, to a lesser degree. Anyways, the writers who are working for your theater, who do think that they’re writing for, and if you can talk specifically about the kinds of plays that you’re seeing. I mean you talked earlier about how they are not interested in writing the coyote stories and the raven stories anymore, and it made me wonder--

Dianne: No they are interested, in writing things that they need to write about, in a diverse way. I guess it’s the feathers and the beads that they’re not interested in writing. They’re not interested in doing a presentation of being Indian.

Randy: No more folklore.

Dianne: No more folklore. It’s like we can do more than that. So it’s not that they are not interested, in Re-Generations there were raven stories, there were "How Ravens Set the Stars and Moons,"but it moved the audience from that traditional Native story stereotype and it moved them from that into more contemporary stories. Like what is it like being a Native half-breed in a Native Arctic village, and what is it like being the other when you’re one place, and when you’re the other place you’re the other one. So what is that experience like? And what is it like to move within that—and we used one person to bring that audience into the future. And one of the things that was very heavy in it was the language, was the Athabascan language and the Tlingit language that was used in the process of that because it was very important to here the rhythms of that. To hear the rhythms of that speak and to hear something exotic you know, throughout that and experience what that’s like. And realize that, you know, they were seeing something—and it did move the audience. And one of the things that it really affected were the young people in the audience. We had a young Athabascan Junior high school student, who had never seen theater before, but he came specifically because this was an Athabascan actor and he was really excited to meet him, so he volunteered to usher, for a free ticket. And he jus waited and waited and waited, and it impacted him so much that we introduced him to the actor and to see that and still—it’s still the same story that it was when I was a kid. That impact of seeing someone like you who is successful, who is powerful, who is doing something that you are afraid of. And having that example was extremely impacting to the young people who came to see that story. So, I’m sorry, just—it’s not that the writers aren’t interested in that, it’s just telling it in a different way, telling it to a different audience.

Mandy Hackett: And who is your audience at your theater?

Dianne: Gosh, last audience we had anything from ten year olds to ninety year olds. So, I mean it’s a huge diverse audience. And what we’re using our theater for is to workshop a lot of pieces that hopefully will become part of a touring production. And what we’re going for is to be able to take these touring productions into Native Communities. So, developing something that can tour into Native communities, that can go up to Sisseton, that can go up to North Dakota, that can go up to…and be shared with these communities so that the reflective--- There’s a story, there’s a story that will probably get to—can I tell this story real quick? A Native writer I know, that I’ve worked with, told me a story when I met her, and I don’t even think she realized how impacting it was, she was just telling me the story about being tired and fed up and being irritated at her four children, so she took off and she went to where all mothers go to when they’re trying to get away from the kids: she went to Burger King; just to have a moment alone. Just to eat a hamburger and have a bag a fries and a coke. So she’s sitting there at Burger King being alone, wondering what the hell she’s doing with her life, and why does she keep writing this stuff. And she looks up and she sees, sitting a little farther away from her this absolutely gorgeous Native woman. And feeling the way she did, she thought, oh hell, of course, I look like a rag, I feel like crap, and this woman has to come in and sit at this particular moment, and make me worse about myself. So she sat there, and every so often she’d glance up at this woman and she thought: she is so pretty. So she’s getting angrier and angrier and more and more irritated, and as she gets up, she goes—I’m sick of this I’m leaving. So she gets up, she gets her tray, and she’s determined to walk by this Native woman and give her a dirty look because that’s how she feels. So she gets up and she walks by, and she realizes that she was looking in a mirror and she didn’t even recognize herself. So I think that says a lot of what we’re trying to accomplish at the American Indian Repertory Theatre. Is to be able to present something that we recognize. And I think, at least in my generation, I was taught to be proud of who I was, but nobody else is going to be able to see what I’m proud of, and I grew up being taught, you know, there are certain rules that you live by. If you’re ignored that means you better correct your behavior. And I tend to talk a lot and I tend to talk loudly now because if you’re presenting your stories and you’re presenting your stories to people who don’t know the rules, than they think that they can do whatever they want. So you have to stand up, stand loud, and be proud, and do what you do. And present what you present. In a way that makes you happy. So when I say I’m never going to get rich, that’s, you know, I’m not ever going to get rich, but I’m going to have a whole heck of a lot of heck of fun while I’m doing it. And I’m going to feel good about what I’m doing.

