Rosamaria and Rock Rose Gallery

December 17, 2019.

4108 N Figueroa, Highland Park, 90065.

Bruce scheduled a meeting with Rosamaria so we could see the space at Rock Rose to confirm that it can work for workshop activities during the Dutch residency. Bruce & MJG met with her a few months ago – Dolores Chavez connected us to her. She’d already agreed to host our January activities when Bruce inquired over the phone. I hadn’t been before. Bruce’s meeting downtown went longer than expected which gave me and Rosamaria a chance to get to know each other and for me to tell her more about the Highland Park Project.

Here’s the mission of Rock Rose- 

Rock Rose Gallery and Production Studio was established in August of 2000 in the Northeast Los Angeles community of Highland Park known as the first arts community in the greater Los Angeles area. As an arts incubator for artists of all disciplines, artists are encouraged to flourish at Rock Rose, a safe and nurturing environment which also allows the community to be inspired and to get in touch with their own creative spirit.

Rosamaria is and does so much I can’t really begin to get into it all. She recently left a p/t gig with Grand Park Foundation where she’d pick people up and take them to Grand Park for a few hours then give them a ride back. I think introducing the park to people who don’t know it’s there. But that’s over so now she can do Rock Rose full time.

Rock Rose is a storefront on Figueroa in the area of HP referred to as Below 50, as in Avenues 39 – 49.  It’s an art gallery—lots of art on display, all or most of it for sale. She recently bought or inherited the inventory from that folk art store that was on Fair Oaks until recently. She is initiating a monthly show titled Letting Go—displaying and selling artwork for folks have to sell it because they are moving or because the owner passed away. She has an elderly neighbor who collected art his whole life and now he is moving to a one-room situation. Like that. She has a lot of Latinx folk art. She’s got books for sale and a few art supplies. Small tables out front. Her original dream was to have a café in there but it’s too much. She still is thinking about how to work it in.

Rock Rose also a meeting/learning/performance space. She hosts meetings for the Lumis Day Board – a group that plans Lumis Days activitiesand events. She is on that board. She has 2 or 5 high school student interns on weekdays. The space is meant to serve as an artistic incubator for the neighborhood. She and others teach classes in all kinds of things. There’s a guy who teaches Gregorian Chant on Wednesday nights. She offers art classes for schoolchildren, too.

So, yes, she has described how the meeting room is usually/will be more cleared out and spacious for a group to gather and discuss and maybe make something. Not really room to make something on its feet with more than 8 or 10 people. We’ll find out.

We told Rosamaria that we are cash poor but maybe there is something she needs that we can help with. She is interested in some help with organizational design. And in help re-organizing the stuff and the space. Between a roof leak and the repair process a lot of stuff is piled bunched and piled up.

I tentatively made a date with her to help get the space organized or tidied on January 3. I’m not sure who would be best to give her some advice about how to best organize, but speak up if it’s you or you know who it is.

We can use Rock Rose for our working space evenings Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday (jan 7, 9, 10) and morning/afternoon on Saturday Jan 11.

We will also plan a story circle there. Rosamaria knows MANY people. So I’ll draft a flyer, we’ll choose a date and she’s get her neighbors and other folks there.

I won’t write about all the things we discussed but I will tell you that she had an LP she rescued from donated collection. It’s the cast recording of the Los Angeles production of FLY BLACKBIRD. 

C. Bernard Jackson is a co-author of this musical—and was a significant mentor to Rosamaria.  

But one of the most brilliant things about the LP was seeing LEE KORF in the cast list. 

Tiny DeCory is everything

A short bio lifted from this Native Hope webpage--

Yvonne “Tiny” DeCory, Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, is among those working to stop suicides on Pine Ridge. If the reservation's suicide epidemic were a hurricane, she's standing in the eye. DeCory is founder of the BEAR program, which stands for “Be Excited About Reading.” DeCory and her student volunteers—many of them suicide survivors—put on musical and dance skits to help kids struggling with reading as well as the serious issues of life on the reservation, including suicide. Her work has been highlighted by PBS, the BBC, the Huffington Post, and more. Tiny’s Native Hope Fellowship will afford the BEAR program and its mission to expand to other reservations in South Dakota where the suicide levels are equally devastating.

But visit the page anyway to see some videos of her talking about her work and community.

She wants everyone to see/hear this--

And you can follow her on facebook which is so far my only means of communicating with her.  FB is one of the more effective communication mediums in Pine Ridge.

