GUEST ARTIST SERIES
Storyteller Dovie Thomason draws on her Indigenous ancestry to weave an epic story that deconstructs the phenomenon of Buffalo Bill Cody’s 1880s traveling pageant “The Wild West: A History Lesson,” which attracted millions and affected perceptions of history to the present day. More than a century later, Thomason challenges the settler colonial perspective of what Cody called “The Drama of Civilization—The Wild West.”
In her insightful, wise and unsparing performance, Thomason brings 50 years of historical research as an Indigenous storyteller to subvert the phenomenon of Cody’s spectacle, which depicted Indians, buffalo, horses, cowboys, cavalry and publicists seeking a “New World to conquer.”
Thomason says, “I believe there's a hunger for stories today that talk about difficult or unspoken things. These stories that were driven by veiled agenda and manufactured as ‘history’ lack relation and connection. We don’t need manipulative one-dimensional tales. We deserve better stories. I'm seeking new plantings of the old seeds that can fulfill the deep hunger in us all.”
About Dovie Thomason
Thomason, of Lakota, Plains Apache, and Scottish Traveller descent, draws on her mixed background in her work. Her storytelling has been featured at the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of the American Indian, London’s Barbican, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and storytelling festivals from Tennessee to Estonia. She has done narrations for the BBC, NPR, PBS, Ireland’s public broadcaster RTE, and the National Park Service, including the Emmy-winning documentary “Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War.”
A former teacher, Thomason is an NEA and Arts International recipient, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers’ Traditional Storyteller of the Year, and was honored with the National Storytelling Network’s 2007 Circle of Excellence Award. "For nearly four decades, my work has been the preservation and continuation of Native cultural arts, utilizing the traditional art of storytelling. In the past fifteen years, I have been braiding original stories shaped by our oral tradition, unspoken stories and erased histories, in hopes of using storytelling as it’s always been used—to show us ways of being and being together in good relation.”
IN THE GALLERY
WÉČIČAKU!
I’M BRINGING SOMETHING BACK FOR SOMEONE!
By Wanbli Máyašleča / Francis J Yellow
On view January 23-26 during HOW THE WILD WEST WAS SPUN
Reception: January 23, 6 - 7pm
Hau,mitakuyepi!, Greetings my relatives! Thank you for your interest in my makings. It’s been a few years since I’ve exhibited or participated in the art world. I felt that I had to step away from the art world and tend to my long neglected wounds. Hence the Lakota title of my exhibit – Wečičaku.
But really it’s more about what I learned while I was away. For one thing, I learned to “embrace my pain”. In doing so I’ve located its source(s) and gotten to know them for myself. My ancestors’ Lifeway enabled me to undertake this harrowing journey which began in 2010. I called it a renewal back then, not knowing what it would take to accomplish such a thing.
In the course of my renewal as a human being/two-legged, I’ve come close to Death and what western philosophy calls the Underworld; I realize that I’ve been a frequent visitor throughout my life. But this time was different because my many wounds (compound/complex ptsd) were manifesting themselves in terminal illness.
The works presented here are an expression of an age-old, yet contemporaneous, kinship perspective and practice. It looks like art but it isn’t. What you’re viewing is Lifeway as lifeway practice. It is what my elders called, “Everyday ways of Peace.”
Visit Open Eye Theatre
506 E. 24th Street
Minneapolis, MN
Free parking is available in the lot on the southeast corner of 24th Street and Portland Avenue, courtesy of Lutheran Social Services.