Rose: It’s a different type of richness.

Dianne: Yeah. Well, you know, my children take all my money. So…

Jennifer: Thank you. We have a couple of questions, we’ll take yours quickly, then Ed and then Monique.

Suzan-Lori: I was just going to suggest about breaking into the mainstream, I mean, it’s a totally valid thing to want to do, and you can come back to me because I’m a playwright that’s done it without trying—which I think is the main kind of thing. It’s like you have your goal, like a mountain and your steps that you can only focus on. So it’s not like we sit around thinking “how can I tell a story that everyone will want to see,” because that’s impossible. How can I tell the best story I can and somehow knowing that that’s your goal, but keeping both eyes on your steps at all times, is somehow it happens through grace. And also I think we talked about the separation between art and heart, which I don’t think there is a separation at all. I think that’s how we resolve it. Like they use to argue the difference between form and content, you know the poets used to talk about that a lot. And they recognized that there was no difference between what the thing was trying to say and how the think looked on the page or spoke into the air. There’s no difference. So once we realize that there is---and there’s also no difference between telling your true story and reaching the mainstream. I mean it’s sometimes you just have to know it’s your goal and let it go, and tell the best story you can. It’s almost as if the stream comes to you. When we did Topdog on Broadway, the stream came—it’s almost as if the stream turned and came to us. Also talking with artists who do it, and have done it, is a good—so we can do emails and stuff, because it’s good to be in a circle of people who have done it.

Doug: I still believe there’s a difference. I mean you put your heart into something and call it art, people look at you as: okay, yeah that’s art buddy (sarcastic)

Suzan-Lori: Well I just mean like that, at the core, when it is right, when it clicks, there is no separation.

Doug: I do want to back peddle a bit. I was going to say earlier. I think the one thing that hinders the ability to reach the masses is resentment. I think a lot of, especially in music and probably in theater as well, people are, a lot of writers are a little condescending in some of their work so that really pushes away a lot of audience that can’t really relate to what they are saying. I basically think that once we let go of that resentment than we actually have that ability to access the masses.

Jennifer: Actually that brings up one question, and I know that we have a few here, I just wanted to say in response to Suzan-Lori…from the Canadian perspective, or just my perspective in Canada, I think the reason why a topic like this even came up was that there is little support, to be recognized by your community or by Canadians, as a Native artist or a Native creator or producer is fantastic. But it’s also important to be supported in your endeavors, maybe it’s not everybody should go mainstream but, what happens if everybody were able to reach a certain level and able to take strands of cultural elements to the mainstream, it’s always seen as selling out. And there’s a big, sort of, controversy. I don’t personally supported, I feel unsupported by the Native community when I create something that I want to go in the mainstream. I am called a sell out.

Suzan-Lori: Yeah, here too. When you cross fourteenth street, I was called a sell out. I do a play above fourteenth street that was it! I was not real anymore.

Doug: The thing is it’s difficult to even reach Native people, because a lot of Native people aren’t really looking at Aboriginal content, they’re looking for other mainstream. So if you’re going to reach them, sometimes you have to go through the mainstream to reach them.

Jennifer: To reach your own community.

Doug: Yeah.

Jennifer: Well the youth especially.

Suzan-Lori: But that’s great, I mean I’m saying that’s great. I’m just saying that there are paths to get there. I think mainstream is great! There’s nothing selling out about it.

Jennifer: No I don’t think so either. I just think…

Doug: I think a lot of times the mainstream has stuff that lacks—

Jennifer: Heart?

Doug: Well quality, substance. So if you can bridge that gap and bring substance to the mainstream than you’re kind of setting the new trend, right?