There Goes the Neighborhood

KCRW has an 8-part radio series about the identity of the city in the face of development and other changes across the city.  It's from 2017 and each segment is less than 30 minutes long.

There Goes The Neighborhood

Maka speaks about his community and the work of Red Cloud Indian School

Engaging in Audacious Hope from ACEatND on Vimeo.

Billie Ilish is from Highland Park

I dig this video from new york times- it's a conversation with Billie and her brother/collaborator, plus moments with their mom, that i think is filmed in their house.

The Guardian seems to have staff in SD this week

From The Guardian today, a short article about a PSA campaign regarding a serious problem South Dakotans are working on.

 

 

Also from the Guardian--

The Great American Tax Haven: why the super rich love South Dakota -  

about how the state attracts wealthy people but without for the betterment of the residents, 11/14/19.

".... Super-rich people choose between jurisdictions in the same way that middle-class people choose between ISAs: they want the best security, the best income and the lowest costs. That is why so many super-rich people are choosing South Dakota, which has created the most potent force-field money can buy – a South Dakotan trust. If an ordinary person puts money in the bank, the government taxes what little interest it earns. Even if that money is protected from taxes by an ISA, you can still lose it through divorce or legal proceedings. A South Dakotan trust changes all that: it protects assets from claims from ex-spouses, disgruntled business partners, creditors, litigious clients and pretty much anyone else. It wonʼt protect you from criminal prosecution, but it does prevent information on your assets from leaking out in a way that might spark interest from the police. And it shields your wealth from the government, since South Dakota has no income tax, no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax. ...."

NELA STORIES - interviews with longtime HP residents & cultural creators

Oxy Arts Project / Exhibit from earlier this year has a terrific resource---

"NELA Stories engages with community members who have lived and shaped the local cultural landscape of Northeast Los Angeles (NELA) between the 1950s or earlier through the 2000s.

The interviews were conducted in teams of two by undergraduate students during the Spring semester of 2019. This interactive digital exhibit of the interviews was produced by Oxy’s Center for Digital Liberal Arts, with complete transcripts, photographs, and other materials, is viewable on smart phone, tablet or computer. "

You can listen to the recording or read a transcript for the individual interviews.

Recordings were then used as the basis of an exhibition entitled “Compass Rose” by artist Debra Scacco.

Cornerstone Board Member April Ibarra is one of the interviewees! 💖

Watch the documentary about artists & arts collectives of HP & northeast Los Angeles

70 minutes well spent and will enhance your visits to Highland Park to think of the people and experiences of the past in the neighborhood locations and images you see today. 

Resurrected Histories: Voices from the Arts Collectives of Highland Park.

Autumn White Eyes, poet from Pine Ridge

Autumn White Eyes is the executive director of Lakota Children’s Enrichment, Inc. She hails from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and holds a B.A. in Native American studies and English from Dartmouth and an M.Ed. in arts education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

A Letter to Urban Outfitters

I don't know the title of this piece is. It could be For Native Women--

 I Survived Catholic School

More recently, a 2017 interview with Autumn here.

Native Women Tell the Real Story of Thanksgiving

Highland Park in NYT Real Estate section (10.22.19)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/realestate/highland-park-los-angeles-a-watchful-eye-on-gentrification.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

*read it below but there’s a 17 image slideshow if you use the link above*

Highland Park, Los Angeles: A Watchful Eye on Gentrification

By Debra Kamin.  

As real estate prices rise and crime drops, residents hope that the longtime diversity of the neighborhood will persevere.

When Megan Auster-Rosen, 39, began her house hunt 18 months ago, she knew she would have to make some compromises.  A New York City native, she had spent four years renting in the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Silver Lake and Echo Park, which together form the City of Angels’s hipster epicenter and reminded her of Brooklyn.

But Ms. Auster-Rosen, a clinical psychologist, and her wife, Ava, a cinematographer, have hopes of starting a family, and were looking for room to grow. They found it by heading northeast, to the historic, racially diverse enclave of Highland Park, where they found a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow that offered easy access to the sort of funky, foodie, fair-trade shops and restaurants they both love.

“We wanted something walkable, because we’re New Yorkers. And that’s what really sold us on this place,” she said.

Highland Park has twin main drags — York Boulevard and Figueroa Street — both stocked with third-wave coffee shops, artisan bakeries and pretty stores peddling vinyl and vintage handicrafts. In July 2018, the couple paid $749,000 for their bungalow, which is on a side street just minutes by foot from York. Figueroa Street can be reached by car in the same amount of time.

