Geva Theatre partners with Friends of Ganondagan
Geva Theatre partners with Friends of Ganondagan,
NTID, and Native Voices to present
Embracing the Indian, Centering Indigenous Voices
Performances & Symposium – June 27 & 28
Rochester, N.Y. — Geva Theatre in association with Friends of Ganondagan and NTID, and in affiliation with Native Voices presents a free, two-day event titled Embracing the Indian, Centering Indigenous Voices on June 27 and June 28, 2024. Pre-registration is required for both events, and can be found here.
The first day of this collaborative event features 2 free performances of THE MUSH HOLE performed by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre on the Robert F. Panara Theatre stage at NTID. Both performances will be followed by talk backs with the choreographer and performers.
Day 2 is the Indigenous Theatre Symposium, at Geva Theatre, which begins with keynote remarks from Kaha:wi Dance Theatre Artistic Director and MUSH HOLE choreographer Santee Smith (Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan). The daylong gathering also includes a screening of the film Unseen Tears: The Native American Boarding School Experience in Western New York – followed by a conversation about the film and the history and ongoing legacy of Indian residential schools with Pete Hill (Cayuga, Heron Clan) and Doug George-Kanentiio (Akwesasne Mohawk, Bear Clan). An Indigenous playwright’s panel will feature DeLanna Studi (Cherokee) and Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora) – facilitated by Ansley Jemison (Seneca, Wolf Clan). The symposium will culminate with an introduction to Native Voices’ new international initiative created to inspire and support the next generation of Indigenous theatre artists. A light breakfast and boxed lunch will be served to all attendees of the Indigenous Theatre Symposium.
“This event, co-produced with Friends of Ganondagan, is not a beginning nor is it the apex of a growing collaborative relationship that now includes an affiliation with Native Voices and RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf,” says Rachel Y. DeGuzman, Associate Artistic Director/Director of Connectivity at Geva. “At the Embracing the Indian, Centering Indigenous Voices 2-day event, we will gather to experience Native centered art at NTID’s Panara Theatre with THE MUSH HOLE. And the next day hear perspectives from Indigenous creatives and thought leaders at the symposium. This is significant because we are co-building an inclusive community-rooted practice at Geva that will become even more expansive when we present PURE NATIVE next spring. There is no end point in sight.”
Embracing the Indian, Centering Indigenous Voices
Pre-registration is required for both events, to register click here.
Day 1: Kaha:wi Dance Company in The Mush Hole | Thursday, June 27, 2pm & 7pm
Location: Panara Theatre
NTID/RIT
52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623
The Mush Hole is a theatrical dance performance about truths of Canada’s first Indian residential school – The Mohawk Institute. From 1828-1970, State and Church attempted to forcefully assimilate children from Six Nations and surrounding First Nations into Euro-Christian society and sever the continuity of culture from parent to child. The Mush Hole weaves through the traumatic memories of two generations of Survivors. Visceral performances by an all-Indigenous cast, cinematic imagery and musical score, catapult audiences into the bricks and mortar of the school. Created from Survivors testimonials, it is a story about hope and finding light in dark places.
Matinee performance – 2pm
Evening performance – 7pm
Day 2: Indigenous Theatre Symposium | Friday, June 28, 2024 8:30am – 4pm
Geva Theatre’s Fielding Stage/Lobby/Café
75 Woodbury Boulevard
Rochester NY, 14607
Breakfast and Lunch provided.
The Indigenous Theatre Symposium will feature keynote remarks from Santee Smith (Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan), Artistic Director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre; an Indigenous Playwrights Panel Conversation with creatives such as DeLanna Studi (Cherokee) who Geva audiences got to know through her play AND SO WE WALKED last season and who will be Geva Theatre’s 2024/26 Artist in Residence; a film screening of UNSEEN TEARS: as well as a special presentation about Young Native Playwrights –presented in collaboration with Native Voices.
The Indigenous Theatre Symposium project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. It will be live streamed in collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons.
ASL Interpretation will be provided on both days.
What’s next:
Save-the-Date: Geva Theatre will present its 2nd Race and Theatre Symposium June 26-27, 2025, titled THE GROUND ON WHICH I STAND, in collaboration with local and national Black theatre creatives. The name and focus of the 2-day event is inspired by a speech playwright August Wilson delivered to the Theatre Communications Group national conference at Princeton University on June 26, 1996. In the speech Wilson denoted the complexity of his reality with the following, “I have come here today to make a testimony, to talk about the ground on which I stand and all the many grounds on which I and my ancestors have toiled, and the ground of theatre on which my fellow artists and I have labored to bring forth its fruits, its daring and its sometimes lacerating, and often healing, truths.”
About Geva Theatre
Founded in 1972, Geva Theatre is a not-for-profit, professional theatre company dedicated to creating and producing professional theatre productions, programs, and services of a national standard.
Geva offers a wide variety of educational, engagement, and literary programs, nurturing audiences and artists alike. Geva Theatre sits on the ancestral and unceded territory of the O-non-dowa-gah, or “the people of the Great Hill.” In English, they are known as the Seneca people, “the keeper of the western door.” They have stewarded this land through generations, and Geva pays respect and gives thanks to their elders, past and present.
Geva is under the leadership of Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson and Executive Director James Haskins.
Find out more about Geva Theatre at GevaTheatre.org or by connecting with us on social media. Facebook: facebook.com/gevatheatrecenter, Twitter: @gevatheatre, Instagram: @gevatheatre, LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/geva-theatre-center.