Jennifer: We can talk about this…we should go for dinner! Ed…

Ed Bourgeois: I think the question of, what is of substance that deals with the mainstream, it’s obviously not the traditional story as a lot of people think of traditional storytelling. It’s not necessarily the raven story. But what is there? You know, what of the first things you talked about, going into the community, is approaching young people at where they are. But where they are isn’t…they want to get out of the community. You know in Alaska there’s a huge problem with the migration from rural communities to urban communities, to the point where, you know, in a place where there’s still a really strong identity..there are still communities where people still speak their languages, were raised by their grandparents and uncles, and that exists still. There’s a huge exodus to the extent that, you know, it’s like boarding school too. The break in cultural identity will be immense. And that’s what you’re dealing with when you go into community, you know, that you need to work with them where they are. But where they are is someone else’s culture. Someone else’s…you know hip-hop didn’t originate there. So it’s not, it’s a modern approach. But where’s the tradition? Where is what’s traditional that the world needs to hear. And I propose that what that is, in whatever story that you’re writing that’s your story, is what you have that’s unique, that’s traditional and that’s value. It’s whatever your story is, having those traditional values there. We had a theme—I work at a cultural center, so I’m aware what that is for the great community—our theme is changing lives, living values. It’s all about assimilation and how the world is changed and people adapt to the change, but what remains in your stories, in your values. That’s the traditional part. It’s, you don’t have to necessarily be telling a raven story, you know, for Allen to tell a raven story, but his unique story have to do with his values—

Dianne: Did I say his name?

Ed: No I just know that he did—he is a great actor.

Dianne: He is wonderful.

Ed: Is that’s what there is to give the world? And I think that’s what the greater community needs. You know they don’t need a story of pain and repressions, you know, obviously, that’s what you run into. You can talk about your pain, but what changes people is empowering. Is the value that’s there, underneath, in that story. And I think the world needs that, you know? It’s only a minority of performers that are worried about their identity, you know there’s not a Lithuanian-American actor out there saying “I’ve got to tell that Lithuanian story”.

Jennifer: Just watch! Just watch! I think what’s interesting about what you say. Because in Canada, recently, there have been some remarks made by John Ralsten Saul. There has been a lot of discussion about what why does Aboriginal count. In general terms. And the essence of the argument is that everyone, in Canada, comes from an Aboriginal experience. So, in relation to the raven story, the question is, how do we take that raven story that’s particular to that Nation or that community and bring it to the forefront in a way that everybody understands. Teaching values, not just from that community, but that everybody can relate to. But it specifically comes from that traditional story. So that someone can say, oh wow, I’m amazed that I’ve learned an incredible lesson from the creation story from this tribe or this nation or whatever, and to connect with that inherent Aboriginal experience that everybody has in North America, that everybody is apart of and that we share, that this is where we come from. And that these are the stories that are relevant to everybody. So how do we take those stories and bring them, not just to the mainstream, but to everybody, to all people, and to share it with the world and reflect our values on a cultural level without selling out. Without doing it, necessarily for money, but because it belongs to everybody and it’s everybody’s right to know these stories. And as artists it’s our responsibility to bring that to the masses. But I think we can do that with those specific stories or prophecies or teachings or languages. There’s nothing wrong with everybody learning how to speak Cree or Ojibwa or you know…

Ed: I don’t think it needs to be that traditional story to contain the traditional values.

Tamara: It’s kind of like the form and content. That the package..it’s also that we can speak truth without packaging it as a Native product.

Kim Snyder: That’s the universal message, right.

Tamara: And truth resonates. And it’s blind and it doesn’t look like anything.

Doug: I think there’s kind of a debate on what traditional is anyway, because for the past 200 years traditional becomes something else, right?

Jennifer: And I think that is something we should discuss too, just a little bit later. Monique…

Monique Mojica: I was trying to remember where I was. Somewhere there’s a huge gap between empowerment and knowing one’s self and telling our own stories and mainstream as it exists now. That loss of heart, that loss of power, when you go in the mainstream is a real thing. My experience with mainstream was not in Native mainstream theater, it was in African-Canadian mainstream theater where I was in a real grass roots project written by Djanet Sears, Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, from the workshop process over. We did the first the production and it was uplifting for all of us. And you’re like, it’s a very different scale in Toronto than it is in New York, but Mirvish picked it up, which is the equivalent of going Broadway right? So in Toronto when we talk about, well when we can do what we really want on stage, you say: well when we get our Mirvish production... it was a six month run of this production, and the cast… I mean we were dying and everyone kept saying: what happened, what happened? We loved this show the first time. The first production it was, you wanted to go work, it was so much heart. And the second time through it was deadly to perform it every night. The audience still came, we had very much more support, audience based support…and somehow, I don’t know what the answer is, but we don’t have theaters, we don’t have our theaters. We don’t have physical buildings where we’re putting out, we don’t have producers, hardly at all, mostly ones we have are producing music and film but not theater. Directors are coming, but there is a loss of power. So how to bring the heart up to a place where there is a power to realize that heart is still a real gulf. And that’s where I think the selling out comes in. Because in order to get it done at all, what you have to give up is that stuff like: you know, white audiences aren’t going to stand back, and that’s risky, and you can’t risk the bums in the seats, and all that. That’s why that dissonance exists. And I want to solve it.