Ms. Auster-Rosen sacrificed one of the house’s three bedrooms for more open-plan living, knocking down a wall at the front of the home and creating a central living/dining space. She had the kitchen rearranged as well, and HVAC installed. There’s a converted garage she plans to turn into a granny flat for guests. Her dog, Tiny, an aptly-named Chihuahua who clocks in at about four pounds, appreciates her new outdoor domain. If and when a baby joins the family, there’s a spare bedroom waiting.

The home is flanked by churches, a fact that initially made Ms. Auster-Rosen wary. “We were like, are they going to be homophobic?” she said. “But in fact it’s been nice. We hear singing on Sunday mornings. We love our neighbors. And we just love having this much space.”

The neighborhood is in the midst of a renaissance, which has made it an affordable alternative for young professionals like Ms. Auster-Rosen who find themselves priced out of central Los Angeles. But its transition is complicated. Highland Park is historically Latino, and as housing prices have crept up, a slew of Spanish-speaking panaderias, bodegas and businesses have shuttered. But crime has also plummeted, bringing new parks, night life and vibrancy to streets that a decade ago were caught in the grip of Los Angeles’s notorious gang violence. Many longtime residents welcome the new sense of security while also bemoaning an erasure of the neighborhood’s long-held identity.

“Highland Park is the new Silver Lake,” said Alison Huddy, a Los Angeles native who runs the real estate team Home Sweet Huddy along with her husband, Jason. “In the ’80s and ’90s the sun would go down and, that was it — you locked your doors because there was so much gang activity … but now, you walk down Figueroa Street at night, and it’s so happening.”

As the makeup of the community has shifted, many of its newer residents — who skew young, white and college-educated — speak openly about their complex love for the neighborhood.

“The gentrification piece is stressful. If we had gone into a house where renters were going to be kicked out, I would have said, ‘I can’t buy this house,’” Ms. Auster-Rosen said. But she and her wife found a home that was being sold — at a tidy profit — by its owner of 15 years. The diversity around them sweetened the deal.

She especially appreciated that Highland Park hadn’t gentrified as much as Eagle Rock, the enclave’s northern neighbor.  “In our neighborhood there are Costa Ricans and there are Mexicans. The family across the street is Korean. There’s always different music. I love talking to the neighbors who have been here for a long time.”

What You’ll Find

Highland Park is bordered on the south and east by the 110 freeway, and stretches west almost all the way to Eagle Rock Boulevard. Its northern border sits below Occidental College and the city limits of Pasadena.

Highland Park Bowl, located on Figueroa Street, is Los Angeles’s oldest bowling alley. It was established during Prohibition in 1927 and was beautifully refurbished in 2016, with its original wooden lanes still intact, sawed-off pin holders upcycled into delightful chandeliers, and handsome leather couches that serve as gathering points for house cocktails from its two horseshoe-shaped bars, as well as wood-fired pizzas and live music.

Most commerce is clustered around Figueroa Street and York Boulevard, or Fig and York, as the locals call them.

Many of its streets are filled with Craftsman-style homes and California bungalows. Some historic Highland Park homes date back as far as the 1880s; most were constructed in the 1910s and 1920s.

A construction flurry in the 1950s led to the razing of some of the district’s oldest homes, and today, nearly every block features a site that is under renovation and in the process of being flipped.

What You’ll Pay

In 2016, Gerard Way, frontman for the band My Chemical Romance, sold his Highland Park home — a restored, six-bedroom, midcentury structure — for $1.158 million, marking the first-ever home sale in the neighborhood north of the $1 million mark. Today, there are dozens. The highest sale to date in 2019 was at $1.625 million.

This year through September, 255 single-family homes sold at a median price of $829,000, compared with 268 at a median of $800,000 during the same period in 2018, and 220 at a median of $630,000 during the same period in 2016, according to real estate appraisers Miller Samuel Inc.

The Vibe

“Highland Park fills a void,” said Jason Huddy, the real estate agent. He points to a specific profile of buyer — couples who are first-time homeowners, who either don’t have children yet or have one small child, and are currently renting in trendy neighborhoods like Silver Lake or Echo Park. When they start thinking about growing their families, Mr. Huddy said, they are likely priced out of places like Pasadena and Burbank, which each offer their own walkable downtowns and culture spots. Highland Park, he said, “is a shining beacon of awesomeness — where you can afford a house and you can still keep your identity.”

