Osiyo and good morning, everybody. I’m Ronee Penoi, Laguna Pueblo and Cherokee, and like many right here, I put on loads of hats. I’m a presenter, an advocate for Indigenous peoples and decolonization, and a composer. This morning, nevertheless, I wish to deal with us.
I’ve had loads of weak conversations with people on this room about how troublesome the previous few years have been in our subject and in our world. There’ve been loads of obstacles and obligatory systemic change has been gradual. But we proceed to course of, grieve, and heal as people and as an business. We come collectively in moments like this to have a good time our wins and carry one another up. Any nervousness we’re feeling doesn’t diminish our energy. In truth, I feel our braveness to be weak, to not know the solutions, is simply what we’d like. It may really feel like we’ve missed our window after 2020, 2021, and 2022, however as they are saying, typically it may take a very long time for circumstances to be good for change.
So whereas this can be a troublesome time, once I have a look at this room, I’m optimistic. All of us are sitting in collective discomfort, questioning our assumptions about presenting stay theatre. We’re asking anew what’s working and what’s not—and that’s precisely the place we should be.
My personal inquiry of questioning assumptions has led me to consider the influence of stay theatre. Live theatre is tradition. Culture is a mirrored image of society—and one can’t exist with out the opposite. No tradition, no society. No society, no tradition. When we consider societies previous, its tradition that we keep in mind—from the pyramids to Shakespeare. So what does our tradition, our stay theatre, say about our society? This, to me, is the place we have now essentially the most untapped potential as a subject. We want to steer in restorying and creativeness; restorying for our previous and current and creativeness for the longer term.
If we wish to stay in a world that’s totally different, we will’t anticipate society to make it snug for us to take action—we have now to think about it, construct a street from right here to there, and stroll it.
It all comes again to story. As certainly one of my favourite writers Thomas King says, “Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous.” I do know this being Pueblo and Cherokee. For Indigenous individuals, tales inform us who we’re. They comprise roadmaps for all times—essential data on meals, historical past, and place. Moreover, Indigenous peoples know the way the tales which have been instructed about us have been a matter of life and demise. The story of the savage Indian despatched my great-grandfather to Carlisle Indian School. That story is the explanation my household walked the Trail of Tears. Stories are tangible, residing issues.
America has a robust nationwide story—a mythology. It’s rooted within the founding fathers, in Thanksgiving, in gun possession. We are, on this delusion, the saviors of the free world—distinctive, democratic, benevolently capitalist—and we’re taught that American historical past is white historical past. We usually speak about the truth that the humanities are a spot the place we will share extra and totally different tales than these provided by this American delusion—and amplify marginalized voices. However, I suggest that what we actually want is to rewrite, or restory, our dominant American narrative.
Now I’m not suggesting there is just one historical past—our previous is a posh net, as is our current. But id, the story we inform ourselves about who we’re, is the most important constraint to vary. All we have to see is a number of posts on social media or a couple of minutes on CNN to grasp how our tales form and constrain us. If we would like the humanities to be a part of imagining a greater future, we have to begin utilizing the humanities to restory our previous and current. Our nationwide story. Our private story. Restorying means rewriting the dominant narratives that outline us. Until we do, each future we think about goes to be constructed on a crumbling basis.
So, what does restorying seem like? It can seem like presenting Cherokee artist Delanna Studi or Mohegan artist Madeline Sayet and their works debunking the notion of the “vanishing Indian” and manifest future. It can seem like Step Afrika’s Drumfolk, elevating the Stono Rebellion to a spot of significance equal to that of the Boston Tea Party. It can seem like Carolina Performing Arts’ presentation of their “Southern Futures” initiative that excavates their area’s advanced and violent previous with an eye fixed in the direction of a extra simply future. This appears just like the fieldwide members of the International Presenting Commons uplifting worldwide work and collaborative practices that problem American exceptionalism and have a good time the porousness of borders and concepts. It can seem like interrogating the plaques on our partitions and the memorials that stand simply outdoors our doorways. It is realizing our watersheds and the way environmental racism is affecting our neighbors subsequent door.
Restorying challenges the dominant narratives we stay our lives by and that’s extremely highly effective. Many people on this very room are doing this restorying work however is perhaps calling it by one other title. However, I consider that is solely half the battle. We want restorying and creativeness—and creativeness is the place we actually should be courageous.