Suzan-Lori: So? So white audiences aren’t going to understand it. So? It doesn’t have to be that way, that’s all I’m saying. You can just go so? And you tell the story exactly how it needs to be told. And I have people on Broadway going, "Jeez is there a glossary for the language that these people?"

Muriel Miguel: We did Rez Sisters here at New York Theatre Workshop. We got lambasted, really, in the newspapers. The critics. What I found out was that there was no, understanding of what Nanabush was. And the critics refused to recognize that there was a Nanabush, what this thing was. But they would accept Fiddler on the Roof, and a fiddler on a roof! You understand what I mean? So we gave it over to New York Theatre Workshop and what we found out was that we didn’t have the power, we had the heart, which we had to fight for constantly, to do this piece. We realized that they were thinking of us as rent. They wanted to go to Broadway with it, and we were interested in the community and downtown community and all the Native theater people that were in this production, and who we reach. So when we said, how come there isn’t an ad in the Village Voice, or how come there isn’t an ad, and they said, well we don’t have the money for The New York Times. So that’s where… So I left with a terrible feeling and I left with that feeling that I could never, I have to have a theater base here. And, as Monique was talking about, we have to have a high profile here. And it has to be our mainstream. You know? It can’t be other peoples, it has to be ours, and when you invite people to something, it isn’t that you have to do what they want you to do, you have to say move over! That’s where it has to be.

Dianne: Well that’s like when Hanay talks about the fry bread circut, there’s got to be a place to do performances that is recognizable. And then spread out.

Jennifer: I hope we’re recording all of this…is that thing still working?

Kate Josephson: Yes it’s taping.

Terry: Okay, going from the..I have two kind of different comments. First was I’m going to take the popular stance and say that we do need to hear stories with our history in it, even if it’s bad, because we have not, our stories have not been humanized. Our history has not been seen as humanized. And I don’t…when I write I don’t try to speak for everybody, but I can at least tell what I know from my relatives; tell our story in that way. And I think those stories are important because they are too many people that tried to shut us up. Too many. To many times. So I think we need…somebody else said: we’re tired of all this negative rhetoric. It’s not rhetoric, it’s our history. And it had all of these reverberations that are affecting us right now. In South Dakota there was a, two hundred attempted suicides by young people, last year. And 2007 said that Native American women were most likely to be sexually assaulted. And that’s from our own people as well as the outside. So if we don’t talk about it as writers, or think about it as teachers, I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice to not—Everybody’s like, oh you’re crying, NO WERE NOT. We’re telling the truth, and we’re telling what we’re supposed to be talking about. That’s why I’m a writer. I feel that what’s what I’m supposed to be doing is telling the audience: this is what’s going on, this is what’s affecting us. And it doesn’t mean that we’re down in the dirt, face down and crying, that means we’re surviving still. We’re survivors as people. And we have hope and we’re going to make it. And they can knock us down as many times as they want to. They tried to kill us, they tried to put genocide on us. But that doesn’t mean we’re crying, that means we can talk about it all we want to because we’ve been told shut up too many times. And if we need to tell those stories than we do. I’ve had students that get up and tell their history, and it’s important because I don’t know everybody’s history—all the Indian people in here. And I think until that day comes, when we know everybody’s histories. “Oh I’ve already heard that, I know you…” No you don’t. We’re diverse, we have so many different kind of cultures. It’s not just one culture, it’s cultures. So you can do pan Indian things and have universal issues, but all our stories haven’t been told. And they’re all going to be different because they’re not from the history books, they’re from our own oral traditions. And my story of my family is way different from—everybody knows QuanahParker, who’s Comanche—We’re or no relation to him and we have different stories about him, than the praise that he gets from the history books.