For JD Rocchio, however, a growing family isn’t a priority, but a strong sense of community is. The 32-year-old Los Angeles native bought his first home in Highland Park in December, a little more than two years after moving his business, Belle’s Bagels, from a pop-up spot inside a bakery on Figueroa Street to a permanent location on York Boulevard. He paid $720,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bath Craftsman-style house that he shares with his dog, Dusty, a hound/pit bull mix. 

“There is an any town feel,” he said. “The number one thing I love about living here is you can just pop from store to store and you meet the people who run the businesses — their kids and wives are there, their family is eating in the corner. There’s a sense of connectedness.”

The Schools

Highland Park is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the United States. Nine public elementary schools serve the neighborhood, as well as one magnet elementary.

Benjamin Franklin Senior High serves the area, with an enrollment of more than 1,600. In the 2017-2018 school year, 61 percent of 11th-grade students met or exceeded the state benchmark for college-readiness by scoring a 480 on the EBRW (Evidence Based Reading and Writing) sections of the SAT. In math, 35 percent met the benchmark score for readiness, which is 530.

Across the Los Angeles Unified School District, an average of 58 percent of 11th graders met their benchmarks in EBRW, and 35 percent in math.

The Commute

Highland Park is home to a precious commodity in Los Angeles: a metro stop. The L.A. Metro Gold Line has a station just north of Figueroa Street, and can get commuters downtown in about 35 minutes.

On the city’s clogged freeways, the ride from Highland Park to the heart of downtown Los Angeles can take about an hour. A drive to the west side can be a much longer slog — as much as an hour and 50 minutes — but in off-peak hours, can take only 30 minutes.

The History

Highland Park was settled along the Arroyo Seco river, a misnomer for a body of water and its canyon. Both the river and its canyon have been a transportation corridor for centuries; a railroad bridge built in the 1880s brought a faster link and in the 1940s, the construction of California Route 110 — a.k.a. the Arroyo Seco Parkway — brought the very first freeway to the United States. 

Thanks to its location as a transit hub, Highland Park was one of Los Angeles’s first suburban neighborhoods. It was incorporated into the city in 1895 and soon became the epicenter of the Arts and Crafts movement — a fact still evident today in its homes with wide eaves and a handful of Victorian relics. Sandwiched between downtown Los Angeles and what was then the resort town of Pasadena, Highland Park became both a bedroom community and an artistic haven.

The neighborhood has a long and proud history of welcoming outsiders; in the 1970s it became a center of Chicano art collectives, and in the 1990s, it was the beating heart of the punk rock revolution.

The area has seen steady gentrification, with new shops and businesses opening and home prices on the rise, since the early 2000s.

HP - November 1 Festival Event - who wants to go?!

Multiple Communities Colliding at Studio Ave 50

Kirk A. Whalen, Ogala Lakota

Studio Avenue 50 in Highland Park (just west of Figueroa) has a new exhibit opening this weekend-- October 12 is the official reception event: it's called 

Caceral Liberation? A Naive American Prison Art Show.

"Featuring art by Judy Brown Wolf, Kirk A. Whalen, and other Native artists currently incarcerated, along with the artwork of Native American activist Leonard Peltier."

The show is open through November 2.

For those who are in town this week, there's a related panel discussion presented at Occidental College's Student Union (aka Johnson Hall) on Thursday night (10/10) at 6:00pm.  The discussion is moderated by the curator of the exhibit- Dr. Tria Blue Wakpa (faculty at UCLA)-- and features 

Jimi Castillo (Tongva/Acjachemem)

Leta Wise Spirit (Hunkpapa)

Chase Iron Eyes (Oglala)

Randall Murphy (Choctaw/Lakota)

Makha Blu Wakpa (Itazipcho)

Youth Mentorship Group at Hathaway Sycamores - 9/25

Bruce and I attended the Youth Mentorship Group at Hathaway Sycamores Family Resources. There were about 15 of the 17 young people in attendance. They had spaghetti for dinner. They talk about different foods they are interested in and they ended up with spaghetti for this one.

They meet in a conference style room with movable tables and those really nice ergonomic rolling chairs they have at, like, the Irvine Foundation.

Our friend Yvonne is their Project Coordinator, main mentor.  There were 2 other adults there. One was there for the first time and I don’t know why or what his story is.

