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."