Dianne: We have different stories too.

Doug: I think maybe we should just come up with our own history books.

Terry: So that’s my stance on that. If people want to think I’m negative or whatever, I’m going to keep talking about our history. But it doesn’t mean that we fail, it doesn’t mean –it means my ancestors survive and they are still alive, and they are still alive through our writing and through our stories. They are here now. And they are not going to go away, and they are not going to shut up. They are going to keep talking and telling us, don’t forget your history.

Okay, now, my second part. (laughter) Okay, I was thinking about how you all…there are two writers and I don’t think they are here. Rhianna Yazzi uses traditional story in her theater. She had the woman who turns into a bear, I think that’s right, it’s a Dene story. And it’s contemporary and traditional and there’s an Alaskan writer who’s not here. That’s Cathy Rexford. She does the same thing with her writing. She uses traditional and contemporary. But I was going to ask you about, when you said you work with the youth and you use traditional with contemporary, I was going to ask you about how you go about the ethics of the Intellectual property rights, or cultural property rights. When you use certain songs and you know a lot of songs are written by families or members of families, and they keep them, and it’s getting to be even more so now, if you’re going to use a tribal story. Somebody asked me, should I get permission from your tribe? Yah, probably. How do you work with that when you work with the youth and you’re selecting your music. Do you have to go out to each tribe? Or do you have something specifically written for you? If you’re going to use a traditional song?

Tamara: It’s a good question. I write my own hand drum songs, and I don’t use traditional songs. I find that there’s a place for my traditional songs and I’ve always chosen to keep it very separate. I travel with my hand drum everywhere, and I write songs in my language. Whatever community I go into, I’m not usually that great with all the languages, but usually with Cree or Ojibwa or any of the Annishnabe languages, it allows the kids to say their words, so I usually just leave it open. So they can bring theirs in. I guess it’s always important to me to show that I write my own songs because I had to. There are so many that I didn’t get from my grandfather. And when they know that I learn the language on my own and I wrote the songs on my own, it makes a lot of, especially my generation that didn’t grow up with a language or their grandparents have passed away, the other important story is that we have to tell, to the younger generation, is that if you didn’t get that really beautiful moment of sitting on your mushum’s knee, hearing about where you came from, you can start your own stories. And that’s probably the most empowering, especially when you’re removed from your community to know it’s okay, to start your own stories. And to start your own songs. Now, my songs that I’ve written, they’re our family songs. And I sing them with my sisters and now they’ve been left in different communities. I just got an email from Africa, from the National Woman’s Day a few months ago, and she sang one of my songs at their events. I also do make sure I let people know that these are not traditional songs. And especially when there’s non-Native audiences, the teaching has gone far enough that I get email in, can I sing this song at this school or at this school, so at least people are knowing that there is a lesson that has to come…I guess I try to educate with that. And I just want to add something else to what you were saying. The one thing you mentioned that we’re not talking about is one aspect of our storytelling is the healing. That’s why we always have to tell those stories, and tradition is proof of survival and perseverance. That’s the power of it, and when you know that you can say the story, even on the other side—my grandfather, he’s a Holocaust survivor—and he has been the grandfather for so many second generation Holocaust survivors because their grandparents would never speak about it. So when you have stories that have been locked up because of pain and will never be passed on, than you realized okay, yes, there is the art part of it. There is the community and joy part of it. But then there’s this other reason why we speak, and why we tell our stories, and even just. I’ve done Daniel’s play, and I’ve looked around the room and I can see, yes, there are all these other great aspects of the theater that we’ve done but it was always healing. And maybe that’s always been our tradition: we have to heal.