After food, Yvonne introduced Bruce led a warm-up that included sharing your super power and some tongue twisters some of which were introduced and led by the kids. Some of the super powers: walking fast in the hallway, always tired, waking early, strong mindset, basketball, thinking fast, stamina, stay up late, and good at doing things at the last minute/working under pressure.

Bruce told his story about becoming an artist and actor, going to school and working in multiple mediums. There were questions & a little discussion afterward.

We introduced Cornerstone Theater and the Highland Park Project invited them to get involved in whatever way they might be interested. We asked them what a play about HP should be about or include. One person said it should be about a family who are considering moving or maybe might have to move. Another suggested it include a business that has new coffee places** on either side of it. They seemed interested and we should go back and do a story circle there later. Maybe a workshop, too. They were smart and interesting kids. They mumbled a lot or spoke really fast, but that might have partly been nerves.

It was a good, pretty short gathering. The youth had work to do planning their activities for the music event taking place at a local park on Oct 5 & 6.

**

pd   (written way after the event so am a little fuzzy on some details.)

-->

HP: Arroyo Fest 2020 - the Pasadena Fwy with no cars!

"In the fall of 2020, if all goes as planned, the 110 Freeway will be shut down from just east of the 5 Freeway to its terminus near Pasadena for people to walk, bike, and move around—without cars—for an afternoon." 

Looks like November 8, 2020 is the day for this event. 

Two things:
I am pretty sure that our friend and Institute alum Marcus Renner made a similar event happen before, in 2003 according to the linked article.

We should keep this date in mind with regard to Highland Park project scheduling. 

HP: First visit to Hathaway Sycamores Child and Family Services

Hathaway Sycamores Child and Family Services Center

840 N Ave 66, 90042. (323) 257-9600

September 18, 2019, Bruce and I met Yvonne Sarcedo and [ CFO? guy ] to learn more about their organization, tell them about our project and see if there are points of overlap to help each other. Should this be a partner organization for the HP Project? 

This family resource center has many programs on a beautiful campus that is a mile north of York Blvd and away from public transportation. Mostly residential neighborhood. This is one of nine Hathaway Sycamores Centers around greater Los Angeles. This one has a primary local individual donor. Programs here include Learning Lab, and after school student support, family clinic services, home-based services and other programs.

They have a Food Bank every 2^nd & 4^th Saturday from 10-11am. Serves 50-75 households.

We met Yvonne when she attended the Feb 2019 2-Day Intensive. That 2DI was hosted on the Occidental College Campus as arranged by Oxy-Arts. So we invited Oxy-Arts a spot in the Intensive for one of their staff and another for a community member they work with. Yvonne was the community member who joined and she is great. She fully participated and seemed engaged with the whole Intensive. It was a big group of almost all theater people and she doesn't have theater experience. I like her a lot and was happy when she responded about connecting her workplace with Cornerstone. 

The CFO guy whose name I can't remember said that Yvonne's nickname is Miss Highland Park, because she knows everything there is to know about HP and she really loves her community.

Yvonne has had a few different jobs with Hathaway Sycamores Child and Family Services including working in Non Violent Family Training. Currently she is Project Coordinator for a Mentorship Program. Currently 17 youth (13-17 yr olds) meet 2x/month on Wednesdays, 6-7:30p, for meal that they help plan, conversation- often with guest speakers, and planning activities in the community. Usually one event each month too, like a visit to Lummis House. They will be supporting a music festival event at a park on Oct 5 & 6, helping staff tables and doing some video interviews with participants. 

We saw a room where kids were doing homework and getting help with it from adults.

Brents Club is hosted here, Fridays from 3:30 – 4:30, run by the Rob Shapiro Foundation. Club that supports sober living for middle & hs aged youth. 

There are a variety of spaces at this property. One of the older buildings is shut down currently for code/safety upgrades.

There's a big garden on the property, too.

The CFO guy has been with this organization for maybe a year (lives in Echo Park maybe?) and is responsible for the financial health of the org as well as facilities improvements to keep things safe there. He talked about wanting to go see Always Running at CASA 0101.

We made plans for Bruce to visit and speak at Yvonne’s the Leadership group on a Wednesday soon.

 pd.

