Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 takes its impetus from a modest, yet significant document: “Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Progress”, published by the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1969 and written by Lloyd Kiva New and Rolland R. Meinholtz, together with IAIA students. The document initiated the New Native Theater movement, which offered a radically different way to contextualize the long-standing practice of performance in Native societies across Turtle Island. It also created a template for its future. It is a methodology and an origin point for this exhibition. For the participating artists and performers, it is a guide. This exhibition situates performance, performativity, and theater as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists; this includes the influential role that Native artists played in the self-determination era.

In the artworks and archival materials in Indian Theater, visual sovereignty is enacted via strategies and long traditions of material agency and invention; storytelling and testimony; blanketing and adornment (as material and method); masking, and taking on new identities; representations of the body and its absence; Native music; inauthenticity and fabrication; racy humor; historical and contemporary secret societies; Native and non-colonial economies; #LandBack and #WaterBack movements; and Native resistance movements, of the present and the past.

Every attempt at history is always partial and inevitably filled with omissions. Consider this exhibition an unfolding of relations—both known and yet to be defined.

Performances

White Carver

Nicholas Galanin’s (Tlingit/Unangax̂) White Carver is performed every Saturday, 11 AM to 2 PM

About the Performer: David Schimpff is a Santa Fe-based storyteller and performer who has been active in narrative and roleplaying communities since moving to the city in 2009. He has contributed to podcasts including The Esoteric Order of Roleplayers and Frivolous Gaming, co-hosted the late-night KSFR radio program Lullaby’s for Cthulhu, and performed with the Santa Fe Renaissance Faire.

Iktómiwiŋ (My Grandfather's Vision)

Sound activations of Kite’s (Oglala Sioux Tribe) Iktómiwiŋ (My Grandfather's Vision):
Friday, July 31, 3:00 PM (15 min), Myvanwy Birds, Harp
Friday, August 7, 3:00 PM (15 min), Myvanwy Birds, Harp
Friday, August 21, 5:30 PM (15 mins) Gabe Weisbuch, Ambient electronic

Venues

Indian Theater was originally organized by the Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Following its presentation at CCS Bard, the exhibition traveled to the MacKenzie Art Gallery and SITE SANTA FE. This iteration of Indian Theater is presented in collaboration with the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) is the country’s leading museum for exhibiting, collecting, and interpreting the most progressive work of contemporary Native artists. MoCNA is dedicated solely to advancing the scholarship, discourse, and interpretation of contemporary Native art for regional, national, and international audiences—as such, it stewards over 9,500 contemporary Indigenous artworks (created 1962 to present). MoCNA is at the forefront of contemporary Native art presentation and strives to be flexible, foresighted, and risk-taking in its exhibitions and programs.

Thank You

Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 is generously supported by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation, Teiger Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Nusenda Foundation, Century Bank, Diane and Werner Grob, Helen Kornblum, Ted Kornblum, Courtney Finch Taylor and Scott Taylor, McCune Foundation, New Mexico Spirit, the SITE SANTA FE Board of Directors, and contributions made to the SITE SANTA FE Exhibitions Fund.

Additional support is provided by the City of Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department and the 1% Lodgers Tax and the County of Santa Fe Lodgers’ Tax.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts / Nous reconnaissons le soutien du Conseil des arts du Canada.