Jennifer: Just on that note. The theater, for so many in my generation, and I think my sister can, and we all can relate to it, was where we found our culture. We were void of it. We grew up with a lot of alcoholism, abuse, and completely cut off, and that was not a family that, at the time, made us proud of being a Native person, there was a lot of shame. And theater was where we can express that shame, and overcome that shame, and invite other people to overcome—how empowering it is to talk about you stories, and we’re not even talking about traditional stories, we’re talking about, you know, I’m embarrassed of who I am. I have an alcoholic mother who embarrasses me every day, that still to this day every kid we talk to and who we teach—we can relate to. So let’s use music, let’s use dance, let’s use theater let’s use hip-hop, let’s use all these things. But, I think Doug was saying, not from a victim mentality, because that’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, and if we perpetuate that that will just keep us down, from a survivor mentality, from an empowered place, where, like what you said (to Terry Gomez), knowing that I’m not going to shut up, and I’m going to tell you how it is, and I’m going to tell you how I feel because if I speak out than those ten kids over there might feel empowered by me and we can be a team. You know, so in general, I would just like to give a shout out to theater, which is why we’re all here, and a lot of people from all different cultures can say that it was a place where they can go to express themselves freely and not be judged by the color of their skin, or where they came from or whatever. And you’re allowed to be strange and odd and dysfunctional.

Muriel Miguel: One of the, this is a story, you know we’ve been around for 31 years, that’s a long time. We didn’t’ really understand who we were for at least ten years of that time. We were out there working, and we were out there telling our stories and telling other women’s stories. We were at Harbourfront and we were doing Sun, Moon and Feather, which is a story of our family, and these three young Ojibwa girls came up to us and each one said who they were in relation to us. One said I’m Lisa, one said I’m Gloria, and they were oldest to the youngest. And we were rather shocked. And the mother came up and said this is the first time they’ve ever seen three grown Native women on the stage, and this was the first time that they ever felt that they could do something and they’re hearing their stories. And we were so shocked to know that we were roll models. I thought, "my God we’re roll models!" But that’s what happens, you know, that’s what happens to all of us once you tell your story. You know that it’s the reflection, you see the reflection of yourself, in that person, and these are... you know, they’re grown women now, they’re cartoonists and teachers, but….you know, the fact that they thought of us that way was amazing. And we didn’t know it.

Jennifer: Well I can tell you there’s lots of people who think that about you guys.

Tamara: I thought about you like that!

Jennifer: Lots and lots! But yeah, I guess it’s a pretty profound experience to think of you guys that way and that your voice means something and it actually resonates with one or a million people.

Monique Mojica: We been talking that there’s a difference between acknowledging having been victimized without having being a victim. So the difference between the victim and being a survivor is enormous, but it doesn’t mean that in order not to be a victim you don’t tell the ugly stories. You got to tell them, you’ve got to have the whole.

Jennifer: Absolutely, yes.

Diane Glancy: I just want to say one thing about building a story, also. The patience and the humility and the work that it takes, I know if I brought in all my drafts of one play it would be amazing, it’s very humbling and it takes a lot of endurance and hard work to let a piece reach all it’s dimensions and all its layers and to let it go where it wants to go, it’s um—it’s work.

Donna Cross: I just wanted to say that I think it’s very important that we remember our whole stories, our songs and our dances, because I really believe it’s the throughline to who they are today. And I think sometimes when I’m hearing that people are having a difficult time with the contemporary part of it, it might be because of the disconnect to their past. And I just find that there is so much power in the stories, I love the old stories, and my husband and I, we do them. We are storytellers and we go everywhere, and we find that these stories are blueprints to humanity. They have so much to teach and people are hungry to hear it. And we do make a living here doing that. We go everywhere…and it seems like everyone wants to hear those stories. And they say, who are those stories for? And they say, it’s for families, everyone comes from families and they can relate through that way. But I just, I’m thinking of the power, and I think, it’s not us either. You know, it’s the song that you’re singing that has the power, and so does the story and all you have to do is just remember , that’s all. I know it’s not possible to say but that’s what we’re doing and I’m going to continue doing it. I think it’s important.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Rose: I just want to say thank you for that because storytelling, no matter where you’re coming from, is a real art to take a space and transform it for people is an art form, and I know many wonderful story tellers and I know a few and I think—why do they call themselves storytellers? Because they know a story, but they don’t know how to transform a room, and it’s the same thing as taking a hand drum, and taking a song and transforming the room. You know it’s like, there are some singers when they sing the space has changed. And that’s special, and that’s art. So we need our storytellers to tell the stories, because what happens is, when we go to communities and tell stories, you inspire someone else like me and go, I’m going to take that story. I’m going to go to that person and ask for permission to see if I’m allowed to do that story in that way. Which was what happened when ----Looking Horse came to Toronto. And he told this story to me and he sang a song, and I asked for permission, gave him tobacco, and said can I take that White Buffalo Calf Woman story and put it on stage. I promise to keep you informed, and because of my job, you know I haven’t finished it, but it’s taking new legs into a hip hop level. You know, I want to those buffalo to get down. But if I hadn’t heard the story, the way I heard it, from that man, I wouldn’t have thought to do it. And that it was the story teller who changed me. And so it’s really important. We’ve got story tellers, to continue teaching us. And so, I’m forever grateful that I hear that people are still committed to doing this work, because we really need them to do it. Because how else are we going to do what we do, if you’re not doing it.