SD Engagement Trip in July 2019-- partial report

MJG oral report shared at an ensemble meeting, this is a transcription

.. I don't know how it works but both Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations were both much bigger at one point. They're smaller than they were. And as soon as the reservations were established, government and private individuals immediately started to cut it up and take the ___-able land essentially.  The whole eastern part of Rosebud has mostly been taken away from them, essentially, but there's a sort of patchwork of territories east of what is the reservation proper, that are still Indian land and are still considered to be under the administration of Rosebud even though not properly part of the reservation. I don't quite understand how it works. There's HUD housing there and if you all the police it takes them 2 hours to arrive because they have to come from Rosebud. The regular police doesn't have jurisdiction. 

It's a small area. It's the location-- Milk's Camp is the place and it's called that because of Chief Milk's camp was there. There happens to also be this youth camp there but Milk's Camp is actually the place. It's run by this man and woman; she seems to be, I don't know, maybe they both are, at the forefront. (Her name is escaping me right now, of course. I was just talking about her yesterday.) And they have really committed to doing this whole series of year-long programming for youth and in the summer they have a bunch of camps. 

We were there for part the Leadership Camp. They're 4-day camps where the kids come. They build and put up and live in tipis on the camp grounds.  They have all sorts of different activities. There were a lot of elders there talking with them about ceremony and other things like that. They also have swimming and horseback riding. There were CPR classes. 

HOW OLD WERE THEY? There were, I would guess maybe from..maybe 10, 11, to... I couldn't really tell but I think some of the older kids were 15, 16. Pretty evenly split, maybe a little more girls than boys. There was a sports thing: some guy came and taught us some traditional Lakota games and things like that which was fun and cool. He was a trip, man. He was like the prototypical, he was a big big dude and prototypical football coach-type guy. You'd try something and he'd be like, " Oh, that was a disaster! Don't do it like that person. Who wants to go next?" He was hilarious. He shamed me at least once. But it was fun. He was actually pretty cool and fun. It was interesting. 

We spent 3 days in that part of South Dakota. then we traveled back. We landed in Rapid City and so we basically drove through Pine Ridge and Rosebud to get there (Milk's Camp). Then we drove back to Pine Ridge. 

We stayed three days at the Heritage Center there. Which is the Red Cloud Heritage Center, which is at the Catholic school that Red Cloud established.  They're both on the same campus, but the Heritage Center is a separate organization from the school.  We met with Maka Clifford; he was a student at the third institute. He's now he teaches and is director of curriculum, I think, there at the Red Cloud Indian School where he graduated from high school.  We met with him. He was super excited about us being there. 

We met with some community members. We had some really great conversations. We were there for about 3 days as well. We attended the Native POP arts festival in Rapid City.  We met a lot of artists. Including one guy who's designed quite a bit of theater in Minneapolis. So potential to have maybe a Native designer or two on the show which could be really exciting. 

That was basically the trip: day in Rapid City, 3 days in Pine Ridge, 3 days in Rosebud.

Meeting with folks.

There was some significant things for me that were different than I've experienced on the other two projects. One: I was surprised how many people spoke to me and looked at me while we were talking. because that has not been my experience on either project before. I tended to stand there awkwardly while people speak to Larissa and pointedly don't speak to me in Arizona. And to some extent here, too. Until the rehearsal process. Then the rehearsal process that's not the case at all but prior to that in both projects. And both Larissa and I noticed that right off the bat that in all circumstances people talked to both of us. It was really interesting. 

One guy only spoke to me-- clearly there was something going on-- he was hilarious, in different ways. Larissa's here, too!  That was just a different experience. 

WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THAT TO?  We don't know yet! ... We were interested in that but I don't know yet if I can attribute that to anything. It's definitely a rural not an urban community. That might be a big part of it. I don't know. 

I will also say that the poverty and the level of violence that is happening--. It felt like almost every day something would happen that would really-. It was hard some days. To just see, amidst that natural beauty and amidst the cultural wealth of the communities or the place, the intense poverty and the intense violence - a resulting violence of the poverty is-- Statistically it's brutal. But you, we kind of confronted it in certain ways. Not any direct way, but just things people would say. Things that would happen. The day after we were somewhere. It was pretty intense. What I imagine it would have been like if we'd done something at the White Mountain Fort Apache Indian Reservation. We didn't; we were just there for a few days. Kind of experienced it there. So yeah, that is daunting.  

People were really open. People were really excited about us doing a show. And I can't tell you how many people were-- I'd be like "AND you could maybe ACT IN IT--" and people'd be like, "Yeah, great!" and I'd be like ....(laughter)  "Slow down!"  (laughter)  There was this one guy, kind of a motorcycle dude, makes pool cues. He was like "I can't walk. Can I sit and be in the play?"  And I was like "You could!" and he was like "I'm in!'  (laughter)  So it was weird. That was definitely not our experience the others, so that was pretty cool. too. 

The challenges of space and distance are significant. So we have to figure that out. These places are HUGE. And people are really spread out. Like people live REALLY spread out. That is just a big challenge that we'll have to think about in terms of what we're making, how we're making it, how we are in fact overcoming barriers to participation.Because the distances are really, really vast. 

It's incredibly beautiful in its own way, but different from Arizona. Pine Ridge is very Dances With Wolves in terms of the landscape. Dances With Wolves comes up A LOT. A lot.  They filmed it there and and a lot of Lakota were in it and it was the first Hollywood movie where, for all it's problems- white-savior-ness and blah blah blah, the had Lakota advisors telling them how to do it for real. And things were, they worked very hard to make it authentic. And then a lot of Lakota were in it. We met people who were in it. 

SO THEY THINK OF IT POSITIVELY?  Yeah. And also a lot of jokes. Like, they'll say something in Lakota and it's actually a line from Dances With Wolves. And everybody will laugh. I don't get the joke, but-- I think I need to see it again actually. He stayed there for a year. They convinced him to shoot in South Dakota-- the whole movie. At first (Kevin Costner) was going to shoot some of it there and then do the rest of it somewhere cheaper. And I guess they convinced him to do it there. So he lived there for a year and still owns properties in South Dakota and is still very present in South Dakota actually. And fairly well liked. He is so very present there. And like, in South Dakota, the governor goes to the grocery store him or herself, right. So when he's there and with his kids people are just "Hi Kevin."  It's a different vibe. So people speak positively about it. There are jokes about it. Also lot of, like, you know. They also recognized what it is. It's not like, you know. But compared to most of what Hollywood has done, it's pretty positive. 

It's really interesting how--. They made a lot of props for the movie authentically. Like the traditional Lakota way. So they were made in Europe. Because the Germans and the Italians and other Europeans are obsessed with the Lakota and have been forever. So a lot of that traditional knowledge is now in Europe with craftspeople who make and has been lost on the reservations. One of the kids at the camp in Milk's Camp visited Italy and I asked him what their favorite part of being in Italy and it was meeting one of the guys who made some of the props for the movie and him showing them how to make things the traditional Lakota way. There is in fact a language- it's not Lakota-- but it is a language that was basically close to being lost and the tribe had to go to Europe to learn the language from German linguists who had preserved the language. Not a Lakota tribe. 

But the Lakota of course are the tribe, when people think of "Indians" or cowboys and indians, or just American Indians, you're thinking of Lakota. You're thinking of the tall, warrior-on-a-horse, hunting buffalo-- that's the Lakota. That's the European, that's Louis L'Amour, that's the--.  In my experience- limited of course-- Native Americans joke about that all the time. Like, "Everybody wants to be Lakota! Everybody does the Sundance." It's a Lakota thing, right? All the Navajo were doing the Sundance. And the Lakota are like, "Yeah, we're the center of the universe. We're the real Indians." Just like the Hopi were. It's hilarious. It's all very interesting. But the Lakota own that. 

And the Pine Ridge Indians are like "Rosebud-- pfft-- They're not real."---

DO YOU PERCEIVE A PLACE THAT IS NEUTRAL?  Everything is contested there. That's where Wounded Knee happened, twice.  It's fraught. The Black Hills? It's fraught.  And people casually comment about how racist Rapid City is. They were talking about a place in Wyoming-- a white dude-- and he was saying "I hate to use the word racist but there's not a better word. It's even more racist than Rapid City." As I am sitting there in Rapid City with this dude. 

(Of the nine reservations in South Dakota,) I think six of them are Lakota. And 3 are Dakota-- or maybe 5 Lakota & 3 Dakota. Dakota reservations are more east of the river. Dakota were displaced from Minnesota when the war happened and they put a bounty on their head. That is still on the books in Minnesota. You can still apparently bring in the head of a Dakota and get a hundred dollars and that has not been taken off the books in Minnesota. And every time they try to take it off the books it fails. It's insane. So the reservations are displaced Dakota. 

Of course, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota all consider themselves cousins in the same sort of nation overall. Although very different. Language is extremely similar. And they're cousins. Consider themselves the same people. Maybe not the same "nation."