Jennifer: Thank you Rose.

Tamara: Can I add something? The other thing that’s really powerful, to bring the Indigenous, perspective of storytelling to Western theater is that we forget, I think sometimes we forget, when we’re artists working in conventional Western theater, about the form, that our form was always mixed mediums. We told a story with song and dance and music, and there were never any divisions, we never divided that. And that’s very avant-garde for Western theater, you know to have—and so I’ve always loved that it’s actually made me a more interesting artist. When I go back to the way that I learned how to tell a story, like the coming of age of a women when I’m fancy dancing, that to me is a full...little musical. You know, and it actually can empower us and make our mark in traditional Western Theater, and really know the socks off of people if we really owned up to how huge it is in our traditional story telling. Can I just add one other thing? I love, I know how important it is for us to tell our traditional stories and dances and know our music, and I just wanted to introduce another, and this is the same as I started the modern approach to traditional story telling, another modern reality is that we have so many adopted babies, out there, and I also think that we have to know that it’s—when you can’t access our traditional background, we have to respect that that’s still okay, that’s why it’s like the permission to make up your own stories. Because so many—I’ve had the privilege of having adopted people in my life who are so disconnected from their Native background and that’s, that makes them feel that they’ll never be able to have that truth, that core, because they’ve been cut off from it. I guess that’s why it’s permission to all be storytellers, even if it starts right from this day, and that I’m going to create my own storytellers. If you don’t speak your language, if you don’t know all your dances, if you don’t know what to do if an outfit was in front of you and you didn’t know what went on your head and what went on your feet. You know, that we have to comfort and support each other in the variety of ways that we can be Native storytellers.

Donna Cross: I just want to say that I hear what you’re saying, and that happens to be your personal creation story, and how you are here and who adopted you and whatever. And my family was very disconnected too, at a point, but what happened was that when we started doing this we came back to our community and people really began to speak to us about some of our relatives, and we found our back and we were lucky to do that. But I do hear what you’re saying and I want to explore that as well. The personal creation story. My husband is beginning to do that, you know, he’s beginning to write now outside. This is our base, but he needs to write about Vietnam, he’s a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran, and he’s just beginning to get into that, with Kim Snyder’s help over here, and I’m seeing maybe a one man show’s coming from it. But again, very healing, he really has to do it.

Jennifer: Okay, I’m sorry but we’re going to have to stop, but his week is designed to create these discussions and continue this dialogue outside of the room. I have a couple of things to mention first. Twenty years ago, at one of the biggest stages in Toronto, the Royal Alex, was Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, a moment that changed my life and brought me to where I am today. Twenty years ago. We’ve not yet seen that happen again. So that’s what this panel was dedicated to, you know, let’s—I think we’ve discussed so many great things today. Coming back to that, one of my great wishes to see, and I know that you guys in your panel will probably discuss your recent success, but I’d like that to manifest out there in the universe. And we have some give-aways, just in terms of modern approaches to storytelling, I took a prophecy, I was given permission by elders near Curve Lake, Ontario, and took a prophecy that it is our responsibility to share the seven teachings from the Ojibwa teachings with the world, and design my show, The Aboriginal Achievement Awards , around it, and created a song with that in mind. And it saw a lot of controversy, and I’d like to, but feel free to take them (CDs). And it’s all based around one specific prophecy, that today, now more than ever, the world needs to know that we have values that will be valuable to everybody…from today on. I’d like to thank our panelists, who were awesome, and you guys, I’m sure you’ll continue discussions after this panel, but thanks for you time.